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.

Pupils, and most of all girls, drop out of organized sports in the ages 13-18. The purpose of this survey was to study which motives girls had to proceed in sports together with differences between certain groups. This study was based on a survey which included 86 responses from girls active in sports in 10 different compounds. The results showed that the most frequent motives to do sports were to have fun and to feel well. Differences showed were that the ones who trained more often and the ones who practiced more than one sport found that to work hard was an important motive, compared to the other groups.

The aim of this study was to understand how social workers deal with honour-related violence, with special focus on the processing from sheltered housing. Our qualitative interviews with social workers that work with this kind of problems show that there are both obstacles and opportunities in the processing from sheltered housing. On the negative side are the loneliness, the shame and the guilt that the girls may experience when they need to leave their families. The social services can both be an obstacles and an opportunity. When the girls need to create a new life in a new city they have a lot of opportunities and in the same time it is hard to get to know new friends when you don´t know the city or have much money.

The aim of this thesis is to describe how to work with the development of language by reading aloud. I have chosen to look at the reading aloud project "Boksnurran" Book Wheel to see if it has influenced the daily work with reading in preschool. My questions are: How do they work with reading in preschool? Is the reading environment suitable? How do the staff describe their booktalks? What problems do they encounter? What can be improved? The thesis is based on qualitative interviews. Those interviewed have participated in "Book Wheel".

AbstractThe purpose of this study was to increase the knowledge of teenage girls thoughts and opinions about narcotics. We used a qualitative method and collected information by interviews. During the past years different studies shows that the desire to try narcotics has increased among teenagers. Teenagers are trying hard to find their identity which is shaped among people that they have a close relationship to. During this time friends has big influence when they experiment with different kind of styles.

A reading campaign, Läsrörelsen The Reading Movement took place in Sweden 2000 until 2002. It was started by some adult educationists, and was supported by over 120 organizations. The aim of my study was to examine which messages the campaign wanted to mediate. As the campaign meant that reading was important for democracy, I wanted to study if there was any public debate about reading around 1900 when the democracy process had just started in Sweden. I have also studied if reading is regarded in the same way by the rulers of Sweden as it was by the campaign.

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of an intervention that focuses on phonics, decoding, reading speed and phonological awareness for 8-9 year old children in reading difficulties. Participants were selected on the basis of screening test results in grade one (decoding and reading comprehension). The participants were divided into two groups, an intervention group (A1, n=10 children) and a control group (A2, n=10). A1 received 30 minutes of intense reading instruction every day for six weeks from special educational needs teachers on top of their usual classroom based reading instruction. The control group received only their usual classroom-based reading instruction.

The purpose with this qualitative text analysis was to study how the sex roles of children are presented in children's books published in 2004 in comparison with children's books published 1972-74. The focus was to find patterns and differences. The study embraces eight books intended for children aged 5-9.The main results of the study showed that the girls were described to have a greater bent to take care, while the boys in general were more aimed to perform and achieve. In both today's and the books from the 70´s, the boys were described as aggressive and independent and the girls were often looked upon as princesses by fathers and boys. Violent rowdy behaviour was the essential thing among boys in especially the books from the 70´s.

The aim of my thesis was to examine if educators need to be critical of what they read to the children from a gender perspective. I examined how picture books depict gender and if the books enhances or breaks perception of gender roles. I also examined educator?s perception of gender and if they think picture books can affect children?s perceptions of gender, but also what educators think about gender equality through picture books. The study is based on analysis of five picture books and interview with five educators.The results of analyzes showed that picture books are stereotyped and enhances perceptions of gender roles.

The purpose of this study is that through a discourse theoretical perspective, analyze young girls 'statements about living with self-injuring by sexual behavior. The aim is to locate the discourses that surround them, visualize how discursive constructions affect these young girls' identity as victims and/or actors in relation to self-injury, the sexual violence and in meetings with the professionals within the health authorities. In addition discourse theory as an analyze method, the authors also use Nils Christie's (2001) theory of the ideal victim and Ingrid Landers (2003) theoretical perspectives on normative femininity. The authors of the study show a diversity of discourses that surround the young girls. All discourses contain normative actor- and victim?s positions that young girls constantly are obliged to relate to, which partially conflict with social constructions of the idea of victim and femininity.

AbstractThe phonics is traditionally firmly established within reading acquisition in Swedish schools. The curriculum, Lpo 94 gives spacious independence regarding the question of method and we have to be aware of our own point of view when we are making the decision regarding the method of reading acquisition. Is it tradition or is it our linguistic point of view that is the determining factor? Through this study of literature, different publications from different times are being studied and the ideas and the linguistic point of view are being discussed. Through comparing between the curriculums that have been replaced of one another, and attending to linguistic discussion and research, we will be able to see a change in the linguistic point of view.

This essay focuses on the pictures in mathematics books for elementary school. The purpose was to see if images in mathematics books for elementary school show traditional gender roles.The aim of the essay has been broken down into following research questions:Vilka färger förknippar de olika matematikböckerna till pojkar/män respektive flickor/kvinnor?How many times were girls/women and boys/men illustrated in the mathematics books?What behavior is associated with masculinity and femininity?Which colours are associated with boys/men and girls/women in the mathematics books?I used a semiotic image analysis method to study the pictures presented in the mathematics books. The theories in this essay were used to see how society makes girls become girls and boys become boys and in what ways the genders are portrayed in relation to each other. In addition, the theories include the question of whether a specific colour is given to a specific gender? The analysis evidently confirmed that the images in the mathematics books demonstrated traditional gender roles.

The purpose of this study was to compare reading development assessments with writing assessments to create an understanding about the relationship between the reading and writing ability of children. Another aim of the study was to look at other factors that cohere with the ability to read and write, such as background and socio-economic status. Our hypothesis was that explicit instruction in writing is necessary to develop good writing skills. We chose to conduct a quantitative study containing an inquiry, a dictation and a writing task. We compared our results with reading assessments based on a reading development schedule (LUS).

The purpose of this paper is to find out which characteristics the female and male characters have in five selected horse books in children's literature. I have analyzed five horse books by Professor Maria Nikolajeva?s gender roles schedule. I have chosen to do a qualitative text analysis and the questions I chose to ask for the books are: Which characteristics does the girls and the boys have in the selected horse books according to Nikolajeva?s gender chart? What is the relationship between the main characters and the horse/horses according to the theories of Backman? What does the typical horse book look like today? What I come to conclusion in my paper is that all the horse books I analyzed have female main characters, and the girls in these books about horses take a lot of space and demonstrate themselves strong.

The aim of this study was to investigate how four middle school teachers use and process the contents in read-aloud books, to stimulate the pupils interest in reading and increase reading comprehension. A qualitative approach was used to collect data, through interviews and observations. The findings show that all of the teachers work with read-aloud books regularly. The teachers state that read-aloud books have a positive effect on pupils language, vocabulary, reading comprehension, imagination and ability to reflect. The teachers have three distinctive purposes with read aloud-books, a moment of relaxation, create an interest in books and increase the pupils reading comprehension.