AbstractThis study deals with preschool children's ideas about water in our body. Ten children with the age of four to five were interviewed individually, the interviews were qualitative. The children were also asked to draw their answers and answer questions about a picture that represented the excretory system. The results of my study show that children did not have any knowledge about the water being vital for us. Preschool children had no knowledge of why it is important to drink water.

The purpose of the present study is to describe adult second language learners? experiences of mathematics learning from a past and contemporary perspective. What experiences in mathematics do they bring? What does it mean to learn Mathematics through their new language?The study is based on life-world narratives from five second language students with another native language than Swedish. Today they all study at a Swedish folk high school, at upper secondary level and they have previously studied at this level in Mathematics. The result shows that the meeting with the Swedish school and folk high school context is confusing.

This study aims to research how upper secondary pupils interact while playing online games, how the English language is used within each game and what attitudes these pupils have towards language in school and online gaming respectively. Online gaming sessions have been recorded to analyze the methods of interaction by which people communicate with each other while playing online games. Furthermore, the text-based communication occuring in online gaming is analyzed on a lexical level to find words not defined in legitimate English dictionaries. Interviews with students have been conducted to understand the attitudes held by students towards language in school and online games..

In a municipality in the county of Stockholm there is a preparatory class which accepts newly arrived children from other countries. In the preparatory class the education is focused on teaching students the Swedish language so that they eventually, after about 3-4 -terms, can be transferred to a "regular" class.For students with a different native language, it takes about 5-7 years longer to learn the knowledge-based language that is used in school (Gibbons 2009: foreword). This requires education in school to be linguistically developing.The purpose with this essay is to gain knowledge on how pedagogues can work in a linguistically developing manner with students who have Swedish as their second language. The comparison between education in a preparatory class and education in two regular classes at two different schools is also part of that purpose.What is the education considering linguistically developing work methods like in the preparatory class and the" regular" classes? Are there differences and similarities between the preparatory class and "regular" classes education when it comes to linguistically developing work methods? Which part of the education is adapted to a linguistically developing perspective that fits students with Swedish as a second language?Theories as the socio cultural theory, the proximal zone, and Jim Cummins model, concerning among other things language and knowledge development, is brought up and linked to the study of differences and similarities between schools.

This essay is about how and why teachers use fiction litterature as a teaching method. It´s based on a study among eight teachers in year 4-6 at a school in Mariehamn in the Åland Islands. The results show the high importance of using fiction litterature in education. Fiction literature is highly valued in all subjects as it stimulates the students development of language, empathy and fantasy. The curriculum´s aim of using fiction litterature is to stimulate the pleasure of reading.

This thesis deals with one of the main questions within information science: The question about controlled and uncontrolled vocabulary and which of the two that are most effective when it comes to retrieve relevant information from electronic databases. The method used here is literature studies. I have described and examined five empirical studies which has been done in purpose to compare the effectiveness in retrieval with controlled and uncontrolled vocabulary, in the way they are used in retrieval of information in databases. The studies I have examined have also used recall and precision as a value to measure the effectiveness of retrieval. The studies which I have chosen is also limited to deal only with studies that have been done in bibliographic databases.

The aim of this study is to learn about and demonstrate the process in which Försäkringskassan (The Swedish Social Insurance Agency) customizes texts and the texts linguistics influence on a potential beneficiary. I use three different questions to fulfill the purpose of the study. I examine what the manuals writers of Försäkringskassan use say about the issues of sentence length, addressing the beneficiaries and wording ? three language features that represent different perspectives within plain language research. Furthermore, I examine how decision texts are created and tailored for its beneficiary group and how the language in decisions is perceived by potential beneficiaries.

The purpose of the study was to determine the attitudes of the teachers of Reggio Emilia inspired preschools concerning the science work with children between the ages of one and three, as well as their opinions on how the physical preschool environment and the choice of materials influence their scientific work. The study was conducted in three departments of two different kindergartens. Although both kindergartens called themselves Reggio Emilia inspired, their working methods and their environments differed largely. None of them were originally built as Reggio Emilia inspired preschools. One of the kindergartens strived to design their indoor environment the same way as the preschools of Reggio Emilia are constructed, there for they were setting up different stations where the children themselves have the opportunity to explore various scientific areas.

This thesis examines and measures differences in effciency between L1- and L2 language use for solving referential problems. Quantitative measures used in the study were time and error frequency. Qualitative measures, such as how the tasks and the participants own performance were experienced, were measured by an post interview and two questionaires. Two different tasks, a sorting task and a construction task, in which each informant was given the role as a constructor or instructor, were used for data gathering. A total of 20 dyads, divided in two language groups (English and Swedish) participated in the study.

According to the national curriculum guidelines for elementary school, preschool and after-school 2011, (i.e. Lgr11), the Swedish school is based on a democratic foundation. Schools should prepare students to develop an understanding and acceptance of cultural diversity not only in the society as a whole but also how this should be reflected in the morals and ethics between us. The purpose of this study was to describe how teachers in multicultural schools perceptions and experiences on teaching pupils with diverse immigrant origin, and how they apply these cultural expression in practice.In particular, I focus on four teachers in multicultural schools and how they reason about applying cultural expressions that are transmitted at these schools and by them. Explicitly, I review how from policy documents and their own personal pedagogic are reflected in the actual teaching.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how two elementary schools work with Swedish and Swedish as a second language through four teachers thoughts and perceptions. My issues are: How do the teachers perceive the Swedish classes in the school, and how do they perceive that they are conducting it? Which examples of material for teaching do the teachers show me and how do they use it in each school? Do the work with Swedish and Swedish as a second language in the multi-ethnic school and the more mono-ethnic school differ according to how the teachers perceive they are conducting it? Do the teachers think that the equivalent education that is part of the curriculums values and mission always is maintained and why/why not? My study is performed from a sociocultural perspective. My conclusions are that the teachers from the multi-ethnic school are more aware of how to work with Swedish or Swedish as a second language regardless of the students ethnic or national origins. Some aspects of how the teachers work with Swedish are equal with each others, but there are differences to.

This master thesis is about access to literature translated into Swedish sign language for deaf at the public libraries. It is by now a well-known fact that there is produced very little literature in sign language for deaf. This is so even though the policies for the library nationally and internationally, and the public law for libraries in Sweden says there should be literature available for all groups of disadvantaged people. People who have problem reading ordinary ink books have the right to get the book adapted into a medium accessible for them. The goal of the Swedish law for disadvantaged says that in 2010 Sweden should be accessible for all irrespective of weather you are deaf or not.

International studies show that literacy skills have deteriorated among Swedish students. Empirical evidence states that before being able to learn to read it is important to have phonological awareness. From this perspective, an intervention study was launched to examine whether pupils´ phonological awareness could be enhanced through the work of a special model during a limited time. The aim of the study is to investigate whether six pupils in preschool develop phonological awareness based on Bornholmsmodellen during a limited period of time. The control group was made up of the remaining pupils in the preschool class.

Workbooks are used and has been used for a long time in teaching context with younger children. Given that children start grade 1 after one year of preschool, I will in my study examine what type of activities that are presented in textbooks used for teaching younger children in pre-school and school grade 1. The purpose of the study is, through a selection of published skill-training materials investigate its pedagogical basic view related to reading and write form of education in pre-school and school grades 1. In line with the aim of the study and to answer the study questions, a qualitative text analysis and pictures analysis was carried out. The result shows that there are more similarities in content than the forms of the textbooks, there are assumptions about language as well as how images should be interpreted in a right way.

Abstract The Act of Education outlines that good quality in schools and preschools, focusing on continuous improvement, promote children?s learning and this in turn is on of the most important factors for child and youth welfare.This thesis was based on the authors´ pre-understanding that there are opportunities to improvement in the quality of preschools. The focus was on studying how analyses can provide a base for quality work, and the purpose of this study was to identify and describe the analytical methods that can be used in the process of continual improvement for quality development in preschools.A qualitative study was conducted in two preschools that have received quality awards. It was conducted through interviews with the preschool principals and through studies of various documents.In the comparative analysis of theory and empirical data, it was made clear that there was a regular analysing process going on at the investigated preschools and an emphasize of reflection could also be identified. Keywords: Quality development, preschool, analytical methods, processes, reflection .