Det här examensarbetet har sin utgångspunkt i elevernas intresse av att spela onlinespelet Word of Warcraft (WoW) vilket har lett fram till en undersökning om spelets eventuella påverkan på elevernas färdigheter i engelska, och hur den i så fall ser ut. Eftersom spelet inte finns på svenska är de flesta spelarna beroende av sina färdigheter i engelska för att kunna förstå och göra sig förstådd i spelet. Arbetet utgår från tre huvudfrågeställningar:1. Finns det ett samband mellan elevernas resultat i engelska och deras spelande av World of Warcraft? Om det finns ett samband, hur kan det beskrivas?2.

The view on which kind of fiction that should be mediated to the public through the Swedish public library system has since the late 60´s been dominated by what in this Master?s thesis is called: ´the discourse on quality of literary fiction´. The aim of this thesis is to examine to which extent this discourse still plays an active role in the Swedish public library system or if that discourse has been replaced by a more market-led, demand responsive view, where the features of ´quality´ and ´culture´ have been downplayed and replaced by a ´customer?s service view´ on how and why fiction should be mediated to the public. The methodological and theoretical perspective in this thesis is led by the understanding of the discourse analysis in Michel Foucault?s ´The Archaeology of Knowledge´.

This study examines how yoga is presented in a Swedish journal called Sökaren. Sweden is often presented as one of the most secular states in the world, and for that reason it is interesting to examine the Swedish way of religiosity by looking, in this case, at the depiction of yoga. I compare two periods of time, the first one from 1964 to 1974 and the latter from 1998 to 2008. I will thereby be able to examine tendencies and changes in the presentation of yoga. For a further understanding of the context around the elected periods this study introduces religiosity in Swedish society, such as Christianity and the New Age movement.

The aim of this study is to research images of the academic world that is presented, incorporated and reproduced within the frames of the mentorship in the basic level. Can these images derive to the view upon science as a traditionally male area? Is mentorship gendered? Can the mentorship on the basic level be viewed upon as a milestone of a academic career where men and women have different opportunities to succeed?By interviewing seven mentors, working in a social sciences institution in a larger Swedish university, I have come to the conclusion that knowledge is coded male and that this affect mentors mental images of what male and female students are expected to do. The male student represent the scientist, while the female student represent what the scientist is not.Depending on the work of, among others, Kerstin Norlander, Dorothy Smith and Eva Erson I have come to view upon the university as a patriarchal organisation witch produces knowledge based upon male values, experiences and concepts. This precludes the female within this organisation from relating to the knowledge she is supposed to incorporate.

En undersökning av vinnarbilderna i World Press Photo of the Year mellan 1999-2008. World Press Photo är världens största fototävling och är prestigefylld att vinna för pressfotografer. Syftet var att undersöka vad de senaste årens bildjournalistik förmedlar till sina betraktare genom nyhetsbilderna som vunnit World Press Photo of the Year under 2000-talet. Syftet har förgrenat sig i frågeställningarna:Vilka teman har vinnarbilderna i World Press Photo of the Year mellan 1999-2008?Vad förmedlar innehållet i bilderna?Vad finns det för likheter och skillnader mellan bilderna?Studien är en kvalitativ undersökning där vi gjort bildanalyser av vinnarbilderna i World Press Photo of the Year mellan 1999-2008.

The aim of this essay is to study how cultures are presented in English textbooks for A-level students in Sweden. The aim is divided into three research questions, what does culture in English teaching mean, how is the English-speaking world presented in the textbooks and is the image that is presented stereotyped or does it try to challenge it? The study comprises of four textbooks from 1998-2008. The theoretical frame used in the essay is Edward Said?s Orientalism.

ICT and digital artifacts is an important resource in the society, especially in schools. That is why we have chosen to study if and how teachers uses ICT and other digital technology in their education in the history subject. We think that both subjects are important because history is a subject that has to do with the past, the present and the future.We made qualitative interviews with seven teachers from three different schools. We have analyzed if the teachers sees ICT as a burden or a resource in their education and also in which extend they have digital literacy. We have chosen to discuss different authors view on ICT in the education and digital literacy.

Cities have always been founded on nodes of different roads.The city Harnosand was founded where the road along the coast of north Sweden meets the sea and the calm bay of Nattviken behind the island of Harnon. Harnosand has a big historic heritage as one of the first cities in the north part of Sweden, centre of the church and education city. The incrising centralisation of Sweden and the globalication of the world have made north of Sweden to the backside of Sweden.The coun- tryside and the smaller cities don ?t live anymore. In Harnosand is big moving out and many empty spaces. In the middle of Harnosand next to Nattviken, is one of these empty spaces. This empty space next to the road of E4, that leads out in the world and Europa.

This thesis focuses on how companies in the textile and clothing industry view or interpret the idea of corporate social responsibility. The purpose of the study is to create an understanding for how this view affects the dissemination and the implementation of the idea in the organization and what might be the effects on the organization of those processes. In order to identify any differences in how the view affected the processes I have studied the current discourse on CSR simultaneously with my theory and conducted a comparative case study of two Swedish clothing brands. The theory focuses on the diffusion of ideas and change management within organizations. My data shows that the two companies have different ways of interpreting CSR and that this indeed affects their dissemination of the idea in the organization.

The purpose of the study is to contribute knowledge about the representation of fiction authors who have written in languages other than Swedish in educational school books within the Swedish subject. This is done in relation to the school's promotion of cultural diversity, a globalized world and to the Swedish curriculum. The study is a combination of a qualitative and a quantitative analysis that takes its starting point in six educational books for the courses Swedish 1 and 2. The analysis shows that all study materials include a broad representation of authorships from Europe and the USA. The selection of authors from other parts of the world is, however, limited.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the view on the personal encounter between staff and visitors in public libraries in order to detect possible differences between the two groups in order to see if the personal encounter as such could be used in order to market libraries. We believe that social competence must interact with the initial personal encounter in order for the visitor to experience the visit as positive. We have based the theoretical framework on Erving Goffman?s theory on social interaction, as well as on Christian Grönroos? theory on quality of service and marketing. We use the following questions: How do library staff view the personal encounter? How do library visitors view the personal encounter? How does the library staff?s treatment affect the visitor?s view of the library?Are there any differences in view between visitors and staff concerning the personal encounter? If so, what kind of differences are they? Using qualitative interviews, we have interviewed nine visitors and six staff members at two public libraries.

Trough a literature study based on both philosophic and objective fact this essay is taking off in the meaning of public space. It investigates how the information society and its virtual world are affecting the idea and use of public space in the city. The city and the actual world have developed from the traditional meeting between people while the virtual world is based on flows of information. The information flow has expanded through the Information and Communication Technique (ICT). ICT covers among others Internet, mobile phones and computers.

This master's thesis asks two main questions concerning the history of the City and UniversityLibrary of Gothenburg: what was the prevailing view of the library and its role? Whateconomic support did the library receive and from whom?By critically examining extensive source material mainly from the library archives and cityand state records, these conclusions are drawn: the City and University Library was regardedas a purely scientific library by all involved except the state as early as the 1920s. The state didnot express this view until 1946. The support came almost exclusively from the city ofGothenburg, the state not extending support on a larger scale until 1946 and then onlysporadically. The widely-held view of the library as a scientific one was ignored by the statein its repeated refusals to grant the library support both before and after 1946.

The aim of this essay is to investigate the attitudes towards religion and religious people held by a group of Swedish high school students. The main questions are; what causes these attitudes andhow do they shape the students? encounter with religion and religious people and in what way could religious education help the students problematize these attitudes?The method used is a quantitative method using a questionnaire, with a Likert scale, posing different questions about religion as such, world religion and religious people. The theoretical basis, in order to discuss the result of the questionnaire, is a gender theory and the theory of social psychology.The result of the study confirms earlier studies of youths both in Sweden and Western Europe. The result shows that there is a certain degree of negative attitudes towards religion, most of all againstIslam.

This study examines the players experience, environments and objects in the videogame World of Warcraft. The purpose of this study is to get more knowledge about the players experience in the game with the focus on factors contributing to some form of immersion or/and presence. The data for this study were gathered using interviews as method and then analyzed with relevant literature in the chosen field. A game content analysis and a group of questions are tested with the results of the study which is presented at the end in with an analytic discussion. .