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 purpose with my degree project is to investigate the use of computers within the daily activity in three preschools and one preschool class. I have designed a survey that I distributed to the staff. The purpose of my work is to investigate how a number of preschool teachers and children in a few preschools and one preschool class in a medium-sized Swedish town are using the computer in their activities.My study shows that the computer is frequently used, both of the children and teachers, but also together. The children in my study are using the computer to play games, listen to music, and go into the websitewww.youtube.com, but also in order to write and count.  The teachers primarily use the computer to document, check their e-mail and listen to music.

In this essay, I have examined what has been studied and presented in the theory of ICT in schools. I have based my theory on Arne Trageton?s book Att skriva sig till läsning ? IKT i förskoleklass och skola (2005) and theories on children?s reading and writing development.The purpose of this study is to determine how teachers and children experience teaching with Trageton?s ICT-based model Att skriva sig till läsning and whether the model is beneficial for children's first reading and writing.Through qualitative interviews with two pedagogues from the same school and some children from first grade, I have received answers to my two questions:How do pedagogues and children experience ICT-based teaching in the context of children's first reading and writing?How do pedagogues experience the reading and writing development in first- and second-language students when using ICT-based teaching?The results showed that both pedagogues and children were positive about the model in which the computer was used as a writing tool in learning to read and write. The teachers felt that the model was suitable for all children according to their conditions.The children saw the writing as very enjoyable. For the ICT-based teaching to work properly, the technology has great significance.

A current issue today is to try to implement creative design as a way to solve wicked problems in scientific contexts such as HCI. Since the problems are wicked, they have no given solution which makes the traditional methods inadequate. In these cases, creative design can be an alternative. Creative design is not used in scientific contexts because it is viewed as something unaccountable.In this essay we argue that creative design not necessarily have to be unaccounted. We discuss various views of creative design and translate theory to a practical context.

My final essay is a design proposal for a schoolyard that pertains to the senses. The proposal consists of an illustration plan and this paper. The design proposal takes start in sense stimulation to create a varied environment. The title leads to the concept ?surprisingly predictable?.

The purpose of my study was to explore how preschool educators in Kenya look at children's influence on teaching. Researchers have argued that the formal educational system in Kenya today is a remnant of its days as a colony when people were expected to blindly follow rules without questioning them. I have used qualitative interviews as a method in order get the most concrete understanding of educators? views on the influence from children. The educators I interviewed were based at a school I visited in Kenya.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to examine and analyze what discourses about children that can be found in three Swedish culture publications, and also to identify the different social roles that are attributed to children in these publications. The theoretical and methodological background is discourse theory, as described by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Additional theory used is social constructionism and Norman Fairclough?s critical discourse theory. Three questions are asked: What discourse/s can be found in these publications? What do these discourses tell us about the view on children within the library domain? What social roles are attributed to the children in the texts and what consequences do these have for the power configuration between children and adults? Furthermore there is a discussion concerning what effects these discourses might have on the direct and indirect reception of children in the library.

The main purpose of the study was to collect normative data for Lundamaterialet,revised version, divided into phonology and grammar, for childrenaged 4:6-5:11. Another aim was to explore how children aged 3:0-5:11 had acquiredprepositions and different forms of comparison. 195 children with typicallanguage development participated. The children were divided into six groups,116 children from the three oldest groups participated in the normative data. Theresults showed an increasing mean value with age for both phonology and grammar.The older children had acquired the prepositions and the forms of comparisonbetter than the younger ones.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to obtain greater understanding of how children relate to the film medium and their experiences. This is obtained by listening to the children and observing their verbal and nonverbal communication in two focus group interviews. Children?s access to and selection of film are due to adult?s restrictions.

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.

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.

The purpose of this essay is to find an answer to whether the methodology used by the Naturskolan conduces to learning and also if the Naturskolan, as a method of its own, leads to an increased interest in natural science for the pupils participating in the classes at the Naturskolan.The method which has been used to reach the results of the study is a quantitative opinion poll. The results reached through the study has been compared to previous research in the subject. Deeper studies were made to examine however the interest of the pupils was influenced by their visit at the Naturskolan.The results of the study show an increase of interest in natural science after visiting the Naturskolan. It also shows that the teachers? interest in natural science and outdoor pedagogy has increased by the visit at the Naturskolan.Through this study we came to the conclusion that the Naturskolan is a good method to learning..

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.