During my practice as a teacher trainee at an upper secondary school it became clear to me that many pupils had difficulties with mathematics. I was surprised to find that many pupils seemed to get stuck on the level of attainment for the senior level of the nine-year compulsory school. As I have not studied anything about difficulties in Mathematics during my training to become a qualified teacher, I would like to get to know more about this.After studying research done on this subject I made the following approach to the problem:? What fields regarding Mathematics do the pupils themselves find most difficult?? What factors have been contributory causes to these problems?? What are the factors that have helped pupils with difficulties in Mathematics to reach the goals for the syllabuses in Mathematics?The answers to my questionnaire and interviews resulted in the following conclusions:? Pupils find theory of equation and conversion of units as most difficult at senior level of the nine-year compulsory school.? Teaching should be done in special instruction groups to give the pupil the opportunity to develop his/her skills on an individual level.? Pupils find it hard to deal with all moments in Mathematics during the time given for each course.? The pace for teaching Mathematics is too high according to the pupils.? Pupils wish for instructions on a lower level.? There is often a lack of contact between teacher and pupil.? The teacher should use more time to help the pupil receive good self-confidence and increase the motivation for instructions in Mathematics..

In this essay I follow the traditions of the continental didactics and use phenomenology and hermeneutics to examine how I, as a Special Educational Needs teacher, can develop my skills in making teachers adopt a more inclusive approach. The teachers and I have often got different agendas; I seek to change the teaching in order to fit the students, whereas the teachers wish for me to help the students manage the prevailing teaching practice. Traditionally this has been a task for the remedial teachers. In Sweden there is a difference, however a lack of clarity formally as well as practically, in the definition of these two professions, which indeed makes my assignment ever so challenging. One of the tools I have often applied is to plan and teach together with the teachers, to function as a role model.

This essay investigates how teacher sees and uses mainstream movies as a teaching method. The main question approached is: How does teachers use feature films as a teaching method? Which movies are used and how does their working methods surrounding the movies look like? The purpose of the essay is to make the reader reflect over what influence mainstream media has over the historic knowledge of the students and how teachers use that for educational purposes. The business around historical film has grown over the years and is now a million dollar industry. The conclusion is that teachers mostly use feature films to provoke emotional reactions from the students.

Earlier studies shows that democracy within the preschool is an important and on-going work, but could implicate certain consequences. For example that goals regarding democracy and influence in the preschool, rarely is done in practice but instead remains just words on a paper. It could also mean that the pedagogues lack education and knowledge within the area, but also how they react to the influence of children. Preschool is expected to be a place for all children, no matter what luggage the child is carrying. The luggage is filled with the life experience, the personality and in this case the needs that the child has. The needs could be anything from nearness to physical and psychological disorders that requires more pedagogical attention.

The present BSc thesis is part of a newly established collaboration between the Swedish zoo Skansen and Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), and constitutes of an inventory of the Nairobi Animal Orphanage (AO). As a refuge for wild animals found orphaned, abandoned or injured throughout Kenya, the AO has grown over the years and reached an unsustainable point where external help is needed for solutions and improvements. The aim of the inventory is to specifically consider the husbandry and enclosures of spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta), serval (Felis serval), Sykes? monkey (Cercopithecus albogularis) and vervet monkey (Chlorocebus aethiops) and with the aid of facts about the species, estimate how well their biological needs are satisfied. Different educational elements are also reviewed since one of the main purposes of the AO is for education.

Study: Degree project in teacher education, Advanced level, 15pUniversity of SkövdeTitle The Battle of the School ? The attempt of four organizations to influence the Swedish school and the good citizen.Number of pages: 43Author: Christoffer HärsjöTutor: Erik AnderssonDate: January 2009 Keywords: Democracy, organizations, school, influence, citizen This exam discusses the influence of four different organizations in the public school. The chosen organizations are the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, LO, the Enforcement Authority and the political party Feminist Initiative. They all have different agendas about what they think the school should teach children. These agendas will be analyzed from the point of view of lobbying, corporatism, influencing of public opinion and the theory of curriculum, to find out what impact they have on the Swedish school system.

The purpose with this thesis was to study the special pedagogical perspectives that stood out in documents written by the special teachers in preschool. In order to maintain the thesis research questions a text analysis was carried out on the document ?Handledningssamtal? that was used by the special teachers in their contact with the teachers in preschool. The documents were analyzed based in the special educational perspectives and the results and measures from the analysis were divided into three levels; individual, group and organizational level. Finally a study of the connection between the analysis and the measures was carried out and the result was reported in a typology schedule inspired by earlier research.

I have in this study examined, through qualitative interviews, how adults with foreign background that are pupils in adult education in Sweden, understand the concepts democracy and dictatorship. Their expressed understandings have been compared with their former life experiences as well as with the aim of the social studies to create a qualitative understanding of essential social concepts. My starting point is theories about the adult in leaning processes. It has been assumed that the adult interprets the world much through former life experiences. I have also relied on the idea that having a qualitative, more scientific, understanding of essential subjects is important for the adult as a member of society and participator in the on-going political debate.

According to some researchers, dyscalculia is at least as prevalent as dyslexia. Somewhere between 3.6-6 % of all pupils have specific mathematics difficulties named dyslexia. If this be true, it should present the most complex special education predicament by far in schools today. Despite the statistics, dyscalculia is still a rather unknown concept.The cause of dyscalculia is not yet fully analyzed. There are several theories and many researchers see similarities between dyscalculia and the special educational problem of reading and writing, dyslexia.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the problems of building a new region in the Southeast part of Sweden. The idea of a big south Swedish region is brand new; no former studies in this area have been done before. The main analytical focus of this study is legitimacy, identity and democratic credentials. The study has been carried out by interviews with several leaders in organizations working with the collaborations of the smaller regions in to the big region. The method of this study has been a single-case study and dialogue interviews.

This essay studies the relationship between politicians and municipal chief officers from the point of view of the bureaucracy and its role in democracy and the substance of the chief position. I conducted interviews and observations with politicians and senior officials from the local public administration in Bromölla. The roles of the chief officer and politicians have certain common characteristics which makes it difficult to separate them. Senior officials working full time in contrast to part time politicians give them an advantage in the political process. Budget cut backs both enhance the role of politicians and chief officers in the administrative organisation.

Previous studies have shown that economic sanctions have adverse effects on the level of human rights in sanctioned countries. The focus of research on the effects in sanctioned countries has left the question of whether economic sanctions can have a regional effect on human rights levels in countries not sanctioned in the same region. Therefore, this essay has sought to investigate if economic sanctions aimed at an individual state have a regional effect on the level of human rights in countries not sanctioned within the same region. A previous study found that economic sanctions in Latin America positively affected the level of human rights in non-sanctioned countries within the same region. This essay has examined whether the same result can be found in a region with a different level of democracy.

A carnival can not be stopped! A design pedagogical study of children and norms In Basel, the only Protestant carnival in Europe takes place. The carnival is called Fasnacht. For three days, there is a wild and uninhibited play with tradition, crossing borders and social criticism.The aim of this thesis is to expand the understanding of the concept of the carnival, and how to use it for an educational purpose. Three children from Basel have been involved in an workshop where they designed and talked about norms and power structures through the carnivalesque principle. The study is based on the questions: How can you use the carnival as a starting point for designing and talking about norms and power structures together with children? And; How can the design process support such a project? To spot this, I made arrangements for a design educational project.

The aim of this study is to describe and analyze how the European union relates to the different dimensions of abortion. What kind of problem is abortion and whose right is it? Does difference framings of the problem enable different solutions?By analyzing debates from the European parliament through Carol Lee Bacchis method ?What?s the problem approach? I have come to see that different representations of a problem changes the problem it self. This emphasis that a problem is a problem in one context, but not in an other.Depending on the work of, among others, Barbara Hobson and Ailbhe Smyth I have focused upon the European union as a economical project, leaving social issues to national competence. This makes the EU a patriarchal project that fails to guarantee women?s rights.

A rhetorical analysis of the educational interactive film ?Riskprofilen?, produced by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (Swedish: Myndigheten för Samhällsskydd och Beredskap). This essay uses the theories and methods of Procedural Rhetoric, as described by Professor Ian Bogost, and Visual Rhetoric, as described by Professor Brigitte Mral to analyse the interactive and visual component parts of the artefact, and compares them to the intended purposes of the artefact as stated by documents pertaining to its creation, found to be those of educating the public; marketing the agency; and driving traffic to its webpage. The artefact is through analysis found to fulfil the purposes of marketing the Agency and of likely increasing traffic to the website upon which it is hosted. Regarding the primary, educational purpose this analysis finds that the artefact does not teach a user the accident-avoidance strategies it claims to do, but is dependent upon further materials..