My essay deals with a problem in our society which, in my opinion, has been neglected. Even today in 2011, the quality of schools and preschools is extremely varied. This has been a problem for a long time and not nearly enough attention has been paid to it.In my essay I have tried to understand what it is that causes these differences in quality between preschools. With help from literature and research studies I have examined what quality in preschool really means.My starting point is an account of my own experience at the preschool where I currently work and a description of a study visit I made to another preschool which operates in a very different way to the one where I work. I wanted to investigate what the consequences are for children who grow up attending preschools of different quality.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate, and thereby highlight, the new role of special needs teachers in conducting educational development in the fields of linguistics and literacy. The thesis defines how educational development, as described by special needs teachers, can be conducted and what conditions they perceive for such development. Factors which, according to special needs teachers, promote or hinder the development are discussed.The study uses a qualitative method involving knowledge-creating dialogues, analyzed hermeneutically, with two special needs teachers. Results are then discussed in light of relevant research and sociocultural theory. The study indicates that special needs teachers? main tool, to support teachers, is diverse use of dialogue.

AimThe main aim of this study was to find out how teachers reflect on their work with developing pupils? interest towards mathematics in grade nine. As a teacher in mathematics, it is important to be aware of different views on interest towards mathematics and how it is possible to work in that direction. Since developing interest towards mathematics is written the in syllabus as criteria for teaching mathematics in grade nine, it is important to know and take an active role in finding ways to approach the issue.Main issues? How do teachers in grade nine reflect over their work with development of interest towards mathematics?? How are teachers? Beliefs Systems reflected in their work with interest?MethodThe main focus of this study was teachers? perspective on their own work on developing interest towards mathematics.

The aim of this study is, from a norm-critical approach, to find, investigate and analyse human representation in the visual culture of one preschool in order to understand if the children enrolled are represented or not. The research questions are: In what ways is there imagery of human representations in images and materials designed for play? What skin-colors and origins are dominant in the data collected?We carried out a qualitative study in the form of visual ethnography. This method allowed us to use a combination of different data collection tools such as photography and ethnographic field notes to collect our data. The photographs we took of images and material used for play, was then analysed through semiotic picture analysis.

The purpose of this study is to explore how teachers in Sweden and Croatia work with children that have problems like ADHD and dyslexia in school. I have chosen to compare pedagogical methods between Swedish and Croatian teachers which are used in work with children with difficulties when it comes to the education and teachers approach to these children. I have done a qualified study and have interviewed teachers in both Sweden and Croatia and one specialist in pedagogy in Croatia. I compared with these interviews information from earlier studies and literature. Results show that teachers in Sweden are of the opinion that every student who has these difficulties is different and therefore the use a variation of pedagogical strategies is crucial.

The aim with this study was to investigate how a few teachers in Swedish, at upper secondary school, are using computers in their teaching, and what approach they have towards using computers in teaching. A qualitative study has been made to accive a result, on this matter, were five currently teaching teachers in Swedish, at different upper secondary schools, have been intervjued. The teachers answered questions concerning how and in what speciefic fields of study they use computers, the computer program and -tools they are using and what benefits and disadvantiges they see with computers in teaching. They also answered questions concerning the availability of computers at the schools which they are working. The study showed that the way teachers are using computers in their teaching, and the amount they are using them varied between the teachers; but all are using computers mainly with the purpose to write texts and to search for information. All teachers also had in common that they are using computers not as frequently and in a different way when grammar is concerned. It appered that the teachers were mainly positive to use computers in their teaching, even if some teachers acknowleadged more disadvantiges than the others.

This research is about different perspectives, offered by three mother tongue teachers, one principal and also featuring a representative from Skolverket, on the subject: teacher legitimation for mother tongue teachers, mother tongue teachers opportunity for competence education and the future of mother tongue education in Sweden.The theoretical framework is mother tongue language, globalization, the post-colonial theory, power and social inequality. A qualitative approach was used including five interviews taken place in Stockholm, the results does not however represent the whole country nor the community of Stockholm itself.The result shows that mother tongue teachers thinks the teacher legitimation does not mean anything regarding their already low-status. Even principal and representative from Skolverket express their concern towards the 'non-demand' for mother tongue teachers to get their legitimation and they feel there is a lack of ambition from decisonmakers to include the mother tongue teachers.As per today there is no higher education for mother tongue teachers leading towards an exam. Mother tongue teachers are worried about their future although principal and representant takes a bright outlook. .

The intension of this study is to investigate the interaction between teachers and social workers in two diffrent countys. The study is focused on how teachers act upon suspicions when there are children at risk and what kind of support the teacher gets from social workers. Another importent question is if the teachers know what kind of rules regarding to confidentiality and if it would be better for the pupils if there were no confidentiality.To get answers to my questions, i have interviewed teachers and social workers in both countys.In this study I assume that the power has three dimensions and that there are four levels of interaction.Due to the law about confidentiality the social worker has the power over the teachers. Because the law about confidentiality it is difficult for teachers and social workers to interact.If the teacher want help from social services, she or he must call the social worker because the social worker will not call the teacher. If the social worker want to help the teacher and give her advice, the social worker can do that without breaking confidentiality.

The purpose of this study is to investigate witch knowledge and thoughts children will have about the term of floating and sinking, and witch possibilities there is to make various knowledge visible in preschool physics through playing with water. The study also concern the differences and similarities between two different groups of age who have participated in the study. The study was carried out by an activity with participant observation and feedback interviews afterwards. The result shows that the possibilities to physics are many in preschool. The children expressed new thoughts and ideas who concern other phenomena in physics during the investigation and discussed similar experiments and material to examine.

The aim of this thesis is to examine how secondary teachers in the subject of history are using the textbook in their teaching. Four questions are being dealt with in this thesis. What importance is being placed on the use of history textbooks by the secondary teachers? What priorities do the secondary teachers have? How do they deal with student interests? And what is the importance of the secondary teachers? work experience? I have interviewed four secondary teachers with different work experience to complete this thesis. A Dictaphone has been used in all the interviews. Research has shown that textbooks now have a central role in teaching and the lack of alternative materials and reduction of teaching hours has made it difficult to replace. The main conclusions of the thesis are that the history textbook has a dual role depending on the teacher you ask, and that the history book is used differently by the teachers.

The aim of this study was trough qualitative interviews with teachers and counsellors in Swedish schools, to study their experiences and perceptions of non suicidal self-injury (NSSI) in adolescents. During the study three teachers and three counsellors who worked in four different schools were conducted. The theoretical approach that was used is Michael Polanyis theory tacit knowledge. The outcome of the study was that schools did not seem to talk about NSSI as a problem and the teachers knowledge about it had come from own experiences meeting adolescents whit NSSI. The interviewed teachers and counsellors felt it hard to define NSSI, they mainly referred it to someone who cut themselves.

AbstractThe overall purpose of this thesis was to investigate to what extent new research findings, in neuroscience and learning, may be useful in a school improvement context. In a qualitative interview study combined with questionnaire, we have investigated the approach to school improvement that exists in a municipality. Informants have been head teachers in preschool and primary school, special education teachers in a student health team and a development manager. The outcome of the study showed that all of the study participants, all of which have a formal mandated to work for school improvement occurs. It also shows that informants, according to their professional position, express different goals when relating to school improvement.

This essay is about local history in history teaching in two cities; Kalmar and Vetlanda. The purpose was to see how teachers in Kalmar and Vetlanda define local history and what kind of local history they teach their students. I have also examined what benefits of didactics the teachers see in teaching local history. In order to find out I interviewed four history teachers at three schools in Kalmar and two history teachers at one school in Vetlanda. Some of the interviews were carried out over the telephone and the rest at the teachers´s schools.

From autumn 2008 Sweden has reinstalled the Special Education Needs teacher education. For future special education teachers and active teachers in the field, it is important to know the history and be aware of future visions to create a good role for the Special Education Needs teachers. This study examines attitudes towards special education and Special Education Needs teachers amongst school principals and classroom teachers at seven schools in Umeå municipality. School principals were interviewed, and a survey was handed out amongst the selected General Education teachers. From this it appears that school principals have a picture of special needs education and Special Education Needs teachers' work that corresponds well with the objectives of the school's governing documents.

The aim of this study is to investigate how Swedish elementary school teachers proceed in cases of suspected child abuse, what knowledge teachers have in order to identify signs of child abuse and to make a report to social services, and also the obstacles teachers face during a report to social services. We used qualitative interviews with five practicing teachers; three was conducted at the teachers´ workplaces and the other two with the help of telephones. We used the role theory to analyze our results. We have concluded that teachers request more knowledge of signs of maltreatment and that they find their skills in discovering child abuse lacking. As obstacles to reporting, teachers identify their doubts and worries together with the difficulties that the often concealed child abuse brings.