This thesis aims to examine when democratic consolidation took place in Costa Rica from a maximalistic perspective. The hypothesis is that it?s likely that the democracy was not consolidated as early as 1953 which would be the case if applying a minimalistic perspective. Linz and Stepan?s theory about democratic consolidation has been chosen as the theoretical framework of the thesis and the research has been conducted by using a qualitative text analysis.

For most pupils homework is a natural part of school and their education and there are several providers of homework assistance: the pupil's parents, sibblings, friends, Internet forums, hired private tutoring, non-profit organisations and at times even the pupil's school. This study has investigated the use of the school-based homework assistance programme at the Upper Secondary School of Psychology in Stockholm and why the programme is not more frequently used by its pupils. The school offers homework assistance two hours each Thursday afternoon, with at least two teachers being present to tender for the school's 127 pupils. The cost of the programme has been estimated to approximately 12 500 Swedish kronor per week. Through the main use of a questionnaire given to both the school's students and teachers, as well as an interview with the school's headmaster, this study will show that despite receiving the opportunity few pupils take part of the programme on a regular basis.

This qualitative study is about the individual supportive conversation with the school welfare officer in upper secondary school. The main aim of the study was to find out what the pupils get out of a series of conversations with the school welfare officer and what it means for the pupils that the welfare officer belongs to the school organization. Six qualitative interviews were held with pupils who had conversation contact with the school welfare officer during their time at upper secondary school.I found that these pupils and welfare officers were oriented towards change and solutions. I found that the most important thing for the pupils was to achieve a good and trusting relationship with the welfare officer. After this the pupil starts a process of change in cooperation with the welfare officer, with the aim that the pupil should be happy and satisfied with the current life situation.

In the end of the last century the interest for youth politics increased in Sweden. The causes for the increased interest were the more obvious youth politics questions and problems, for example the increased youth unemployment. In 1998 the government wrote down national goals and instructions for the youth politic work in a government bill (1998/99:115). This government bill describes how the youth politic work should be carried at a local level in the municipality.The purpose with this study is to investigate young people, in Värnamo kommun, view of their own situation. The study´s focus lies om three main concept; democracy, justice and faith in the future.

I have conducted a study and examined the significance and extent of bullying. I will also examine whether any students in grade eight have been victims of bullying during the past year and where bullying was carried out in school X. The second objective is to explore what students think about the concept of "taunting". I have used various theories of researchers to get an understanding of what bullying is, where it occurs, causes, and suggestions for measures. To get an answer on the purpose and issue a quantitative method was used in the form of a survey. Target group for the survey consisted of students from grade eight schools in X which is located in a suburb of Stockholm. Two classes of grade eight in School X carried out the survey during the same day.Results showed that bullying occurs at X school, but that the proportion of boys has been more subjected to bullying than girls. The majority of the students in the both classes believed that most cases of bullying occur in school hallways, playground and cafeteria. It may be one reason why school X does not have guards or other members of staff. The majority of students also considered in the survey that the concept of "taunting" is to call each other by words of ?genitalia". I think that the use of foul language has become common in today's schools.  .

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the democratization process in Kurdistan on the basis of consolidation democracy with focus on arenas defined by Linz and Stepan (1997), namely economic, political, legal, civil society and arenas of state bureaucracy. Furthermore, I intend to explain Kurdistan?s road toward democratization in Kurdistan from 1991 until today, with a focus on the years 2003-2012. The main results are that Kurdistan has developed conditions that support a future consolidation of democracy. However, there are weaknesses in the economic situation, rule of law and the arena of bureaucracy.

This dissertation was made since we wanted to investigate the conception called quality within the school sector. What it means and if there is something that can give an explanation of how they  at look at the conception within the school sector. This will be the benchmark through the dissertation, trying to find out the most important things which might be equal to quality within the school.To find the answers of our questions we will read literature according to the subject. To get an increased understanding we will interview some people within the school efficacy, and give students a survey to fill in.The most important results from our investigation is to look at everything in its entirety, not only look at what grades students get. Even though this the most narrated sign of quality.

The purpose of this master thesis is to examine the opinion about school libraries among principals at the independent schools in the municipality of Lund. In order to fulfil my purpose I used a qualitative method with an introductory questionnaire, which gave background material to the interviews. All seven principals answered the questionnaire and five of them agreed to participate in an interview. Another two interviews were made with two informants, this material was included in the background material. As theoretical framework I have used literature about the school library development, the role of the principal for development and David V.

This masters thesis aims to investigate how upper secondary school pupils experience their information seeking in a school context without access to a school library. It is the pupils own thoughts and opinions about information seeking and criticism of the sources that is the main focus. The literature that has been used consists of material from research concerning youth and different aspects of information seeking such as the information seeking process, information seeking on the web, criticism of the sources and how pupils interact with other people in order to acquire information. The method that has been used is group interviews. Twelve pupils from an independent school without access to a school library have been interviewed in groups of three.

This study reviews outdoor educational activity, its contents and qualities, whose basis rests on reform educators as Dewey and Freire. These pedagogues? methodology is based on the interaction between theory and practice, reflection and action. It appears from previous research that: Nature has beneficial effects on human health; Physical activity has positive effects on schoolchildren's health and on their test scores in mathematics and swedish. Training in outdoor education for teachers has contributed to outdoor education having become part of elementary schools´ activities.The purpose of this study is to find out to what extent a School of Nature is useful for three primary school teachers´ activities.

The purpose of my study was to find out how staff in after-school activities thinks they work with norms and values, we may call this values education, and how this in turn may influence children's norms and values. By extension, how children are socialized with each other and develop socially. In my research, I have interviewed five of the after-school activities staff who work with children aged 6-9 years at a school in the neighbourhood Rinkeby-Kista in northwestern Stockholm.The results show that after-school activity according to the staff can play a very important and sometimes crucial role in children's social development. Staff believes that if they do not learn the social rules by participating in playing and games in early childhood, when growing up they are outside and cannot participate. By their pedagogical approaches, in terms of values and norms, the adults in after-school activities can help children to become socialized into a community of solidarity and eventually as adults become responsible citizens able to function and participate in society..

The purpose of this study is to achieve a greater understanding of the perception of the use of Special Educational Needs Coordinators? (SENCOs?) competence in school. The informants of this study are the director of the school district, two principals and six teachers in two schools in a municipality in Sweden. The method used for this study is qualitative interviews, and the results have been analyzed using perspectives on special education. The results show that the director of the school district has one ideal view of SENCOs working close to the principals with supervision of teachers, school development, administrative tasks etc.

The Swedish school reflects the society that we have today, a society with many different ethnical and cultural backgrounds. The purpose of this investigation is to study how the school is working with children that recently immigrated to Sweden. What kind of methods are they using at school, to get the best development as possible? Do the teachers manage to be concerned of the students in the school? What kind of reception do these children get in the school? What methods are the teachers using? And are these methods really the best to use to enhance the language and cognitive development of these students?The methods I have been using to examine these questions have been qualitative. I have interviewed three teachers about their everyday work in a multiethnic school south of Stockholm.

This research shows and analyses how pupils in ninth grade in the nine-year compulsory school look at being multilingual, at the Swedish language and at Swedish as a second language. I also want to know if language and culture knowledge are taken care of in school as it says in official documents for the Swedish school and as it also is desired in an intercultural education. For my research I do eight interviews in a suburb school south of Stockholm.My work includes a limited account for the current research about being multilingual, Swedish as a second language and about the close relationship between language and culture. The applied theory is a social constructivist theory which in short can be explained like that we construct social structures that have consequences on the individual as well as on the society.I show in my research how the view of the world around the pupils influences their view on their languages, their school and their neighbourhood. I also draw conclusions from my interviews that language knowledge is little appreciated in school and that Swedish as a second language has a low status..

I wanted to look at school-children's perspective of prehistory. I also wanted to look at the literature at their disposal, provided by the schools.In this essay I am looking at a school-class in the fourth grade from a school in Malmö and a fifth grade-class at a school in Klågerup just outside Malmö. I am trying to determine the student's view of what prehistory is all about, as well as how their own school-literature is connected to that knowledge. Six books in all were examined. The essay is concentrated on prehistory and only at those two schools.