This essay examines how age, power and agency is represented and reproduced in contemporary Swedish picture books.This is done through a combination of discourse analysis and literary analysis.It uses theoretical perspectives from sociology, and views childhood as a social construct. It sees discourse and language use as both representing and constructing social reality in the tradition of Norman Fairclough and critical discourse analysis. The main results is that the discourses of childhood in the material construct children as a separate group in society, and childhood as a special time in life. Children is portrayed as both social actors and in need of protection from adult themes and worries..

The aim with this thesis, based on five childrens librarians statements, is to highlight their view of their work, and what they deem to be of importance when working with small children within the library sphere. My main question is as follows: What motive compels childrens librarians in their work with small children, and will Vygotskys theories be recognised in their statements. I have two questions as a base for this main question: How do childrens librarians work with small children, and do they utilise any special methods in their work? How do childrens librarians view their work tasks, and what do they deem to be of importance regarding small children and libraries? The thesis is based on qualitative interviews. As a theory I have decided to concentrate on Vygotskys thoughts on imagination and creativity, the Zone of Proximal Development, and childrens language development.

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.

Today?s Sweden becomes more and more multicultural, with a mixture of many different languages. Many children are raised to learn two or more parent languages. If you work as an educationalist in preschool you will probably come in contact with these children. The question is how you should treat them and ease their development of languages.The purpose with this work is to find answers to the question if bilingual children develop their languages by the same method as monolingual and how one as an educationalist can make these children?s development of language easier.The papers preface is a part of literature that describes different researchers view on the bilingual children?s development of language and how one, as an educationalist, can ease it.To my study I have chosen to interview three educationalists in preschool who all work with bilingual children.

This qualitative study is about the individual supportive conversation with the school welfare officer in upper secondary school. The main aim of the study was to find out what the pupils get out of a series of conversations with the school welfare officer and what it means for the pupils that the welfare officer belongs to the school organization. Six qualitative interviews were held with pupils who had conversation contact with the school welfare officer during their time at upper secondary school.I found that these pupils and welfare officers were oriented towards change and solutions. I found that the most important thing for the pupils was to achieve a good and trusting relationship with the welfare officer. After this the pupil starts a process of change in cooperation with the welfare officer, with the aim that the pupil should be happy and satisfied with the current life situation.

Objective: The aim of this work is to find out how a number of educators work when giving children support and opportunities for language development.Questions:What have preschool for policy to monitor/assess the children?s language development?What experiences do teachers have of children who need support in language development?How do educator?s regard support from specialised educator?s? Do these efforts support the children to enhance language development?Methods: Qualitative methodology, Interviews with six teachers and two specialised educators from three kindergartens in the municipality.Summary of conclusions: The municipality in which the survey was conducted has a document that provides guide lines on how to work with children?s language development in school and preschool. Pedagogical documentation is a tool that teachers use in nursery school which educators and parents can follow, which shows children?s learning processes and learn strategies. Research shows that through play, music, creative activities, photos, etc.

The aim of this study was to design short interventions based on the literature study, which will change the pupils? posture on mathematics and connections between problem-solving in mathematics and everyday life. An experimental group of 17 pupils in fifth grade participated in the study and were educated in everyday mathematics 20 minutes a day during four weeks. The intervention was measured in a pre- and after questionnaire, in order to control the design and discover possible changes in the pupils? posture on mathematics and connections between problems and everyday life.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how much influence children perceive and feel that they have in terms of after-school activities and offerings. I have also tried to find out how much influence the children in the selected after-schools feel they have. This is to highlight how children themselves perceive their influence and if the children are aware of their rights in terms of participation and influence. The study also wants to highlight the forums and the ways in which children feel that they are heard. The study used questionnaires and group interviews were made of 15 children aged 8-9 years from two after-schools, located in two different schools in the same municipality.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate, and thereby highlight, the new role of special needs teachers in conducting educational development in the fields of linguistics and literacy. The thesis defines how educational development, as described by special needs teachers, can be conducted and what conditions they perceive for such development. Factors which, according to special needs teachers, promote or hinder the development are discussed.The study uses a qualitative method involving knowledge-creating dialogues, analyzed hermeneutically, with two special needs teachers. Results are then discussed in light of relevant research and sociocultural theory. The study indicates that special needs teachers? main tool, to support teachers, is diverse use of dialogue.

This studie is an investigation about pupilassets workningforms and participation at school. The basis of the studie are two ITiS-projects, whose workningforms investegates with qualitative methods in form of observations and interviews whit pupils and teachers. This investigation will accomplish to find out how the pupils see their participation at school, and also to investigate what pupilassets workningforms mean to teachers and pupils. Conclusions from the investigation are that a more pupilassets workningforms doesn´t exist continuous in the teaching and that the pupils see their increased participation in the work with the ITiS-project as something temporarliy. Some suggestions to further investigation into this area are to be found in the end of the paper..

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to investigate the factors of children?s voluntarily reading in their spare time. We also want to know if the children choose non-fiction books for their voluntarily reading. The method as well as the empirical basis of this study is qualitative, with interviews of twenty-eight children in ages between 9 and 12 years. We conducted nine interviews with 3?4 children in each group.

The purpose of our essay was to illustrate how pupils in a medium-sized Swedish town in the 9th grade apprehend and explain bullying. We wanted to compare the pupils' opinions with student teachers' in college.Our questions were: How do the participants in the study define bullying? What are the characteristics of the bully and the victim of the bullying? Where, when and how does the bullying take place? What is the reason for the bullying? Are there any gender-related aspects of bullying? What is the participants? view of the teachers? role? Are there any differences between the pupils' and the teacher students' opinions about bullying, and in that case; what are the differences?We used a qualitative method by interviewing groups of pupils and teacher students. Our survey showed that the pupils' and the teacher students' opinions about bullying were similar in most cases. Bullying is when a pupil is exposed to negative actions several times.

The purpose of this study is to find out how four preschool teachers view children?s free playing and its impact on their learning. My main questions are:How do the teachers view the children?s free playing?In what ways does the children?s free playing affect their learning, according to the teachers?This essay is based on a qualitative study in which I have interviewed four female preschool teachers of different ages. I highlight various theories of children?s playing and learning in preschool, by theorists such as Vygotsky, Lillemyr, Knutsdotter Olofsson, Lindqvist, among others.

The purpose of this study is to examine what pupils in the ninth grade eats for lunch and also whether there is any connection between their lunch habits and perceived ability to concentrate and fatigue. A further aim was to study pupils' experience of dining environment in schools.The study is based on a quantitative method with questionnaires. The study was implemented on four schools in elementary school in themunicipalityofKristianstadand Tanum.Our results demonstrate, in accordance with several previous studies conducted in the same age group, that it is about half of the pupils who eats school lunch every day and that the majority are eating school lunch 3-5 days a week. Furthermore, our study shows that the pupils who rarely eat vegetables in school feel tired and distracted to a greater extent than the group of pupils who eat vegetables almost daily. Our result also shows that the group of pupils who eat the main course 3-5 days a week feel both tired and distracted to a greater extent than the group of students who eat the main course more rarely.In accordance with previous studies our study shows that differences exist between boys and girls regarding food that is eaten instead of school lunch.

This study shows how two different schools use dogs as a method of education. The purpose was to find out what kind of pedagogical thoughts my informants have about children' slearning in their connection with dogs, and in which way the interaction between the children and the dogs could affect the learning ability. I also wanted to find out what kind of possibilities and restrictions the dogs could give to the education according to my informants but also to find out how the projects were financed. To be able to answer these questions I put together a qualitative study, I had four interviews with people that were involved in the projects in one way or the other. To analyse the empirical material I looked up different theories about teaching, communication, interaction and motivation.My results showed that both schools have applied the method of ?teaching dogs? as a form of resource for students with special needs.