The main purpose of this thesis is to examine how the European Union through the Directorate- General (DG) of Education and Culture, are calling forth a constructed sense of European identity amongst the citizens of the Union.It is a discourse analysis, which can be described in twofold. Firstly, it is a mapping of the European discourse; i.e. how the European Union defines the identity it seeks to mobilise. Secondly, it examines whether or not there are similarities in the European discourse of identity and the traditional nation-building discourse of national identity.According to this thesis a European identity is articulated in cultural terms, whereby its members are said to share the same values and a common cultural heritage.To bring the people of Europe closer together and to deepen awareness of their "common" history, the European Union encourages all manner of meetings and exchange schemes between Europeans. Although its goal is to develop a feeling of belonging to a shared culture, the EU is also keen to preserve the specific aspects of Europe's many cultures.

The main purpose of this C-essay is to answer the question: What have been the consequences and effects of the merit point system on language studies and the parties concerned (teachers, students and principals) during the school year of 2010/11?The merit point system is the result of a political decision and was implicated for the first time in the Swedish upper secondary school during the school year 2010/2011. Being a completely new phenomenon it is of great interest and importance to study its effects.The study in this essay also aims to verify, falsify or nullify two hypotheses very often referred to in the political discussions regarding the merit point system:The merit point system will replace affection and interest as main reasons for language studies in upper secondary school and cause a rectification amongst the students choices of additional courses.The merit point system will have a segregating effect upon society and make it harder for people to rise in society through education in the future.A verification of these hypotheses would imply the appearance of an increased rectification amongst students as well as an orientation towards an in the future more segregated society.The empiric material has been collected and examined with qualitative as well as quantitative methods (questionnaires and interviews) and belongs epistemologically to the phenomenological and hermeneutical Traditions..

The globalization of today?s society has enabled consumers to acquire products and services from all over the world. Global organizations have the entire world as a playfield and offer products and services across markets. Regardless perception and transparency of the global market, consumers are still individuals. Consumers may have different perceptions and ideas about products, their functions and usage.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine how the introducing of municipal library plans has influenced some compulsory schools in Malmö. I wanted to know if the library plan is a possible way to improve the quality of the school library. Through qualitative interviews with four school librarians and four headmasters, I investigate their knowledge of the library plan and their opinion of the possibilities to realize the directions of the plan. The theoretical framework is based on a model of organizational culture by Bakka, Fivelsdal and Lindkvist.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine if academic libraries market e-journals, and if so how this work is carried out. The ambition is to study what channels and methods the Libraries use, to inform their users that they have access to e-journals. The aim is also to survey if the libraries evaluate the use of the e-journals, and if so how. The objectives of the work are reached by using two main methods, document analysis and qualitative interviews. The study has been performed on three university libraries.

In 2011, the new upper secondary school curriculum Lgy 11 set out to distinguish the characteristics of the two subjects Swedish and Swedish as a second language. This thesis analyzes the consequences, or rather the underlying premises for such a characterization with the contradictory ideologies of the multicultural society as a point of departure. Using theories of cultural and linguistic hegemony, the thesis applies an ideological critique to the comparative text analysis of the two curriculums. The aim is to reveal the underlying assumptions of the two student bases as representatives of the majority society and the minorities. The results show that the characterizations of the two subjects are dominantly made along the line of the multicultural experience versus linguistic and cultural heritage.

According to the national curriculum guidelines for elementary school, preschool and after-school 2011, (i.e. Lgr11), the Swedish school is based on a democratic foundation. Schools should prepare students to develop an understanding and acceptance of cultural diversity not only in the society as a whole but also how this should be reflected in the morals and ethics between us. The purpose of this study was to describe how teachers in multicultural schools perceptions and experiences on teaching pupils with diverse immigrant origin, and how they apply these cultural expression in practice.In particular, I focus on four teachers in multicultural schools and how they reason about applying cultural expressions that are transmitted at these schools and by them. Explicitly, I review how from policy documents and their own personal pedagogic are reflected in the actual teaching.

The aim of this master thesis is to investigate how parents? in multilingual families perceive language learning and reading for young children, and how their practice of this can be understood in relation to their language situation and cultural background.This study focuses on the interaction between parents? and young children in the light of the literacy practice. Important concepts such as early childhood literacy and family literacy have been used to study language, culture and literacy practice as phenomena that interact. The theoretical framework is a sociocultural perspective. Through qualitative interviews with seven parents?, it was found that multilingual families have a strong ambition for their children to learn all the languages spoken in the family.

The aim of this essay was to investigate how teachers in the preschool class work with literacy. How do they justify the methods used to develop children's literacy abilities? I also wanted to know to what extent teachers enable multimodal approaches within written language practices. My study considers the impact teachers' professional identity has on working methods in the preschool class. I hope this essay will help teachers reflect on their learning approach. I gathered information by interviewing three preschool teachers and one compulsory school teacher for the early years working in three different preschool classes in three different schools.

In recent centuries the Swedish Tiled Stove has varied in its design with an aesthetic evolutionary history that has not only followed the architectural and artistic ideals but also the taste in stove design. The heat source has varied depending on the regional Traditions and where it was located within the country, but the inside of the construction was of a similar five channel system. The purpose of this paper is to study and compare the design of tile matrices made by Emil Petterson with other Swedish stoves. The following questions will be addressed:What characterized the production of a small scale tile stove workroom during the years 1900-50? Which main styles can be described as Emil Pettersson?s ideal while producing his matrices? And finally, is it possible to study the tile stove matrices as objects of historical and cultural significance, and what difficult methodological issues might occur in the doing of it? To answer these questions I will present the results of the documentation of Pettersson?s tile matrices with detailed historical categorizations and schedules. The conclusion shows that Pettersson as a stove builder and -producer was characterized by eclectic ideals and a design shape based on more liberal interpretations of contemporary trends.

The parrot is a common symbol, or even cliché, in Western literature, going all the way back fromancient Greece to the present date, and in many a genre. This study reads the oeuvre of the NobelPrize winner Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) as being closely related to these certain Traditions andconnotations of for example religion, satire, and speaking nonsense, in his frequent use of parrotsand their symbolic potentials, in his writing. Furthermore, it is possible to distinguish a movementin Beckett?s use of parrots, from a more or less traditionally use, to one more philosophicallyprofound.Although the parrot graces us with its presence (or at least may be traced) in almost everywork written by Beckett, from the poem ?Whoroscope? (1930) to How It Is (1961), they are onlymentioned sparsely by his interpreters. Therefore, a brief history of the literary tradition of theparrot will be expounded.

The parrot is a common symbol, or even cliché, in Western literature, going all the way back fromancient Greece to the present date, and in many a genre. This study reads the oeuvre of the NobelPrize winner Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) as being closely related to these certain Traditions andconnotations of for example religion, satire, and speaking nonsense, in his frequent use of parrotsand their symbolic potentials, in his writing. Furthermore, it is possible to distinguish a movementin Beckett?s use of parrots, from a more or less traditionally use, to one more philosophicallyprofound.Although the parrot graces us with its presence (or at least may be traced) in almost everywork written by Beckett, from the poem ?Whoroscope? (1930) to How It Is (1961), they are onlymentioned sparsely by his interpreters. Therefore, a brief history of the literary tradition of theparrot will be expounded.

The purpose of this degree project is to investigate how horse keepers reasons about horse keeping and how the horse keeping looks like today. It is interesting to compare modern horse keeping with ancien recommendations and how the horses were kept then to understand how much in the horse keeping today that is based on Traditions instead of research and science. The degree project was based on data from interviews of 52 horse keepers in five different municipalities. All interviews have been based from the same questionaire about how there horses are kept today, what they think about different housing systems, how they think horses will be housed in the future and what problems they think are the biggest in horse keeping today. The results shows that single boxes indoors are the most frequently used housing system today.

The parrot is a common symbol, or even cliché, in Western literature, going all the way back fromancient Greece to the present date, and in many a genre. This study reads the oeuvre of the NobelPrize winner Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) as being closely related to these certain Traditions andconnotations of for example religion, satire, and speaking nonsense, in his frequent use of parrotsand their symbolic potentials, in his writing. Furthermore, it is possible to distinguish a movementin Beckett?s use of parrots, from a more or less traditionally use, to one more philosophicallyprofound.Although the parrot graces us with its presence (or at least may be traced) in almost everywork written by Beckett, from the poem ?Whoroscope? (1930) to How It Is (1961), they are onlymentioned sparsely by his interpreters. Therefore, a brief history of the literary tradition of theparrot will be expounded.

The parrot is a common symbol, or even cliché, in Western literature, going all the way back fromancient Greece to the present date, and in many a genre. This study reads the oeuvre of the NobelPrize winner Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) as being closely related to these certain Traditions andconnotations of for example religion, satire, and speaking nonsense, in his frequent use of parrotsand their symbolic potentials, in his writing. Furthermore, it is possible to distinguish a movementin Beckett?s use of parrots, from a more or less traditionally use, to one more philosophicallyprofound.Although the parrot graces us with its presence (or at least may be traced) in almost everywork written by Beckett, from the poem ?Whoroscope? (1930) to How It Is (1961), they are onlymentioned sparsely by his interpreters. Therefore, a brief history of the literary tradition of theparrot will be expounded.