Feedback tools support electricity users within the Swedish residential sector to increase their knowledge of electricity and the electricity market as well as to become more aware of their electricity consumption, which in turn encourages a reduction and an increased flexibility of electricity use. The primary aim of this study is to identify and analyse how existing feedback tools can be improved, to ensure that they contribute efficiently to the achievement of the EU objectives congruent with a more sustainable energy system in 2030, emphasizing: greenhouse gas reduction, increased energy efficiency and an increased share of renewable energy. In order to reach the primary aim of this study, existing feedback tools have been identified and mapped and interviews with feedback tools providers have been conducted. The study is limited to three research areas: the practical functions of feedback tools, available technology and the use of feedback tools.The use of more efficient feedback tools will provide an increased success rate for energy management, which includes both behavioural changes and energy efficiency. According to the results from the interviews conducted for this study, an increased use and user frequency is important to utilise the energy management potential.

Abstract Svanvik, Robin (2013). Läs: spela! En jämförande studie av elevers uppfattningar om datorspel, skönlitteratur och lärande. Svanvik, Robin (2013). It Reads: Play! A comparative study of students' beliefs about computer games, fiction reading and learning. This essay is part of a masters degree of pedagogy and investigates the experiences of 10 high-school students concerning playing computer-games-off-the-shelf (COTS) on the one hand, and reading fictional, printed novels on the other. The aim of this study was to learn more about the students' thoughts about playing COTS and reading novels; also, what differences and similarities there might be between these activities. Furthermore, I wanted to know what they thought they might learn from these activities. The theoretical point of departure for the study is twofold: Firstly, a theory of learning as expressed by Illeris (2007) and, secondly, a sociocultural perspective on learning, represented by Säljö (2000, 2005/2010) which includes the educational benifit of both playing COTS, represented by Gee (2007), and reading fiction, represented by Probst (1990) and Langer (1995). The method used in this study is mainly qualitative by nature.

This is a qualitative essay that has its starting point in the deindustrialized community in the county of Kalmar. At the time deindustrialization started, the globalization and the technical development took form, this resulted in increasing traveling in the world. The communities that had lost their industries had to find new ways of surviving. The politicians used the increasing travelling and tourism and saw a new industry in the tourism, therefore they made cultural heritage visible. Main focus lies in the will from politicians to visualize cultural heritage for economic gain and the administration of cultural heritage that in essence had to accept a new use of the cultural heritage.

Popular culture is a phenomenon of growing importance in the society today. Children and teenagers are increasingly using popular culture in their everyday life to reflect and answer questions about their identities and the meaning of life. Swedish primary and upper secondary schools are expected to prepare their students for adulthood and to provide them with tools to explain understand and problematize contemporary society. From this perspective it is relevant to question whether the schools achieve this and whether the instruction given there represents the contemporary society. For the purpose of knowing more about how popular culture is perceived and dealt with in the Swedish education system, this study examines how eight textbooks in Religious Education (RE) and the national curriculum for upper secondary school discuss and treat popular culture.  The study focuses on when and in what ways the textbooks mention popular culture and if the curriculum provides any supportive base for including popular culture in religious education.

It often occurs that the spirit regarding the future as a conservator is rather pessimistic. Howcome that there are so few employed conservators, when the need for conservation obviouslyis big? What kind of changes is needed for a better status regarding the conservation?This thesis concerns the development of the field of conservation in Sweden. What havehappened, what will happen and, particularly, what should happen? The information wasgathered from literature studies and interviews during the spring of 2010.

Umeå University currently uses two Course Management System, Moodle and Sakai (Cambro). Both Moodle and Sakai are based on open source code and are today the two more popular choices among Swedish Universities. They both have different strengths and weaknesses both from a technical perspective and a user perspective. This can create problems for a course responsible/teacher when it comes to planning the course structure at a distance course but also when planning the course structure on a campus course that uses a Course Management System. With this as my starting point my formulations of questions become:How do the Course Management Systems that Umeå University uses differs, both from a technical perspective and user perspective?What possibilities is there in the Course Management Systems to use a different Course Structure?Is there a noticeable difference on the view of Course Management System of teachers and students at different departments?The purpose with my essay is to create a basis that course responsible/teacher can use to plan the course structure.

El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar los contenidos culturales de algunos libros de enseñanza del español, como lengua extranjera, publicados en Suecia.Estos libros de textos fueron analizados basándose en la información cultural y centrándose en los aspectos interculturales que estos pudieran presentar. Para analizar la información cultural los datos han sido divididos en datos concernientes a España y América Latina, respectivamente. Para abordar la interculturalidad se ha tenido como base principal la contrastividad cultural.Este trabajo llega a la conclusión que dos de los libros estudiados presentan de una buena forma la contrastividad cultural, sin embargo, su falta de variedad en la temática cultural y su falta de acercamiento a una discusión sobre los estereotipos, hacen que los libros, finalmente, nos entreguen una visión incompleta de la perspectiva intercultural.Palabras claves: enseñanza del español, cultura, la perspectiva intercultural, contrastividad cultural..

Syftet med denna studie är att beskriva hur pedagoger använder sig av stödtecken och i vilket syfte de används. Vi belyser begrepp som kommunikation, språkutveckling och interaktion. Vi tar vår utgångspunkt i ett sociokulturellt perspektiv. Vidare beskriver vi vad ?Tecken som stöd? (TSS) och ?Tecken som alternativ kompletterande kommunikation? (TAKK) står för.

AbstractWhen immigrants move to Sweden from their native country it is not unusual that they experience some kind of identity crises. Their own experience of their cultural identity can be very problematic and they often lose a part of what they previously saw as their own identity. To handle such crises the immigrants can use different strategies. They can for example accept their disparity, deny it or emphasize it. The aim of this study is to examine how immigrants in Sweden experience that their cultural identity has changed since they moved here from a country that has a culture that is different from the Swedish culture.

This thesis is a study of the history of cultural events in Norrköping from the Agriculturemeetings in 1897until today?s sailfestival, Sail Norrköping. The purpose is to see how the events have effected Norrköping as an eventcity, but also to examine the purpose with a cultureevent. The essay also discusses modernisation?s impact on society.

It is clear that media advertising is one of the crucial marketing tools for companies in order to promote their products and services. As we are moving towards more and more economic integration, both on a regional and global scale, the question about standardisation of media advertising has become increasingly important and is nowadays subject to discussion in most international companies. This thesis deals with the issue of standardisation in a region where the process of political, legal and especially economic integration is taking its course, but where cultural and linguistic diversity is still a remaining fact: Europe. The aim of this thesis was to investigate the potential gains from a standardised advertising approach but also to identify its limitations. Especially on a market place like Europe, with its diverse cultural and linguistic background, a fully standardised approach might be difficult to implement.

The purpose of this master's thesis is to examine how the public library communicates with young users through the library web sites. Four Swedish public library web pages for children are analysed. In the analysis the web pages are treated as a combination of semiotic resources that, communicating as a whole, hold a meaning potential. In order to identify the underlying meaning of the whole I have applied the tools of Kress' & van Leeuwen's visual social semiotics to the chosen web pages.The information value, the framing and the salience of each composition is examined and analysed, as is the size of frame, the perspective and the vertical angle of a selection of images from each web page. The results of the semiotic analysis are then discussed and related to Jochumsen et al:s four space-model and the notion of ?child perspective? and ?empowerment?.The results show that the child perspective is strongest on the web pages that represent the performative space as dominating and that empowerment is mainly represented as ?doing?, ?participating? and the ?free choice?.

As well as other politic fields, the cultural politics adapt to changes in society. The development in society has brought attention to the interaction between the cultural field and the economic field. One of the main goals within Swedish Cultural Policies today is the development of cultural and creative economics. Politicians and researchers claim that culture can be a significant part in economic growth in cities and making a place attractive to live in.I became interested in the discussion around the cultural experience as a factor of economic growth when I participated in a seminar at Karlstad CCC during Kulturparlamentet 2012. When I then started working at the music festival Putte i Parken during the spring of 2013 I thought about making this study.The main aim is to investigate in which way Putte i Parken can be a factor of growth and a factor of making Karlstad an attractive place to live in by analyzing documents, reports and literature in a qualitative way of working.

In this study, I intend to examine some aspects of the activities of cultural companies in the town of Arvika. The study is qualitative in nature and based on in-depth interviews with self-employed cultural workers, as well as representatives from Arvika municipality. Cultural policy documents have been studied to clarify the self-employed status in the cultural sector and thus their importance to the cultural life in Arvika overall.My hope is to get a glimpse of what it means to work as a self-employed within the cultural sector in Arvika and the conditions that exist, in order to successfully run and develop their businesses.There is a shift in cultural policy, which has led to permanent forms of employment becoming fewer and self-employment to grow ( Karlsson & Lekvall, 6 ). One can say that the cultural sector has moved in the direction from a public matter, to the more privatized ( Köping , Lantz & Stenström, 3 ). The problem with this is that the policy of self-employment has not progressed at the same rate as the amount of business.

Sweden of today is a so-called multicultural society. In this thesis we wanted to examine how mono, multi- and intercultural issues are expressed in culture-political documents. We also wanted to know how librarians for whom these documents are supposed to be guidelines expressed themselves in these matters. Monoculturalism can be described as a static perspective laid upon culture which emphasises cultural purity. A multicultural society describes a society were the nation consists of many different cultures alongside each other, without a genuinely common core.