Title: The life is too soft to accord in to tariffs: an essay about youth and families with children who are recipients of economic support, their experience of their financial situation and the reception towards the social welfare.Author: Ana Becovic & Kerstin Olsson         Supervisor: Erik WesserInstitution: Humanvetenskapliga institutionen, Högskolan i KalmarType of Essay: Degree project, 15 ECTS                     Date: December 2008The aim for our study has been to examine how youth and families who are recipients of economic support on long term basis experience their contact with social welfare. The starting point for the question at issue has been the client's experience of their financial situation the reception and expectations towards the social welfare.In our B-level study we carried out qualitative interviews with social welfare officers to find out how they applied the "child perspective" in granting financial support and to what extent they felt that they succeeded in meeting the need of the client. The conclusion was that there is still room for improvement in this field and particularly a wish to focus more on the child's situation and development. The officers told us that they tried to pay closer attention to the child's situation through asking about the children and by visiting the families at home.They expressed awareness of the importance to a child's well being the financial situation of their family. They also expressed the need for the child to be able to take part in leisure time activities and having an active social life.In this study our research method is based on qualitative interviews.

This Independent work is about testing a method to create meaningful learning and a deeper comprehension in matter of basic hairdressing techniques. I got the idea for this method by reading literature related to my education to become a teacher for hairdressers, the new schoolreform and from my own experience of a teaching method that I saw an opportunity to develope. My teaching method was based on first teaching the pupils the basic techniques, and then give them an assignment were they were to find out their own final result by using a picture for inspiration. They were given an assignment description with certain frames but with freedom of choice how to get to their own final result. By making a job description and a headdrawing to show how the work should be done, and during the process try different ways to achieve the best result, my idea was that a deeper understanding and a feeling of meaningfulness would appear.The result shows that the pupils by freedom within frames experienced meaningful learning and thereby deeper understanding when it comes to basic hairdressing techniques.

The aim of this study is to investigate how employees in consulting companies develop their competence in order to perform their daily work. The focus is on informal competence development. The theoretical framework consists of theories concerning learning and competence development in working life, theories on organizational change and evaluation, a well as professional reflection. The methods applied are narrative research and interviews based on the assumption that knowledge about reality is only obtainable through language and communication.The main results show that competence is developed through experience, social interaction, communication and dialog with co-workers and customers. The post-modern conceptions of the rapid (technical) development and need to be up-to-date has a strong hold on the informants apprehension of working life, as does the notion of not having enough time for all the competence development they would like.

In the school subject of the natural sciences it is imperative that the students are given opportunities to ?talk science?, since the dialogues that occur in the classroom have a significant importance for the students? abilities to engage in meaning-making in their learning process. Hence, the student and teacher interaction in the classroom and the feedback given there play a significant role in the students? learning process. The aim of this study is to contribute to the development of formative assessment tools that can mediate the students? meaning-making in natural sciences subjects in upper-secondary school.

There has been a lot of debate in media about mathematics teaching in grade school in Sweden. Many students experience that mathematics in grade school is abstract, which leads to decreased interest of mathematics in early years. An international study indicates that Swedish students in class 4 do not fulfill the mean for mathematics according to EU/OECD countries. The study also shows that Sweden practice a textbook driven education, compared to other countries. The aim for this study was to find out how a few pedagogues for class F-6 teach mathematics, and why they have chosen to educate the way they do.

The aim of this essay is to examine the supervisor?s view on the structure and content of the tasks given to students during their vocational training. The investigation could be of help for teachers when devising new vocational training tasks. The study is based upon qualitative interviews with five supervisors, all of whom work at preschools. The supervisors were asked to grade all the vocational training tasks on a scale from one (easy) to five (difficult).

In Sweden today, more women are still going on parental leave than men. The number of men and women going on parental leave is more equalized than ever before. At the same time the inequalities are still big and more women than men choose to work part time up till the child is eight years old.The aim of the study is through a gender perspective, to investigate the preschool teacher?s thoughts about the daily meetings with parents and the contact during induction. The study is based on the theoretical concepts: gender, norms and gender equality as well as three questions.

The main purpose of this paper is to examine how students in school year nine in the Swedish school come in contact with history outside of the school context. The paper also focuses on, if and how the students consider the contact with history as something different than, or similar to the history education that takes place during school hours, the student´s interest in history will also be examined. To gather the student?s opinions on these subjects, I have done interviews with eight students divided into two groups, with one group consisting of four girls and one group with two boys and two girls. The interviews took place at the students school located in a smaller city in Värmlands län, Sweden.

The aim of this master's thesis is to investigate how adults and especially children's librarians and intermediate level teachers experience children's literature. The aim is also to examine how children at the age of nine to twelve experience the literature that is written for them, according to a few master's theses written at Bibliotekshögskolan in Boras. Which criteria in children's books do the different groups consider as the most important, that the children can learn something when reading or is it the experience of the literature itself that is the most important? To fulfil the aim of this master's thesis I have interviewed three intermediate level teachers and three children's librarians and the result has been analysed using a model created by Maria Nikolajeva that shows four ways to get close to children's literature. My study is too small to be counted as a general result but it shows that both the children's librarians and the intermediate level teachers mainly ends up in the field that concerns the reading experience one can have when reading fiction.

A Large part of the education provided at colleges and universities of today requires for thestudent to be more independent in their studies. This demands that the physical space,where the students choose to study, is designed in a way that can encourage and supportlearning. It seems as though that many of the learning spaces of today don?t always meetthe students? needs. The university library at the University of Umeå is currently planningto design new learning spaces for the students.

The aim of the study was to study the phenomenon of dyslexia on the basis of a literature study. I did a thorough exposition of what dyslexia is and its history and previous research in the area. Further I assumed two questions at issue which were What testimonies are there from the literature of how it is to live with dyslexia? and What learning styles are there for people with dyslexia? I have taken part of testimonies that are to be found about how it is to live with dyslexia according to the people themselves that live with it. In the second question at issue I move on to present a couple of learning styles that are used.

The gap between practise and theory is often described in negative words in teachers? professional lives. Learning study is a model for teachers´ professional development where a theoretical framework is used to enhance practice. The theoretical framework used by teachers in learning study is variation theory. In this study the research object is variation theory and the aim is to present how variation theory becomes a guiding principle to understand teaching and learning processes.

The purpuse of this study was to develop knowledge about learning condition that are to be in a context of interaction with persons that have Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis are included. The pre-understanding has evidence in that the public very often has a lack of knowledge in understanding persons with this kind of disabilities that can put the social interplay in disharmony. The phenomenological approach was used to reach the essence of the learning influence processes. Seen from the respondents experiences of interaction as a help for the informal learning in a working context. The purpose was to see the result of interplay and the effect of learning condition and to see what help those respondents acctually have experienced.

The aim of this study was to gain a comprehension of managers experience of their identity and their construction of identity in the work sphere. 14 semi-structured interviews were performed with managers in the public sector. The interviews were analyzed from a hermeneutic approach. The results showed that the managers´ experience of their identity and their construction of identity were full of nuances and was characterized by a being and a becoming. The managers had several social identities at their disposal, which were brought to the fore due to the situation.

In connection with that the last few decades have been characterized by major changes where also the rate of change has increased, changes in organizations has become a natural part of today's organizational activities. Every change involves a learning challenge and because of that every change is unique, its output is unclear. However, there is much research that highlights various factors critical to creating an effective change, among others internal communication.The purpose of this study is to investigate whether Engeström's theory can be applied to a completed organizational change and see whether an expansive learning has been promoted in connection with this. This is accomplished through interviews with six employees, all working in one of Sweden's leading property companies. Engeström's theory of expansive learning is applied in order to analyze whether learning is promoted in connection with the organizational change.The result of the study shows that Engeström's theory can be applied to a completed organizational change in order to analyze whether an expansive learning has been promoted in connection with this.