This thesis analyses the 2005 UK presidency of the Council, and more particularly the negotiations on the future financing of the European Union. The purpose of the study is to discuss whether the holding of the presidency implies political influence for the member state. To analyse the power of the country holding the chair the thesis focuses on the presidency functions of brokering and leadership. The theory suggests that the influence of the presidency is derived from informational and procedural power resources, as well as some leadership resources, such as coercion and reward. A case study was used to analyse whether these power resources were used by the British presidency.

According to the national curriculum guidelines for elementary school, preschool and after-school 2011, (i.e. Lgr11), the Swedish school is based on a democratic foundation. Schools should prepare students to develop an understanding and acceptance of cultural diversity not only in the society as a whole but also how this should be reflected in the morals and ethics between us. The purpose of this study was to describe how teachers in multicultural schools perceptions and experiences on teaching pupils with diverse immigrant origin, and how they apply these cultural expression in practice.In particular, I focus on four teachers in multicultural schools and how they reason about applying cultural expressions that are transmitted at these schools and by them. Explicitly, I review how from policy documents and their own personal pedagogic are reflected in the actual teaching.

The purpose of this study is to explore specific pedagogical activities that benefit the student's verbal language development and to learn more about how our schools use teaching methods to achieve the ambitions in the governing documents in Sweden. The aim is finding the correlation between theory, research, governing documents and the educational work in our schools. This study contains an empirical survey in intention to see how teachers, pupils and school administrators experience school activities, to see if those activities are formed with the intention for pupils to reach the learning goals according to the governing documents.The aim of this study has been achieved by relating empirical data with theories and previous research on conversation analysis. Goffman's and Norrby's research on the importance of dialogue and previous research on dialogicity studied by Dysthe, Vygotsky and Bakhtin are presented. Those are related to empirical data and show that most teachers realize the importance of integrating dialogues in daily activities and in different learning contexts.

The main purpose of this Masters thesis is to contribute to the understanding of high school teachers information seeking behaviour in the transition from university studies to occupational practice. The theoretical framework encompasses theories of professional socialization, the sociology of knowledge, of professions, and of library and information science. The empirical material has been collected through interviews with six recently qualified high school teachers in different subjects. The interviews have been analysed on two different levels; first on a descriptive level and then on a theoretical level. The major findings are that the academic context limited the student teachers information seeking and they did not have the opportunity to choose cognitive authorities on their own initiative.

In the age group 16-25 years, the Internet is the most powerful source of information. This age group is also the main user of social media. The purpose of this study was to investigate young people's experience of social media and any associations between social media and adolescents health by answering the questions: ?how does young people use social media?, ?what risks can occur in young people's use of social media? and ?how can social media influence young people's lifestyles?. The survey was conducted by a quantitative cross-sectional study using questionnaires.

My purpose with this study was partly to examine how some Swedish science teachers teach and their knowledge of the science curriculum, and how this affects their teaching. I also aimed to compare the Swedish and Irish science curriculum. The method I undertook to achieve this study was to carry out six interviews with science teachers in Sweden. I also completed a text analyse of both the Swedish & Irish science curriculum. The results of the interviews showed that the teachers think the curriculum is important but they do not always keep to it.

The aim of this study is to analyse how children?s literature for ages 6 ? 8 is adapted to pupils with reading difficulties. The material used for analysis in this study is six children?s books, examining some of the criteria by which a text is classified as easy-to-read. The result of the analysis shows that there is a possibility for pupils with reading difficulties to read something other than easy-to-read literature if it is carefully selected.

The purpose of this essay is to examine how some individual PE teachers view knowledge and what they think about the status of physical education whitin the school. The method used in this examination was both sudies of literature and a qualitative investigation. Six PE teachers, from three diffrent schools in Sweden, were interviwed from a phenomentographic research approach. I made the analysis from a sociocultural approach. The result indicates that th teachers had difficulties to describethe conception of knowledge, but that the pupils/students achieve knowledge in physical education.

The purpose of this Master's thesis is to contribute to a betterunderstanding of children's free time reading book practices by studyingpupils in the school library and their processes of finding and borrowingbooks for themselves to read silently in the classroom, so called free timereading books. The study also includes observations of the staff's role,particularly the school librarian's in supporting pupil's book selection.The empirical material consists of field notes from an etnographic studywhere pupils in 4th grade (aged 10-11) and staff were observed duringthree school library visits. The theoretical framework is inspired byLennart Björneborn's concepts of information practices in libraries:serendipity, integrative library interface, mediation flow and affordancespaces.The study shows that pupils' search for free time reading books in theschool library is relatively routine-based at the same time as it isspontaneous. The process is an interplay with factors such as time,display and interaction in the integrative library interface. In the presenceof adults, finding books becomes an imposed task for the pupils.

One of the essential needs of human beings is to be involved in a social context. The intention of this study was to see if the opportunity to have an iPod Touch, could make it possible for students with literacy difficulties to participate in the regular classes and if the implementation of iPod Touch in the school setting would result in informal learning outside the school. In this case study two pupils with literacy difficulties have been using an iPod Touch in their daily school activity. The pupils as well as their teachers have been interviewed about their experiences of implementing iPod Touch as a tool in the regular classroom teatching. The results indicate that iPod Touch can help students to be in inclusive education and that they use the iPod Touch outside school.

 This thesis is based upon the assumption that in Swedish school today it is a wide gap regarding the information flow when pupils are switching school. This was one of the reasons Skolverket published a report clearly stating that this is the case. The purpose of this thesis is to examine and describe how teachers are working in a teacher team at transitions to see and understand what their work may mean individually, in a group and to the school as an organisation. The questions at issue is to see how the teachers cooperate during transitions and how they notice students in need of extra support and students level of knowledge during transitions. The two last questions at issue is first to see how teachers approach parent?s expectations on the school and the teachers, secondly it is to examine what implications their work will have on the school.

Genom våra två fallstudier har vi undersökt formuleringsarenans intentioner vad gäller elevinflytande i förhållande till hur dessa tar sig uttryck i praktiken. För att finna formuleringsarenans intentioner har vi använt oss av Skolkommitténs tre utgångspunkter om varför elever skall ges inflytande i skolan. Skolkommittén har på ett konkret och förståeligt sätt redogjort för tre motiveringar till elevinflytande vilka benämns som: ?Mänsklig rättighet?, ?Demokratifostran? och ?Elevers inflytande över sitt lärande?.  I vår text har vi eftersträvat att ringa in ämnesområdet och ge läsaren en tillräcklig bakgrund för vidare läsning. För att vidga vår förståelse för elevdemokrati idag ser vi det med andra ord som angeläget att mer översiktligt och kort redogöra för en historisk tillbakablick.

AbstractStudent democracy as an objective and as a meansEssay in Political Science, D-levelAuthor: Erik LisshammarTutor: Susan MartonDespite attitudes towards student democracy being generally positive, students have almost no influence over their position. This implementation study looks into whether or not students? weak position of power results from something other than a democratising of schools taking priority when student influence is encouraged.With an aim of explaining what is hoped to be achieved and if these intentions are to be spread, the purpose is to investigate to what extent standards concerning student democracy are transferred between institutions. In order to find out, the question is posed of whether their aims for student democracy conform. This overriding question is coupled together with the following four defining research questions:1.

Every place is a stage where people interact. The nature of the stage and its scenography to some extent shapes the interaction. Considered as a place, the school ground gives rise to many varying expectations. Lower school pupils often have clear ideas of how they are expected to behave and how they are expected to use the place. But as the pupils age, the purpose of the school ground grows less obvious.

Knowledge of ecological processes are a basis for the understanding of important environmental issues. Through qualitative interviews, 8 preschool class pupils have replied to questions concerning the concept nature, disintegration and environment. The aim of this survey was to examine what attitudes and knowledge children with different pedagogical background have about the nature and the environment.The result of this survey in whole demonstrates that all pupils have good and equivalent knowledge of the nature and the environment, independently of their different pedagogical backgrounds. A difference was however that children that have background from ?I Ur och Skur? (a Swedish outdoors preschool program) know the names of all small bugs that were in the survey.