According to some researchers, dyscalculia is at least as prevalent as dyslexia. Somewhere between 3.6-6 % of all pupils have specific mathematics difficulties named dyslexia. If this be true, it should present the most complex special education predicament by far in schools today. Despite the statistics, dyscalculia is still a rather unknown concept.The cause of dyscalculia is not yet fully analyzed. There are several theories and many researchers see similarities between dyscalculia and the special educational problem of reading and writing, dyslexia.

The purpose of this study was to examine the use of manipulative materials in mathematics education with the main focus on grades 4 to 6. With the use of a phenomenological approach all the aspects of this phenomenon was examined. Qualitative interviews, participant observations and comparative content analysis of textbooks has been conducted to investigate the use of manipulative materials in mathematics education. The results indicates that the teachers that were interviewed possesses good knowledge of this teaching method. However these teachers struggled to find time to put this method into practice and there was not enough teachers to attend these classes.

SummaryIt is inspiring to see museum visitors evolve and develop through art exhibitions. Great potential lay in facilitating the learning experience by art exhibitions, and the possibility of designing exhibitions that make visitors attracted to learn. The purpose of the present work is to study the means of creating favorable conditions for lifelong and enjoyable learning in art exhibitions. The concept of learning has multiple definitions, and several have been used effectively in various ways in preceding works. The underlying principle of this work is that visitors learn by actively processing information in their own minds and through experiences. The term lifelong learning is often associated with employability and adaptability.

A carnival can not be stopped! A design pedagogical study of children and norms In Basel, the only Protestant carnival in Europe takes place. The carnival is called Fasnacht. For three days, there is a wild and uninhibited play with tradition, crossing borders and social criticism.The aim of this thesis is to expand the understanding of the concept of the carnival, and how to use it for an educational purpose. Three children from Basel have been involved in an workshop where they designed and talked about norms and power structures through the carnivalesque principle. The study is based on the questions: How can you use the carnival as a starting point for designing and talking about norms and power structures together with children? And; How can the design process support such a project? To spot this, I made arrangements for a design educational project.

A rhetorical analysis of the educational interactive film ?Riskprofilen?, produced by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (Swedish: Myndigheten för Samhällsskydd och Beredskap). This essay uses the theories and methods of Procedural Rhetoric, as described by Professor Ian Bogost, and Visual Rhetoric, as described by Professor Brigitte Mral to analyse the interactive and visual component parts of the artefact, and compares them to the intended purposes of the artefact as stated by documents pertaining to its creation, found to be those of educating the public; marketing the agency; and driving traffic to its webpage. The artefact is through analysis found to fulfil the purposes of marketing the Agency and of likely increasing traffic to the website upon which it is hosted. Regarding the primary, educational purpose this analysis finds that the artefact does not teach a user the accident-avoidance strategies it claims to do, but is dependent upon further materials..

This study is based on interviews with five directors of educational administration within the Stockholm County. The purpose is to investigate how the directors of educational administrations, in the different municipalities, describe the relationship between the administration and the local school units. Moreover, the aim is also to describe the administration director?s work in relation to the various levels of the administration. To what extent can it be identified as a dimension of the learning organization described in this report.The study shows that skepticism is usually directed upwards toward the next level in the organization and that the decision-making right for local schools is consistently safeguarded.

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..

The aim of this study has been to achieve an increased understanding of the meaning of home for people in homelessness. The study is based on texts written by people in homelessness and a qualitative content analysis has been used to process the material. The result has been analysed with an inductive approach, using parts of the analysis method grounded theory. Three aspects of the meaning of home was identified in the texts; control, self-determination and independence. The lack of a home means a major limitation concerning these aspects, according to the texts.

The purpose of the study has been to recognise good development and the factors behind this development. We have chosen an aid-project co-financed first by the Swedish government and later by the government of Great Britain for our study. One of the conditions for good development, according to our chosen theory Another development, is peoples participation. To study good development and peoples participation we conducted a Minor Field Study (MFS) in Rajasthan in the north-west of India in June-August 2001. We had a hermeneutic approach and consequently accomplished interviews and participant observations in the Lok Jumbish project in Rajasthan.

Bergslagets museum is one of the oldest industrial museums in Sweden. It opened in 1922 in Falun, by the big mining company Stora Kopparbergs Bergslags Aktiebolag. This is a study of why a company would be interested in running a museum, why Bergslagets museum opened and who the people were that created it.Several persons were involved in collecting and organizing the models of old machinery, letters, paintings, pictures that was to become the Bergslagets museum. This paper shows different motives behind the opening of an industrial museum in Falun and gives a presentation of its superintendants, Carl Sahlin, Alvar Silow, Erik Johan Ljungberg and Olof Söderberg. All of them were central in the creating of the Bergslagets museum, today known as Gruvmuseet i Falun..

It is extremely important that the construction of the environment where children and youngsters spend the majority of their days supports the progress of their mentality. That is why I in this study will investigate what a certain amount of teachers consider of the interplay between learning and environment and how they thought a satisfactory environment structure eras of learning and also what the teachers consider to be missing at this point.The schools where I gathered my material are located in Thailand but they use the Swedish curriculum as a starting point and the students at these schools are mostly Swedish speaking.An important element that I came across was the impact of the surrounding on how to shape and use the environment as a tool in the teaching. Thailand?s climate is different than the Swedish climate; I want to investigate if that has any effect in the teaching.The educational environment in schools includes not only the classrooms but also every other space closely connected. Earlier scientific research as well as those people that I used as objects for interviews agrees regarding the fact that a suitable and stimulating environment are one of the most impact on how well children learn.

International negotiation is the link between international planning and implementation. The ability to negotiate successfully may very well depend on the efforts being put into preparatory activities, leading to the purpose of this research, to gain a better understanding of pre-negotiation in an international context, by exploring, describing and partly explaining the process. Personal interviews were conducted with two Swedish international companies to obtain thorough information within the area. The collected data from these two cases are discussed, compared and then finally used to draw general conclusions. The study indicates the different issues that either occur or should be considered prior to the first formal meeting in an international negotiation.

This thesis aims to describe how enterprises can approach and reach older citizens inorder to sell new technology products. For that they need information about aspectsaffecting elderlies purchase decisions regarding these kind of products. The study isbased on 13 qualitative interviews where we have applied semi structured interviews andobservations of the elderlies behaviour towards an Ipad which we used as a study objectduring the interviews.The results of this study shows several aspects which affect the elderlies purchasedecision regarding new technology but it all comes down to one matter, lack ofknowledge. In order to overcome that obstacle, enterprises need to modify theircommunication strategy. They will be needing information about elderlies preferencesand their self-image, meaning how they perceive themselves which is connected to howreceptive they are towards new technology.

Recreation leaders on youth recreation centres is a professional category, mostly mentioned in the public conversation when it comes to taxes and youth problems. But what do they really do, what outlook do they have to their task, and finally, how are their daily lives like at work? The stories of twelve people represent the basis of this essay which itself consists of two separate studies. Six professional recreation leaders speak about their view of their own work, based on background, mission, education, ethics and position. The recreation leaders´stories reflect a worksituation with meetings of great significance andimportant standpoints.

The purpose of this study was to examine some teachers thought about the educational indoor environment in free preschool. With free preschool this study means a Swedish specially adapted to parents/adults and their children and for a typical type of children who are 0-5 years old. Questions to the study were:? How do some teachers in free preschool perceive that they are adapting the preschool indoors environment to children and learning?? How do some teachers in free preschool perceive that they are adapting the preschool indoors environment to children and learning to attract children to the pedagogical environment?In this study I used qualitative methods and interviewed five teachers and preschool indoor environment is observed. I applied the socio cultural perspective to my study.