The purpose of this thesis is to create conditions in order to plan lighting to a library room after children's needs and wishes, and to gain deeper knowledge about how children experience different lighting environments and what they perceive as good lighting. I was given the task by Huskvarna library to design a lighting plan for their children's department. This is part of the project "Library 2.1-room as a medium" that is going on at Huskvarna library since fall 2007. My questions at issue are: 1. What do children consider as good lighting in a library? 2.

The aim of this essay is to get a view of the contemporary approach to children´s learning and how children´s learning and development are influenced by the preschool year for six- year olds, by analyzing the Swedish curriculum. What is the purpose of the preschool- year for six year-olds? What does the curriculum say about what children need when entering primary school? I also wish to investigate how through the curriculum common norms and standards, as far as children´s learning are concerned, are shown and discussed. My result show that the curriculum does not mention much about the preschool year for six-year-olds at all. It seems that this year in school is not given priority, which makes it difficult for the teachers to work with the children of this age and to know what their assignment is.

Children with Reading and Writing Difficulties and Their Language and Cognitive AbilitiesA Comparison with Children with a Cochlear ImplantAbstractThe aim of this study was to examine the cognitive abilities that are important for reading in children with reading disabilities, children with a cochlear implantation and typically developed children. 64 children aged 10-12 years participated in the study. To answer the question at issue we used the following tests: Block Design from WISC III, PPVT III, TOWRE, SL 40 and a few chosen tests out of the SIPS battery. On tests of the lexical access children with reading disabilities performed at the same level as hearing children, while the children with a cochlear implant performed significantly lower. Test of the phonological and complex working memory showed that children with reading disabilities performed significantly higher than children with a cochlear implant, but at the same time lower than typically developed children on the test of phonological working memory.

This report investigates digital games with focus on differences and similarities between children?s point of view when it comes to games focusing on learning compared to those focusing on entertainment. The approached group was children, 7 years old. The study contains investigations and analysis of how these children used games in both school and home environment. The most used theory ?8 theories of fun? by Marc LeBlanc (2004) raises the most important parts making a game fun.

The aim of the study was to illustrate how single parents who want to adopt a child are described in consent investigations made by the social service. The methodology for this study was document analysis. The analysis material consisted of 23 consent investigations from family courts in 12 different municipalities and district administrations. The theoretical starting point of the study was the perspective of social construct of reality. Based on the issues of the study, background on international adoptions, theory of norms and deviation and past research the documents were analyzed.

The aim of the study was to understand how the family home secretary reasons and thinks and how they express themselves in their actions towards the family home?s biological children. The method used is qualitative semi-structured interviews, involving six family home secretaries from four different municipalities. The results were analyzed with the help of two theories ? the theory of grassroots bureaucracy and the sociology of childhood theory.

The aim of this masters thesis is to examine what intentions handbooks, laws and regulations have had about children and childrens literature, as we think that they can serve as guiding principles for childrens libraries in Sweden. The questions are: what signals have the childrens libraries got from the documents concerning the view of children and childrens literature during the 20th century? What has the social opinion about children been during the 20th century? How have children been seen during the 20th century? The method we used is a qualitative source analysis of mention above documents seen from a hermeneutical point of view. This analysis is woven together with the social opinion on children during the 20th century. Our results show that the aim of childrens literature before 1945 was a pedagogic and moral one.

AbstractThis project discusses various aspects of children's way to explore nature with their senses. Therefore I conducted a study in two preschools, one nature-oriented and another preschool. This study was carriedout usien the three metods, interviews, observations and surveys. Interview four children from each preschool, observations of each group outdoors during four different occasions and question forms to teachers. The result of the study showed that both teachers and children have a great interest in being outdoors in nature, but it is not always possible to take out all children's groups. The reason is large groups and inadequate staff.

That all children today receive the opportunity to explore all of their capabilities is not certain at all preschools. Today there are preschools that are not able to work actively to explore the children's abilities because the large number of children and not enough teachers. Therefore I want to find out with my research how the educators would react when there is a crisis with the youngest children, the toddlers. I also want to find out different ways of acting in everyday situations at the preschool and why the teachers act in that way. I have relied on qualitative methods and I have used the critical incident method in my study.

That all children today receive the opportunity to explore all of their capabilities is not certain at all preschools. Today there are preschools that are not able to work actively to explore the children's abilities because the large number of children and not enough teachers. Therefore I want to find out with my research how the educators would react when there is a crisis with the youngest children, the toddlers. I also want to find out different ways of acting in everyday situations at the preschool and why the teachers act in that way. I have relied on qualitative methods and I have used the critical incident method in my study.

The purpose of this study was to examine how some children with reading problems experience and use libraries. The main problem was: How do dyslectic children experience and use libraries and how do they handle their reading difficulties when using libraries? The questions at issue were: 1. Do children with reading problems use libraries, and if so how? - in which purposes do they use libraries? - which materials and services do they use? - why dont some children use libraries? 2.

The essay is written at the request of Nyköping municipality park management by PatRadestedt who wanted a design proposal for one of the five courtyards at the Tessin Schoolin Nyköping. The Tessin School is located 2 miles from the center of Nyköping and the schoolhouses approximately 900 students. To make a design proposal for the courtyard that lies atthe canteen I decided from the outset that I wanted to take some of the Tessin SchoolStudents' opinions and wishes regarding their own outdoor spaces. I had a workshop witheight students from the arts program with the image orientation in which they had to drawand tell them what they wanted to do in the courtyard. The outcome of the workshop, Iused to move forward in my future work with a concept that fit into the environment, wethen apply it in my final design proposal.

The aim of this study is to describe and examine the characteristics of inclusion of children with disabilities in the kinder garden and primary school in Belarus. The data in this study were collected through interviews with special teachers and staff at the Developing and Rehabilitation center. The interviews were supported by child-observations and a literature study. Staying in boarding schools prevents handicap students from integrating with the society as well as getting social experience. Integrated education demands the combination of two regularities: education of children with normal development and special education of children with psycho-physiological problems.

The purpose of this essay has been to examine how the city of Helsingborg´s prevention of alcohol and drug use among youths is laid out. It has been of special interest to examine the youth centers (after school programs) preventive work with youths and its effects on frequency of alcohol and narcotics use among youths.The people we have interviewed are all involved in the three organizations: the youth centers, schools, and social services. The results showed that the youth center staff does not think that they work actively preventive against alcohol and narcotics. On the other hand, the staff at the youth centers points out that just keeping the youths in the neighbourhood and making them involved in the activities at the youth center, is preventary work. The staff at the social services points out that it is not the facilities that is part of the preventive work but the activities and the skill of the staff that is improtant for the youths..

Play is an important part of children´s everyday life, it is through play children develop. Play occurs a lot in kindergarten and in this study, the aim is to examine how play activities play is used in preschool teaching and the role of the teacher´s in the play. Video recordings of play activities done and qualitative methods (conversation analysis) has been used to analyze the video recordings. The results of this study show that play are widely used as a pedagogical tool in preschool. It is through play children develop.