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.

The purpose of this study is to see how preschool teachers can support multilingual children and promote their development in their first languages. It was chosen to look at a specific municipality to see how the preschool teachers there work with multilingual children. By using the method of structured interviews, it was learnt that they do, in fact, work actively with multilingual children. The preschool teachers interviewed received the same questions in order to make the answers as comparable and measurable as possible. The results seem to indicate that more resources are needed to fulfil the needs of children with another first language than Swedish.

In 1999 the childbearing increased, which in combination with the closure of a number ofpreschools led to the shortage and reduced capacity in available places for youngchildren. The lack of places in preschools has led us to try to find a solution to theproblem and in order to solve the problem we have interviewed personnel of preschoolsin Halmstad. The persons we met were asked to list advantages and disadvantages oftheir preschool and also to come up with innovative solutions and new ideas of how todevelop a satisfactory preschool. This was the basis for us when we drew our drawingsand our main objective was to find a new template for the development of pre-fabricatedpreschools.When drawing a new and modern preschool a number of considerations have to be made,first of all the main objective for the children is play and playtime, a second objective issound reduction and laws about sound reduction. Another consideration is how toconstruct the building and which method to be used, for instance should industrialtechniques be considered and pros and cons be listed.The main disappointment amongst the preschool personnel was that they had noinfluence in the planning stage of the new development of the preschool.

The background to the study was that the school agency published a report stating that students, after completing school, did not meet the criteria to receive the grade ?Pass? in mathematics. The study presents the reasoning of work teams from five different preschool departments?, about ways to work with the subject with children in the ages four to five. The study may help future teachers to develop new attitudes regarding mathematics in the preschool, by letting them take part of others pedagogues? thoughts and experiences.

According to the immigration service forecasts Sweden faces large refugee influxes in the coming years. This means that educators in the kindergarten, preschool and school, will meat children from the war torn countries. In this study, the purpose is to find out the educators different conceptions of war-affected refugee children, because my theory is that their beliefs influence their actions. I wanted to get answers to their beliefs about the difficulties or challengers that children and educators may be faced with. Furthermore, I wanted to know what educators envisioned about their own role?s importance to the war affected refugee children and their perceptions of the Swedish culture, environment, language and school.

This work is about how teachers describe their work with mathematics in a traditional nursery school and a Montessori preschool. Another aim is to study how children mathematise on the two different preschools and to see if there are any differences between the various educational theories and practices mathematising. I have used two methods wich is interviews with preschool teachers, and observation of the children. The results of my study was that differences exist but the biggest difference is the material that Montessori uses. The difference between the teachers' way of teaching mathematics is to Montessori preschool places great emphasis on the material and how it is used, while in the traditional preschool puts the emphasis on learning through interaction with others.

Background: Mathematics is a subject that many students perceive as difficult. In recent years, results in mathematics declined, while many students have difficulties in the subject of Swedish. However, there is not much research on the relationship between difficulties in mathematics and language weaknesses.Purpose: The purpose of this work is to find out what role the advocate competence of learning opportunities for the students to understand mathematics. A further aim of this work is to find out how mathematics is verbalized and individualized in preschool and find out how teachers in those classes describes how they work to verbalize and individualize mathematics.Method: The purpose is answered by observations in preschool and interviews of the teachers working in the observed classes. The empirical data are discussed and analyzed with theories related to children's learning and literature of mathematics and language.Result: The results show that mathematics is extensively verbalized in preschool classes.

The aim of this thesis was to use qualitative approaches to show how four preschool teachers experienced their start in the profession as a preschool teacher. The questions in the stydy were as follows: What kind of expectations did the preshool teachers have before the start in the profession? What did the preshool teachers experience as difficulty and opportunity at the start in the profession? How do they think now about their professional development during the early period in the profession? The empirical material, I got through a qualitative interview method. My theoretical starting point was to take the hermeneutic research perspective, aimed for interpreting and understanding. Theories of Socialization and socialization for teachers, socio-cultural theories and theories of tacit knowledge have been used to analyze the material.

Abstract   Study: Degree project in teacher education, Advanced level, 15 hpUniversity of Skövde.Title: ?The aim is for them to manage as much as possible on their own? ? a qualitative study of preschools´ indoor environment as a pedagogical tool for the independence of children.Number of pages: 31Author: Jenny Karlsson, Marie PerssonTuto: Gunvi BrobegDate: 2009-01-28 Keywords: Independence, indoor environment, preschool, pedagouge This study aims at examining the indoor environment of three different preschools as a pedagogical tool for the independence of children. Is the design of the premises adapted to the height of the children? Can they themselves reach the material they need and is it possible for them to reach their outdoor clothes or do they constantly have to ask for help? In order to acquire a deeper understanding of the different views of the three preschools, the question is asked: what are the pedagogues thoughts of the indoor environment of their own preschool in the perspective of childrens independence and what affects their choice of furnishing, planning etc? The preschool curriculum clearly states that the children must be given the opportunity to develop their independence. We have experianced that the pedagogues feel that they are unable to plan the environment as they wish and thus, interest is also pointed towards the question: are there any limiting factors that affect the design of the indoor environment, and, that being the case, which are they? The study is based on qualitative observations and interviews because it is in its interest to discern patterns and categories rather than quantity.

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 aim of this paper is to clarify the importance of communication between parents and educators, as well as collaboration. The survey involves cooperation between parents and teachers in preschool and in the survey; it is the educators? role and approach that is made visible. The issues I answer with the help of the interviewed teachers in the paper are: In what ways considers the interviewed teachers that can create dialogues with parents about children's daily life and activities? How do you describe the interviewed teachers that they interact with parents in preschool and the various forms of collaboration describe the interviewed teachers that they use in preschool?What difficulties consider the interviewed teachers may apply when creating dialogues and cooperation with parents in preschool Using a qualitative research method, the questions have been answered in the paper..

This study presents some teachers' views on whether today's school is a school for everybody or not. It has also looked into what special resources that are put in for children in special needs. The purpose of this study is to find out some teachers' views and thoughts on the concept of "an Education for everybody" and how these teachers said they worked with children in special needs. After taking part of and processed recent research results and literature, I chose to examine this through qualitative interviews. I interviewed three teachers, one primary school teacher, one special education teacher and one preschool teacher.The conclusions were that the concept of education could be understood in different ways.

The study has been conducted to find out whether aesthetic expressions and experiences can benefit the smallest children's language development. How do the teachers at the preschool relate to aesthetic expression? Do they think that aesthetic expression and experience will be favorable for stimulating children's language? Children perceive through their senses, logically aesthetic expressions should promote children's learning and development. How does this claim stand in relation with the smallest children's language development and teachers' views on aesthetics as a pedagogical tool for language stimulation? To get closer to the answer a survey have been done.