This thesis tackles the subject concerning arguments as a conceptual basis forunderstanding the general strategy of the European Union Commission on issuesconcerning EU-harmonized environmental taxes, politically delicate and intergovernmentaldependent. The Commission's official proposals, communications and other relevant documents are subject to inquiry, where the theoretical bases are that harmonized environmental taxes in the EU is an issue conceived as supported by academic debate, and where the institutional arrangement in relation to an European-national dimension alongside the discursive context, allows meaningfulspace for arguments. The study makes a distinction between substantial (environmental cancerns in itself) and instrumental (other benefits, mostly economic ones) rationality as a foundation in various types of arguments.The study's main findings are that the Commission's official documents over the past 20 years, have been trying to keep a strong image of reason and knowledge based arguments for an EU-wide environmental tax reform. In particular, the types of arguments tend to appeal to the Member States by stressing the instrumental rationality in a European environmental tax reform, indicating the value of good arguments as a part of the Commission's main strategies. In sum, this may have further theoretical suggestions concerning questions of environmental and elimate change policies in a European context or other more general studies relying on theoretical assumptions of logics of argument, legitimacy or studies of motives behind action strategies in politically sensitive issues such as taxation at supranationallevel..

Syftet med detta kandidatarbete var att sätta samman ett promopaket bestående av en webbsida och en demo-EP med passande grafisk design. EP:n har tre spår elektroakustisk instrumentalmusik av skiftande karaktär, samt ett stilrent men ändå suggestivt omslag. Webbsidan är till för att presentera mig själv och mitt arbete (inte bara musik), och är byggd med hjälp av HTML, PHP, CSS och MySQL..

Outdoor education is a teaching method which has several advantages to traditional classroom tuition. Its ideas have a long tradition and find support in the current Swedish curriculum. The place for the tuition is a central aspect within outdoor education. This essay aims to investigate what good places for outdoor education look like as well as discussing how the characteristics of such places can be used when designing schoolyards. Previous research shows that nature has characteristics that suit outdoor education well.

The purpose of my examination work was to show the need for support for students with another mother-tongue than Swedish, so that these students would be able to get through mathematics tuition better. To achieve this purpose, I chose to start from the perspective that presented itself at interviews with two class teachers and two mother-tongue supervisors. I also chose to use the qualitative research interview as study method, as I tried to understand those informing me in a thorough and in-depth way. In my study I have had a sociocultural perspective as starting point where the conceptions teaching, language and communication, support and individualizing are central for the development of knowledge. The questions for my study during this process were as follows: What difficulties, according to the teachers interviewed can occur for second language students in mathematics? What ways and methods of working do the teachers chosen give priority to, so that   the second language students` results in mathematics will improve? The results from my interviews show that the difficulties with mathematics for second anguage students can be perceived as being dependent on a combination of reasons, where amongst other things language plays a central part.

Syftet med uppsatsen var att undersöka hur teknikundervisningen ser ut på en högstadieskolaoch ställa detta i relation till styrdokumenten. Vi vet att styrdokumenten har betydelse förklassrumsverksamheten, men det är relativt okänt hur de påverkar teknikundervisningenutformning och gestaltning. För att få svar på frågan gjordes en djupintervju av elever ochlärare med en hermeneutisk ansats, vilket innebar att jag närmade mig problemställningensubjektivt utifrån min egen förståelse. Mitt resultat av studien visar att styrdokumenten ärkomplexa och svårtolkade. I och med att man inte har givit något konkret innehåll ikursplanen för teknik, utan mer exempel på hur ämnet kan utformas , har detta medfört att detutvecklats olika synsätt på undervisningen.

What amount of knowledge of guitar playing can be expected after completing upper compulsory school? A qualitative research involving three different music teachers provides their view of knowledge. Their expectations have been compared to a quantitative research involving 58 upper secondary students from the social sciences programme. The idea is to compare their pedagogic intentions to the pedagogic realities of music teachings.The study shows a clear advantage for students who has attended some form of external music tuition as well as for those students who have someone in their families who play an instrumentIf the knowledge primarily is due to extracurricular activities perhaps there is time for a reformation of the music subject so that all may enjoy the education, not merely those who already possesses a curtain amount of knowledge...The experience must not be allowed to submit to the vast forests of chords, by doing so one misses the purpose entirely.

There are different ways of developing a second language. The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate whether and possibly how music, focused on singing, can improve the development of Swedish as a second language. Through interviews with three vocal teachers, from three different schools in Sweden, and observations of one of the vocal teachers, information about how they work and think about the subject has been collected. The vocal teachers teach groups of second language learners by singing songs made especially for second language learning. The vocal teachers consider singing beneficial in the development of the pronunciation and improvement of the prosody, which affects the students? capacity to sound like a native Swedish speaker.

This study examines the similarities and differences between four guitar teachers in Sweden and the U.S. The aim of the study is to examine how teachers motivate their pedagogical standpoints and to analyze how they experience the frame factors that limit their teaching. Data were collected through interviews with two Swedish teachers and two American teachers. The result shows that the teachers, despite their seemingly different contexts, actually have a lot of common strategies and approaches. Most significant is the tendency to let the students decide some of the content of the lessons.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the schools? pupils have the capacity to understand societal change through social consciousness. In order to investigate that a theory has been developed specifying what social consciousness means and how it is used. The theory has been used as a tool in an ideology critical analysis of the steering documents on which the schools? work is based.

This study attempts to look into and discuss if there are motivation factors involved whentrying to achieve a seeond language, which might effect the acquisition in any direction. Theeducation provided in Halmstad in Swedish as a seeond language is also studied on bases ofthe IDs (Individual Differences) that might occur. The study is carried out by interviews witheight informants. The interviews are analyzed and the results, which support previous researchin the area, are presented; and finally, in the conclusion part, suggestions for future researchare given, along with propos als on how to expand a study in this area..

In everyday life we perform motor behaviours that have no apparent instrumental function. Are these correlated to sensation seeking and do they differ depending on what situations we are in? University students in Örebro (N=108), participated in the study. The participants were asked to fill out a double questionnaire containing the sensation seeking scale and another one for measuring non-productive motor behaviours. The non-productive motor behaviours were not correlated to the sensation seeking scale.

According to Swedish school policy documents, every teacher?s assignment is to individually adapt the education to meet every student?s needs. There are no exact guidelines about how to make these adaptations. The purpose of this study is to investigate how six teachers interpret the policy documents and how they, according to themselves, work to achieve this. This study is built on six interviews with teachers who work with children in the ages from seven to ten.

The educational underachievement of children in foster care has been known for a long time. This study aimed to compile and analyze the current knowledge about interventions, intended to improve foster children?s school achievements. The method used was a systematically undertaken narrative review. Despite a comprehensive searching strategy, only ten relevant studies were found, indicating that little has been done to improve the educational outcomes for children in public care.

The aim of this study is to see if the individual developing plans (i.e. individuella utvecklingsplaner) can be used as a tool for the special needs teacher (i.e. specialpedagog) to develop the school in its challenge to meet the needs of every child.  The study is based on contentanalycis and interviews, in order to understand how one school worked with the students´ individual developing plans.The results showed that the school did not use the plans as a tool to develop the education for each and every child, since the plans didn´t affect the tuition.The headmaster did not include the special needs teacher in the responsibility of developing the school.Even though our results showed that the school didn´t use the individual developing plans as a tool for the special educator to develop the school, we still found a possibility for developing the individual educational plans in the capacity of the special needs teacher. The study showed a need of dialogue in which teachers can reflect and problematize their actions and their teaching for the purpose of developing new understanding and new actions in the work with the individual educational plans. We believe that the profession of special needs teacher should supervise these dialogues..

The aim of this Master's thesis is to examine the ways in which culture and cultural policy are being articulated in the process of Lund's application to become Sweden's European Cultural Capital of 2014.I have used Dorte Skot-Hansen's three cultural political rationalities: the humanistic-, the sociological- and the instrumental rationality, as well as and Jenny Johannisson's extension of those into three cultural-political discourses, as sensitizing concepts in my analysis. The questions raised are: How are the three rationalities/discourses articulated in the chosen central documents and in the process surrounding them? Which themes and arguments dominate the chosen documents?The main objects of my study have been four texts that have been produced in the applicationprocess: a Prestudy, a Plan of action, a Broschure and a Cultural policy. Along with them local political protocols, newspaper articles and other related material have been used. The research method applied was a qualitative eclectical textual analysis with emphasis on the content and on tracing the way the rationalities were expressed in the material.The rationalities were all found to be articulated in the four texts.