The aim of this study was to examine how children in ages 3 to 4 use the public library with the research questions: What does children?s, in ages between 3 and 4, information behavior look like when they visit a public library in leisure time with a parent? What is the nature of interaction between child and parent, child and the staff of the library, and between child and other visitors? What is the function of the Cultural tools in relation to the children?s information behavior? The theoretical frame of reference consisted of Lev Vygotsky?s ?the zone of proximal development? and Roger Säljö?s theory about using Cultural tools. To answer the questions I have observed 4 children together with their mothers and siblings at a public library. From the result of the observations I found that every child had their own information behavior. Two of the children only used one kind of cultural tool ? books.

The purpose of this Masters Thesis is to explore the process of selection that librarians face when selecting and acquiring cultural magazines to public libraries. The methods used are qualitative interviews and literary studies. A brief review is given of acquisition policies at public libraries and of cultural magazines and the important role they play in public libraries. Five interviews have been made at five public libraries to find out what factors affect the process of selection when it comes to cultural magazines. Two theories are used as a basis for the analysis of the result of the interviews and literary studies.

Swedish preschools have a variety of children of different ethnic origins. The intention of this thesis is twofold; firstly to deeply examine how preschool teachers work with languages and secondly how to integrate the Swedish language with other native languages in practice. Hence, the aim is to get a deeper understanding and knowledge about how to integrate multilingual children that have other languages than Swedish as their mother tongue. The data collection for this dissertation is based on observations and interviews with three preschool teachers and child minders. The theoretical background is taken from literature which describes the social cultural perspective.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how two students at intermediate level in reading and writing disabilities and two special education teachers perceive the use of assistive tools in school. The questions used to answer the purpose was how assistive tools are used based on students´ perceptions, the purposes for which assistive tools are used based on special education teachers´ perceptions, what opportunities and/or barriers pupils and special education teachers experiences with assistive tools and how it works when assistive tools are implemented based on students´ and special education teachers´ perceptions. Data were collected by interviews. The results show that the assistive tools are mainly used for writing assignments and to ?read-with-ears?, primarily to facilitate the learning process in the classroom.

Can the lack of functional cross-cultural communication among individuals within an international organization be the reason for cultural clashes to occur, and lead to conflict between two cultures within the same organization?Our aim is to try to create a potential model of how cross-cultural problems can be studied, in order to contribute to the solution of the problem. And to examine whether the theories, which form the basis of our model can be applied in reality.The research have assumed from the hermeneutical approach for a holistic view of the problem area. The deductive approach has been used in order to distinguish whether the theories can be applied to reality, and qualitative research method for collecting data.The focus lies within cross-cultural communications, which defines the various cultural factors that can affect organizational culture. Hofstede dimensions and the social structure are mentioned and cultural factors as language and religion.

The use of laptops, interactive whiteboards and the Internet is step-by-step working it?s way into Swedish schools. The aim of this study is to investigate the attitudes of teachers towards using IT-related tools in their teaching. How are the tools given used as mediating tools, what new methods do the teachers find themselves discovering while using these, how do the teachers feel about digital teaching platforms and how do the IT-related tools affect students language progression? These are all questions that this study is meant to answer.

The aim of this studie is to describe, analyse and understand the benefits and disadvantages with using digital tools in education. In my qualitative method three primary school teachers were interviewed about how digital tools should be used in educational purposes, also what benefits/disadvantages they could see with the investment of digital tools in their school. I also did observations in two classrooms and interviewed a school politican to get a wider perspective. The collected information identifies that some benefits of using digital tools is the contribution to a more equivalent education, more opportunites for cooperations and that fewer pupils have to struggle with their fine motor skills when producing a text. Some of the disadvantages with using the tools is that they breaks sometimes, it´s easy to get dependent and if something happens (like power outage) it´s unusual that schools have a good an action plan.

The name of the study means ?The short arm - a study in diversity and arm?s length in the cultural collaboration model?. Right now there is a reform in the Swedish cultural administration where the responsibility for handing out state funds and grants to cultural organizations is changing from the state government to the local regional governments. The purpose of this study is to map the organisational changes caused by the reform and investigate how this affects the regional policies concerning cultural diversity and the arm?s length principle.

Poorly maintained forges are a common sight in the province of Gästrikland. Because of their changed appearance, possible move from the origin location and poor items related knowledge they will rarely qualify for the range of funds available through Länsstyrelsen. Therefore this study deals with the problems associated with the forges in southern Gästrikland, i.e. Hedesunda and Österfärnebo parishes.The aim of the study is to increase the items related knowledge of forges and perhaps form the basis for restoration projects in the area. Eleven forges have been examined and the changes they have undergone have been highlighted.A forge was erected on the farm and was used for the households needs such as producing and repairing tools.

The paper's purpose has evolved during the process of researching and writing it. In the beginning it was to investigate if art and culture could increase the strength and knowledge of a brand and if there existed a knowledge about this amongst Swedish companies, situated in Stockholm. During the process the purpose has evolved into exploring the type of companies that acknowledge this and those that don't. By using Bourdieu's terminology and tools, the reasons behind the use of art has been analyzed.The paper employs an explorative approach by accessing data through interviews and public data provided by the Internet through web pages and government files.The paper comes to the conclusion that what Holt calls cultural branding has not evolved, when looking at the companies that are accurate for this study. Out of 24 companies only one comes close to observing socio cultural movements through the arts.

Today, one of the foremost tools used by the library staff is the library catalogue search tools. It has come to our understanding that some library staff are dissatisfied with how the search tools works. The aim of this study is to illuminate the library staff's negative experiences of the search tools, and to present a basis for future discussion and development. To our help we have used a quantitative survey which were sent to library staff that used one of the two largest integrated library systems in Sweden, BOOK-IT and Mikromarc. The questions regarded the library staff's perception of a number of features in the search tools.

Increasing immigration to Sweden has transformed a culturally homogeneous society into a more heterogeneous one. As a consequence intercultural communication and interaction have been increasing. Child health care agencies have encountered these increases. The aim of this study was to examine what the health care professionals experienced and communicated in these intercultural environments. Eight interviews with child health care nurses were carried through at four child health care centers in the south of Sweden.

This paper examines the concept of heritage and which factors that determines how we evaluate and select what should be considered cultural heritage. This has been examined using a qualitative study involving interviews with seven people working within different parts of the cultural heritage sector. The purpose was to get a picture of what the public sector?s cultural heritage consists of and why so. The research question was: What gives the status of cultural heritage? This was examined by looking at further questions: What defines the concept of cultural heritage? Who decides what should be considered cultural heritage? What is significant when discussing cultural heritage? One conclusion is that the concept itself is experienced as diffuse but that the meaning can be summarized as the traces we leave behind to be preserved by future generations.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to examine the information use among Swedish backpackers, both prior to departure and while travelling. The questions posed in this study are; which artefacts did the backpackers use, in what way were those used as tools of mediation within their social practice and how does a presumptive interaction between backpackers and information sources appear? The empirical material consists of interviews, held with eight backpackers, concerning their information use. The interviews reveal that a number of information sources are being consulted. The most commonly used sources identified in the empirical material are guide books, advice from other backpackers, fiction, TV programmes and periodicals.

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to examine the use of the concept cultural heritage in Swedish governmental cultural policy. Ten official reports, reaching over a time period of seven years (1997-2004) are examined in the following way: What is cultural heritage? What functions/ values does the cultural heritage have? Whose heritage is a cultural heritage? With some simplification you can say that there are two different views on cultural heritage in the documents. The most common way to refer to cultural heritage is a category of chosen historical objects whose preservation is motivated by their function as sources of information and knowledge about the history and development of the Swedish society.