Having different kinds of literature is an important part of the education in school and schoolbooks, in shape of reading-books, are common in the first year of primary school. The texts pupils encounter in school are important for how they form their identity and thoughts about what is right or wrong and what is natural or unnatural. People of other ethnicity than Swedish, or with another skin colour than white, have often in the past been portrayed negatively in reading-books as if they are of less worth. According to the Curriculum for the Compulsory School System (Lpo94) the school shall act for understanding of all people and every person?s equal value.The study analyses how ethnicity is portrayed in reading-books for pupils in the first year of primary school.

The simple view of reading is a theory in which reading is divided into decoding and linguistic comprehension. The theory has been used to explain and to subgroup reading disabilities. Research has also investigated if additional factors are of relevance to reading. In the present study, decoding was divided into the factors orthographic decoding and phonological decoding, while comprehension was divided into word comprehension and grammatical comprehension. The purpose was to analyze these factors and their contribution to reading ability in children in fourth grade: one group with reading difficulties (n=36) and one group with typical reading ability (n=36).

The purpose of this study is to examine how four educators in two different departments at two different preschools in Stockholm, selects children's literature in preschool and how literature is used in the activities and how much influence children have in the choice of literature. Based on qualitative interviews as a method we have interviewed pedagogues to get answers to our questions. We will also interview some children to find out how involved they are in the purchase of literature on the departments we examined. We consider the social cultural perspective to be a well rounded starting point for our survey, because the theory gives us the opportunity to study how the interaction and meetings between educators and children develop for each reading encounter. And through the analysis a thorough display between educators and children towards literature will be shown.

The purpose with this qualitative text analysis was to study how the sex roles of children are presented in children's books published in 2004 in comparison with children's books published 1972-74. The focus was to find patterns and differences. The study embraces eight books intended for children aged 5-9.The main results of the study showed that the girls were described to have a greater bent to take care, while the boys in general were more aimed to perform and achieve. In both today's and the books from the 70´s, the boys were described as aggressive and independent and the girls were often looked upon as princesses by fathers and boys. Violent rowdy behaviour was the essential thing among boys in especially the books from the 70´s.

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.

The aim of this thesis was to examine the ways in which librarianswork to stimulate the joy of reading in boys. Four children- andschool librarians were chosen for interviews in which they wereasked questions about boys' reading and the approaches they usedto help boys. The librarians were asked if they perceived boys'reading as problematic, what methods they used to stimulate thejoy of reading and if they thought it would be helpful to work withboys and girls in different ways. They were asked what theythought was the biggest challenges in changing the boys? attitudestowards reading and what they would do if they could choosefreely without any constraints in time or money.Aidan Chambers' "The circle of reading" was used to compare atheory about reading to the ways in wich the librarians worked andtheir thoughts about how to initiate reading.

This study is about fourteen-year-old boys, who are not interested in reading. It deals with what thoughts and feelings some boys have around books, reading and libraries. Further the study investigates the boys' leisure activities and their making of identities. The study is built on interviews among twelve boys in a secondary school. The result is compared to earlier reports and research.

This two years master?s thesis is a review and exploration of the Swedish debate concerning children?s literature from the 19th century to the present, as well as the evaluation and analysis of four adaptations of the tale Red Riding Hood. The aims are to identify how ideas and values regarding the role of children?s literature in society have developed over time and to contribute with a knowledge base for continued reflection and discussion on the subject of children?s reading and mediation of children?s literature in public libraries.The theory and method used in the thesis, is primarily based on the discourse analysis of Michel Foucault. I have identified four main discourses: the educational discourse, the liberation discourse, the politicized dis- course and the popular discourse.

The aim of this study was to investigate the result of an effort to support reading development and the reading motivation. My approach was an intervention study during four weeks, where intensive reading in a group of three pupils in grade one took place. Individual conversations and group conversations were central methods in combination with different ways of processing the texts. Interviews were conducted with the class teacher and the participating children to see the difference in reading and motivation before and after the project. The result shows that an intensive period with reading fiction books with subsequent conversations and different processing of the text is a useful developing method for decoding, reading comprehension and reading motivation.

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.

The aim of this study is to increase the knowledge regarding the selection process of picture books by pre-school educators. My intention is to find out which criteria educators use to select the books. I have restricted the study to pre-school educators, because I wish to find out how they work with the selection process and which criteria and considerations are included. I also want to know if the children have influence in the book selection and how the books get to the pre-school.The study is based on qualitative interviews with educators at a pre-schools in my area as well as relevant publications. The questions the educators were given were semi-structured.

The aim with this thesis is to highlight components regarding small children?s reading environment in preschool and see how these affect their meeting with literature. The study is based on J. A. Appleyard?s theory on man?s development as a reader.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how male and female is produced in the literary children?s literature that is found in a Municipal preschool. My issues are the following:Which sex dominates as a main character in the preschools literary books?What type of properties is attributed to the characters?What type of clothes is portrayed on the books characters?I performed a quantitative study of 136 children?s books. I used Maria Nikolajevas perceptions of stereotypical male and female properties to analyze my empirical data.

The purpose of this study was to examine gender depiction in picture books in preschools. Our experience is that many picture books contain old-fashioned gender stereotypes. During the analysing process, we used the following theories: Yvonne Hirdman?s theory about the stereotypic gender contract and Lev Vygotskij?s theory about experiences increasing our ability to fantasize. We read through 154 picture books in two preschools and categorized them into two categories: normative and non-normative books.

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to gain insights into students? usage and attitudes towards electronic articles and electronic books and how students feel about a change from print collections to digital collections at Växjö University Library. The main questions are: How do different groups of students use the library collections of electronic articles and electronic books? What factors influence the usage of the library collections of electronic articles and electronic books among students? What are the students? experiences of reading electronic books in comparison with reading print books? What would different groups of students think if the literature they need for their studies were purchased in electronic form instead of print? To answer the questions a user study was carried out at Växjö university library. A web survey was sent to students that had a library card and an email address registered at the library.