The aim of this study was to understand how care staff in residential care perceive and work with elderly mental health and how these perceptions and work is related to aging. We have gathered our empirical material through eight qualitative interviews and vignettes with care staff in residential care. The study was conducted in a municipality with 10 000 to 20 000 inhabitants in southern Sweden. The material was analyzed with use of ageism as a theoretical frame of reference. The results showed that the care staff had different perceptions of mental illness in general and regarding the elderly.

The aim of the study was to illustrate how care managers reflect and act in regards to self-determination and integrity when caring for residents over 65 years old who have a dementia diagnosis. Our main questions dealt with how care managers handle the right to self-determination and integrity when a person has dementia, to which extent the care managers listen to the person with dementia and how the care managers look upon the residents with dementia?s ability of self-determination. To find the answers to our questions, we interviewed ten care managers within the elderly care in Gothenburg, Sweden. We used qualitative interviews based on a semi-structured interview guide.

Background: It has become important to be able to take advantage of employees' ideas for organizations today.  The contributed ideas can be developed into innovations. However, there are difficulties for businesses to take advantage and develop the employee provided ideas. It can lead to a stop in the organizations development.Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to gain a greater understanding of how organizations can take advantage of the employees' ideas and develop them into useful innovations for organizations.Method: The thesis consists of precipitated studies from the three organizations, a manufacturing company, a service company and the municipality of Karlskrona. The paper is based on qualitative research by collecting valuable insights through interviews.Conclusions: In this study, it has been proven that organizations today have a magnified view of the concept of innovation. They have difficulties in implementing the concept in day to day operations.

The focus of this thesis is on what is considered to be a suitable foster home. For the study to be carried out an application had to be made to get access to the foster home assessments in a medium-sized municipality in Sweden. With the support of attachment theory and theory of standards different categories have been picked out and analyzed in foster home assessements that have been approved. The conclusion to what is considered to be a suitable foster home is a complex issue, as there are many factors that are interacting. Social workers seem to focus on the importance of a family?s ability to provide some kind of stability and security for a child who is considered to be placed within their home.

The aim of this thesis is to develop two idealtypes of politics to help serve as instruments in understanding and analysing the view on politics held by top civil servants in the municipality of Lund Sweden. The two ideal types developed here are symbolic sense making politics and rational instrumental politics. These two ideal types were applied to material from a qualitative survey to help bring out clear results and to help with the interpretation of the material The results of the study showed that the two idealtypes could not help to clearly categorize the civil servants views on management by objectives. But while categorizing the top civil servants views the important features of policy documents the ideal types were helpful. By using the ideal types I came to the conclusion that the view on policy documents was mainly characterized by sense making politics.

This study aim to investigate the conditions framing the professional development situation for physical education teachers (PE) in a small municipality in the south of Sweden. The Swedish National Agency for Education declare that "focus must be directed towards strengthening the teachers' profession", and that "schools need well-trained teachers and good teaching to help students achieve good results". The study focuses both the schools? contribution and the way in which the teachers take own initiative and are motivated to develop their professional skills. The investigation is all based on teachers' perspectives.

The purpose of this study was to compare reading development assessments with writing assessments to create an understanding about the relationship between the reading and writing ability of children. Another aim of the study was to look at other factors that cohere with the ability to read and write, such as background and socio-economic status. Our hypothesis was that explicit instruction in writing is necessary to develop good writing skills. We chose to conduct a quantitative study containing an inquiry, a dictation and a writing task. We compared our results with reading assessments based on a reading development schedule (LUS).

The study aims to gain insight into how social workers perceive their psychosocial work environment and examine whether this effects the performance of their duties. The study mainly addresses the shortcomings of the psychosocial work environment of Social Services and the implications it entails for social workers health and wellbeing. The psychosocial work environment includes physical and psychological factors therefore the study's interpretive framework consists of organizational theoretical and social psychological concepts and previous research on the subject. We examined the organizational and social psychological connections to social workers perception of their work environment with a qualitative approach. The empirical data was collected through interviews with four social workers in a municipality in central Sweden using a semi-structured interview guide.

The company Västra Mälardalens Kommunalförbund, VMKF, wishes to revise and optimize their present data and IP-telephony network as of today consists of the three municipalities Köping, Arboga and Kungsör. As a municipal corporation, they seek consultation regarding internal as well as external review and investigation of the main structure of the network, its functionality and safety. By today?s increasing demands of Internet accessibility, availability of services and security far more extends the requirement of a complete network design. The foundation of networking rests on the balance between each of these necessities.

Religious congregations and social work have long been a neglected field of research. Although the number of studies have increased during the last twenty years. With a starting point in the situation in this field of research and in the current public debate in Sweden the focus of this study will be on how Christian and Muslim congregations view cooperating with the municipalities, organizations, the religious community to whom which the congregation belongs and how the congregations view cooperating with other religious communities. Qualitative method of research was used. Representatives of four religious congregations was interviewed; a deacon in a congregation in the Swedish Lutheran Church, a pastor in a congregation belonging to the Mission Covenent Church of Sweden, the chairman in a the board of a Muslim congregation and volunteerleader in another Muslim congregation.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to our knowledge about what methods? teachers say they use in the work with pupils? early reading acquisition, and how they evaluate the pupils´ reading development. I also like to find out what educational interventions teachers believe that pupils with reading difficulties need, and how they say they work to meet the needs of these pupils. The project is based on the following questions: What methods do teachers say they use in the work with pupils early reading acquisition? What extra resources do teachers consider that pupils with reading difficulties need? How do teachers evaluate children's reading development? In order to answer my questions, I've done qualitative interviews with three teachers, at two schools, in two medium-sized municipalities.

The aim of this study is to describe and analyse the cooperation between the public employment service and the refugee reception in a medium-sized municipality in southern Sweden on basis of the establishment reform. The study examines how the collaborative process is regarded when it comes to implementation of the reform, and when it comes to the directives and resource allocation between the employment services and the refugee reception. The study also focuses on the deficiencies and the benefits that can be discerned with the establishment reform at local level.A qualitative data collection method has been used. It is semi-structured interviews with workers from the public employment service and the refugee reception. Information materials and evaluations that various authorities have made have also been investigated.The study concludes that it is important that the directives are clarified and that a new local and regional agreement will be established on paper.

Background: Pesticides in conventional food may be related to morbidity and mortality. Furthermore pesticides have a negative impact on the whole ecosystem. Organic food can presume better health as they contain less chemicals and toxins and contribute to sustainable development efforts.Objective: The aim was to examine what attitudes consumers have regarding to purchase organic fruit, vegetables and root vegetables.Methods: The association between consumers? views on conventional food and organic food was investigated using questionnaire given to a population sample of men and women aged by 23-65 (N=60) in grocery stores and in a fitness center. The study was based on a cross-sectional study in a municipality in central Sweden.Results: Consumers were interested to buy organic food.

We live in a time where the influence of citizens is taking a larger role in the spatial planning. The Swedish laws, such as PBL, deals with matters of citizen participation which advocates that the youth should be included in the consultation circuit, but there is no directive given.  The report's purpose is to demonstrate methods for how to get the young people's influence included in the spatial planning, with a main focus on the ages between 13 and 21. On the base of literature and two case studies, the goal is to illustrate how to integrate young people through a meeting place in Jonkoping, Sweden. The report is structured along with an analysis based on the literature, two case studies from previous projects and discussions/interviews with young people from four selected areas in Jonkoping.  The case studies from Malmo and Gothenburg show how the cooperation between different participants can be organized during the planning and how to give the users a greater involvement. Based on literature and case studies, we carried out a field analysis of the four most segregated areas of Jonkoping; Osterangen, Oxnehaga, Ekhagen and Raslatt.

The purpose of this study was to examine how school counselors in a specific municipalityviewed their work situation, if they experienced stress and how they would handle that stress.Five school counselors out of eight in the specific municipality participated in qualitativeinterviews where they could describe their feelings and thoughts. Their experiences wasexamined and analyzed with the theories of coping and empowerment. The results showedthat there were unhealthy levels of stress in the profession amongst the five counselors. It alsoshowed that the uttermost reason for the experienced unhealthy stress was the feeling of notbeing able to give as much time and help to the pupils as they want and need. The reason forthis was that an increasing number of pupils were, and are, experiencing unhappiness and arein need of seeing the school counselor.