Animal welfare is of increasing concern in present society. In commercial pig farming, animal welfare problems are common. One of the causes for these problems is the barren environment in which pigs are housed, which can cause oral manipulation of pen mates. Providing straw might be one solution to this problem. Another solution could be reached through genetic selection.

The purpose of this essay has been to study the different discourses that are expressed in social welfare secretaries? assertions when they assess cases with elements of honour-related violence, intimidation and oppression. To do so I have used a discourse analysis theory and technique, based on three qualitative interviews with social welfare secretaries. The interviews were focused on vignettes, which were all fictitious cases with various elements of honour-related violence. One of the interviews was a focus groupinterview with four participants, while the other two interviews were individual.

The purpose of our study is to examine whether social welfare secretaries experience obstacles in work to do their tasks in a way that they, from their own values, thinks is right. And if so, what are the reactions and what strategies do they use to manage this. The study is based on a qualitative method. The data consist of interviews, with five social welfare secretaries, which all work in southern Sweden. The social welfare secretaries both work at a children- and youth department and at a social allowance department.

The purpose with the essay was to study the school and the social welfare personnel respectively along with their perspectives and views on their collaboration in the work with socially exposed children and how the collaboration was formed.To get answers to my questions, I interviewed three teachers and three social welfare secretaries. The questions and the analysis were divided into themes: the collaboration between school and social services now and in the future, development of collaboration, and facilitation and difficulties.When analysing the interviews I found a consensus in some questions. All interviewed agreed on the importance of collaboration for the welfare of the child through continuous meetings. The relationship and dialogue between school and social services was vital. Both teachers and social welfare secretaries found it essential not to be seen as a hidden authority.

Today many sociologists speak about the modern world and the god and bad that it brings. In association to this discussion there is a tendency to speak about an increased individualization, a process that often also means more choices and possibilities. But in addition to this follows a big responsibility for how we choose to live our lives, since our choices not seldom also influences other people, both locally and globally. The aim of this essay is to investigate the importance of non-profit organizations with social direction in our Swedish welfare society and thereby also in a modern world where people's individual choices are becoming all more important. In order to answer my main issue I have implemented thirteen qualitative interviews, of which ten of the informers are from different non-profit organizations and three from different stately authorities.

AbstractSocial welfare workers employed in the same county base their assessments on the same laws, routines and guidelines, yet it seems that they sometimes come to different decisions. It's the discretion that enables the social workers to make individualized decisions adapted to each clients unique situation.The purpose of this paper is to examine social welfare workers reflections on discretion and what influences their discretion in the professional role.Six qualitative interviews were conducted with social welfare workers in three communitys i the middle of Sweden.The main result shows that it is primarily four factors that affect the social welfare workers discretion in the professional role :External factors such as other organizations change of regulations and cooperation with other organizations.Organizational factors such as routines, rules and guidelines .Professional factors such as the opportunity to use experience and professionalknowledge to determine which measure works in different situations.Individual factors like the workers ability for initiative and the clients individualcircumstances. Social welfare workers feel that they have a relatively wide discretion in their profession. They believe they have the ability to make individual evaluations of each client, however they also believe that their discretion often is limited by lack of time.Key words: social welfare workers, clients, discretion, assessments. .

The aim of this study is to increase knowledge and understanding regarding which institutional demands can be identified by social welfare secretary?s in their work with juvenile offenders. The study uses organizational theory to try and find different institutional strategies that social workers use to handle such demands. The study takes a qualitative approach and consists of six semi-structural interviews with social welfare secretary?s who work with juvenile offenders.The results of the study show how institutional influence comes from various organizations and institutions such as media, legislation as well as the police and justice system.

The aim of this review is to assess the ethical implications of aquaculture, regarding fish welfare and environmental aspects. The aquaculture industry has grown substantially the last decades, both as a result of the over-fishing of wild fish populations, and because of the increasing consumer demand for fish meat. As the industry is growing, a significant amount of research on the subject is being conducted, monitoring the effects of aquaculture on the environment and on animal welfare. The areas of concern when it comes to animal welfare have here been divided into four different stages: breeding period; growth period; capturing and handling; and slaughter. Besides these stages, this report includes a chapter on the current evidence of fish sentience, since this issue is still being debated among biologists.

Swedish farmers have the possibility to be subsidized by EU rural development programme for grazing animals on pastures to promote the biodiversity of flora and fauna. The environmental remedy sometimes does not allow supplementary feed and at the same time the Swedish Animal Welfare Act and the Swedish Agricultural Board?s regulations for animal welfare and protection states that animals, in this case horses, shall be fed with food of good quality and adapted for the species. The regulations also state that they should have an individual feeding regime that enables them to maintain a normal body condition. The aim with this master thesis has been to investigate if it is possible to keep Gotland ponies on extensive pastures, during late spring and summer and still maintain animal welfare. The horses were assessed every fourth week using a welfare assessment protocol developed in line with the Welfare Quality® project (submitted, Viksten et al) where physical, behavioural and resourcebased parameters were observed. Twelve one-year old stallions of the breed Gotland ponies purchased from different breeders were used in the study.

Within the field of welfare research, few people take into account both the aspect of gender and class. Thetraditional class-oriented research has a one-dimensional perspective on gender and the feminist welfare researchrarely carry out large comparative studies. A multi-dimensional perspective on the construction ofgender and class would benefit from both the feminist and class welfare-oriented research, and contribute toincreasing the knowledge about the individual's experience and attitudes to work and work time. The aim ofthis paper is to examine the correlation of the intersectional relationship between sex / gender position andclass position with the attitudes and motives for working time reduction. Especially in, (1) the value in work,and (2) the attitude to a high number of working hours, as well as (3) its combined effect on the conflict betweenwork and family.

Welfare is every person's right. To create conditions for a good welfare it requires coordinated strategic interventions at national and local level. Efforts must be politically supported to be able to strengthen public health. Local welfare management is a measure used to control and monitor public health. The purpose of this study was to investigate local actors perceptions of collaboration in strategic public health efforts with local welfare management in a municipality in central Sweden.

The purpose of this essay was to study how school welfare officers cooperate with other school staff, regarding children in vulnerable positions, and how the school staff apply their obligation to report to the social services if they have concerns regarding children at risk, according to the law of social service, SoL.We have especially focused on questions concerning cooperation, both between the school staff, and between the school and the social services. We also wanted to identify some of the restraining factors and dilemmas that could come up during the process of reporting children at risk to the social services. The study was based on qualitative interviews with ten school welfare officers from the same municipality.Our conclusions of our study are that there exists a well-developed cooperation between several organizational levels, including the school welfare officers, other professions in the schools and the social services. There were though opinions among the school welfare officers that they wanted to increase their professional claims in relation to the school nurse, due to their larger competence in talking to children. Regarding the formal responsibility to report to the social services, a majority of the school welfare officers felt they had access to the support they needed from both their principal and the students healthcare-team, and that they were not left alone in the process..

This study is about state officials who handle applications for sickness benefits and about municipal officials who handle applications for financial assistance. The purpose of this study is to explore the differences between the two professional roles regarding their conception about their exercise of authority, in terms of flexibility, individual adjustment, empathy and legal security.The study has a qualitative approach and is based on structured interviews with two state officials and two municipal officials. The questions that this study aims to answer are:- Is there a difference between state officials and municipal officials regarding their experience and use of flexibility? - Is there a difference between state officials and municipal officials regarding their perceptions of legal security, individual adjustment and empathy in their exercise of authority? - What kind of bureaucracy can you find in the two organizations?The results show that the state officials in this study have very limited flexibility due to legislation which makes their exercise of authority neither empathic nor individual. The municipal officials in this study state in their turn that the law entails broad flexibility and the opportunity for them to be empathic and to make individual decisions.

The focus of this thesis is the conception of work and the relation between work, economic growth and welfare in today?s Sweden in the editorial of Dagens Nyheter (DN), which is the main morning paper in Sweden.As the theoretical foundation of this thesis is social constructionism and the method being used is critical discourse analysis, the language is considered as an important source for the construction of value and meaning of work. In that context it is important to investigate how DN, by certain ways of representing reality, preserves a certain view of the human being, the society and the economy. Which ideological ideas underlie the conception of work that emerges in DN? What social consequences will these ideas have?The thesis discusses the ?truths? that the editorialists mediate concerning for example the view of the human being as guided by rational choice and the view of economic growth as the main goal for social life.One of the conclusions is that DN considers work as a means for economic growth as economic growth is regarded fundamental for the survival of the welfare state..

Since criminality started to rise steeply in most western welfare states following the second world war the relationship between welfare support and criminality has been debated. For a period of time thought to be an effective preventive measure against crime welfare support has since from time to time come to be seen by some as ineffective and in some cases even as a contributing factor to the rise in crime. It remains a contested issue as new theories, such as social support theory, which is employed here, attempt to contribute to the understanding of what effects general welfare has on overall crime levels. As a connection which is relatively well-researched in the USA, altough still not yet fully understood, this study strives toward a better understanding by testing the relationship in a swedish context. The relationship might not function in the same way considering that the US is a fundamentally different welfare-regime than Sweden, liberal and social-democratic respectively.Untangling the relationship is attempted by employing a multivariate regressionanalysis on a crosssectional dataset consisting of data from 2012 covering 247 of Swedens total of 290 municipalities.