The aim of this thesis is to look for signs of students? understanding of algebra by studying how they make the transition from arithmetic to algebra. Students in an Upper Secondary class on the Natural Science program and Science and Technology program were given a questionnaire with a number of algebraic problems of different levels of difficulty. Especially important for the study was that students leave comments and explanations of how they solved the problems. According to earlier research, transitions are the most critical steps in problem solving.

Summary The purpose of this research is to find out if technology is being used in pre-school activity, to what extent, in which way and what part the pre-school teachers believe they should have in the process. To gather information for the research, questionnaires were sent out to all pre-schools in a municipality in central Sweden. Based on that information two were chosen for observations and interviews. The work with technology in pre-schools may vary. Some pre-school teachers believe they do not adopt any technology at all when asked and all this because of their own lack of interest or knowledge, while others believe it is contained in all of their educational activities.

Violence against teachers in Swedish schools, according to recent reports has increased and there have been many studies to investigate the situation for teachers. The surveys show that teachers are especially vulnerable to students. This study aims to examine the relationship between a number of teachers and their students to study the power relations that exist in the classroom. This is to see what violence is an expression of and also how violence is perceived by the teachers. The issues that are central in this study are:What is the importance of dialogue in the relationship between these teachers and their students?Is there power relations between teachers and their students?What is the violence against teachers and expression of?Is there any connection between dialogue, power relations and violence?The theories of the materials in this study was analyzed using power relations theories of the historian of ideas Michel Foucault and Philosophy Doctor Anders Persson, who to some extent has his theoretical basis in Foucault?s power relations.

The aim of this study was to analyze the assessment of the primary school, from the teacher?s perspective. There has been an ongoing discussion regarding assessment and about the purposes of assessment for a long time. But there is a paucity of research on what teachers believe about. This study examined primary teachers? beliefs on major purposes of assessment.Assessment is the process of gathering and interpreting information about students? learning.

The purpose of this thesis is to describe how principals apprehend the school library. In order to respond to this I formulated three questions: How was the improvement of the school libraries carried out in one municipality? Is the school library experienced as a part of the schools organization? How is the use of the school´s library experienced? To be able to answer these questions, for the purpose of this thesis, I have studied relevant literature on school libraries, the school organization and literature on qualitative methods. I have made six qualitative interviews. The objects of the interviews were three librarians and three principals.

My purpose in this paper is to study teachers' work in reading and writing in primary school and special school. I want to find out if they use the same methods, strategies and materials to help students learn to read and write. I will find out the answer to my purpose by performing two qualitative observation and two qualitative interviews. Lundberg (2010) is the researcher I relate to during my study. Through observation, I see how teachers work with students in the classroom during a lesson in the Swedish language. During the interviews, I received answers to how teachers work with language, the materials, methods and strategies they use. I found out that teachers use specific strategies when they help their students. They use a work material that is tailored to curriculum in Swedish language and it is based on the phonics method. .

 The purpose with my study was primarily to illuminate the students' expectations on gained knowledge during their studies at the upper secondary school Hotel- and Restaurant program, and to what extent these expectations were fulfilled. Secondarily, the purpose was to compare the students' expected and perceived knowledge with the program goals set by the Swedish government and the knowledge requirements expressed in a pilot study made by the Education council of the Hotel and restaurant business (UHR, 2007).I chose a quantative approach and I used an anonymous group enquiry among students at the Hotel- and Restaurant program at two different upper secondary schools to carry out my study.Tendencies in the result suggested that the students at the Hotel- and Restaurant program expected high knowledge level within the competence areas of Guest reception and communication, Cleaning and hygiene, Cooking of cold and hot dishes and Waiting. The expectations were not big within the areas Computers and Internet and Business economics and management.Fulfillment of expected knowledge tended to be high within the areas where the expectations were big. It might therefore be a good investment for schools to work on the student expectations to increase motivation within the low expectation areas.A confrontation of the tendencies in the result with the program goals and the competence requirements expressed in the UHR study, suggested that the upper secondary Hotel- and Restaurant education might focus some more the areas of Guest reception and communication, Beverages and Organization of banquets. Business economics and management should be given much more weight..

The Swedish state and educational system are secular, so to say they do not depend on the former protestant state church anymore. Many people in Sweden are also secular. Even so, in school teachers meet students with a religious faith. The purpose of this study is to examine how teachers without a religious belonging experience the encounter with religious students. The method used was semistructured interviews with five teachers in a upper secondary school in a multicultural suburb of Stockholm.

This essay elucidates upper secondary students? literacy practices, (literacy events, literacy competencies and literacy culture) during a typical day, with focus on the daily literacy practices. A literacy ethnographic study conducted in the environment which participants naturally are, at home, at school and in leisure. The study is inspired of a project, Skriftbruk i arbetslivet, ´Literacy Practices in Working Life´, that conducted by Anna-Malin Karlsson, Per Ledin and Olle Josephson, in collaboration with Vetenskapsrådet ´Science Council´(2002-2004).The result of this study shows that students from professional preparing programs not use such literacy competencies that been tested in traditionally reading comprehension test, particularly much. However, do they read a lot during the literacy practices day by television, computer and mobile phone.

The aim of this study is to examine how the induction period for newly employed upper secondary school teachers is implemented in practice, in relation to the Swedish Education Act and the National Agency for Education?s general guidelines. Although this induction period has been legally mandated since 2010, both previous research and current statistics indicate significant shortcomings or wide variation in its practical execution. The study is based on a qualitative interview study involving 13 school leaders. The interview responses were analyzed using three complementary theoretical frameworks: Lipsky?s theory of street-level bureaucracy, Meyer and Rowan?s concept of decoupling, and Schein?s model of organizational culture.

My intention with this paper was to investigate how the teachers in pre-school thinks about the physical environment in pre-school. Both the significance for the pedagogical activity and the children?s involvement in the design. I have done five interviews with pre-school teachers. The result shows that the pre-school teachers consider that the size of the premises and the availability to the material is important factors for children?s development and learning.

The purpose of this thesis is to carry out a qualitative study of the perceptions of language teachers as to their role in the teaching of values and morals to pupils. Five language teachers have been interviewed about their perceptions of how values are taught and their role therein. The interviews serve to investigate the reality of teaching values to pupils in a Swedish secondary school and the work involved in this on-going process, this being with a view to having a better understanding of just how important a role the teaching of values plays in the daily working life of a teacher. Terms such as fundamental values and morals can be difficult to define as they are highly personal and can differ from person to person depending on one?s background, experiences and family circumstances, for example.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine and present the programmes and activities of school library centres in order to see what functions (purposes) they can fulfil in a municipality and also if and how they can contribute to school library development. In order to fulfil my purpose I have made qualitative interviews with five librarians from school library centres. The theoretical framework is primarily based on David Loertscher?s.

 The english name of this essay is ?One man among many women?. This essay takes its starting point in the situation today with few male teachers in the earlier years of elementary school. I have decided to look at the small group of males that actually started the education to become teachers and why they did it when the profession as teacher today is low-paid, low status and is a profession with a large dominance of female teachers. I have chosen to write about this because of the importance for the children to meet both men and women as teachers in the early schoolyears.

This "cross-culture" study deals entirely on awareness and attitudes among Kenyan andSwedish teachers in terms of gender equality. Parts of this study were conducted in Kenya,where I spent a month living and visited a school in a multi-million city. There, I conductedsemi-structured interviews with teachers and gathered material for my thesis. The purpose ofthis study is to see how teachers in Kenya relate to gender and then compare this withSwedish teachers. The study also includes a review of national policy documents for schoolregarding gender equality.