The children's ways of showing interest in writing and reading in pre-school have always fascinated me. The joy and pride they show when they start writing their own doodles and then eventually go on to write real letters and words, is a joy so see.The origin of this essay is based on Dante 3.5 years old. He wants me to spell my name so he can write to me. When I mention the second letter, Dante happily says "E, that's what my name starts with! From the other direction" I am amazed by his thoughts, and my enthusiasm for his knowledge knows no bounds. In the same moment I become aware of Alma, who quietly has seen my reaction to Dante's skills.

The purpose of this study was to explore preschool- and primary school teachers? perceptions of fairytales, why they use fairytales and what thoughts they have about the impact of fairytales on children?s reading and writing development. We interviewed seven teachers and three preschool teachers in northern Sweden to find out how work with fairytales is carried out in preschool and primary school. We also interviewed twelve pupils who were seven and eight years old to find out what they thought of fairytales in primary school. The result showed that preschool- and primary school teachers had a positive attitude towards fairytales and the opportunities provided by fairytales.

From autumn 2008 Sweden has reinstalled the Special Education Needs teacher education. For future special education teachers and active teachers in the field, it is important to know the history and be aware of future visions to create a good role for the Special Education Needs teachers. This study examines attitudes towards special education and Special Education Needs teachers amongst school principals and classroom teachers at seven schools in Umeå municipality. School principals were interviewed, and a survey was handed out amongst the selected General Education teachers. From this it appears that school principals have a picture of special needs education and Special Education Needs teachers' work that corresponds well with the objectives of the school's governing documents.

This study, a document analysis with a qualitative approach, explores children, under 18years, who have been subject to measures of child welfare in the city of Malmö during theyears 1935-1937. It also explores the school's role in this context. The questions that the studyis guided by is: How was children described in the Child Welfare documents in Malmö duringthe years 1935-1937? And what role did the school have in Child Welfare work and whatmotivated this? The theoretical approaches are Foucaults theories of power, control anddisciplining.It appears from the study that the school and child welfare authorities had a close cooperationwith the purpose to control the upbringing and disciplining of the children. It was through theupbringing that the deviant child would become a "normal", docile and good, industriouscitizen.

After the last European Union expansion the east European countries became members of the European Union. This meant that they would become apart of the Schengen agreement and that they would be able to travel, live and work anywhere in Europe. This came as a shock tothe Scandinavian trade unions that were worried that work migration would escalate, and that it would lead to social dumping, which would make the working conditions worse for the native workers. .The Swedish labour market is build up by the principal of negotiations. The evolution of the labour laws comes from the rules and regulations of collective agreements.The Lex Britannia principal was made to regulate the working conditions for guest workers in Sweden, by making it possible for trade unions to take industrial action against foreign companies to make them sign a Swedish collective agreement.Even though Swedish labour law includes an obligation to maintain industrial peace it is not valid for foreign companies.

Pupil achievement and behaviour in schools was earlier seen as given by socioeconomic and biological factors. But since the late 1970s the school effectiveness research has come to give school factors a much greater role for pupils? attainments. Research has shown that schools´ pedagogical and social climate, which is to be seen as a complex product of deeply felt values and norms held by school principals and teachers and developed through practical actions, can explain variations in effectiveness between schools. Effectiveness is here to be seen as a higher mean cognitive and non cognitive student outcome than is expected with regard to initial attainment or family background.

Sweden's school voucher reform has made the Swedish school system into one of the world's most liberalized. The debate concerning the ownership of Swedish schools is intense and the Swedish Minister of Education is open to restricting private equity owned companies from running schools. Interestingly, fewer calls are heard for restricting smaller profit-driven companies from owning schools. This essay aims to examine whether or not the quality of education provided by an individual school changes if it is acquired by a large private equity owned school group. This is done by conducting a comparative study on four independent schools recently acquired by AcadeMedia, Sweden's biggest private equity owned school group.

The purpose of this study is to the increase knowledge and understanding of the meeting between children with Arabian as native language and a Swedish school library. The study is made as a qualitative investigation built on interviews with eight-year-olds and eleven-year-olds. Only the childrens needs and views are considered. The study is centred on twelve key issues and aims to document the childrens thoughts and views of reading as well as their reading habits and their use of the school library. Through the childrens own words their evaluation of reading and literature, their abilities to assimilate the text and their de facto use of the books can be known.

 Language is an important indicator of the interdisciplinarity of a certain subject. Therefore this study evaluates the use of central geographical words and concepts, by teachers and students, in seven communal, non-optional subjects in a Swedish upper secondary school. This study provides results after observations of seven subjects on seven occasions, at one upper secondary school. This study shows that by a method of observation, central geographical concepts were used by teachers and students at various extents. Furthermore, the observations provide results of the concept use by over 100 students and 12 teachers.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the 9/11 attacks, the landscape of the freedom of religion has changed. The issues now facing freedom of religion varies greatly from the issues that the drafters of the universal declaration of human rights faced after World War II.In the light of the new issues that States face in the intersection of religion and societal interest, scholars have criticized the European Court of Human Rights to give too much leeway to the States in determining how the human rights should be implemented, by using the doctrine of margin of appreciation. Critics of the margin of appreciation claim that it is based on culture relativism and that the doctrine undermines the universality of the human rights. In order to decide if the margin of appreciation has indeed led to a relativization of the human rights I compared it to the jurisprudence of the UN Human Rights Committee and its use of the Syracusa principles. My conclusion is that the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights cannot be considered to be based on culture relativism.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how students in a Swedishjunior high school (grade 7-9) view their possibility to participate in thecollection management of their school library, and how the schoollibrary works to involve the students when purchasing media. The studyhas resulted in a model for easy and effective involvement of studentsin the collection development.To achieve this aim both quantitative and qualitative methods are used.A survey in three classes in the school, observations at the schoollibrary and a qualitative interview with the library assistant have beenperformed. The collection management at the school library isdescribed using the School Library Taxonomies developed by DavidLoertscher and two models for participation developed by Roger A Hartand Harry Shier. In the survey, the students are asked about their libraryand reading habits, their perception of their own participation in thecollection management of the library and their opinions of theimportance of student participation in the library.The results show that all students view the possibility of participation as something important, but not all of the students are willing to be active themselves. The proposed model for effective involvement of students in the library focuses on simplicity, voluntariness, distinct information and visible results..

AbstractThe purpose of this essay is to investigate if elementary school pupils? attitudes towards mathematics, from a teacher?s perspective, have changed since 2001-2002. I also intend to investigate if the whys and wherefores among the pupils attitude are the same and what influences pupils? attitude to mathematics. The reason why I chose to deepen myself into elementary school pupils? attitude to mathematics, and things that relate, is that I find it very interesting.

The purpose of this essay is to examine progression in user education atprimary and secondary school levels, specifically the role played byschool libraries, librarians and strategy documents in securingeducational progression. Progression is examined in the user educationprovided by the five schools, part of the same municipal schoolmanagement area which share the same strategy plan. The area, NorraFäladen, was awarded School Library of the Year in 2011 for its work,making it particularly interesting for this essay's purpose. The studycombines interviews with the area's three school librarians, who dividetheir time between the five schools, with an analysis of the strategydocuments that regulate user education within Norra Fäladen. Theanalytical framework is based on: AASL's model of progression in usereducation (Standards for the 21st-century learner); Ekström's model forsuccessful and active strategy documents; Kuhlthau's theory of thelibrarian's role in the information search process; and Limberg'staxonomy of the role of the school library.The study shows how a number of concurrent factors and prerequisitesinfluence how goals for progression in user education are met.

Purpose/Aim: The purpose of this paper is to describe how a number of strategically selected employees at the Swedish Institute, with the purpose to promote Sweden in the world, look at the challenges facing Sweden concerning nation branding in the new era of cooperation within the European Union. I examine how these people look upon the work of public diplomacy and nation branding in order to actively participate and influence the EU's common communications platform.Material/Method: The method used in this thesis is qualitative interviews. The reason why I chose this method is because I consider it to be the most appropriate in order to collect information about how these selected employees at the Swedish institute regard the challenges that lay ahead in terms of nation branding within the European Union.Main results: On the basis of the results I have gained by dint of the analysis, it can be concluded that it is of utmost importance to take the societal changes, which are a result both of the worldwide globalization and the EU cooperation, into consideration when designing a future communication strategy for the Swedish Institute. The nation-state continues to play an important role in Sweden, but its importance is declining as the EU cooperation is progressing. The citizens? identity plays a crucial role in designing a nation?s communications strategy, and from the analysis I conclude that we move not from a Swedish to a European identity, but towards a pluralistic union where multiple identities meet under one umbrella; the EU..

In July 2010 the curriculum Lpfö 98 was readjusted and was enhanced with new chapter, and the purpose of this essay is to study how preschool teachers discuss and describe how their conduction to the new chapter 2.6 of the readjust Curriculum Lpfö 98. I want to understand how they experience their work with the documentation.My question formulations are:How do three pre-school teachers reason around what they document in the pre-school?Which practical conditions do the pree-school teachers claiming to have on the pre-school to perform the documentation?How do they describe that they use the documentation to advance the tutoring in the preschool?In order to find out more, I interviewed three pre-school teachers, and analyzed the results I got based on prior research on documentation, and quality in preschool. My results show that the main focuses for documentations are how the children interact with each other, how they react and behave with new materials or activities. My informers emphasize that the main purpose of documentation are to be able to show the children their own process of learning.The practical conditions differ among my informers, which can lead to consequences when they want to make documentation and/or use the documentation for its purpose.  My results also indicates that the documentations are used to plan the pedagogical activities in regard to the children?s interests and according to the curriculum Lpfö98 rev.2010.