This report is a qualitative study on children aged three to five years who are in the Swedish preschool. The purpose of the study is to investigate how five experienced preschool teachers view the way children between three and five years acquire basic mathematical concepts, basic numeracy and geometry. The aim is also to find out whether teachers feel that the size of the group of children affects their learning.The study contains information about what preschool teachers think about the way children learn mathematics and how the size of the group of children affects this learning. From the results it can be seen that children learn Mathematics, both in everyday situations and when playing. Moreover, the group size does not seem to affect the mathematical learning of the child.

This study discloses Swedish human service organizations and their methods of integrating unaccompanied children into the Swedish society. The purpose of the study is to investigate how social workers at HVB-homes for unaccompanied children depict their experience in and knowledge of how the unaccompanied children are integrated into Swedish society. The method of investigating the questions raised by the purpose of this thesis has been qualitative analysis of answers derived from interviewing personnel at HVB-homes for unaccompanied children. In doing so we have made use of a semi-structured method of interviewing the above-mentioned personnel. The data derived from these interviews has thereafter been analysed and filtered through the concept of integration and the theoretical formations human service organizations and street-level bureaucrats.

This essay, with the title: Among children, laser swords and lions. ? How do we approach and utilize the cultural experiences of children? is an approach to participate in a scientific discussion in the field of cultural experiences. This text is an attempt to show the importance of paying attention to, how children express themselves, and place their activities in social and cultural contexts. By doing so and approaching children and their activities with an intercultural point of view, I can use my new found knowledge and use it to stimulate their future learning progresses in different fields.

The purpose of this examination was to make a qualitative study focusing on children's influence from a gender perspective. The study is based on interviews. We wanted to investigate teachers' perception of children's influence in the preschool.Earlier research on children´s influence and gender has also helped us in the conclusion of this examination.The survey consists of ten interviews with teachers of varied work experience in the preschool. We also chose to interview teachers in other positions, since this is often the case in preschools today. From the result we can see that there are different levels of skill and awareness regarding the topic of children's influence from a gender perspective.

AbstractIn this work, I have chosen to write about children in grief. Since children in grief is a large area, I have chosen to focus on how preschool handles and works with children who has loosed a parent, siblings or a play-mate by death. The aim of this work is to contribute knowledge about how you in preschool can handle and work with children in grief. To get answers to my questions, I have studied the current literature in the field. I have also interviewed five people with experience and knowledge of work with preschool-children affected by grief.

AbstractThe purpose of the study was to examine if manual signs used as support to spoken and written language can be a god mnemonic for learning of word-pictures. I performed my study as an experiment in which I made a Memory game with word-pictures. I played the game with the children twice. The first time, we played without manual signs and the second time I used sign as a support. I observed the children and noted the words they learned to read with and without the support of manual signs.

The European Union's work on equal opportunities for women and men can be described historically in three eras; equal treatment, positive action and, most recently, the gender perspective. In accordance with the latter, gender mainstreaming is the latest method in dealing with these issues. Its aim is the implementation of the gender perspective in all policy processes and to challenge the male norm that permeates all decision making. EU:s work on equal opportunities, though, persists not only of gender mainstreaming but has a double approach also including special actions.This thesis bases its argumentation on discourse analysis of communications from the Commission regarding employment and social affairs. It argues that the two components of the double approach; gender mainstreaming and special actions, are incompatible and even becomes contra productive put together.

Different abilities are of importance to pragmatics, there among hearing. Hearing impairment can affect language development and also pragmatic ability. The aim of the present paper was to study the pragmatic ability in terms of request for clarification in children with Hearing Impairment (HI) in conversation with children with no known hearing impairment, henceforth normally hearing (NH). The present study also describes requests for clarification sequentially in detail, and also highlights points where there may be observable differences between children with and without hearing impairment. Eight conversational pairs consisting of one child with HI and one NH child were studied.

Undersökningen beskriver den matematiska kommunikationen mellan speciallärare och matematiksvaga elever. Den empiriska datan består av två matematiklektioner från år 9 i grundskolan. Datan analyserades för att finna olika typer av kommunikation.Lärarna var i många delar medvetna i sitt sätt att kommunicera med eleverna och undervisningsmiljön kändes trygg. Under lektionerna observerades två parallella språk, ett vardagsanknutet och ett matematiskt språk. Det framkom att ett tydligt förhållningssätt beträffande matematiskt språk kan underlätta för elevens inlärning samt medvetandegöra läraren om den kommunikativa betydelsen i undervisningen med styrdokumentens mål i fokus. .

The use of Internet by children and teenagers has become a special field of interest. Certain risks are associated with young peoples use of this media and national and international measures have been taken to assess and counter these risks.Library and informationscience have approached the subject of risks by looking at different software´s, so called Internet filters, that is used to control and censor the access to Internet based resources. In the USA, where public services and institutions that provide Internet resources to children and youth have started to require censorship of the Internet, a debate has arisen concerning the use of so called Internet filters.The theoretical basis of this master´s thesis is related to the conception of risk, gender and childhood. The focus of the paper lies on young peoples use of information and communication technology (ICT) and how risks associated with young peoples use of the Internet is constructed by different parties involved in supplying Internet resources. By means of a case study at a primary school in Skåne and at the company Netscan in Malmö.

This essay deals with the issue of children and stress, and the impact that stress can have on children. The purpose has been to explore how I, in my role as teacher, can prevent children from developing stress in preschool, and how I can prevent stress to develop inside of my own department. My essay is structured as follows: First, I describe my practical work with children. Then I analyze some research literature on stress, and finally I reflect over what I have described earlier and try to connect the practical with the theoretical.In the practical part of this essay I describe the various events that I have observed during my work in preschool, where I have seen how stress can affect both children and teachers. Then I describe how the increasing size of children?s groups can create stress because of the noisy environment of the department.

Gender is a universal factor that is unavoidable in classroom interaction between pupils and teachers. The principle aim of this essay is to illustrate whether, during the interaction between pupil and teachers still occurs behavior that expresses a gender order. We also want to establish if the ones who attract attention from the teachers is the individual, or if teachers still on a subconscious or conscious level, think of the pupils gender and ascribes him or her some characteristics or qualities. Especially we want to bring out the pupils thoughts and sights of there is a difference on how teachers treat boys and girls. Another purpose we wanted to achieve was to illustrate how teachers work with the concept of equivalence between the sexes, according to Lpo94.Our essay is built on our studies around what teachers think on how they treat the pupils, on the basis of gender perspective.

This study was designed to describe and understand how children perceive and explain mathematical situations. During our work based training we have met several students who have been insecure in the subject of mathematics and therefore come to think that it's difficult and boring. The questions we have asked ourselves are why and how this insecurity occurs. In preschools around the country teachers actively worked to create opportunities for children to meet and discover mathematics. The question is whether the teachers are aware of how children perceive mathematics and how children think in mathematical situations. We chose to conduct a qualitative study using different methods of data collecting in order to approach the children's world.

In this experience-based essay, I give examples of events that take place during a typical day at preschool. By highlighting these everyday events, I discuss around the parental role and its importance for children and child development. I apply a historical review when it comes to views on children and child rearing, and reflect on different approaches that we have towards the children. In the discussion, I reflect on the Childs need for boundaries, and thereby try to understand why we act differently in this respect. To gain more knowledge and understanding of the events I have taken help from theories in literature and from my own practical knowledge.

Objective: The aim of the study is to describe pupils' understanding of the mathematical concept of function. How do pupils define the concept of function? What images of the concept of function evoke when they solve tasks, which involve identifying and constructing functions?Theory: A student's thinking about a mathematical concept depends on more than just the formal definition of the concept; therefore Tall and Vinner introduce the term concept image to describe the role cognitive structures play when students learn about concepts. The cognitive structure includes all mental images, associated properties and processes that an individual associates with a given concept. According to Sfard, an individual's understanding of mathematical concepts may have different character: an operational conception, where a concept is conceived as a process and a structural conception, where the given concept is conceived as an object, that is, as a whole.Method: 16 pupils at the Science Program at two different upper secondary schools inSweden answered a questionnaire on the mathematical concept of function.