The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the present importance of liberal education in the Swedish "folkhögskola" by studying its expressions in the teaching of literature and fiction. I have interviewed teachers at four different schools about their opinions of liberal education, literature and cultural heritage, means of instruction, and influence of their students. Liberal education in this thesis is considered as a process. Starting from our own experiences we meet something strange to us and while absorbing this in our experiences we change. But its purpose also is to convey the canon of Western literature.

This study deals with religious independent schools and its impact on society. The purpose of this essay has been to examine what various teachers from both religious independent schools and public schools have for perception of religious independent schools. The questions highlighted in the study is the teachers´ general view to religious independent schools, teachers´ perception of the Education Act " a denominational education, but a non- denominational teaching", and what teachers believe to be segregated or inclusive.The study has consisted of five qualitative interviews with different teachers, where three of them work at religious independent schools, while the other two teachers work in public schools.The study shows that there are prominent differences of approach to religious independent schools. Teachers who work at religious independent schools avert criticism of religious independent schools and argue that teaching in religious independent schools do not differ appreciably from the public schools. Instead can religious independent schools serve as a good alternative to the public school.

The purpose of this graduate work is to seek knowledge about how children?s right to participation and influence is interpreted and understood in a specific context and also to examine how this right can be conditioned and shaped by the pedagogical practice of early childhood education.The focus of this study has been to examine the arguments and attitudes towards the right to participation and influence as a pedagogical practice as it is understood in early childhood education. Additionally, I have been interested in studying the affordances and restrictions that early childhood educators experience when dealing with children´s right to participation and influence.The platform used for data collection is Facebook and the informants recruited were active participants in forums regarding democracy in preschool education. In the second phase of the study I conducted online focus groups with these participants.For the analysis of the material I have adopted a poststructuralist perspective, starting from Jaques Derridas philosophical texts and use of deconstruction.The results show the complexity in early childhood education´s democratic mission. What becomes clear is the importance for the teachers to adopting an open, ethical and democratic approach in order to make children´s right to participation and genuine influence possible in the everyday reality of early childhood education. .

The purpose of this study is to examine the usage of IT technology within preschool and study how IT tools are used by preschool staff for administrative as well as pedagogical assignments. Several aspects affects the work preschool staff do with IT which concerns availability to technology, how technology is used and how technology is made available for the children. There are a number of questions linked to these aspects where some examples this study examines are which advantages, disadvantages, obstacles or other limitations that comes with introducing IT? This study also examines how, when and in what contexts IT is being used? Other questions examined are the pedagogue?s general views of IT, competence development and eventual needs of investment? Further on this study examines to some part how children interact with IT during pedagogical activities? The overall objective is to shed light on problems that preschool staff encounter  in their daily work and on the basis of identifying important questions at issue that could constitute a basis for further research. The results of this study are based on both a literature review and a field study.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the teaching of literacy in two schools in different countries, South Africa and Sweden. The basis for the comparison was the decline of the two countries in the international PIRLS assessment. The aim of this essay was thus to identify possible similarities or differences between the two countries, possibly contributing to the decline in the literacy level of young students. The study was conducted by interviewing teachers of young children in South Africa and Sweden about their views on teaching literacy. The research shows that there are several factors contributing both positively and negatively to the literacy of young children.

The title of the paper aims at a comment by one of the students during an interview. It reflects how most of the students experience the lunches in a specific school where the investigation is made. The question of pedagogical lunches has always interested me. Here I have used a method called the Grounded theory. I carried out a qualitative investigation with a number of methods such as interviews and participating observations.

AbstractThe aim for this study is to establish how teachers and supervisors at the Child and Recreation Programme interpret the concept ?vocational knowledge?. It is also about how they substantially can see that the pupils are developing vocational knowledge, during their work placement training. The aim of this thesis is to create a base for teachers to work with continuing development in teaching practice. The empirical part of this study is based on interviews. Interviews were analyzed in three categories: definition of vocational knowledge, substantially developing in vocational knowledge and success factors. The result shows that knowing how and knowing why is salient in vocational knowledge.

This project is focusing on a future park that will surround Hyllie water tower in the outskirts of Malmö. The water tower will be located in the central part of the new building area Hyllievång. The park will function as a town park with a special focus on water. The water council of the municipality, Va-verket, has for the last 7 years built up and been in charge for a pedagogical programme in the water tower, were schoolchildren come to learn about the cycle of water and how we use water in our daily life. In the park they want to build a new part that gives experience of water, as a compliment to the information in the tower. What will that park look like, and what shall it be constructed of? How do you bring water to the surface in a park? How can landscape architecture work to enhance the presence of water and make people more interested in water issues? In the search to find the answers to all my questions I have meet with people, read books and visited different places.

The purpose of this study is to determine which approach preschool teachers from a Reggio Emilia inspired preschool and a traditional preschool have on children, knowledge, learning and their own role in children?s learning. The two pedagogical approaches have different basic visions; Reggio Emilia follows the thoughts of Lori Malaguzzi and the traditional preschool follows the Swedish curriculum Lpfö 98. The main research questions asked were:What view on children, learning and knowledge does the preschool teacher from a Reggio Emilia inspired preschool have in comparison with a traditional preschool?Which role does the teacher believe that they should take regarding children?s learning?What differences and similarities can be identified in the teachers' perceptions?To carry out this study, I used a qualitative research method.

The fact that Sweden has changed from a homogeneous to a heterogeneous culture with multiculturalism as key word requires an intercultural approach in the community and school. The purpose of this study was to examine how teachers of maternal languages experience their teaching in school and what resources they have available from their employer and the municipality. What methods do the teachers in maternal languages use in their teaching at school and what resources do they have to their disposal? How do teachers in maternal languages use the perspective of intercultural education in their teaching and how do the teachers look on their future role in the Swedish school. To achieve this I have chosen the method to make depth interviews with 6 teachers of maternal languages and compare and relate the result to the theories about interculturality and the circle model, to official curricula and to existing literature in this subject.Teachers of maternal languages are very spread out, they work in several schools and sometimes even in different municipalities, during the same week.

The Government announced a new school reform which aims to support teacher appraisal and professionalism within the Swedish education system. The once well renowned profession is hurting by the decreasing quality of the Swedish education system and the declining number of applicants to the university teacher program. The school reform introduced a new career path for especially skilled teachers to an occupation earlier characterized by a homogenous work force. The Government encourages principals to promote thriving teachers to first teachers, whom will receive an increase in the salary covered by state aid. By supporting these effective teachers, the Government wishes to increase the image perceived and status of the profession and improve the competitiveness of teaching's salary.

This report describes an interview study of Swedish elementary school teacher?s view on stu-dent influence. The objective is to find out about teachers' approach to student influence, what do they think happens with students that are allowed to influence and what are the negotiables and non-negotiables when it comes to student influence in elementary education? And do the teachers really want their students to have influence?According to the official policy documents for the Swedish school system the Swedish school shall work towards a democratic school. Not only should the students be educated about de-mocracy but they should also learn to use democratic values and processes.

Abstract Students' questions play an important role in both teaching and learning science. However, in a traditional classroom, the teacher is the center of attention and poses questions to which students answer. The students seldom ask questions to which the teacher responds. The purpose of this paper is to examine teachers' attitudes towards student questions. This paper will also explore teachers? views on the issues related to students? questions for science education.

This essay is about why and how the media is integrated with Swedish as a subject. The purpose of the study is to investigate if the teachers who use different media when teaching Swedish consider that this pedagogy develops the students? learning. I also aim to find out if there are any differences and/or similarities between the teachers.To fulfil the purpose I have done a qualitative study with three teachers who work at a school. I have focused on following issues: How, when, where and why do the teachers use media when teaching Swedish?The investigation shows that media is popular today and it is becoming more so all the time.

Resource-based learning or problem-oriented learning are teaching methods that are becoming more and more common in schools today. In order to make these teaching methods work there is a demand to make students information literate. This entails that school librarians ought to play a more important role in teaching than before since they are the ones that are the most qualified when it comes to mediating information skills. The aim of this thesis is to find out how nine teachers at six senior high schools apprehend the professional role of the school librarian and how they apprehend the conception of information literacy In order to learn about these conceptions we have chosen to study to what extent collaboration exists in the schools in question and the teachers conceptions of the importance of the school librarian in this context. We have used phenomenography which is both a set of theoretical assumptions and a methodology.