Vårterminen 2006.

This work deals with mathematics teaching in preschool classes. The purpose of my study is to investigate the preschool classes? teachers' aspirations for the children learning mathematics in two different preschools. To achieve my goal, I formulated the following questions to be explored and answered through interviews with five teachers.  Does mathematics in preschool classes have a prominent role in educators' planning? What perception do the educators in the field have about the learning and teaching of mathematics in the preschool classes? How do the teachers understand their own work with mathematics in preschool classes in relation to multilingual students?                                A qualitative interview method was applied.

The implementation of integration policy has in recent times been a major problem for the municipal administrations in Swedish municipalities. The concept of integration is considered to be very diffuse, difficult to apply and implement the following decisions. To understand the concept of integration is the first step, followed by understanding its complexity in an organization.In this study, I focus on studying the implementation of integration policies for integration work with Kalmar Municipality as a case study. I am using Lundquist's implementation theory about understanding, able and willing. The survey consists primarily of interviews but also a certain document to get a perspective on how integration policy has gone into integration work with the hypothesis that it is the understanding that weaknesses of the officials in the implementation of integration policies.

The enquiry of this work is to look at introduction to preschool in the 1970s and today. The work examines what four books, two from each time period says about introduction, and the guardian's role in their child's introduction. The study is based on three research questions:What view of introduction in preschool in the 70s does the texts show?What is the view in the texts from "today" about introduction in preschool?What view do these texts have about the guardian's role in the introduction?To find out what the texts say about these questions, the method of this work is text analysis. The attachment theory designed by John Bowlby, works as a theoretical framework for this work.The result shows that the texts from both the 70s and from today advocate a cautious introduction, where guardians are involved.

The aim of this study is to examine the understanding, preschool teachers, have about their work related to energy conversion in the human body. Through individual interviews, answers have been sought to the following questions: What do the preschool teachers believe they need to know about the link between food and energy? What are the different methods preschool teachers use to workwith the area of energy conversion in the human body?The results show that preschool teachers have knowledge in terms of food and its nutrients as an energy source for the body to cope with. However the more thorough and detailed questions become all the more uncertainty there is about the topic. Preschool teachers on their own initiative do bring up the topic with the children and begin conversations as well as ask questions, perform experiments and demonstrations.

In our essay we examine the different introduction models that are practiced in preschool. The central question is if the different models have any importance (or consequences) for the children?s connection in preschool. In the two different cases we will present, one based upon preparatory training that was applied during the 1990s and another that is currently used today.The purpose with this essay was to get a deeper understanding for the child?s attachment to preschool and for how we, as educators should act during the preparatory training to create a secure foundation for the child.

The purpose of the study is to explore preschool teachers experiences of how immigrant parents become involved in the preschool activities and how their linguistic and cultural background appears in relation to participation.The survey was conducted through individual interviews with eight preschool teachers working in various multicultural preeschools.The results of this survey shows that the preschool teachers perceive that parents with different cultural and linguistic backgrounds are reluctant to participate in various forms of cooperation, such as parent meetings. Preschool teachers believe that the lack of parental participation depends on the parents linguistic and cultural backgrounds, such as different approaches to understand the pre-school educational activity or the view of parenting, and other things such as language difficulties.Another result reveals also a great lack of written methods, because teachers sometimes face difficult dilemmas. To seek itself the right approach in a current situation can be both difficult and time consuming, therefore, the preschool teachers wish that there were already complete methods for use..

The aim of this study was to investigate how preschool teachers think about preschoolscience, what they consider science to be and how they deal with specific curricular objectivesrelated to science.Science is a part of our everyday life, it is a prerequisite for understanding everydayphenomena and how the world is working. Nevertheless it is often dropped in favour of othersubjects in Swedish preschools.The eight preschool teachers participating in this study are all working in the samemunicipality in the western part of Sweden with children aged 1- 5 years. The method used inthis study was interviews. The interviews were recorded to facilitate the transcriptions.The results show that preschool teachers find that science is an important subject that shouldbe introduced to the children early on in life. They also show that preschool teachers considerscience to have a preventive effect on the learning to the children, and it is needed for them tounderstand everyday processes and phenomena.

The purpose of this paper is to examine teachers' approach to popular culture in preschool. The questions we want answered are: What approach do educators have to popular culture in preschool and what underlies that approach? Is there a high - and low culture in preschool? If educators bring popular culture into the preschool, how then is it used? Do children?s culture influence everyday life in preschool? We have employed qualitative methods to seek answers to our questions. We conducted seven interviews with educators from four different preschools. The starting point for our study was the socio-cultural perspective because we examined people's cultures and how the meeting between them unfolds. We concluded that educators have a very ambivalent attitude towards popular culture in preschool.

This study deals with teachers ideas about the physical environment of a mobile preschool and how it affects children?s learning. The essay describes how the preschool bus is decorated and how a normal day works in the mobile bus. The survey was based on the following questions:Are there disadvantages and advantages in terms of physical environment in the mobile preschool from an educator based perspective?What are the teacher?s thoughts about the impact on children?s learning in terms of the physical environment on the bus?Summary: To answer my questions I have participated in activities during the day and I have used the interviews to find out the teachers thoughts.

This thesis means to find out how preschool teachers are working to demonstrate the importance of recycling and reuse for children. My hope is to contribute knowledge about various practical methods to establish the idea of sustainable development in the operation. I have used the method of qualitative research and done semi-structured interviews with preschool teachers on certified green flag preschools. The questions I have asked for example concerned how the preschool teachers have worked with recycling and reuse, how much the children have been able to influence and if other didactic subjects are implicated. Six interviews were made and these are summarized in the result part.

Mathematics in preschool - how do preschool teachers make children aware of the matematics around them?.

In this study I?ve used qualitative interviews to examine four male preschool teachers? interpretations of gender and their work with gender in preschool. Specifically, I?ve been interested in what thoughts male teachers have about the preschool gender assignment, how they express these thoughts in their work, and how they perceive their role as men in preschool in relation to gender and gender equality. The teachers express that the preschool gender assignment means that one should treat girls and boys equally and give them the same opportunities.

AbstractThe purpose of this study is to see how technology is presented in different fictional picture books that are available in preschool. Six fictional picture books that have connection to technology in picture and text have been analysed. In order to show how technology can be made visible in fictional picture books, the relation between picture and text has been analysed through a technology perspective. Furthermore, the pictures and the texts have been analysed separately in order to show what they show respectively in terms of technology. The fictional picture book has a potential to be a basis for making technology visible in preschool, which is a step in a new direction.

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.