The aim with this masters thesis is to investigate how gender is presented in Swedish picture books, in order to give librarians and other actors in the field knowledge about what kind of books they supply impressionable children with. I investigate if and how the changes concerning gender-equality in the Swedish society during the last 25 years are reflected in childrens literature, and compare how men and women are portrayed in four books from the early 1980s with four books from the 2000s. My study is delimited to three aspects of character formation, introduced by Maria Nikolajeva: description of psychology, actions and relations to other characters. It is carried through by consultation of Yvonne Hirdmans theory of how men and women are held apart and that the man in this relation constitutes the norm as well as Nikolajevas list of typical male and female characteristics. By reading and interpreting the chosen books, I analyse both text and pictures.

Streams and riparian zone are closely linked by reciprocal flows of energy and nutrients. A large part of the transportation from water to land is in form of emerged aquatic insects. Conversion of land from forest to agriculture can greatly affect aquatic ecosystems, and due to the close link, also affect the adjacent terrestral zone. Investigating how the presence of agriculture in the surrounding area affects amounts of emergent aquatic insects gives an indication on how agriculture, in turn, may affect the terrestral enviroment. The study was preformed alongside ten streams in northern Sweden; five in landscape transformed by agriculture and five in undisturbed forest areas.

Today many children have limited experiences with the outdoors or nature. In most suburbs where people originate from many countries and have various ways of understanding nature is it perhaps in preschool that several children for the first time experience nature.This survey is qualitative and the main research methods are participant observations and interviews. The theories used in this study are mainly based on the thoughts of Dewey and Vygotskij as well as on ideas from outdoor education and different ways or ideas of understanding nature.The purpose with this study is to make clear in what ways nature is used by the teachers in preschool activities and how this work is done in preschools in multicultural suburbs. Questions at issue are: What way of understanding nature are the teachers trying to convey to the children? How is nature used in the ordinary outdoor activities by the preschool teachers? What are the teachers experiences of success and problems in this work?The conclusion is that nature is used in preschool activities in many ways.

The most common preventive and treatment service for children in child welfare services in Sweden is the contact family program. The number of children who are involved in the program has steadily increased. Usually it is a single mother who apply for or is offered this service. The aim with a contact family is that the parent should get respite and that the child should have its network enlarged and sometimes get a male role model.The purpose of this study was to look into how children´s perspective was considered in the contact family process. I have studied the process in order to see how it works and to see to what extent children is participating.

This thesis is about language planning in Faeroese libraries as seen from the countrys specific situation, with Faeroese as a mothers tongue, but with great dominance of the Danish language within media. The purpose of my thesis is to examine language planning activities within the library, and the consequences this planning has for the system. Different theories about language planning provides a framework for my model of the library as a linguistic eco-system with actors performing status planning, represented by the government with its influence in cultural politics, the librarian with his or her library tasks and the user with his or her needs. The thesis has a qualitative attempt, and the empirical material consists of different documents about the country and materials from interviews made with seven qualified librarians, employed within general libraries in the Faeroe Islands. The analysis shows that the librarian in different ways promotes the Faeroese language within library activities, and because of the attention paid to the user in the public library he/she influences the librarians planning.

Syftet med detta examensarbete är att undersöka pedagogers syn på deras arbetssätt med barns delaktighet och inflytande. För att uppnå vårt syfte har vi använt oss av följande frågeställning: ?Hur planerar fritidspedagoger sin undervisning utifrån barns delaktighet? För att undersöka arbetet så använder vi oss av kvalitativa intervjuer med fyra pedagoger på olika skolor. Alla pedagoger som vi intervjuade jobbar inom fritidsverksamheten. Vårt resultat visar att alla pedagogerna på de olika verksamheterna arbetar utifrån barnens intresse och delaktighet.

It is important to work with economic, social and ecological dimensions in order to reach sustainable development. Furthermore, these dimensions are supposed to work opon together. Green Flag´s aim is to process these dimensions in the thematic work in preschool, where children are involved. The aim of this study is to find out how certificated Green flag preschools work with the three dimensions in the education of sustainable development practically and how the children participate in this work. I have used a qualitative semi-structured interview to find out preschool teachers´ thoughts and opinions about how they work with sustainable development and how they make the children involved.

The purpose of this study is to investigate childrens possibilities to retrieve information by searching in searching engines designed for children. Two such search engines are examined: Yahooligans and Kids Click, both of which index pages in English only. I have compared Yahooligans with its equivalence for adults; Yahoo, by evaluating the retrieval effectiveness. Some functions in Kids Click and in Yahooligan are investigated. Seven class room studies are described in the prior research chapter.

   Under mina VFU-perioder har jag sett pedagoger genomföra högläsning i förskolan på olika sätt. Med den här studien ville jag undersöka dels hur pedagogerna planerade och genomförde en läsaktivitet och dels hur de tänkte och reflekterade om vad de gjorde i samma aktivitet. Studien genomfördes på fem olika förskolor i en medelstor stad i södra Sverige. Jag har vid besöket filmat och observerat en läsaktivitet vid var och en av förskolorna samt gjort en kvalitativ intervju med den pedagog som läste för barnen. Därefter har pedagogen reflekterat över sin egen insats och sett barnen reaktioner genom att studera filmen.Mitt resultat innehåller flera olika sätt att genomföra en läsaktivitet där pedagogerna hade varierande syften med läsningen.

This study is about how to develop younger teens problem solving ability and their social competence. The study carried through by using a qualitative method, two observations and ten interviews. The observations where preparatory for the structured interviews. The respondents where pupils in a class were it is an ongoing project which purpose is to develop childrens problem solving ability and social skills with cognitive training and an empowerment based reasoning model that is called rahyab. Rahyab is a Persian word and it means path- finding.

The aim of this thesis is to study preschool-teachers? experiences from using the computertablet as a tool for learning and teaching, in order to gain knowledge of how the integrationalprocess of information and communications technology (ICT) in preschool has progressedsince its instatement. The background that caused interest to make this study was the rapidprogression of the use of ICT-tools in childrens? everyday lives and the troubles that havesurrounded the process of integrating these tools into preschool-practices. The theoreticalbasis for the analysis of the research lies within the socio-cultural perspective.

This study is about how to develop younger teens problem solving ability and their social competence. The study carried through by using a qualitative method, two observations and ten interviews. The observations where preparatory for the structured interviews. The respondents where pupils in a class were it is an ongoing project which purpose is to develop childrens problem solving ability and social skills with cognitive training and an empowerment based reasoning model that is called rahyab. Rahyab is a Persian word and it means path- finding.

Polaris Eyewear is one of the world's leading companies in innovative eyeweardesign. My assignment has been to, in collaboration with them, expand their range with a pair of children's glasses, while maintaining the innovative character they are so known for.The problem with childrens eyewear today is that most of the time the glasses tries to mimic the adult eyewear and the ?childish? type of designing is spared. From an ergonomic point of view, a child's nose is smaller than an adults and therefore needs a different type of shape and nosebridge. In addition, children have softer ears, which means that they need a different type of shaftend as well.

 The aim of this study was to examine how social workers perceive and interpret the term ?barnets bästa? (?The best for the child?), within the framework of investigatory work and enforcement of Swedish law, which is carried out by the Social Services. We wanted to investigate if the interpretation of the term had any causal effects on the work carried out by social workers. Seven social workers from two municipalities participated in this study in which we used qualitative semi-structured interviews based around two vignettes. We focused on age, experience, legislation, and external circumstances to gain insight into how these factors alter social workers? perception of the term ?barnets bästa?. Our theoretical approach was based on two theories on social constructivism.

In this thesis I investigate what librarians working with children do for six-year-olds at the libraries in order to stimulate them to read. I also investigate how children of this age read and what books are like for these beginners. The background for the thesis is that reading decreased a lot in ages three to eight during the 1980s and 1990s. My aim is to see what projects, methods and other strategies there are to get children to read. The method used is case study.