After the fall of the Iron Curtain the European Union was challenged partly by an institutionalized organization of the union, as well as by a socio-psychology awareness concerning the meaning of the European Union. The increase in European integration has generated a political collaboration where national understandings in identities are constantly being exposed for reconstruction. This results in a collective European identity where states are united in diversity.National identities are created when boundaries are set up in a relation to other states. In these identity constructions there are thoughts and questions raised such as who we are and who we are not. Ukraine and the European Union has, during a long time, had diversified preconceptions concerning who has been the others.

 Like adult obesity, childhood obesity prevalence is rising, especially in the Western World.As many as 20 ? 25 percent of the ten years old children are overweight in Sweden. It isimportant to early identify overweight, since overweight could lead into diabetes, mentalsuffering, hypertension and cardiovascular disease.The aim of this study was to describe how nurses experience and perceive the conversationwith parents of overweight children. A qualitative method with a content analysis has beenused. Six nurses working in child health centre have been interviewed.The result shows that the conversation between the nurse and the parents of an overweightchild can be very difficult.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to investigate the descriptions of characters and settings in four autobiographies. The main question is: What picture of women and men, of the West and the Orient do these books provide? To answer this question we have formed three sub questions, which are: In what ways are main and minor characters described? In what ways are the key settings, and the Western and Oriental societies described? Which themes are dealt with, and from what points of departure? The theoretical framework is based on a postcolonial theoretical perspective, where the concept of binary opposites and Edward W. Said?s ideas about orientalism are crucial.

In which ways have composing processes in music appeared over the past 300 years? How may composing processes work today? What does new technology do to this processes?The key purpose of this study is to investigate various composing processes. A further purpose is also to gain an awareness of how we use modern technology by computers and their notation programmes.The research design of this thesis includes a display of literature related to composing processes. along with an analysis of the writer?s own experiences in the area.

The aim of this essay is to show if and how group identities are being constructed in maindocuments from three political parties in the Swedish parliament, focusing on class, genderand ethnic identities. The three parties who?s documents are being analyzed are theModerate Party, the Sweden Democrats and the Left Party. The conclusion of the essay isthat the Moderate Party is so focused on the individual that they are not promoting groupidentity based on class, gender or ethnicity. The Sweden Democrats are mostly discussing,and therefore creating a discourse of, cultural identity, where Swedish, Nordic, Europeanand Western culture are being created as the ?us?, and others are being created as ?them?.They are also promoting difference between men and women, therefore dividing the sexesin groups.

The aim of this essay is to study the religious education which the Jewish Community of Göteborg offers to members between six and fourteen years of age. The main question of the essay is ?what function does the religious afternoon education serve for the Jewish Community of Göteborg??To answer this question I have interviewed four people who in various ways are engaged in the religious education. To analyse the result I have used Danièle Herviue-Léger?s theory ?religion as a chain of memory?.

Portable IT devices such as laptops, smart phones and computer tablets are becoming ever more ubiquitous. At the same time, the population of the Western world is growing older, with aging bringing about changes with regards to individuals' physical and mental capabilities. These facts raises important questions about how well suited these devices are for use by elderly people. This study focuses on the cognitive aspects of the devices' usability, using the concept of mental models to analyze the users' understanding of a computer tablet. It also draws upon theory of graphical user interfaces in its analyses.

The aim of this paper is to perform a comparative study between France and Sweden analyzing the veil debate that took place in 2003 and 2004. This debate has been one of the central features of the renewed conflict between the West and Islam post 9/11, and has the presumed oppression of the Muslim veil in focus. With help of critical theory and a differentiated citizenship theory, including gender and post-colonial perspectives, I analyse the veil in a Western context in the arguments presented and the actions taken. Through that I try to distinguish the potential problems posed for the Muslim minorities living in the two countries.Three main areas are covered: the different political actions in the two countries, the consequences for this sidestep in liberal citizenship theory and in what way the view on equality splits the two parties. I conclude: that the French secularism and the Swedish equality have played key roles; the ideal of liberal citizenship is being abandoned for a more partial state; and the view of the veil as simply oppressive is part of a colonial heritage that can be challenged..

Densification is one of the urban visions for sustainable development - a vision that has become a part of the solution to the unsustainable sake dilemma. With the dense city land will be saved, energy consumption reduced and social cohesion improved. The dense city is considered to be ecologically, economically and socially sustainable. Applying an urban design concept has thus proven to be problematic. Density has been found to be a complex concept which is far more complicated than measuring how much built surface that needs to be covered. It is also not disputed what different degrees of densification mean and whether densification in itself is sustainable.

Supervision has a strong impact on students` professional development. It is during clinical education that students will receive help in linking theory and practice. This study aimed to describe the meaning of good supervision among nursing students in clinical practice. A qualitative design was used. Nine nursing students in western Sweden, who had all experienced good supervision in clinical practice, were interviewed.The interviews were analyzed using a descriptive phenomenological methodology.The meaning of the phenomenon, good supervision in clinical education among nursing students, was shown as the students were gradually piloted to increased responsibility.

After 9/11 and the following War on Terror, Muslims are often understood as global enemies. However, the idea of an international, Islamic enemy is in some circumstances criticized, not least after the actions of Anders Behring Breivik in Norway in 2011.This study analyses the North American, Emmy Award-winning television series Homeland. It centres on the War on Terror and the following social and political climate, and there are opposing understandings regarding how religion and ethnicity are portrayed in the series. Accordingly, the aim of this study is to analyse how such aspects are constructed in the series. A text analysis is used methodologically and the theoretical perspective contents of Semiotics, Eurocentrism and Orientalism in general, and Islamophobic themes in particular.This study shows that in Homeland, the portrayal of heroes and enemies plus good and evil is complex.

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to examine the current situation as regarding the political equality in Iran. The method of this reaserch is based on a single-case studie wich grounds in secondary sources. The analysis of this paper is based on fields that concern political equality which in this study will focus on the right to vote, candidacies in the parliament election 2004 and the presidential election 2005. A democracy theory by Jack Lively is used to analyze the political equality in Iran´s political system.The Iranian regim is strongly criticized by the goverments in the Western world and NGO´s for the situation of the democracy and the human rights in the country. Despite the criticism, Iran still continues in the same political direction, although the democracy has gained a stronger role in the political sphere.

Body esteem is the affective aspect of body image, which is shaped by social experience. Compared with men, women have a more negative body image, which is more frequently correlated with depression and dysfunctional thoughts, especially in the case of eating disorders. The purpose of the present study was to examine gender differences in body esteem and its subcategories, and to find out whether there exists a stronger link between negative body esteem and higher levels of dysfunctional thoughts in women. The relationship between body esteem, dysfunctional thoughts and mental illness was examined. Participants were 73 college students doing social sciences and sports training educations.

Deliberative politics offers a new and exiting way of overcoming the problems that the western democracy of today is facing. A lot of research in the most recent years have had the goal to replace the representative democracy with a decision-making frame built on decentralization and deliberation. The goal for this essay is to create a framework for local decision-making, based on deliberativ norms, that could work as a complement to the representative democracy instead of replacing it.During the recent years the so-called "brukarråd"; councils for the most common users of one special public service, has been a new way for the local government to get in direct contact with those who are most affected by changes and developments in the specific area of the public administration. In this essay I argue for that these councils should be designed so that they could house deliberative processes.After creating a model for the possible way of designing the "brukarråd" I compare the framework with the system that exists today. In this way there is a possibility to point out if there is a way to deepen the democracy within the already existing system..

Through this thesis I aimed to further investigate how we can adapt our western and modern views of masculinity and femininity in an ancient population, here on the Pitted Ware population from Ajvide on Gotland. A questionnaire survey was used to compile the modern view of masculinity and femininity. This modern view was then compared with patterns which had become visible through statistical processing of the burial gifts found on Ajvide. The thesis is mainly focused around the concept of gender, but age and status have also been discussed. Through several performed correspondence analysis, it became clear that the current view of male and female differed from the one that became visible in the archaeological record.