During the last two decades, the elementary, - secondary-, and upper secondary schools of especially Europe and USA have gone through a change. From being formed in the post war time and, in Europe, very influenced by the ideas of social democracy, the school today has more and more come under the influences of neo liberalism, entrepreneurship and the political and economical situations during the late 1980´s.This undergraduate work brings up the changed discourses of education and knowledge in relation to the traditional free school system for adults in Sweden, the popular education, and especially in relation to folk high schools (folkhögskolor). By using, first and foremost, the idea of Norman Faircloughs critical discourse analysis (CDA) the rules and documents concerning the folk high schools are analyzed. The purpose of the paper is to identify and recognize the movement in the discourse to reach an understanding about the political situation for folk high schools in Sweden. In the end you can see that it is possible to define a similar development in discourse surrounding the popular education, as has been in the case with the elementary, - secondary-, and upper secondary schools..

The values of the Swedish school system is said to be rooted in the ethics of Christianity and western humanism. Critics say that this expression can be seen as a sign of an obscured eurocentrism when world-wide accepted values is said to be cared for by Christianity and the west. The purpose of this paper is to examine how the politicians argue on this issue, why the values of the Swedish school system should be said to be cared for by the ethics of Christianity and the western humanism. I also want to examine if these arguments in fact corresponds with the worldview of eurocentrism. The examination consists of a discourse analysis review of, for example, journals of the Swedish parliament, which is later compared with the theories of eurocentrism.I believe the argumentation can be categorized in three main categories: first a conservative ideological perspective where they are driven by the notion that the Swedish culture could be defined by establishing and defending its foundations; a philosophical/religious perspective where they want to justify the indisputable values they believe should be maintained in the schools; a eurocentric/psychological perspective where they tend to express the Swedish identity by defining what is typically characteristic of ?us? and typically characteristic of ?the others?.

In the early nineties leisure-time pedagogic establishments moved in to school. The aim of the study is to try to find out how leisure-time pedagogues, who have been working for a long time, experience the moving of their establishment in to school and how this affect their practical work and their profession.The study is based on interviewes with four leisure-time pedagogues, who all have been working before?and therefore have experienced the time before?during and after their establishment moved in to school.These interviewes were recorded and later fully transcribed in preparation of analysis. Data was analysed with the help of the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu as a basis. Findings of the study suggest that the leisure-time pedagogues find it positive to be able to cooperate with teachers and other professional groups working in school, they explain how it enabels themselves to see pupils from a different angle and for others working in school to see pupils from a leisure-time pedagogue angle.Some of the pedagogues explain that they find it hard to work with big groups of pupils, or in small surfaces, which they did not have to do before their establishment moved into school.

The purpose of this study is to gain knowledge and a broader understanding for how pre-school teachers describe the importance of planned play environments including in what manner children are given influence. By qualitative interviews with five pre-school teachers from four different units I was able to gather data that shows how the planning process concerning a specific play environment had worked and why it looked as it did. The results show among other things that the pre-school teachers viewed the play environment as a vital part of the daily operation and pointed out that it was of vital importance that it came from the children?s interests. Depending on how the play environment had been organized and what its purpose was it offered different amounts of affordances..

The purpose of this study is to examine the critically raised concern on whether the Liberal party of Sweden, in policies regarding the compulsory school, really represents a liberal policy or if it actually functions more as an ambassador for conservative ideals. An ideology analysis is employed for the purpose of answering the research question, which asks if the party?s changed viewpoint on the compulsory school between the years of 1990 and 2010 could be understood in terms of an ideological alternation. The analysis is carried out by an examination where the party?s policies are linked to common definitions of the two political ideologies, with the assistance of an analytical tool consistent of a series of educational philosophies.

AbstractStudy: Degree project in teacher education, Advanced level, 15 pUniversity of SkövdeTitle: Competence ? Self image ? InclusionA study of a couple of students in need for extra education and theirexperiences of their studies at school in a special class.Number ofPages: 43Author: Britt HellqvistTutor: Gunvi BrobergDate: 01-2008Keywords: special class, extra education, competence, self image, inclusionStudents who have difficulties in school or in the social contact are the main subject of this thesis. The students that I have interviewed attend the upper high school in a special class, separated from the major school. My purpose has been to investigate how such students experience their studies at school, with emphasis on competence and the feeling of participation. Moreover, the self image of these students was investigated.

To investigate if the student?s school centeent, and that planning of the school lunch is done from a health perspective. Qualitative research approach was used, including both interviews and observations, to view the purpose. Evidence was collected using a participating observer, semi constructed questions and structured observation. To focus on specific parts in the material, a directed content analysis was used. One large and one smaller school participated in the study.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore how love relationship affects the identity and attitude towards school of study motivated girls in 17-18 years of age with the subsidiary purpose to get anidea of how the gender order is maintained in the relationship.The study is based on theories of gender theory and identity theory, which concerns gender as aresult of actions and how the gender order is maintained. The identity theory is based as a choice toconvey different roles.The study is founded on qualitative research interviews with six different girls, where the focus wasto learn about their own experiences of how the love relationship affects them.The results were interpreted through a hermeneutic analysis.The results show that the love relationship affect informants' identity on self-perception, what roles they convey and the attitude towards school. It turned out that the informants' attitude towards school was dependent on their boyfriend´s attitude towards school.The results also show that girls are highly involved in the process of maintaining the gender order in which they choose to manage their time according to their boyfriend's time, and has the role of the engaging and emotional in the relationship..

The purpose of this thesis has been to examine preventing child sexual abuse in four elementary schools in Stockholm, Sweden. The study is based on qualitative interviews with school counselors. The aim of this thesis was to find out how and if elementary schools in Sweden work with preventing child sexual abuse. The aim was also to examine how the school counselors reason about the schools efforts to prevent child sexual abuse. Their statements was analysed with Foucault?s theory about sexual history to get a deeper understanding for why people reason the way they do when it comes to issues like this.

This master's thesis sets out to explore information literacy in a contextualized learning environment with emphasis on students at a vocationally oriented program in the Swedish upper secondary school. The concept of information literacy is widely discussed and furthermore a common subject for research within the field of Library and Information Science. Information literacy can be described as a set of skills or a range of attributes defining an information literate person. The skills and/or attributes facilitating the development of critical thinking and problem-solving skills are often linked to knowledge about computers and libraries.Another view on the concept of information literacy has been developed by the Australian researcher Annemaree Lloyd. She stresses the importance of social and physical information sources and that these also should be included in the development of information literacy.

The purpose of this investigation is mainly to study if pupils have enough knowledge concerning the water cycle and the life of the plants?, and what kinds of household word they have, to discuss pollution within these areas. I also studied how the pupils? knowledge are holding up against what the course-plans says, since it have come to light by other investigations that knowledge are insufficient within the nature-oriented (No) subject in school.The survey has carried out on 28 pupils in a 5th grade, with help of a questionnaire survey. Their teacher has been interviewed and I have studied their local course-plans and also the pupils? schoolbooks in No.The result of the questionnaire survey indicates that the pupils had insufficient knowledge within the areas of plants? life and pollution, something their teacher had a presentiment about.The conclusion is that they need to go out more often in the nature and see how the plants and the environment are affected by different factors.

The aim of this essay is to get a view of the contemporary approach to children´s learning and how children´s learning and development are influenced by the preschool year for six- year olds, by analyzing the Swedish curriculum. What is the purpose of the preschool- year for six year-olds? What does the curriculum say about what children need when entering primary school? I also wish to investigate how through the curriculum common norms and standards, as far as children´s learning are concerned, are shown and discussed. My result show that the curriculum does not mention much about the preschool year for six-year-olds at all. It seems that this year in school is not given priority, which makes it difficult for the teachers to work with the children of this age and to know what their assignment is.

Syftet med detta arbete är att få en förståelse för hur skolledare uppfattar kvalitet i skolan och i sitt ledarskap av lärare och annan personal. Jag ska undersöka om det görs någon kvalitetsredovisning inom skolan och om ekonomin påverkar skolledarnas kvalitetsarbete..

By studying the forms of work and methods teachers choose for their teaching on the Business and Administration Programme and by examining the experiences gained by these teachers, I hope to gain a clearer insight into how the demands of national policy/governing documents are met in the actual teaching of the courses within the programme. In my qualitative study,teachers in a team from a Business and Administrative Programme have been my informants. The team combines multiple forms of work and methods in line with the intentions of the national policy/governing documents. Students usually have an unbroken school day with block teaching where they work with case studies and interdisciplinary  work. Morals and ethics are integrated in class.

Background: The competition is getting harder between the universities. To reach the high school students and discover which means of contact they prefer and how they perceive student recruitment are important issues in order to succeed in marketing strategies.Purpose: The purpose with our report is to investigate, analyze and compare the student recruitment in three universities and investigate how the high school students want to be contacted. Then we compare to see if they think alike.Method: We have done a qualitative study and chosen to use focus group interviews for the high school students and interviews for the universities to collect our empirical data. We have compared the empirical data and analyzed it with communication processes and marketing communication as theoretical grounds.Result: All of the universities work approximately the same way with their student recruitment. They put a large effort in the Internet and social networks as well as the personal contact.