The outdoor environment is the first thing you notices when you come to a pre-school and it also plays an important part in the development of children, their play and meeting their large motor needs. It is important that the outdoor playground is stimulating and inviting.My goal is to examine if the outdoor environment plays any role in the development of children and their interest in nature. What kind of thoughts do teachers and parents have about outdoor play, and is there a developmental goal for the children as well as what role do the teachers play in reaching these goals. In my work I want to show how an outdoor environment should be formed to help educationally as well as be safe and not least of all fun to be in..

The aim of this study is to increase knowledge and understanding of free play or free fun time importance for children of age around five years in preschool, in order to promote children?s development and learning. The focus was on exploring and better understanding of teacher?s and educators? approach to the free fun play time as a tool in their educational work, and also about their own role in this context as well as analyzing of forms, rules and structures spontaneously created by groups of children having free play fun time. Another important moment of this study was to give more light on approaches to this issue in education theories by Piaget, Vygotsky and Freud among others.As to the practical experimental part of the study it has been performed at a preschool and kindergarten in a suburb at the outskirts of Stockholm, with four employed educators there and with groups of children of age around five.

The purpose of my study is to investigate teacher?s perceptions of their mission in the preschool class, and how they work to promote children?s written language development. What methods and working methods they use to awaken curiosity and motivate children to read and write. I am using the qualitative research method to get answers to my questions. I have made four qualitative interviews with four teachers in preschool classes from different schools.My questions are:What conceptions does teachers have about their mission in a preschool class?What different methods and approaches does teachers use to stimulate and wake children?s curiosity for reading and writing development?The theoretical basis for my study is the socio-cultural perspective, where learning occurs in interaction.

The aim of this study is through a teacher perspective illustrate and analyze how preschool teachers apprehend children´s learning in relation to the preschool yard.The main research questions asked were:How do preschool teachers apprehend the preschool yard in reference to it as a place?In what way do preschool teachers use the preschool yard in their work with the children?How do preschool teachers view the preschool yard and the significance it has on children´s learning?The research is based on data collected through interviews and observations at four different preschools in the same municipality. The research views place and people as social constructions, a theory of knowledge that is based on the view that the world, places and people are constructed in relation to each other. This perspective as well as previous research is used for analyzing the data collected through a qualitive study based on interviews. The data analyzed show that the preschool teachers involved in this research apprehend the preschool yard as a central part in the learning of young children.

The purpose of this study was to examine how SOS Children's Villages as an organization in Swaziland is affected by, and takes into account, the cultural, organizational and societal context in which it acts. Material was gathered through a field study during one month in one of the three SOS Children's Villages in Swaziland. The study has a qualitative approach and is based on the result from 12 semi-structured interviews with village mothers and other representatives from the organization. The other representatives were: social worker, program director, child and youth development coordinator, board member and educational manager. Since this study is both characterized by a specific historical, cultural and organizational context, we decided to connect the postcolonial perspective with an organization theory with focus on the concepts of culture, power and a children?s right perspective.

Abstract The purpose of the study is to examine how children perceive the relation between play and sex and analyse it from a gender perspective. This by answering the questions: "Is the children?s choice of place, materials and company in play dependent on gender?" and "Is there a significant difference between the sexes and/or ages?" The study was done through twelve focusgroup interviews with three children in each group except two groups of two children in each. Eight boys and nine girls of six years old and nine boys and eight girls of nine years old were interviewed. Boys and girls were interviewed in separate groups and the questions were open ended and followed up.

In what way were children in the 1930s and 1940s mean to each other, in which ways did theytease and bully one another? And what were the adults part, how did they react to thechildrens spite towards each other and did they do anything to stop it?These are the questions which have been addressed in this essay. In the answers given to us,by a survey in which 42 persons born in the 1920s and 1930s were asked, we have learned,that during the 1930s and 1940s when these children went to school, bullying did'nt occure asmuch. Not as they can remember today.We have also learned that it was mostly boys who were bullied, both mentaly and physical,with punches, being pushed, being laughed at and by being forced to do things they did notwant to do, such as stealing.The most common reasons for being bullied was that the children came from poor families,had ragged clothes, where dirty or had a physical disease such as cronical bronchitis.There where not many children who talked about being bullied with a teacher and the surveytells us that they didn't had any supervisors on the school yard.A number of the questioned answered that they thought that teachers had favourite students inthe classroom and they tell us stories in which teachers used corporal punishment, which waslegal at this time..

The aim of the thesis was to better understand how second language learners becomes lingual participants in a Swedish preschool. Using the following research questions: In what situations are SLLs lingual participants at the preschool? What does their emerging language look like? Are the participation any different considering children's time in the new L2 context? What kind of support does SLLs receive at the preschool?Two focal children at the same preschool was studied with ethnography of communication as method. The focal children chosen were one girl (Mandarin L1, 4.0 yrs) who arrived to Sweden and started the preschool two months ago at the time of the study, the other a boy (Serbian L1, 3.9 yrs) who started preschool and learning the L2 one year and two months before the study. Situations where the focal children interacted with other children or adults were analyzed. Results showed that the focal children in interaction with each other understands some of the others intentions before being able to speak about them in the L2.

Thirteen percent of the Swedish children declare that they have been beaten by their parents or other adults. While interviewing these children it has been discovered that they want adults to talk to them more about the violence they have experienced. Through intense research the understanding of the importance of asking patients about violence has deepened, during the last years and this year a new Swedish law has been instituted about the matter. The Swedish school nurses work shall be health promoting and preventive, due to the Swedish law about schooling. In this work the school nurses have an institutionalized task in performing health consultations with every one of the Swedish children.

This thesis is a critical discourse analysis of the vision of Malmös contemporary urban development. By analysing official documents produced by Malmö municipality our aim is to make discursive and sociolcultural practices in the constitution and construction of the city visible and problematicize them. To do so we use critical discourse analysis and theories on Urban Studies. Malmö is a city historically labeld as a ?labour- city?, with heavy industry as its main labourmarket.

In my essay the dilemmas originate from what I have experienced. I have observed myself and some of my colleagues, how we meet children who are lacking the qualifications which school and most pedagogues expect them to have. Focus, in my written experiences, is on children who live in poverty, but how we meet and act toward them is often quite the same independent of what qualifications they are lacking. With the support from literature and theories I reflect and analyse the dilemmas. Through essaywriting I investigate my practical knowledge and I examine how we as pedagogues handle the complex situations encounter when in school and how it is possible to understand why we act the way we do.I think that the knowledge which essaywriting gives me will strengthen me as a person and in my work as a teacher for after-school-center.

In Sweden over 10.000 patients annually, mostly children, undergo tonsillar surgery. The most common surgical method is total removal of the tonsil, tonsillectomy (TE). During the last decade partial tonsil resection, tonsillotomy (TT), has been reintroduced and is associated with lower primary morbidity and less postoperative pain. The aim of the present study was to evaluate if and to what extent 4-5 year old children?s voice function are affected by tonsillar hypertrophy compared to controls and to study the effects of the two surgical techniques on vocal function.

Knowledge of ecological processes are a basis for the understanding of important environmental issues. Through qualitative interviews, 8 preschool class pupils have replied to questions concerning the concept nature, disintegration and environment. The aim of this survey was to examine what attitudes and knowledge children with different pedagogical background have about the nature and the environment.The result of this survey in whole demonstrates that all pupils have good and equivalent knowledge of the nature and the environment, independently of their different pedagogical backgrounds. A difference was however that children that have background from ?I Ur och Skur? (a Swedish outdoors preschool program) know the names of all small bugs that were in the survey.

Background: An increasing number of operations on children are performed as day surgery and this experience of health care may affect future hospital stays. The aim of this qualitative study was to describe children´s experiences in connection with day surgery. Method: Ten children aged six to fifteen who had gone through general anesthesia at examinations or surgery were interviewed and the content was analyzed by systematic text condensation. Result: The core category ?From uncertainty to relief with newly acquired experience? could summarize the result of this interview study.

The purpose of this study is to highlight some aspects of the increased usage of tablets in preschool environments by answering the questions: what does the tablet become in the preschool environment, how much freedom does the children have over its usage.To answer these questions a series of observations were made at two different preschools. The observations were then complemented by interviews with teachers at the same preschools.This qualitative study focuses on some of the didactic questions regarding the tablets, based on a theoretical framework that is within the design-oriented perspective; which addresses the children's? autonomy, the institutional framework and affordance.Our conclusion is that the tablet?s introduction in the preschool has helped the teachers in numerous parts of their documentation, but we can also see that the children's opportunities to make choices regarding the tablet are more limited than with any other resource on the preschool. In our results we also see that when the children get access to the tablet they receive a learning experience, which among other things, strengthens their language skills and their social interaction with each other..