This essay, with the title: Among children, laser swords and lions. ? How do we approach and utilize the cultural experiences of children? is an approach to participate in a scientific discussion in the field of cultural experiences. This text is an attempt to show the importance of paying attention to, how children express themselves, and place their activities in social and cultural contexts. By doing so and approaching children and their activities with an intercultural point of view, I can use my new found knowledge and use it to stimulate their future learning progresses in different fields.

The purpose of this study was to examine experienced family counselors view regarding the concept of conflict avoidance in couple relationships. Twelve family counselors working in different parts of Sweden was interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide. They were asked to reflect on the following: their description of the concept of conflict avoidance, the consequences of conflict avoidance in couple relationship, gender differences and their own view on how to create conditions for constructive, therapeutic work in this respect.The result shows that the fear of conflicts, difficulty in expressing needs, different perceptions and expectations together with a difficulty to negotiate about differences, creates a lack of emotional and physical contact together with an absence of dialogue. The consequences of this in the long-term, a majority of the respondents perceived, are feelings of anger, resignation, powerlessness and unhappiness..

The purpose of this study was to investigate how preschool pedagogues in Stockholm and in Tornedalen speak about and relate to creative activities. By qualitative interviews in two geographically distant areas, one minority culture and one majority culture, I have collected information from six pedagogues, three in each area. Values in, and the significance of culture in creative activities have been the main focus. From this study I conclude that all pedagogues agreed upon the creative activity having an extensive role in the preschool work. The role of the individual pedagogue within the creative activity is multiple and dependent on where, when and how the activity is carried out.

The traditional view of maintenance is machine-based, where acute maintenance tasks are highly valued. Preventive maintenance is viewed as secondary and less desirable to work with. The more modern view is to regard maintenance as a process. The machine-driven tasks are still necessary but are viewed as a part of the big picture.The purpose of this study is to examine how to high light general difficulties concerning maintenance management to aid organizations to reflecting upon their own situation. The study is based upon a pilot study initiated by ProcessIT concerning relevant key figures in maintenance.

This Bachelor Thesis is entitled "WTO-spelarena för utvecklingsländer? En studie om avgörande faktorer för utvecklingsländers förmåga att implementera sina regimpreferenser". Through our empirical results in conjunction with realist theories, this Bachelor thesis attempts to answer the questions: (1) How does the decline in American power, the nature of existing institutional structure and Third World unity, influence the ability of developing countries to secure its preferred regimes? (2) What function do informal meetings in the WTO have? (3) How does access to informal meetings influence the ability of developing countries to secure its preferred regimes? The paper makes use of case studies from the Ministerial meetings in the Doha development round.The conclusion is that access to these meetings is an important variable to explain the extent to which the Third World can be able to secure its preferred regimes. The degree to which developing countries can secure their preferred regimes is therefore a function of four variables: the nature of existing institutional structures; Third World unity, the attitude and power of the United States and foremost access to informal meetings..

How the United States anti-terrorist strategy is affecting the view of democracy is the main analysis of this paper. The mechanisms that affect the idea of democracy have been studied on the basis of the philosopher Michael Foucault?s thoughts and the main direction in French discourse analysis. The study is restricted to the period between the 11th of September 2001 and today. Information has been collected entirely from the White House?s website http://www.whitehouse.gov, including speeches, conferences and reports.

This report describes a study of how the teachers in Sweden are working with the dialog in their classrooms. The aim was to find out how the teachers are using the dialog in their teaching. And if they think that the dialog has a meaning for the pupils learning, and how they think the pupils learn. Even the difficulties whit the use of dialog in the classrooms and which in the classroom should speak the most was examined. The methods that I used in this qualitative report were interviews and observations of four teachers in the primary school.The research questions in this report were:Which meaning do the teachers think that dialog affects the pupils learning?How does the teachers work whit dialog in their classrooms?Who is leading the dialog in the classroom?Which are the difficulties when working with dialog in the classrooms?I found out that the teachers view on knowledge belonged together with how they worked with the dialog.

Nature´s healing capacity is well known and is today an important asset in the protection against stress. Noise problems in cities and it´s green spaces are increasing which in turn provokes stress and in the long term can lead to cardiovascular diseases. To promote people?s health it is important that natural environments have good soundscapes, research show that visiting natural surroundings and listening to sounds of nature promote rehabilitation and relief stress. The purpose of this essay is to determine the value of rehabilitation in forests in Carlshem and Röbäck.

This thesis aims to develop a theory in the under researched field of international comparative cultural policy studies. lt does so by combining theories from the fields of political scienceand cultural studies, researching how and to what extent the concepts of culture of different states have an impact on the way cultural policies are constructed.The thesis uses this theoretical development in order to research a specific problem, namely the perceived possibility that Swedish and German cultural structures are slowly converging. Two recent official policy documents from each country are the objects of study. Through comparative idea analysis and with Michiel S. D Vries theories on decentralization, the thesis explains the convergence between the countries by differing cultural views between them.

Background Children spend much of their time outdoor at preschool. Preschool's mission is to provide children with a rich environment that is enjoyable, and that arouses their interest to learn new skills. Since motor skills and health are positively affected by the outdoor environment should kids get a good turnout at their preschool playgrounds as possible.Theoretical perspectives My study is based on theories from a socio-cultural perspective. The socio-cultural context is part of the outdoor environment because we experience and perceive nature depends on the society we live in and how we interact togetherPurpose I want to see what kind of vision teachers and parents have on the outdoor environment when it comes to children's learning and development. I also want to find out how the teachers are using the outdoors environment and find out the parents' reason, when it comes to choice of preschool.Methodology The work is based on qualitative interviews with two teachers and two parents from each preschool.

The river Selångersån runs through thenorthern Swedish city of Sundsvall, splittingthe city in two as it winds through thevalley between Södra- and Norra Stadsbergetand out into the Baltic Sea.The river is a national interest of nature conservationbut at the same time in the middleof an urban development string for the city,creating a complex situation of developmentcontra conservation of natural environment.This project attempts to create a strategy oflandscape urbanism for the area surroundingSelånger Bay, four kilometers upstreamalong Selångersån. A sensitive wetland, todayrather forgotten but with great potentialfor introducing wild nature as an active partof the city. Or rather, initiating a processwhere the built environment can infiltrateand enrich the natural environment gradually.A city park in this location to initiate thisprocess could be a joint project of the city?sresidents with the scope to become a projectin constant development.The idea of the project is to offer a large ecologicalpark and meeting place near the citycenter. This will be achieved by clarifyingthe activities and values that already existin the park, such as the largest living deltai the region, football fields and a medievalchurch ruin, and by creating new paths.

Questions concerning the Cultural Heritage must be integrated in social planning.Therefore there is a need for adequate methods for cultural environmental analysis, toreceive knowledge that is relevant in an integrated conservation. The thesis is a review ofmethods for cultural environmental analysis and discusses the qualifications necessary fora method in order to receive adequate information as well as it discusses what kind ofinformation to be considered relevant. The thesis also analyzes a specific method forcultural environmental analysis in order to exam if it has got the qualifications concludedas necessary if it is to be used in an integrated conservation. The conclusion is that amethod for cultural environmental analysis should collect information about the entireenvironment (integrated information about nature and culture, in a historical perspectiveand how it is today), about social structures, physical remains (buildings etc) and what thecollected information tell about the history of the studied area, as well as what is importantin the landscape of today. Information about how the environment should be treated in thefuture is also of importance.

Almost 10 years after the attack on World Trade Center Sept. 11 2001, Osama bin Laden was shot and killed on May 2 2011 in Pakistan. How was this event framed by the media with regards to the global war on terror? This study compares two different American newspapers ? the New York Times and the New York Daily News ? and how they framed the war on terrorism in the Middle East from May 2 to May 15 2011. By analyzing the framing in a perspective of the four functions of framing theory: define problems, diagnose causes, make moral judgments and suggest remedies, we found considerable differences in each papers frames.

The development that the Swedish society has experienced during the last four decades and the higher part of the population coming from foreign countries calls for a more intensive research on the situation of these groups. The purpose of this study is to find explanations of the differences in the share of immigrant politicians in Linköping and Norrköping. The starting point of the study is a model of factors assumed to affect the representation of immigrants in the municipality assemblies. The immigrant composition, the municipality organization and the view of democracy of the politicians, are all assumed to affect the civic participation. The civic participation is then assumed to affect the representation of immigrants in the municipality.

The common literature about strategic alliances offers a very fragmented picture. This thesis gives a theoretical overview on strategic alliances and builds the basis for the following examination of the different dimensions most strategic alliances have. The examination of the different dimensions is the crucial point of this thesis. Here the reader gets a detailed insight into the different dimensions and the implications they have on the design of a particular strategic alliance. This examination leads in the end to a more differentiated view on strategic alliances and the insight that no simple models exist, which give a sufficient basis for decision-making and understanding strategic alliances, today.