A change has occurred in terms of recruitment to teacher education. From having been an educationof high status and reputation, a reduced application rate has led to lower admission requirementsand thus that students with much lower educational qualifications entering, which in turn means thatthe education status and reputation have been reduced significantly. Mathematics, on the other hand,has always been a topic of high status and reputation. Although there are few students who chooseto study to be a mathematics teacher. By conducting a survey of students on teacher educationtoday, both with mathematics and other approaches, I wanted to get answers to my questions aboutwhat influences students' choice of education: who are the students studying to be teachers inmathematics? Do they distinguish themselves from the student teachers who studies to be teachersin other subject specializations? Pierre Bourdieu's sociological ideas about cultural capitaltransmitted from parent to child constitute the theoretical framework of the study.Early in the study, I noticed that there is a difference between students studying to be a teacher inpreschool, primary or middle school and them studying to be a teacher in secondary and highschool, especially in terms of the mathematics student teachers.

In Sweden there is an integration policy and a policy for national minorities. The integration policy aims to integrate newly arrived immigrants (nyanlända invandrare), whereas the minority policy aims to maintain and strengthen the rights of the national minorities. The national minorities are though, at times, included into the integration policy, even though they hold a minority status in Sweden. This paper aims to, through discourse analysis, investigate the research question: ?how is the content of integration referred to, when it is related to immigrants, contra when it is related to national minorities?.

The purpose of this paper was to look into how the individual has been portrayed in the different curriculums for Swedish compulsory school from the 60?s to the 90?s. This was done in order to see what type of discourse ?monocultural- multicultural- or intercultural- the understanding of the individual has led to.The purpose was divided into five questions: Who is the individual in the curriculums? How is the individual portrayed in relation to education in the curriculums? How is the individual portrayed in relation to society in the curriculums? What type of discourse - monocultural- multicultural- or intercultural- is mirrored in the different curriculums? Is it possible to see tendencies in the discourses that lead closer to, or farther away from, an intercultural perspective? The material that was analysed consists of four different curriculums: Lgr 62, Lgr 69, Lgr 80, and Lpo 94.The method used was a discourse analytic approach based on the theory of social constructionism. The answers to the questions asked were structured with the support from definitions of monocultural discourse, multicultural discourse, and intercultural discourse, derived from Pirjo Lahdenperäs (2008) descriptions of different organizational cultures.The main conclusion drawn from this analysis was the fact that the intercultural discourse about the individual has not been obtained.

The purpose of this paper was to discuss stigma and stigmatisation in relation to social policy and social work. By discussing welfare systems in social policy I wanted to see if there could be any connection between social policy and stigma. I used case studies of hearing impaired adults to give examples of how the stigma processes work. By connecting the stigma and the social policy theories with the case studies I wanted to see how the social policy could affect the stigma processes or vice versa.In the paper the concept of stigma has been described and discussed, foremost using the theories of Erving Goffman. I have also discussed the welfare system and the connection between residual systems and stigma.

The common asylum and migration policy of the European Union is a struggle between a strong belief in the protection of human rights and the need of strong and secured borders. This paper highlights the dilemma that occurs in the common asylum and migration policy of the European Union. What happens when the union have to choose between liberal standards with high priorities to human rights and a realistic focus on security? The aim is to study the asylum policy presented in the Stockholm Program, and thereafter evaluate what kind of character the union has itself. By an ideal type analysis of the Stockholm program from 2009, the common asylum policy is divided into either liberal or realistic ideas.

The purpose of the present paper is to examine the political debate on the education of newly arrived immigrant pupils at secondary school age. The following issues are under scrutiny:What are the goals, expressed by politicians during the examined periods, for the education of newly arrived pupils?What ideas about education and what educational ideals can be observed in the political debate on the education of newly arrived pupils?Has there been any change, during the examined period, in the policy debate on the education of newly arrived pupils?The research material consists of reports and statements of the Education Committee, as well as a number of parliamentary protocols. Two five-year periods, 1971-1975 and 2006-2010, are studied and compared. All in all, the material consists of 23 documents issued during these periods.

Different reports imply that the Roma are an excluded group in numerous areas of both Sweden and Europe. Efforts have been done through the centuries without given intentional results. The past 12 years as a Swedish national minority have not diminished the gap between the Roma and the majority society. How does Sweden create and operate its minority policy especially towards the Roma? We have studied international and national minority policy to see how it is described and implemented in the municipality work.

AbstractWhat do the pupils really learn in school? What do the pupils know before they begin schooland what knowledge do they have when they graduate form 5 and should have achieved thegoals? I chose to interview some pupils in the end of nursery school and some pupils in theend of form 5. To limit myself I chose the subject space, because I think most pupils thinkthat space is an interesting subject. The result of my examination was that pupils in nurseryschool have many different thoughts and previous knowledge about space, often on the basisof what they have seen themselves, and that some of the pupils in form 5 have some moredeveloped knowledge while some pupils still got the skill as a nursery school pupil. Myexamination shows that some pupils have learned surprisingly little, bearing in mind that theyhave been in school for five years..

In this thesis, we have analyzed the Swedish debate about whether to impose a national canon, and make it compulsory in school curricula. Cecilia Wikström, a Liberal MP in Sweden, made the suggestion in July 2006, and the focus of our analysis is the subsequent debate during July and August 2006. Our materials are polemical articles from three Swedish newspapers, which we have examined to find the main ideas and arguments behind the various standpoints. Three issues have been our main focus; first, we have analyzed which concepts of culture the various debaters have used, where we have seen a difference between an anthropological and an aesthetical concept, but, surprisingly, found that there isn?t a very strong correlation between an aesthetical concept of culture and being pro-canon, or between an anthropological concept of culture and being anti-canon.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine the ideological currents that have influenced the swedish school system since the 1990's. The background of my interest is the lively debate in schools and media about the new School reform 2011. My hypothesis is that education in 2011 largely will be influenced by neoliberal and neoconservative values. The method I`ve used is discourse and ideology critique, which examines the relationship between rhetoric and power. These concepts are useful to explain the ideological change in different policy documents and in curricula, for example Lpf 94 and School 2001. The theoretical framework is based primarily on the neoliberal and the neoconservative agenda, which are two distinct political rationalities in the contemporary postmodern world.

The purpose of this study was to gain a clearer picture of how after-school-care teachers? work with fundamental values in after-school care, both practically and theoretically based on the curriculum Lgr 11. I wanted to acquire a broader understanding of the school's core values and what kinds of tools teachers used to cope with their task. I proceeded with two questions:How does after-school care proactively work with core values based on gender, ethnicity and class?How does the work on value issues at after-school care centers compare with Lgr 11?In my study, I used literature studies and a qualitative analysis of five interviews with afterschool care teachers.

The aim of this paper is to research and discuss the role the cultural politics play for the Swedish employment office (Arbetsförmedlingen) and the meaning culture politics have within the labour market policy. A research has shown that Arbetsförmedlingen evaluates unemployed cultural workers differently than regular registered jobseekers. From an instrumental perspective on political implementation this can be considered as an anomali. Arbetsförmedlingen?s mandate derives from the government and its authority is a tool for carrying out state policy.

AbstractThe aim of the study was to examine how a school team works with formative assessment in compulsory school for pupils with intellectual disabilities. The study had a particular focus on formative assessment in relation to pupils with moderate and severe intellectual disabilities. Since there is a lack of research within the field of formative assessment and pupils with moderate and severe disabilities this study may contribute to new knowledge in this field. A sociocultural perspective has been used as a theoretical framework. A central concept in the sociocultural perspective is that people develop knowledge in interaction with other people and that communication and language is important.  The methodical framework was inspired by an ethnographic approach and the empirical material was concocted by participatory observations and by interviews.

Purpose: This thesis aims to study how students in upper secondary school evaluate sources in their everyday school work and how the role of the school library and librarian officiate in this context.Methodology: A web questionnaire was conducted and 155 students from different schools, with or without school library and school librarian, participated. We coded and aggregated the questionnaires according to the strategies that are used when evaluating sources, identified by Francke, Sundin and Limberg. Cognitive authority, a theory by Patrick Wilson, was also a part of our analysis. Conclusions: The study shows that students use different strategies, separately or combined, as a way to evaluate sources. The teacher is regarded as a cognitive authority and is the main influence concerning source evaluation. It also shows that the role of school libraries and school librarians, in this context, seem to be non-existent.

The aim of this paper is to study if implementation of a school library management system called FreeLib has created favourable conditions for the school librarians to cooperate with other professions and become a more forward working place. I have studied relevant literature about school libraries, organisation, digital libraries and documents that regulate school and library activities today as well in the past. In order to fulfil my purpose I have done a qualitative survey with six school librarians from Swedish primary schools with pupils at the age of 6 -16 years old. To identify strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities I found in the material I used a method called SWOT analysis. According to this study the use of the digital FreeLib system has developed a better teamwork between school librarians at different schools.