AbstractToday?s society is multicultural which can lead to racism and prejudices. Racism is created by prejudices and values. These values and prejudices are passed on to the children through media parents and/or society. The children then make these values to their own.

The problem presented in this masters thesis is: How can pedagogical theory be used to illuminate and analyse attitudes of librarians in reading promotion activities for children and young people? The aim is to investigate librarians pedagogical role and attitudes in reading promotion activities for children and young people. The following questions are asked: · How can the pedagogical role of librarians be understood on the basis of different pedagogical perspectives? · How do librarians describe their pedagogical role in reading promotion activities for children and young people? · Is there a relation between pedagogical perspectives and the ways in which reading promotion methods are developed by librarians? Reading promotion methods investigated are booktalk, discussions on reading and summer reading challenges for children and young people. The methods used in the study are literature studies, qualitative interviews and observations.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to our knowledge about what methods? teachers say they use in the work with pupils? early reading acquisition, and how they evaluate the pupils´ reading development. I also like to find out what educational interventions teachers believe that pupils with reading difficulties need, and how they say they work to meet the needs of these pupils. The project is based on the following questions: What methods do teachers say they use in the work with pupils early reading acquisition? What extra resources do teachers consider that pupils with reading difficulties need? How do teachers evaluate children's reading development? In order to answer my questions, I've done qualitative interviews with three teachers, at two schools, in two medium-sized municipalities.

Children's library's primary task is to encourage children to read. Promoted readingleads to increased reading skills. A common method for this purpose is booktalk. This studyaims to examine how children?s librarians work with booktalk aimed towards children andhow it can be developed as a working method to support the library's reading promotionactivities.

The purpose of this study was to find out how gender roles are described in two popular children?s detective stories, one of them written in 2002 and the other in 1946, to be able to compare the two. In order to do this, I used a qualitative research method in which I read and analyzed the text and illustrations of the books out of a gender perspective.I used gender theories describing how stereotypical gender roles are displayed, and these theories were later associated with the books I studied. I also used previous research concerning gender roles in other children's books in order to compare those results with my own.After having read, analyzed and compared the two books, I found vast resemblances between them, but also certain differences. However, it is obvious that the gender roles in both books for the most part are traditional.

AbstractThe purpose of this study is to illuminate if the preventive practices and the identification of early signals about reading and writing difficulties is different between two Norwegian and two Swedish teachers' work in preschool. Research questions focused on the differences as well as similarities between Swedish and Norwegian educators working preventively current literacy in preschool, and their efforts when they identify signals to reading and writing difficulties.The study has been conducted through interviews with four female teachers, two who work  in Norway and two in Sweden.Swedish and Norwegian teachers work preventively on reading and writing, analysis resulted in three categories; books in text and pictures, words and rhyming chants and songs. No differences between Norwegian and Swedish pedagogues? prevention methods could be identified, however Norwegian teachers put more focus on rhythm and rhythmic pat exercises than the Swedish educators.The conclusions are that the Norwegian teachers mention more preventative approaches and early intervention for children with suspected dyslexia, than the Swedish teachers in the study makes. The Norwegian teachers also seem to have access to more expertise in connection with suspected dyslexia, compared to the Swedish teachers.

The purpose for this Masters thesis is to describe childrens librarians work in supplying literature to children with emphasis on easy-reader materials. Our main questions are: · What do librarians believe characterizes an easy-reader book, and what do they base their decision on when classifying a book as easy-to-read? · How have the libraries in our study solved the hands-on difficulties associated with easy readers childrens literature? · Which factors do librarians consider to be important when supplying literature to children that are not used to reading or are not good readers? The theories we have used are Aidan Chambers Reading Circle and Karner Smidts view on the librarians professional roles when supplying literature. We have used a case study method, which means that we have gathered information through observation, objective papers and interviews. This has been done at six libraries.

This essay will focus on the significance of gender in toys´ portrayed in children books for the age 3-5years. The aim for the essay, partly, is to highlight how gender stereotypes can come forth and affect children through the way toys are illustrated within children?s books. The essay will address books from two different time periods, the first period being the 40-50- 60's and the other being the 00´s. The questions to be addressed in this essay is; what type of toys? children play with in the books used in the analysis, and if a change can be detected between the different time periods in terms of gender awareness in what type of toys are presented in the books.The main method used in this essay is an iconological image analysis in which the first step is mapping, other methods used is analysis and interpretation.

University of ÖrebroDepartment of social SciencesSociology, Contnuation Course, 61-90hp.Essay 15hp. Spring 2008Title: Who is resbonsible? A soceityscientific discussion about burnout.Author: Emilie FuchsAbstractThe purpose with this essay is to do a critical comparation between two different perspectives, burnout as an individual problem and burnout as a social problem. The first perspective states that the individual itself is responsible for her sickness while the second perspective states that the society and foremost the labour market should work in order to prevent people from beeing burned out. With that purpose in mind I want to enlighten and hopefully bring up the topic for discussion.The essay is based upon the following questions:? How can you sociologically understand the labour market of today?? How can you understand burnout in an individual context?? How can you understand burnout in a social context?By studying and reading four books, I have presented the two different perspectives of burnout.

The purpose of this thesis was to examine reading groups inpublic libraries from a bibliotherapeutic perspective. Inorder to reach this purpose following questions needed to beanswered: What does the discussion in reading groups looklike? What does the reading groups fulfill for theirparticipants? What is the circle leaders? role? The study isbased on the observations of three reading groups and offive interviews of its participants. With the help of CarolineShrodes theory the study shows that there are few signs ofbibliotherapy in the reading groups. But on the other handthey show similarities with other bibliotherapeutic readinggroups, by being a social venue for its participants.

This essay investigates how the chapters of the interwar and the Second World War have changed in the high school history textbooks during the period from 1944 to 2008. In the study eleven history textbooks have been studied, most quantitatively but also qualitatively. For example the number of pages and rows devoted to different subjects and countries are compared in the books over time. The result of the study shows that there are some big changes over time but in most sections there are also big differences between the books, which make it harder to draw general conclusions. There are a lot more names, pictures and dates in the newer books compared to the older ones, although the number of different names is about the same in all the books.

AbstractThis research is about how some swedish teachers in high school choose literature in schools. The purpose is to underline the reasons for how some teachers think about selection, canon, classic and contemporary literature. Two survey methods were used to find the answers, wich consisted of interviews and questionnaires. The letter methods was used to obtain informations about student´s views on literature.Previous research shows that there are different opinions in what kind of literature the pupils should read in school. The results of literature, questionnaires and interviews also showed that the underlying reasons for the choice of literature, varied among those interviewed further forward ofthe students also prefer to read books during lessons, and that they prefer reading books by popular contemporary writers..

The aim of this masters thesis is to explore a mediators practical procedure during booktalks. The main question is: Why do librarians have booktalks and what does it mean to have booktalks for children? In order to answer our main question, we have used these three questions: - Why do our interviewed librarians have booktalks? - How do our informants prepare their booktalks and what do their presentations look like? - Do our informants have any follow-ups of their booktalks and if so, how do they do that? To limit the thesis, we have concentrated our study to Swedish public libraries and to children in the elementary school. We have conducted qualitative interviews with three librarians who do booktalks for children as a part of their job. The thesis theoretical basis is Aidan Chambers theory about the Reading Circle and especially the parts enabling adult and selection.

This study focuses on an analysis of three text books in English, Prime Time, Second Time, and Third Time, written for Swedish pupils between grade seven and nine. The main focus of the study is to investigate to what extent the books may be considered to follow the steering principles of the Swedish education system. The theoretical backbone of the essay is centred on the construction and maintenance of stereotypes, and is written from a social constructivist point of view. In this context, I also reason around power relations and norms in the Western society ? arguments which I, in the main analysis, apply to the books in question.

To read and understand are essential competences for everyone in our society; at the same time reading comprehension among Swedish pupils is on the decline. The Swedish school must therefore try to improve their instructions to increase the students' reading comprehension. The aim of the study was to describe how three reading comprehension strategies, if possible, could improve the reading comprehension for the students, including children with learning disabilities, when reading texts of natural science in a third-grade class. The three strategies that were introduced were: to activate prior knowledge, to structure information and to record contents. The questions of the study were: How are the three strategies introduced in the classroom? Can the children with learning disabilities see any benefits for their reading comprehension when working with the strategies? How do the children with learning disabilities experience working with the strategies? Can the teacher see any benefits when working with the strategies? Is it possible to see any differences among the students' results, before and after completed intervention? Method: The results have been collected through observations and qualitative interviews, which make this a qualitative study.