Abstract The objective of our study was to get knowledge about how teachers think when they make purchases to preschool. Do they consider making environmentally conscious purchases? Do they work actively to transfer environmental consciousness to the children?We chose to interview nine preschool teachers and one cook in two different local municipalities. Our investigation showed that there was a very low engagement in these issues. The teachers said that they were very strictly bound to already existing public contracts and did not see any possibilities to influence the preschools consumption.The teachers hade no idea that not only their work could result in environmental savings in the school, but also result in attitudes changes among the children, their parents and, in the long term, society in general.

In primary school reading-books in Swedish language is something that students come across early in school and have done ever since the 1800s. After World War II there have been major changes in society. 1962 there was a school reform where the school turned into a nine-year system of compulsory education. That is why it is interesting to see what reading books contain with regard to notions of children, family and class and how the developments have been from the 1950s until the present time. This study aims to analyze and compare the different aspects of how notions of children, family and class are produced in the reading books for primary school for pupils in third grade, between 1950 and 2009.The research questions were:What are the notions of children, family and class in the reading-books?What differences/similarities exist in the reading books from the 1950s to the  recent decades?What could be the reason?I have chosen to apply qualitative text analysis originating in idea analysis.

Title: Are we born gifted or can we learn and teach our children to be musically interested? The aim of this study is to evaluate how we influence the development of musicality in children. The study included 30 persons divided into three groups (ten members in each group). Group 1 consisted of pregnant women. Group 2 consisted of parents of babies age 0 to 1 year old and group 3 teenage parents.

AbstractThe aim of this study was to examine whether there are differences in Sense of Coherence between people in monotonous and non ? monotonous jobs with regard to birth order. In this present study, 89 individuals from three different working organizations participated, of which 51 (57, 3 %) of them were men and 38 (42, 7 %) women. The results showed that in varying occupations, firstborn children showed a higher level of Sense of Coherence. In monotonus jobs, middle children prove to have the lowest level of Sence of Coherence.

I have together with Frimeko AB developed new hallway furniture for preschools. The background to the project is the fact that all the existing hallway furniture?s on the market today have a similar design and same features. None of the furniture stands out immediately. Companies who work with school furniture in general have been inspired by each other, and therefore is the collections monotonous.

AbstractThe purpose of this essay was to investigate what thoughts children in preschool and preschool class have about friendship. We also want to investigate what characteristics and which strategies they look for in friendship relationships.  To perform this study we used the following questions as a starting point. Which characteristics do children see as attractive in their cultures?How are friendship relationships affected in different contexts?Can one see a difference in the most important characteristics and strategies between the children in preschool and the children in preschool class? To answer our questions and to reach our purpose we have held group interviews with children in preschool and in preschool class.  We have, in our study, used published scientific literature to get an understanding of what has been presented in relation to this topic in the past.The result shows that the children in preschool and preschool class do differ in certain aspects but also have some similarities on ideas about friendship. Both preschool children and the children in the preschool class are highly competent and skilled at integrating with other children. What divides them is their ways to plan their friendship.

The aim with this study is to study how young children?s influence expresses itself in some educators? stories about their work with children. The study also looks at the relations between pedagogues? approaches to children and aims at identifying the educator?s perspectives of children. To get to know more about this I have interviewed five pedagogues who work with children in the ages of 3-6 years in different fields at a preschool area in India.The result shows that childrens? influence and participation for the educators involves children selecting activities.

Background: The health of children and youth has decreased the last two decades. The Swedish government has decided to back a national plan for parenting support. The municipality of Tjörn is a part of national parental support project to identify the need and to improve the parental support in the municipality. Purpose: The purpose with this study was to identify experience and need of parental support among fathers with more than one child on Tjörn. Method: Five individual qualitative interviews were conducted with the fathers.

AbstractThe project "Sound and Play" have been implemented in collaboration with the toy company BRIO in Malmo. The purpose of the project was to examine whether and how BRIO in the future could develop toys around sound for Toddlers.The problem formulations that would be answered after completion of the project was "How could BRIO broaden its product range with the help of audio toys?", "How can you combine toys and sounds in an interesting way for children?", "How do you create a toy with sound that is fun for the child, but not annoying for parents?". Currently BRIO only has two toys with sound in this age group.The expression of the toy was going to be a mix of classic and cool and the overall feeling of the toy was going to be explorative and arouse curiosity in the child. This feeling would be communicated through simplicity and joy.

This essay covers the subject of children with language disorders. We are two educators writing an experience-based essay on our preschool experiences and the literature with the subject of speaking disorders and verbal development. The main focus of this essay is how educators can recognize and stimulate children with language disorder. The starting point in the essay is two experience-based events from preschool which tells of two different boys, aged three and four. Both boys have some kind of verbal disorder and one of them also has Down´s syndrome.

This study aims to examine how families that during a long time have lived with neuropsychiatric disabilities have experienced their contact with different authorities. The study builds on qualitative interviews with two young people and five parents, from four different families. Focus in the paper lies mainly on the families' experiences of the school and different care sectors.The result shows that there is a great number of aspects as lack of information, lack of knowledge, dislodges between different authorities lack of support from school and care sectors, incorrect medication and shortage of long-term plans for treatment, which the families experienced as problematic. These aspects have also brought dramatic consequences that have strengthened the disabilities' negative effects.The result also shows that the parents are very active and bears a great responsibility for the child's health. The parents are in large extent alone in search for care, arranging meetings, searching for information, taking care of the children's medication etc.

Abstract The purpose of this work is to investigate children?s perception of Swedish birds. Through qualitative questions there were twelve children interviewed. I showed the pictures for the children of different animals that we discussed but with focus on birds. The children could partly distinguish which of the pictures that represented birds and who did not.

Under the hawks wingsDistribution and sorting at the upptagningshem in Sandsbro between the years 1933-1935This paper aims to study a so called ?upptagningshem? in Sandsbro, Sweden during theperiod 1933 to 1935. All the children during those three years were enrolled in theupptagningshem is included in the study, a total of 101 children. The main sources studied areprimary sources obtained from the county archive in Kronoberg which is shown in aquantitative method with the thesis that the upptagningshem works according to YeheskelHasenfelds ?people-processing technologies?, which acts as a sorting device which meanscategorizing and classifying activities where different kinds of people are sorted and based onthe results taken care of, by appropriate other organization that can provide the rightresources.

Information and communication technologies (ICT) are constantly evolving in today's information society. The school uses ICT as a teaching tool and it begins to be included at the leisure-time in school by the educators.Aim of this study is to examine how educators describe their perceptions and experiences of using ICT in the leisure activities. The questions is about how the educators use ICT, what they believe children learn of ICT, and which advantages and disadvantages they see with ICT at leisure-time in school.Through a qualitative approach, I have had my questions answered by six trained educators, five of whom are recreational educators and one who is a preschool teacher. These have individually answered my interview questions as an interview took place over a phone call, while the others answered the same questions by e-mail. The interview questions were open-ended questions that were formulated so the educators could respond so freely and fulfilling as possible.The survey shows that teachers use ICT in multimodal approach at leisure-time in school, both in informing parents and in activities with the children.

My intention with this paper was to investigate how the teachers in pre-school thinks about the physical environment in pre-school. Both the significance for the pedagogical activity and the children?s involvement in the design. I have done five interviews with pre-school teachers. The result shows that the pre-school teachers consider that the size of the premises and the availability to the material is important factors for children?s development and learning.