This essay deals with the political upheavals which occurred in Japan with the Meiji Restoration of 1868 and its impact on the Samurai Class. This transitional period in Japanese history is portrayed in the film The Last Samurai from 2003, and it's the comparison between this Hollywood production and the current research on the subject on which this essay focuses. Two key figures who are portrayed in the film are Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise), an American soldier from the Indian Wars of the 1860/70s who travels to Japan to quell the Samurai rebellion but ends up in captivity; only to learn their codex of honor and way of life and eventually become a Samurai himself. The other character calls himself Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe) and becomes the representative of the Samurai's struggle for their existence. Their friendship and cultural exchanges will remain a cornerstone throughout the film.

The Barbie doll is an icon filled with meanings; this thesis discusses the Barbie doll and herfeministic potentials and subject positions using a discourse analysis. The thesis analyzeswhat sort of femininity Barbie portraits in magazines, web series and films about her.Theories being used originate mainly from gender and queer studies, where the focus is on theperformative constructions of gender and femininity. Since the material mostly consists ofmoving images some influence is taken from feminist film theorists and semiotic theory,which focuses on signs and their meaning. The thesis centres around the questions: how isBarbie?s femininity challenged, strengthened and constructed in different types of mediaabout her produced by Mattel? And is there any feminist potential in Barbie?s subjectpositions in these media forms?.

The purpose of this project is to examine students' pespectives on quality in teaching. The characteristics that are described to denote a 'good' and 'less good' teachers are linked to ideas about types of corresponding leadership styles in the classroom. The report is based on surveys of students in Upplands-Bro high school outside Stockholm. In order to get better insight and further knowledge of the subject, the student accounts have been related to current discussions in the literature about good leadership and teaching quality.Following the methodology of grounded theory a pilot study was constructed to design the research instruments. In the pilot study I collected students' perceptions on quality-related categories in teaching and leadership which then formed a bases for a survey which was distributed to a larger student sample. The survey includes questions that relate to the middle order, which is based on three criteria that make up the characteristics of a 'good'/ 'less good' teacher and the leadership style that suits students descriptions of good teacher characteristics.The results of the study show that a good teacher should have subject knowledge, be good at writing and illustrating the curriculum on the whiteboard and explain and clarify their instruction through good communication.

Real estate agent is a popular occupation that many young people study today. They enter the market and will have to compete with experienced real estat agents. Why should the customer choose them instead of those with more experience? We describe the character of services offered, expectations and customer satisfaction. We have chosen to give a questionnaire to customers and real estat agents.

In the pilot study for a biography, some of the methodological and/or theoretical problems facing the anthropologist and biographer are discussed.The empirical section is based on a number of interviews I made with my grandmother over the period 1995-2001. I have come across inconsistencies in the material when rendering a historical event. Furthermore, the material makes me reflect on how the biographer or anthropologist is able to handle or interpret that she and the subject/informant has a different attitude to metaphors and how the metaphors can change over time, space and interpretation.The essay begins with a summary review of some of the central social and behavioural scientific theories that can be related to the individual and the biography.There then follows an in-depth discussion based on Paul Ricoeur's philosophy that says that your identity is created in relation to how you look at your history and future at the present time. Identities are created in an interaction between the field we are currently in, the cultural capital that includes gestures, mannerisms, symbols, our language and the area of interpretation the field allows in the culture. Consequently, the biography is also a representation that is created in time and space and between the subject and the person rendering the subject.The biography or ethnography is transient and is of necessity a historiography.Ricoeur talks about the living metaphor.

Människor tenderar att minnas utförda uppgifter och återkalla dem bättre än när de enbart kodar samma uppgifter muntligt, även känd som enactment effekt. Syftet med den här studien var att undersöka om enactment effecten ökar under en ny inkodning som aldrig tidigare utförts inom paradigmet ? Subject-Experimenter-Performed-Task. Sammanlagt medverkade 56 personer i studien, 32 killar och 24 tjejer i åldrarna 10-18. En grupp lågstadiebarn och en grupp gymnasieungdomar testades i VT, EPT, SPT och SEPT betingningar.

The purpose of this essay is to examine what literary heritage teachers communicate in the school subject Swedish at upper secondary school. The overall research question for this work is: Which authors and/or works are mentioned by the teachers in the school subject Swedish at upper secondary school? How well do these authors and/or works answer towards a multicultural perspective? Which factors affect teachers´ selections of texts? Based on this purpose and these research questions, the aim is to answer the didactic question of what.To accomplish the purpose of the study a quantitative method has been used. The survey was conducted in two medium-sized cities in central Sweden, and was answered by 17 teachers. The study shows that the teachers ascribe the Western and Swedish literature great importance.

This paper studies how peer assessment is used as a strategy to improve young learners' results in Swedish as a school subject. Nine teachers are interviewed about their use of the method on 7-12-year-old pupils. Comparisons are made between the interviews and Swedish and international discussion on peer assessment. There are similarities between the practice of the teachers and what is said in the litterature about the method and its advantages and drawbacks. The teachers tend to emphasize the social aspects more, though.

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this essay is first to get a general idea about a group of working teachers thoughts of mathematics and the teaching in mathematics. I also would like to find out what they think affect pupils relationship to the subject. The surveys main purpose is to compare teachers in grade 4-6 and teachers in grade 7-9 view of what you as a teacher can do to further the learning in mathematics. I have done eight interviews. Four of them are with teachers in grade 4-6 and the other four interviews are with teachers in grade 7-9.Concerning the result of my examination it is difficult to come to a general conclusion.

AimThis qualitative study will provide an insight to different teachers view on handball in two elementary schools. Handball is a competitive sport and has been played for over 100 years in different contexts in Sweden. Are there qualities in the sport that belongs in the school´s non-competitive education? How do they justify this sport according to the governing documents Lgr-11 that gives a lot of room for interpretation by the teachers?How do teachers justify handball based on the curriculum?What kind of qualities do the teachers highlight with this sport in the education?Do teachers perceive any differences with the new curriculum?MethodThe method has a qualitative approach. The interviews in this study had a semi structure character.

No matter what subject or which grade you are active in, the teachers in Sweden have incommon that they are provided with governing documents that states the guidelines and goalsregarding each subject. Along with these governing documents every teacher has to findmaterial that will be used as the foundation of the teaching. This thesis is a study of howSwedish history teachers define what material they are going to use in their teaching, andwhich the factors are that is affecting these choices. The question whether a child?s ethnicaland cultural background is a factor that affects this choice of material is concerned, as well aswhat is current in Sweden and the world.

Integration is a phenomena that occurs in all societies that experience any form of immigration. This process is dependent on how we analyze, both the groups of immigrants, and how we analyze the society in which they becoming integrated.Intersectionality is one method of analyzing this framework. By applying the categories: gender, class and race on the integration process, we get a more complex picture of the subject. Therefore we also become more able to adjust the actions and arrangement around the different questions of inte-gration.In this essay I try to explain what the intersectionality is, how it is used and how it can apply in integration as a specific subject. I also apply the intersectionality model on different policy documents from Malmö, Vellinge and Landskrona to find out if they show any awareness of this model both explicitly and implicitly..

This essay examines upper secondary school pupils as well as the Swedish National Agency for Educations views on the education in subject of religion. How they describe its purpose, what content the topic should address, how the education should be implemented and what influence the pupils should have over their own studies. This to examine how the views of pupils and the Swedish National Agency of Education correlate and to analyze how it possibly can affect the pupil?s motivation. The survey is conducted by semi-forging tured interviews and text analysis in order to ascertain the pupils and the Swedish National Agency of Educations opinions on the issues.

Swedish students' knowledge of mathematics has deteriorated in recent years. Teaching of mathematics is therefore starting point in an ongoing discussion among researchers, school leaders, politicians, teachers and others, who all thinks they know best about how teaching should be designed to the greatest extent possible to raise students' proficiency levels in the subject. Teachers' practices have long been the focus of discussions and views on these differ. The purpose of this paper is therefore to study students 'conceptions of mathematics and mathematics teaching, with teachers' methods and tools of focus, in relation to previous research on the subject. The method used was a survey of students in secondary school and a textual analysis of previous studies on the subject.As revealed by the survey was that the textbook has a big advantage in mathematics education in Sweden today.Many students are not accustomed to working in a different way and thereforedoes not know either what the alternative approach entails.

The starting point of this essay was the frustration I felt after having read the novel Nadja (1928) written by the French surrealist André Breton. The title promises the story of someone called Nadja but the promise stays unfulfilled. Recognition of this phenomenon, where a man writes a book about a woman, but the woman hardly is seen, made me want to examine it further.Using the theories of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan I analyze the relation between the male narrator and his female object. I also compare Nadja to a precursor: the novel Bruges-la-morte (1892) of the Belgian symbolist writer Georges Rodenbach. Their stories are, to a large degree, similar.