This study was carried out in Ronneby municipality during May 2006. I chose to compare three senior schools with regards to the implementation of objective orientated directives based on the teachers understanding of the task, motivation, resources allocated and their significance for the disparity between boys? and girls? grades.I carried out nine in-depth interviews: three at each senior school. From the interviews it emerged that teachers perceive objectives differently from parents and students. Teachers claim that they understand the directives but say that they lack the resources.

ABSTRACTDuring the last decades, environmental impacts have increased significantly, much due to the great traffic flows within cities. Therefore, to reduce these impacts and encourage a healthy way of living, it has in recent years become vital to generate safer and more sustainable and flexible modes of transportation. In order to do so, authorities and physical planners must work together to find viable solutions to incorporate in the infrastructure and offer alternative transport modes ? such as walking, cycling and public transportation. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the development of the cycling infrastructure in the city of Västerås and whether it is possible to expand bicycle commuting alongside public transportation. The thesis consequently aims to study how different physical planners within Västerås municipality work with traffic related questions.

AbstractThis paper is about the organisation of the special needs education in three nine-year compulsory schools in Stockholm and the pedagogical thoughts and theories that underlie these organisations. The main purpose of the paper was to investigate whether the special needs education of these schools should be interpreted in accordance with a segregating or an including view on integration as these perspectives are presented by the Norwegian professor Peder Haug. In addition to this I also wanted to investigate if there were any historical arguments in favour of one or another of these perspectives that were still being put forward in today?s debate.The methods that I used were a study of literature regarding special needs education and interviews of a qualitative character with three special educationalists and a special teacher that were working on three different nine-year compulsory schools in Stockholm.The result of the study shows that a big part of the special needs education of the schools that I visited can be interpreted in accordance with the segregating view on integration.The organisation of the special needs education of the three schools differed slightly from school to school but the common trait was that the largest part of this work took place outside of the student?s regular classroom and sometimes outside of the scheduled school day.Two of the schools had special groups where students that were believed to have a need of special education got some, or their entire schooling. That the schools chose to build a big part of their special needs education upon solutions that should be regarded as segregating was motivated on the basis of an effect oriented view on education.

The purpose of this work is to find out how present manager contracts are set up in Landstinget Västmanland (the county council of Västmanland), explore managers? perception of these contracts and why managers have chosen leadership. The work has also reviewed the question if managers need to have a relationship or expertise to the activities they lead and which qualifications are needed in such case. The survey was conducted in two divisions in which nine interviews were held with managers at all levels. In addition to this a questionnaire including the 87 managers in the divisions were held.

The purpose of this study is to examine how school meals are organized in a selection of Stockholm's secondary schools and to examine the relationship between school meals and the different parameters that indicate each school's symbolic capital and educational capital. By looking at the statistics from each school on the basis of the final grade average, percentage of pupils with foreign background and gender, I examine whether it is possible to see a relationship between how schools organize meals and which pupils attend the school.  In my study, I systematically went through each school's website and tried to identify how school meals at each school are organized. To increase the validity of the study, I have also conducted a questionnaire survey by mail addressed to school principals.   In order to analyse and understand my results and put them in relation to my current knowledge about the schools in my sample, I am using Bourdieu's theoretical tools that a given aid, both in methodological and analytical purpose. Based on Bourdieu's theories of symbolic capital, cultural capital and educational capital, I can understand and analyse school meals are organized and focused as part of schools' symbolic assets in competition with other schools.   The first part of the study shows that there are four different organizational models for school meals, fully equipped kitchen and canteen, heating kitchen and canteen, school meals in restaurants and school meal card.    In the second part, I have examined the relationship between the type of organization for school meals used and the symbolic resources available at the school. I can conclude from the results that it is difficult to find a correlation between the symbolic resources and the different categories. But even though it is not possible to see all the schools' symbolic assets equally clear, there are still some very telling examples. In many ways, these examples can be seen as polar opposites to each other based on Mikael Palme?s concepts ?goal rational? and ?education oriented? schools..

This is a study of democracy on the local level. It?s a comparison between the municipalities of Mo?rbyla?nga and Mo?nstera?s in the region of Kalmar in Sweden based on most similar design. The question is if the structure of the political organisation affects the quality of democracy, with focus on the reorganisaton in Mo?rbyla?nga and the quality of the political process.

Children of school age, who have just moved to Sweden can either start in a preparation class or in a normal class. There is no Swedish law or national policy that determines how new children will start and continue their education in Swedish schools. The decision is up to the schools or the communes.This study investigates what kind of educational methods teachers, from a sample of two different schools, are using to educate the newly-arrived students and if these methods are making any contribution to integrating these children into the Swedish school system. The study will raise questions like, how are the new students introduced to the Swedish school, what is the purpose of having the children in preparation class as opposed to normal class, and what methods do the interviewed teachers use to integrate the new children into the school system?Interviews were conducted with four teachers, an associate professor and a senior lecturer in education, who has done several years of research about children from abroad coming in to the Swedish school system.

The phenomena of cyber bullying is relatively new, but it is now more prevalent than ever as children today have access to the internet on a daily basis, in school as well as at home. Although cyber bullying is an increasing problem in today?s society, there seem to be few guidelines for teachers to follow when using the internet with their students in school. The purpose of this study is to investigate who, according to six teachers, has the responsibilities revolving cyber bullying ? teachers or parents.

The transformed municipality ? Economic and social growth in Örnsköldsvik 1997-2007Author: Kristina HanssonThis thesis focuses on the economic and social growth in the municipality of Örnsköldsvik. It is a single case study and the municipality is studied through economic theories concerning regional growth in the period of 1997-2007. The aim is to analyse whether these theories, such as Åke E. Anderssons and Ulf Strömquists K-society, and other more or less microeconomic assumptions, also are applicable in smaller local contexts.

The theme in this report has been how to benefit experience from accident investigations. The demand on the municipality to perform accidet investigations is relatively new, and maybe they aren?t clear what the demands means. This causes that there might be a problem to benefit experience from accident investigations, for improving the overall safety in the municipality. The main purpose of this report has been to clarify how experience from accident investigations, can be of benefit to society on a local level.

During the past twenty years, the Swedish school systems have slowly changed to becomemore and more performance-driven. Private schools have been growing in general and, likeindependent schools and schools managed by municipalities, they profile themselves. Schoolsare becoming more performance and result-oriented, which has changed the roles of teachersin a dramatic way and is in general, still changing.By profiling students based on theirindividual performance, schools are able to help students identify themselves and their owngoals. The process of profiling is a slow one in which some teachers adapt more quickly thanothers, and one that is critical for other teachers to learn in order to keep up with the demandsof society.Schools, like ordinary businesses, are in constant competition with each other to keep up withthe newest and greatest models of teaching and to rank among the best in high achievements.Perhaps the downside of this modern school structure is that it is often difficult to have aschool where both school management and teachers see eye to eye. School management must heavily focus on the school?s results as a whole.

Previous studies have shown that teachers in school are having an insufficientknowledge about the bullying at their own school. These studies are based from pupils point of view at the senior level of the nine-year compulsory school. Based on this literature we became critical and wanted to examine this closer.The purpose of this essay was to find out and to examine how the staff in two different senior level of compulsory school notice, prevent and counteract bullying in their daily line of work. With this essay we hope to get the schools attention and understanding about this existing problem. We have done a qualitative study using qualitative method for collection of data.

This thesis explores the decisions behind swedish principals to permit or prohibit political parties from visiting schools. Through a series of semistructured qualitative interviews with five respondents from different high schools, insights were gathered into their motivations regarding political party visits to schools. The results indicate that principals view political party visits as significant for fostering civic engagement, aligned with the school's democratic mission. However, some principals opt to prohibit such visits due to concerns about non democratic values and potential disruptions. Practical considerations like safety, logistical issues, and conflict risks are also crucial in their decision-making, highlighting awareness of potential challenges posed by political visits.

The aim of the present study is to examine which need´s unaccompanied children in adulthood describe as significant. Furthermore the study aims to examine if the participants experience that they have received the support they need from Örebro Municipality?s unit for unaccompanied children. To answer this, qualitative interviews were conducted with six persons in 20-22 years of age who arrived to Sweden as unaccompanied children four to six years ago. The interviewees are some of the first in the care of the Örebro Municipality?s unit for unaccompanied children.

The location on the river delta of Klarälven, adjacent to lake Vänern, makes Karlstad one of the Swedish cities where a significant flood risk is present. The city has several major floods in its memory which has caused great material damage and economic losses, the latest of which occurred in the winter of year 2000/2001. The purpose of the study is to examine how the approach to flood risk has changed in the municipality of Karlstad since the 1950s, and how this change has affected the current situation regarding the city's vulnerability to flooding. To investigate this, a document analysis was conducted, where key documents in the media and from the municipality of Karlstad was studied. Furthermore, an interview study was conducted with respondents who currently are employed or previously have been employed in the municipality of Karlstad, who in various ways work with issues of flood risk. The result of the study shows that several changes have taken place since the 1950s in terms of the municipality's approach to flood risk, which for instance has led to preventative measures being taken to a greater extent than previously in the physical planning.