This thesis is structured as a combined empirical and literary study. The aim is to investigate how children at the age of 11-12 years reflect on their readings of fiction and how these reflections relate to the librarians' perspective of a child's reading ability and reading development. Qualitative interviews with children and librarians constitute the empirical part. Research and theories are compared to the empirical part then placed into a more extensive context. How do children at the age of 11-12 years old reflect upon their reading of fiction and how do librarians relate themselves to this age? An analysis using interviews, research and theories is used to answer these questions.

The purpose with this study has been to get a previous knowledge about how pre-school teachers look at the impact of the picture book for children and their language development and participation at the age of three to five years. The study was carried through inquiries at a pre-school in a west Swedish urban district. The study proceed from the sociocultural theory which means that children learn by teamwork with other more experienced individuals. The result shows that the pre-school teachers consciously let the interest of the children guide the choice of books. At the same time they push for the meaning of conversation with the children.

All human beings need and have the right to a language. How a language is learned and used depends on the individual conditions. This study considers the work to development the language done by pedagogues in a special school for mentally retarded children. How do pedagogues work to develop the language in children who are so different and have so different conditions and needs? That is the central aim of this study.

In my study I have participated at the Fifth Dimension / Active Worlds site in Villa Gymnastiken in Ronneby, where I have worked both as an assistant to the project leader and as a researcher, but also as a participant together with the children. The children are working in a virtual world called Femtedim, created in a internet-based program named Active Worlds Education Universe. The Femtedim-world are bridging together two physical worlds in Ronneby and Copenhagen. My main focus is on an intervention that occurred in the 12th of March when the research-team in Copenhagen, which runs the project in Denmark, decided to create a new challenge for the children since some of them started to get bored. They added gravitation to the Femtedim-world, which lead to a few different reactions among the children. Most of the children didn´t like it and were very hostile towards the idea that they would not be able to fly around freely in the Femtedim-world.

The aim with this study is to through a research summary review experiences of growth and theparents caring ability among children who has grown up with parents having intellectual disabilites,and by empirical data illustrate how these persons today describe their childhood, their parentscaring ability and other cicumstances that have affected the growth. The results from the researchsummary are then to be compared with the results from the empirical data in purpose to reviewsimilarities and discrepancies.The study has a qualitative approach and it is based on foundings from earlier research andinterviews with four women whos mothers have intellectual disabilities.In the existing research of this issue there is a clear dichotomy between whether the researchershave focused on either the children or the parents. In both perspectives there are differentconceptions about whether a person with intellectual disabilities have the capacity to care for andraise a child, as there is about how the parents intellectual disaparment affects the child.The womens stories of the childhood are obviously unique, but they also have many experiencesin common, both among themselves as with what has been found in research. Children of parentswith intellectual disabilities have been classified as a risk group, wich has been shown by reversedroles for child and parent, lack of attachment to the parents and by insufficient care. Despite thedifficulties that the women have faced, they describe many parts of their lives in positive termstoday.There seems to be other influences in addition to the parents intellectual capacity that affect theesechildrens outcomes.

This study aims to find more knowledge about preschool teachers? point of view on the situation of children living in economic hardship and how it affects them at the preschool. With economic hardship becoming more frequent and common amongst families with young children we find the subject important and in need of more attention. Studies have proven the negative effects of poverty on children?s development and health and since the preschool is a big part of children?s everyday life the study aims to see what perspectives practitioners have on the issue and how they plan activities and learning situations based on the needs of these children.

In the curriculum for Swedish pre-school the focus is mainly on five concepts. These are care of the children, learning, influence, rearing and security. These concepts are to characterize the activities of the pre-school in Sweden.Back in time the focal point of pre-school activities for young children was mainly on security. The learning part became more prominent as the children grew older. When speaking to teachers and parents I do sense that some believe this is the case even nowadays.

The purpose of this study has been to describe and analyze how seven Swedish preschool teachers and two special education teachers think and work with children who show a lack of social skills. The study method has been semi-structured interviews with the educators which have been analyzed and sorted under different themes/categories. The theoretical framework used in this study is sociocultural, relational and categorical perspectives. These perspectives have been chosen in order to better understand how teachers see their role in supporting children in need of special support. The environment in the preschool is found to be of great help and the teachers? approach is of great importance.The research emphasizes the importance of integrating thinking, feeling and behavior.

This study focuses on a reconstruction proposal of a small part of a rural churchyard that has lost a big part of its history, in form of its conformation and plant material. The chosen part of the cemetery was established in 1938, and this proposal is an interpretation of the architect?s original plan, the workers wishes and my own observations and experiences of the place. In this proposal I have tried to balance the plants composition to create an environment that can benefit the biological diversity, that fits the locations habitat and today?s maintenance.

This master thesis is based on the sociocultural perspective. A qualitative research study was conducted to investigate children's attitudes towards reading, texts and libraries.The theoretical background is constituted by ideas from the new sociology of childhood, literacy-studies and reader-response theory.The study was conducted with 23 children, 13 girls and 10 boys, participating in focus groups.The results of the study reveal that children's literacy-activities in school are strongly influenced and limited by adults. Children's interest in pictures and non-fiction-reading do not correspond to the school institution that favors traditional media and fiction. The study also reveals a gender division between children's literacy-activities that tends to grow with age. All the children in the study regard libraries as book-houses and wished for libraries that combine activity and serenity.The thesis shows the importance of being aware of, and engage in, children's reading-interests and reading-practices if the reading stimulating activities in schools and libraries are to be successful.

AbstractThe purpose with the study is to contribute knowledge of teacher?s thoughts of, and actions in potentially stress filled situations at preschool. The methods I?ve been using are qualitative interviews and unstructured observations of hallway situation at dressing and the transit between lunch and rest.At the interviews with the teachers it showed that none of them feels stressed but there are stress filled situations. The lunch and transit between lunch and rest is a stressful situation, where there is a lot to do, like the dishes, the teachers break and the lie-down.

The purpose of this survey was to discern possible similarities and difference between how teachers in preschool and pre-class respond to children?s own initiative out of a power perspective. The results of this study is collect by observations that we have done in free and planned activity in both preschool and pre-class as well as a few interviews with some of the teachers. The results have shown that teacher?s responses to children?s own initiatives in preschool and pre-class to most part is similar, despite the difference in their commission.

Children are a group of patients that require special knowledge from the anesthesia staff, both general and specific. Theoretical knowledge and practical experience is necessary to adequately care for the child as it anatomically, physiologically and mentally may differ from adult patients.A growing problem in the pediatric population is overweight and obesity. From a stagnation in the early 2000s the prevalence of overweight and obesity among children in the world are again increasing.The purpose of this study was to examine peri-operative care of overweight and obese children.Systematic searches were done in PubMed, CINAHL and Scopus. After the quality audit according to SBU, twelve articles were included for analysis.Results suggest that overweight and obese children have a higher risk of respiratory peri-operative complications. The risk of hospital admission after outpatient surgery was also greater in this group as well as higher costs for health care.Overweight and obese children are complex subjects with more frequent peri-operative risk factors than normal-weight children.

AbstractThis study investigates the impact of storytelling for children's language development in preschool from a sociocultural perspective. The purpose is to find what narrative methods teachers use to promote children's language development. I also want to examine whether the children are involved in the storytelling. To get answers to my questions which include what methods teachers use, narrative meaning and function, and their children's participation, I have used qualitative interviews with four preschool teachers at four different preschools.The results of my survey show that teachers use a variety of methods at storytelling. The most common methods were reading, rhymes and daily storytelling while eating.

The aim of child health care is to promote health and development for all children, to early identify problems that concern children´s growth and development and to prevent ill-health among children. Today in our society the proportion of children who are underweight are few.The aim with this study was to describe paediatric nurses experience in meeting with underweight children and their parents. Interviews were implemented and analyzed according to qualitative content analysis. Focus was placed on looking at differences and interpretations in the text content. The analyse resulted in six main categories, such as a need of sensitivity and a holistic view from the nurse, difficulties in handling the meeting because lack of tools.