In this thesis I investigate what librarians working with children do for six-year-olds at the libraries in order to stimulate them to read. I also investigate how children of this age read and what books are like for these beginners. The background for the thesis is that reading decreased a lot in ages three to eight during the 1980s and 1990s. My aim is to see what projects, methods and other strategies there are to get children to read. The method used is case study.

Based on phenomenological hermeneutics and narrative theory the study explored how parents experience and create meaning when the child receives the diagnosis of autistic disorder. Interviews were conducted with eight parents and the analysis concerned both contents and form in their stories. The resulting aspects of the contents is presented in seven areas: stories about the time before the diagnosis, seeking help, receiving the diagnosis, the meaning of the diagnosis, coping, living with autism and stories about the future. The six resulting aspects of form included: chronology of the stories, creating order out of chaos, cultural norms, rewriting the story about the child, aspects of metaphors and changing perspective. The conclusion of the study is that the diagnosis serves as a way for the parents to transform experiences into a meaningful whole.

The aim of this study was to describe and understand parents? perspectives in aid assessment for children according to The Swedish Act (1993:387) concerning Support and Service for Persons with Certain Functional Impairments (Lag 1993:387 om stöd och service till vissa funktionshindrade, LSS). The study took place in the county of Kronoberg, Sweden, and was based on a total of nine qualitative interviews. Four interviews were made with parents? of children who has interventions according to LSS (1993:387) and five interviews were made with LSS case workers. In our study we saw that parents? perspectives often is the largest amount of information that case workers take into account when assessing aid and as a case worker you listen to the parents perspectives to capture the child?s and the family?s needs. It also came clear that the parents? perspective is not only about the child?s needs, but also includes the parent?s own needs and their family?s needs. The parents in the study felt that they made the decision about the choice of aid and considered themselves as the one who decides the family?s requirements. It turned out that treatment and understanding from the case workers was important for gaining access to the best help and making parents feel listened to. Parental responsibility was of great importance for the assessment, and it often led to disagreement between parents and case workers. During the study, we saw that power existed in the relationship between case workers and parents, but that it could be moved and changed during the time of aid assessment..

The aim of this Masters´ thesis is to examine parenthood, gender and equality. The analysis is based on the novel Bitterfittan. The primary theoretical points of departure are Judith Butler?s theory about doing gender and Yvonne Hirdman?s theory about the gender system, the hierarchical order and the separation of the sexes. I use Lisbeth Bekkengen?s thesis in which the nuclear family is seen as an institution which is upheld by two structures; that is the social relationships man-woman and parent-child, and also by two discourses; on the one hand a notion that fathers and mothers are principally different and on the other hand the child focus.

Earlier studies shows that democracy within the preschool is an important and on-going work, but could implicate certain consequences. For example that goals regarding democracy and influence in the preschool, rarely is done in practice but instead remains just words on a paper. It could also mean that the pedagogues lack education and knowledge within the area, but also how they react to the influence of children. Preschool is expected to be a place for all children, no matter what luggage the child is carrying. The luggage is filled with the life experience, the personality and in this case the needs that the child has. The needs could be anything from nearness to physical and psychological disorders that requires more pedagogical attention.

Syftet med litteraturstudien var att belysa föräldrars psykosociala upplevelser då deras barn har cancer. Författarna gjorde en litteraturstudie med deskriptiv design baserad på tolv artiklar med kvalitativ ansats. Artikelsökningen ägde rum i databaserna PubMed och Academic Search Elite med de vedertagna sökorden ?neoplasms?, ?child?, ?family? och ?parents?. Utöver dessa inkluderades ord som ?experience?, ?cancer? och ?psychosocial?.

The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze a group of participants (social workers, contact families and the young adults who had been given a contact family as children) and monitor their experience of the intervention contact family and its goals, contents and design. We also wanted to look into what goals and guidelines are available regarding the interventions design and contents. We also looked into parts of the intervention which the participants found most useful for them individually. The method we used in our study was qualitative interviews. We compared and analyzed our results to research made on the subject and the theoretical frame.

This study deals with play and the importance of meaning of play in the learning process. The aim is to look in to and analyze four preschool teacher´s beliefs and views about the importance of play for children´s learning and development. The study looks at two different preschools, one based on Reggio Emilia- and the other on Montessori- pedagogy, and the aim is to compare the different views and ways of working that the preschool educators have.The theoretical basis for this study is both rooted in a socio-cultural and constructivist perspective, and deals with the relationships between theoretical concepts mean as play, learning, way of working and pedagogy.The study is based on qualitative research methods that consist of interviews and participant observations. The person?s participants in the study consisted of four active preschool educators, who work in two different preschools.The results of the investigation show that the educators have similar views on the importance of play for the children´s learning process, and this also applies to their way of working.

In this essay we aimed to find how economic scarcity among children and youth presents itself in school, according to how school staff experience it. We have conducted interviews with student welfare staff to hear their experiences of this subject and how the schools try to help these pupils. We have used interpretative phenomenology as a base for our work. We have also used some of this traditions most important notions along with notions of Erving Goffman and Sara Ahmed during our processing off the material.  With help from these, we report our most interesting results. We have seen that a lack of resources exists among youth today and that everyone not has easy access to things many of us might take for granted.

The aim of this study is to examine views of picture books for children that reviewers in Swedish daily press express in their reviews in 2009 and 2010. The following questions were posed in the study: Are picture book reviews based on pedagogical criteria and/or aesthetic/literary criteria? Are picture books reviewed from an adult perspective and/or from a child perspective? Which elements of positive and negative criticism are to be found in picture book reviews? This qualitative study is based on 45 reviews of picture books in Swedish daily press. The theoretical approach is developed from four ways of looking at children literature that professor Maria Nikolajeva has compiled. The method used is idea analysis, which is a form of text-analysis.

The aim of this study is to examine how social workers and pree-school teachers resonate about their experiences of cooperation with each other, in relation to maltreated children and the duty to report. Several studies show that there is a difference between how many children that is suspected of maltreatment and how many that are reported to social service. In Sweden, pre-school staff are obliged to notify the suspicion of child abuse according to 14: 1 SoL, but previous research indicates that the obligation to declare is not used to the extent that it should. One reason for the low notification rate is  the interaction between preschool and the social services shortcomings.Therefore, we believe it is relevant to examine how the cooperation really looks like between the organizations, when the child is being abused or at risk of suffering. The results of the study are based on qualitative semi-structured interviews with four preschool teachers and four administrators.

Effektiva copingstrategier kan öka arbetstillfredsställelse, minska spänningar, sänka personalomsättning och frånvaro samt leda till andra positiva utfall för både individer och arbetsgivare (Parks, 1990). Syftet med denna uppsats var att få en djupare förståelse av hur småföretagare upplever problem med anställda samt att undersöka vilka copingstrategier som används för att hantera olika typer av problem. Frågeställningarna var, vilka problem hanteras med emotionsfokuserade copingstrategier? och vilka problem hanteras med problemfokuserade copingstrategier? Respondenterna i undersökningen var nio småföretagare samtliga var män i åldrarna 39-71 år. Totalt identifierades 27 problem som delades in i sex olika kategorier.

Children that are exposed to domestic violence are placed in a vulnerable situation and they are not been given their own identity during the family conflict resolution process. Focus is mostly directed towards the parents and their conflict-filled situation. The aim of this study is to talk with professionals and take part of their experiences with regards to the phenomenon of children who witness domestic violence. The study is conducted from a child/crime victim perspective and is restricted to men's violence against women. A qualitative method is used which consist of interviews involving representatives of BRIS, the Police, Social Service, a Woman Shelter, and two Crisis Centers with different concentrations.

Children that are exposed to domestic violence are placed in a vulnerable situation and they are not been given their own identity during the family conflict resolution process. Focus is mostly directed towards the parents and their conflict-filled situation. The aim of this study is to talk with professionals and take part of their experiences with regards to the phenomenon of children who witness domestic violence. The study is conducted from a child/crime victim perspective and is restricted to men's violence against women. A qualitative method is used which consist of interviews involving representatives of BRIS, the Police, Social Service, a Woman Shelter, and two Crisis Centers with different concentrations.

The purpose of this essay was to look into whether any attention is paid to the biological children in foster families when the investigation about foster home is made. I did some qualitative interviews with six foster home-investigators, working in five different municipalities. Some of the main questions have been: Do the investigator meet the biological children during an investigation? Are the children´s opinions taken into consideration? Is the suitability of a foster home judged even from the biological children´s perspective?It was shown that it could happen that a foster home was not approved, if it for some reasons should be a negative experience for the biological children, if a foster child would be placed in their home. All the six persons in my interviews thought that it is important to take the biological children´s opinions into consideration, and that the family is not suitable to be a foster home if not all of the family members have a positive attitude.