Swedish preschools have a variety of children of different ethnic origins. The intention of this thesis is twofold; firstly to deeply examine how preschool teachers work with languages and secondly how to integrate the Swedish language with other native languages in practice. Hence, the aim is to get a deeper understanding and knowledge about how to integrate multilingual children that have other languages than Swedish as their mother tongue. The data collection for this dissertation is based on observations and interviews with three preschool teachers and child minders. The theoretical background is taken from literature which describes the social cultural perspective.

According to the curriculum for the Swedish preschool system, children?s development and learning should be documented and analyzed in order to evaluate and develop the preschool quality. Social criticism is directed to some of the methods of documentation for assessing the children´s individual knowledge development. The purpose of this study was to examine how, what and why some teachers use documentation in preschool. I wanted to examine which methods preschool teachers used when they documented the children and what they focused on.

Earlier studies shows that democracy within the preschool is an important and on-going work, but could implicate certain consequences. For example that goals regarding democracy and influence in the preschool, rarely is done in practice but instead remains just words on a paper. It could also mean that the pedagogues lack education and knowledge within the area, but also how they react to the influence of children. Preschool is expected to be a place for all children, no matter what luggage the child is carrying. The luggage is filled with the life experience, the personality and in this case the needs that the child has. The needs could be anything from nearness to physical and psychological disorders that requires more pedagogical attention.

AbstractMany opinions are divided on what religious freedom should protect and the area is unexploredin preschool. Is it the parents, the child or preschool teacher right? The aim of the studywas to investigate Maria klasson Sundin´s concept and theoretical models of religious freedomfor children through three Swedish preschool settings and also how three teachers interpretsand expresses children's freedom of religion. Through a qualitative interview study theaim was to investigate how the concepts of religion, autonomy and freedom is interpreted andexpressed by the teachers so a picture through this three concepts can categorise the teachersin a model; freedom of thought, tradition and life interpretation model so a broader picturecan be made to understand how the children's freedom of religion is expressed in the preschoolsetting and how the teachers work. The Result showed through the analysis that themodels fail to categorise the teachers in any theoretical model but on the other hand the understandingof preschool teacher?s expression and interpretation of the concept of religion,autonomy and freedom showed both diversity and lack of knowledge on the subject mattersreligious freedom which fall within the child rights issues.

The following paper is about degrading treatment in preschools and the essay discuss degrading treatment according to the Swedish school law, in preschools and the chosen focus for this study is three to four year old children. The aim is to see whether or not preschool children proceed with degrading treatment towards other children and if preschool teachers believe that children this young have the ability to do so. The questions for this study are: Can children proceed with degrading treatment towards each other? Which conflicts evolve through children?s interactions? Can children in pre-schools have a degrading behavior? To answer these questions participant observation at two preschools and interviews with four preschool teachers were chosen as method. The perspective of this paper is based on the view on children as actors, which is used to acknowledge and enhance the possibilities of letting the children?s own voices be heard.

My purpose with this study is to examine whether or how teachers are gender-conscious in preschool everyday situations. That is, if they are aware of their attitude and treatment of work on gender and what gender concept has relevance for educators. In much of the practical literature that I read, it appears that many teachers are not aware of their responses and attitudes to children based on gender aspect. I have examined how the gender work differs in the two preschools that I chosen to study.The questions that this study is based on isDoes the educators at the preschools work gender conscious in everyday situations?-Is it boys or girls who get the most attention from educators in everyday situations?What do the teachers at the preschool concept of gender?What approach have been the teachers of preschool to counteract traditional gender patterns in everyday situations?I have made ??a qualitative study where I interviewed five educators and made ??observations on the two preschools.

The main purpose of this study was to examine how preschool teachers are working to promote each child's language development and whether they can ensure that they do that. Therefore I wanted to find out what a good language development implies for each teacher, how they work to promote each child's language development in daily practice, how they measure the actual language development and also what conditions the teachers have, to engage in a language development way to work. For the study, I chose a qualitative method, with structured interviews and all together I interviewed six preschool teachers, within the same organization in a suburb close to Stockholm.  The results showed that there is an ambiguity, among the preschool teachers, in what a good language development means, but it can be stated that they do have a language development way to work even if it needs to be developed. Further on, it has emerged that the teachers have the tools to measure children's language development, although they do not have the conditions yet to use the method to the fullest. About the preschool teachers own conditions in order to operate in a language development way to work, I concluded that they have a strong foundation to build on, but they still have much work ahead of them.

Syftet med vår studie var att undersöka om, hur samt när förskollärare och lärare i förskolan, förskoleklass och skolår ett använder sig av barnböcker och högläsning i det pedagogiska arbetet med barn, samt deras medvetna tanke bakom bokval. Vi var även nyfikna på vilka yttre förutsättningar (miljön) det finns för att skapa läslust och läsro. Resultaten förväntades ge klarhet i hur sambandet mellan barnbokens ställning och dess användande såg ut. Resultaten visade att förskollärare och lärare värderar barnbokens roll i verksamheten högt och många visade på en medvetenhet om de förtjänster användandet av den för med sig. Detta återspeglades dock inte helt i den dagliga verksamheten, där barnlitteraturen främst erhöll en funktionell roll.

Studies among parents of children with disabilities have shown that they experience a higher level of parenting stress as well as a lower degree of wellbeing, compared to parents of children without disabilities. However, there is a need to further explore parents? experience on this matter within a Swedish context. The aim of the current study was to examine how parents of preschool children, with and without disabilities, in Västerbotten, experience the impact of their child. A sample of 67 parents of children with disabilities and 134 parents of children without disabilities took part in the questionnaire study.

The Swedish early childhood system is considered among the best in the world, however, in spite of this, we feel that there exists a conflict between educators? and parents? expectations of ?a good preschool?. During our teacher education training we have observed many different preschools and almost in all of them we have listened to anecdotes about one or more conflicts arising between educators and parents and which we have been able to pinpoint toward differing expectations. After talking with a preschool director, who also perceives that expectations of the preschool aims sometimes differ, our idea brought us to conduct this investigation.In this study, we have investigated parents? expectations of preschool and compared them with educators? expectations.

AbstractThe Swedish society has always been monolingual, but has for the past decades transformed into a multicultural and multilingual society. The aim of this study is to investigate if and in that case how preschool teachers work with language development in bilingual and multicultural preschools. The concept of linguistic and cultural diversity includes several different components, not least the social interactions that are of great importance to every individual's development, learning and participation in the world. By understanding the importance of language, language development and the role of mother tongue in second language acquisition, we look into various researches done concerning the effects of the preschool teachers? opinions, methods used to language developmental primarily for children who are multilingual and how the physical environment is shaped to promote language in multicultural and multilingual preschools.The method used in this study is semi-structured interviews with preschool teacher working in multicultural or bilingual preschool settings.

The purpose of the study is to highlight educators' preferences and attitudes towards tablet in preschool by describing the use of this digital tool in the preschool educational activities. The use of tablet in preschool is in the study looked upon as a phenomenon. The description of the phenomenon is built on the analysis and interpretation of educators' statements about it. The research questions focus on the following aspects: educators' attitudes towards the tablet and its use in pre-school educational activities, the tablet's current area of use, the culture surrounding the use of this digital tool and the educators? statements about advantages and disadvantages of tablet's use in preschool.

The purpose of this study was to examine and compare what six preschool teachers thought about their opportunities to take advantage of children's interest in natural sciences and technology, across four kindergartens. The following questions were explored in order to achieve the aim of the study: How do the preschool teachers interviewed describe their work with science and technology in the preschool and what these preschool teachers think about the meaning of motivation in the children?s learning of natural sciences and technology in preschool.  The study used a qualitative approach in the form of semi-structured interviews and interviewed a total of six trained pre-school teachers from four kindergartens with different profiles. The first kindergarten focuses on mathematics, science and technology.

The purpose of this thesis is to see how film can be used to invigorate children?s language development. There is not much research regarding this, which is why we have chosen to study this particular topic. The study consists of questionnaires, an interview and a pilot study. We have chosen to proceed from a socio-cultural perspective, language perspective and learning perspective, thus we are interested in the teacher?s views and thoughts about film as a learning tool complemented by what children can gain through film.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how directors of preschool apply the mandatory reporting and what information they say is important in the decision to report child maltreat-ment. The study was built on five semi-structure interviews with five directors of preschool working in Greater Stockholm. The perspective of this paper is sociology of law theory. This means to study how out of law information makes sense when director of preschool applies the mandatory reporting. The result was analysed with three different analytic tools: action plan, consulting social services and the considerations of the directors of preschool them-selves.