Integration policies have failed to make diversity into anything more than occupying the same physical space. People of different cultural background still do not share their lives to any real extent. Attempts made within planning and landscape architecture to catalyst the integration process have mainly been focused on structural measures, such as residential policies. As for outdoor environments, non-verbal casual encounters in the shape of crossing paths are assumed to lie at the heart of urban social integration.The aim of the thesis is to question this assumption and, as the thesis will show, there is literature supporting this aim. Looking at the works of Gordon Allport, Lewis Coser and some of their followers, I find intercultural contact to require more complex ways of interaction in order to reduce prejudice and to generate tolerance and understanding.

Unaccompanied children that arrives in Sweden are usually placed in homes for care and residence, called HVB. It is the municipality's responsibility to provide adequate care and protection for the children. The aim of the study is to examine how a workgroup on a HVB home for unaccompanied children is working to meet the needs of the children, and how the workgroup improves the children?s integration process. The study also aims to examine the emotional labour of the workgroup, which illustrates how they can manage their own emotional behavior when working with the unaccompanied children.The study is based on a qualitative approach with detailed descriptions of five semi-structured interviews with the workgroup and assistant managers.

Abstract The purpose of this degree project is to examine what impact working with physical objects has on children?s learning process concerning addition. We want to explore what addition strategies can be exercised using the game ?Twice as much?. We have observed children in school year 1.

This study is an evaluation of the school Liljanskolan, which is a ?therapy-school? for children between the ages of seven and twelve with psychosocial problems. These problems can concern difficulties interacting with adults as well as children, acting out, difficulty concentrating and anxiety. Liljanskolan has a high number of professionals, both teachers and treaters, and few children. The aim of the study was to increase the understanding of how children that have attended Liljanskolan have progressed during their time at the school with focus on their behaviour in school, ability to interact with adults and children, anger management and self-confidence.

The purpose of this essay was to look into whether any attention is paid to the biological children in foster families when the investigation about foster home is made. I did some qualitative interviews with six foster home-investigators, working in five different municipalities. Some of the main questions have been: Do the investigator meet the biological children during an investigation? Are the children´s opinions taken into consideration? Is the suitability of a foster home judged even from the biological children´s perspective?It was shown that it could happen that a foster home was not approved, if it for some reasons should be a negative experience for the biological children, if a foster child would be placed in their home. All the six persons in my interviews thought that it is important to take the biological children´s opinions into consideration, and that the family is not suitable to be a foster home if not all of the family members have a positive attitude.

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.

This dissertation is about children in a district in Malmö, Sweden that is called Rosengård. This district is known for its high amount of immigrants and foreigners and all the children interviewed for the study are foreigners.We wanted to bring out their story, how they experience the cultures they are in touch with, the Swedish culture that they live in and their foreign culture that they experience at home with their parents. How do these children socialize into the Swedish culture while living in a district that is hardly exposed to it? We have been working from a different perspective, this due to the fact that we have both grown up in Rosengård and are still currently living here. Therefore our perspective is more from the inside, we can relate to the children?s stories and we can tell about it in a way that seems more natural.These children are not more different than other children, they have the same interests and hobbies as is considered to be ?fashionable? in youth culture today.

In the centre of Bromma, east of Brommaplan is the part of Bromma named Riksby. Riksby was built in the early 1940:s as a part of the westward expansion of Stockholm. Other places that were built at the same time was for ex. Stora Mossen and Abrahamsberg. This work is about the outdoor environment of the housing co-operative of Brickbandet.

The purpose of this essay is to examine different conceptions of God children express in speech and image. The essay also concern how children's images of God are shaped in a secular and pluralistic society, such as Sweden. The children included in the investigation are in first and third grade in middle-sized Swedish town's primary school. In the essay, two methods are used, which is picture analysis and qualitative interviews. The material consists of 47 children's drawings and a smaller selection of interviews with the child's drawing as a starting point.

The aim of this research is to develop a better understanding of how preschool-teachers respond to children in preschool, when they show that they want to have some influence. I have concentrated this study on how the preschool-teachers respond to the children in the gatherings and when the children are playing freely indoors, where the questions at issue are:How do the preschool-teachers respond to the children?s initiative for participation in the gathering and while playing freely?There have been four preschool-teachers and 14 children who have taken part in this study. The children who took part are in the ages of three to five. The study was done at a section in a preschool in middle Sweden.The method used in this study is unstructured observations.

The study which has been made is a qualitative observational study where play forms and participation of adults were observed in two preschools. The word play is defined in the study with an ?as-if? ?nature based on Knutsdotters definition which differs play and activities from each other. The observed play form has been analyzed according to the concept of imitation and imagination play. To get a complete base of the study a few children on some occasions drew what they played or would like to play.Through photographs of these drawings and how the children described and explained what they drew a connection could be made with the children?s play forms.

The purpose of this study was to create an environment that stimulates children?s communication via language in a preschool called ?The Flower?. The environment should encourage and challenge the children to interact and communicate more with each other. That in turn will further the children?s language acquisition.

Studies among parents of children with disabilities have shown that they experience a higher level of parenting stress as well as a lower degree of wellbeing, compared to parents of children without disabilities. However, there is a need to further explore parents? experience on this matter within a Swedish context. The aim of the current study was to examine how parents of preschool children, with and without disabilities, in Västerbotten, experience the impact of their child. A sample of 67 parents of children with disabilities and 134 parents of children without disabilities took part in the questionnaire study.

This is a qualitative study that explores how bilingual children develop their language through play. The study is based on observations and interviews conducted in a preschool located in a multicultural area of Stockholm.The purpose of using two qualitative methods; observations and interviews, was to get a bigger picture of the study area. The results of the study, illustrated through observations and interviews that I have conducted, shows that the game has great role for bilingual children's language development. Furthermore, the results show that the informants are aware of the importance of play for bilingual children's language development especially when they are talking about investing in the promotion of children's language by using different methods and materials in their pre activity for various games and activities.One of my conclusions is that bilingual children learn the language during both free play and structured play especially when educators are present and aware of the activities that they perform. It is also important to see children as individuals to cover all the needs of children at different activities.

The purpose of this study was to create an environment that stimulates children?s communication via language in a preschool called ?The Flower?. The environment should encourage and challenge the children to interact and communicate more with each other. That in turn will further the children?s language acquisition.