The purpose of this study was to examine whether the success of theconcept of empowerment in the field of social science can be explained by referring to it as the new paradigm replacing the former paternalistic era. Therefore, I investigate if the character of its history, domicile and practice has the same distinguishing features as the scientific progress. The analysis is based on Thomas Kuhn's definition of a scientific paradigm through the concepts of consensus, crisis and revolution. I also look for alternative ways to explain the sudden appearance of empowerment at the world agenda. Due to the lack of a uniform definition of the concept and the absence of common approaches in the stimulation of empowerment it's difficult to argue that the situation is marked by consensus.

Our main purpose has been to describe and compare two community's ways of organising and executing the social welfare sectors drug and alcohol abuse programs. We also wanted to explain the similarities and differences we found with the help of an organisations theoretical perspective. A second purpose has been to try to find out if the difference affects the clients possibility to receive equal care.To find out how the community's organise and execute their drug and alcohol programs, we interviewed two social workers in leading positions in Landskrona and Ängelholm. We have further more, to find out if the differences we found influencing the clients possibility to recieve equal care, completed an inquiry with fictional cases that all of the involved social workers, at each community, built an opinion upon.Our main result showed more simmularities than differences in our two community's ways of organasing and executing their drug and alcohol programs. We judged the clients possibility to adequate care to be equally sufficient no matter where he sought care, since our study showed that the social workers choice of approach did not differ significantly between the two communities, even though we found differences in their way to organise and execute the social welfare sectors drug and alcohol abuse programs..

This thesis aimed to describe how the ideological dividing line concerning the welfare state has changed between the two largest governmental parties in Sweden, the Social Democrats and the Moderaterna, during 1990 to 2010. The scientist Mark Blyth points out that ideas are important instruments for structural and institutional change by identifying ideas as weapons, blueprints and cognitive locks, which were being used in the theoretical framework. The empirical data was made by a qualitative analysis of the parliamentary speeches and debates from both parties held every year. The results shows that the budgetary law passed in 1997 became a new institutional blueprint, which changed the political conditions for the Social Democrats. Furthermore, the results point to a change in the Moderaterna?s rhetoric concerning the welfare state to a more pragmatic view. .

AbstractWorking with child and youth welfare is one of the most difficult challenges a social worker might face in the field of social work. Those who work with child and youth welfare are more exposed to stress and burnout than other comparable human service occupations. Research links the prevalence of stress and burnout to several key variables, such as demographics, working conditions and personality factors. In contrast, even though social workers in this field face many negative work-related problems they report a high job satisfaction. The aim of this study is to examine how uplifting and straining experiences affect social workers, who work with child and youth welfare, through the use of The Critical Incident Technique and interviews.

The aim of this master's thesis is to describe the role of language and culture as ethnical identification factors and illustrate how these have been used as political weapons by the Serb regime in Kosovo during the last decade. The thesis discusses the concept of ethnicity, the relations between the politics of identity, nationalism, ethnic mobilization and the importance of language and culture. Kosovo has historically been characterized by severe ethnic antagonism between Serbs and Albanians. Different languages, cultures and religions beside political processes led to ethnic cleavages that paved the way for ethnocentrism, ethnonationalism, chauvinism, ethnic cleansing and civil war. Since 1989, the Serbian authorities have intervened in all important spheres of life, in an attempt to Serbianize Kosovo.

The aim of this study is to describe and analyse the knowledge of three of the treatment methods used in youth welfare and this is accomplished through a knowledge review. This study contains an analysis of three different treatment methods described in eleven different peer reviewed articles. The articles are all internationally published between the years 2006 to 2012 and they are all effectiveness evaluations. The articles deal with treatment methods concerning Motivational interviewing (MI), Aggression Replacement Training (ART) and Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and these are three of the most common in youth welfare in Sweden. There is not much knowledge of Swedish conditions and that is why this study focuses on international research.

The purpose of this essay was to study whether the UN convention on the Rights of the child is implemented in the Swedish executory authority, in cases that include compulsory auction of property belonging to families with children, in the southern area of Sweden. I have especially focused on questions concerning whether civil servants work with child consequence analyses, whether they have been offered education in child competence at work, to what extent they have listened to and taken into account the child's own voice in the execution process, and finally to what extent civil servants have had contact with the social welfare committee.The study was based on qualitative telephone interviews with seven civil servants working with cases that comprise compulsory auction of property belonging to families with children.The conclusions of my study are that there exists no specific child perspective regarding the UN convention on the Rights of the child in the civil servants work regarding compulsory auction of property belonging to families with children. Neither do they work with child consequence analyses nor do they listen to what the child has to say in the execution process. The civil servants have not been offered any kind of education concerning child competence. Regarding contacts with the social welfare committee, the result shows that this is, in general, not based on systematic procedures..

The aim of this essay is trying to understand the ideological changing process over the last decades and the ideological meaning of the relatively new conception lifelong learning as well, and how it comes that the opportunities offered the individual pre-school child and the individual compulsory-school pupil to assimilate the so important learning, differs so dramatically all though the expressed ambition to offer each and every one equal opportunities. What are the ideological structures that are, and have been in function, that carries and have carried the perceptions of the use and value of fostering and education?In a time with the welfare ideology in a hegemonic position, it was seen important that the state took major responsibility for the education of the citizens. In our time, it appears, an economist ideology has taken the hegemonic position, and education is becoming an increasingly economic issue, and equality is decreasing along with, as in general society, the increasing of segregation within the educational system..

The trotting in Sweden has a good reputation in an international view, both in the perspective of success and how the sport is managed with focus on security, animal protection and animal welfare. A large number of equipment details are fitted on the horses during training and competition. The Swedish law of prevention of cruelty to animals regulate training and competition with racehorses, and propose to protect horses from unnecessary suffering. The equipment permitted in races is regulated in Tävlingsreglementet (The Regulation of Competititon) and in the regulations of equipment, that the Nordic Regulation Committee and Nordic Animal Welfare Committee have worked out. Due to training and competition the equipment must even meet the Swedish law of prevention of cruelty to animals. However, the behaviour or the senses of the horses is often affected by the equipment due to the way the equipment corrects, modifies, restrains or reduces the behaviour of the horse, which may cause the horse stress or discomfort.

The castration of piglets is performed routinely all around the world. Most castrations are done without anaesthesia and analgesia, despite the fact that this procedure has been proved to induce acute pain and stress for the piglets. The procedure regarding castration of piglets is currently a hot topic of debate and an important political issue. The underlying issue is the boar taint which are highlighted in the heating of the meat after slaughter, which in turn can lead to reduced meat sales as it can be perceived as unpleasant for many consumers. The purpose of this study is to examine alternative drugs which may be selected in order to replace the practice of castration of piglets without anaesthesia, in light of improved animal welfare.

There are several reasons why organic chicken production is scarce in Sweden. Lack of slow growing (SG) strains combined with higher production costs, lower meat-yield and uncertainty of consumers? willingness to pay seems to be the main reasons. EU-legislations imply use of indigenous slow- or medium growing strains in organic production, nevertheless, fast growing (FG) broilers are often used due to their effectiveness. Increased consumption of processed food creates a market for conventionally rearing of very heavy broilers.

In this essay I will look at the independence of the Swedish municipalities. By looking at articles for the biggest journal in Sweden on this subject Kommun aktuellt I will look at the discussion for the years of 1978 and 1998 to see if one can draw some parallels in the debate and see if some subjects are always returning in the agenda for the independence. The autonomy of the Swedish municipalities is a very important part of the Swedish welfare model. The municipalities handles for example both the primary schools and the social welfare services. Both these institutions are money draining and the municipals right by law to claim local tax does far from all the time cover its expenses.

In this essay we aimed to find how economic scarcity among children and youth presents itself in school, according to how school staff experience it. We have conducted interviews with student welfare staff to hear their experiences of this subject and how the schools try to help these pupils. We have used interpretative phenomenology as a base for our work. We have also used some of this traditions most important notions along with notions of Erving Goffman and Sara Ahmed during our processing off the material.  With help from these, we report our most interesting results. We have seen that a lack of resources exists among youth today and that everyone not has easy access to things many of us might take for granted.

The purpose of this essay is to examine the origin of generalized trust. We compare existing theories on trust to determine what approach is more fruitful in explaining the prevalence, or absence, of trust. Our conviction is that trust should be viewed as an interaction, rather than a disposition or a rational choice. The sample is based on the countries of the OECD. In total, five different hypotheses are tested: i) that generalized trust is created by equal distribution of income, ii) that generalized trust is created through monitoring of the state, iii) that generalized trust is created through rule by law; iv) that generalized trust is created when the welfare apparatus is guided by principles of universalism; or iv) that generalized trust is created when the state integrates trust networks.

Castration of dogs holds many reasons and opinions, therefore methods, traditions and rea-sons vary. The approaches have during time changed from mostly surgical castrations to also including hormonal treatments. Castration is used to control the dog's reproductive abilities, for medical reasons and to possibly rectify problems of behavioral nature. How common a particular method of castration is in a country is highly dependent on the country's traditions. In Sweden it is most common with castration for medical reasons, such as possible elimina-tion of diseases, for example, benign colorectal tumors.