AbstractC-level essay in political science, by Frida Orlinder, spring semester 2008Supervisor: Susan Marton?Good contracting? ? A study of contracting in public procurement regarding the transportation of school children?Over the last decades models influenced by the market have been gaining influence in public administration all over the world. New Public Management has been presented as a theoretical ?shopping basket? from which concepts can be applied to the administration of municipal services. The purpose of this essay is to investigate in an explorative way how New Public Management (NPM) views contracting and the role of the internal customer in contracting.

Background: An increasing number of operations on children are performed as day surgery and this experience of health care may affect future hospital stays. The aim of this qualitative study was to describe children´s experiences in connection with day surgery. Method: Ten children aged six to fifteen who had gone through general anesthesia at examinations or surgery were interviewed and the content was analyzed by systematic text condensation. Result: The core category ?From uncertainty to relief with newly acquired experience? could summarize the result of this interview study.

The purpose of this study is to highlight some aspects of the increased usage of tablets in preschool environments by answering the questions: what does the tablet become in the preschool environment, how much freedom does the children have over its usage.To answer these questions a series of observations were made at two different preschools. The observations were then complemented by interviews with teachers at the same preschools.This qualitative study focuses on some of the didactic questions regarding the tablets, based on a theoretical framework that is within the design-oriented perspective; which addresses the children's? autonomy, the institutional framework and affordance.Our conclusion is that the tablet?s introduction in the preschool has helped the teachers in numerous parts of their documentation, but we can also see that the children's opportunities to make choices regarding the tablet are more limited than with any other resource on the preschool. In our results we also see that when the children get access to the tablet they receive a learning experience, which among other things, strengthens their language skills and their social interaction with each other..

While reading in deaf children has been the object of a number of studies, the reading abilitiesof children with mild and moderate hearing impairment and their relation to cognitiveprocessing have not received very much attention. Predictive factors of reading ability inhearing children are well known, with phonological and working memory abilities beingnecessary prerequisites for reading development. Existing studies suggest, however, thatcertain hearing-impaired children achieve a reading level comparable to that of hearingchildren in spite of impaired phonological abilities. In the present study, reading abilities anda range of cognitive processing abilities were measured in a group of hearing-impairedchildren and compared with hearing controls in equivalent school grades. Comparisons weremade at group and school-grade level, and the cognitive profile of hearing-impaired childrenat level with controls (those being within one standard deviation) was discussed.

The aim of the thesis is to study young peoples, defined as boys and girls between 14 and 16 years old, attitudes to library in two municipalities. Notwithstanding the fact that young people, and children, often is given priority in library work, the reality often seems to be another. Attitudes are founded primarily in childhood and therefore it is of great importance to examine how young people regard libraries. Besides studying former research about young people and libraries that has been performed on library and information science, we also have been using concepts and theories from social science. We give a brief outline of youth research and its development and look at official records and legislation to see if and in what context young people are mentioned.

This report presents a study of the basic criteria for computer programmes that may be consideredadequate for aiding children with autism in their education and upbringing. I have based thisstudy on descriptions, opinions and proposals from people who deal with treatment and/orother issues concerning children with autism, as well as relevant literature.The study has been carried out in a major Swedish metropolitan municipality. The intervieweeswere civil servants from this municipality and representing different institutional endeavourson the issue of autism.I used a combination of both quantitative and qualitative techniques, as there was need for bothstandardization and qualitative variation. The main aim of the study was to seek suggestionson how computer programmes should be. That is, if they are to be considered appropriate föraiding children with autism develop their personality.The general conclusion of this study is that computer programmes, that may be consideredappropriate for the above mentioned purpose, should have certain characteristics of whichpedagogic usefulness and user suitability are of primary importance..

The present study deals with the importance of play for children's learning in preschool. The purpose is to investigate the importance of play for children's learning in preschool from a pedagogue?s perspective. The study is based on two issues: How does the pedagogue´s who were interviewed reason about the impact the play has on children's development? How does the pedagogue´s approach to make play a learning situation? The empirical data is based on semi-structured interviews with four preschool pedagogue´s.

The purpose of this essay is to find out how two schools work with newly arrived children and to see how they differ. There is a lack of national directives for those who work with newly arrived children and teenagers; this makes the introduction very different between schools.The study is qualitative, based on interviews with four teachers in two different compulsory schools. One school is situated in a suburb of Stockholm and the other one is situated in a minor community in Dalarna. One schools got a preparatory class for newly immigrated pupils and the other school doesn?t.The theoretical frame that I have chosen to analyse these interviews are literature and research on Bilingualism, Children with PTSD, Intercultural Pedagogy and Special PedagogyMy results also show that these schools work very differently, and that there is very little co-operation within the school and with the units around the school, regarding these children.

Earlier research has shown that young and adult citizens in Europe participate in politics in different ways. While adult citizens participate in more traditional ways, non-traditional ways are more frequent among younger citizens. Moreover, issue-based participation increases when Europeans turn away from mainstream politics. Citizens in the European Union EU-15 between 15-24 ages are likely to be ?critical? citizens of a working democracy compared to people in older ages (Sloam, 2016).

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to investigate teachers´attitudes to and work with outdoor education in preschool. The aim is also to identify the opportunities and barriers that exist to conduct outdoor education. In my research I have interviewed six preschool teachers in a medium sized municipality, where five of the teachers worked in the suburbs to the Big City and one teacher worked in the downtown Big City. All respondents in the study were in favor of conducting outdoor education. The respondents claimed that it promoted children´s health and motor skills. The result also shows that the teachers saw a great opportunity for learning related to outdoor education, by using the resources of nature.

In my essay the dilemmas originate from what I have experienced. I have observed myself and some of my colleagues, how we meet children who are lacking the qualifications which school and most pedagogues expect them to have. Focus, in my written experiences, is on children who live in poverty, but how we meet and act toward them is often quite the same independent of what qualifications they are lacking. With the support from literature and theories I reflect and analyse the dilemmas. Through essaywriting I investigate my practical knowledge and I examine how we as pedagogues handle the complex situations encounter when in school and how it is possible to understand why we act the way we do.I think that the knowledge which essaywriting gives me will strengthen me as a person and in my work as a teacher for after-school-center.

This study is a qualitative study of two primary schoolteachers and two special teachers approach to children with special needs, and which procedures according to these teachers can be applied to support these children in their progress at school. Building on key concepts such as segregated integration, including integration, diagnostic and children with special needs. This was then analyzed with information collected from the four formal interviews.The study also sheds light on key concepts such as special support, diagnosis, segregated integration and including integration. The conclusion explains the concept of including integration as an approach that works well for both students with special needs in a short period of time yet also students with diagnoses. This is presented in the end of this study with different suggestions for a continued research on children with special needs..

Based on earlier experiences of mathematics and mathematical learning, both as a student and as a teacher, I became more and more interested in how well the publicly accepted opinions about mathematics as an uninteresting, difficult and ?geeky? subject corresponded to reality. What do Swedish pupils really think about mathematics and is it possible to identify any differences in their attitudes based on the pupils? age?From this point of view the following questions were formulated:·What are pupils? attitudes towards mathematics in grades 3, 6 and 9 and how do they conceive their learning conditions?·Is it possible to detect any differences in the attitudes and preferences depending on the pupils? age?The result of this study compares well with previous studies done in this and overlapping fields and indicates that:·Younger pupils tend to have a better liking of mathematics but with increasing age that interest fades out.·Most pupils, without regard to age, consider mathematics to be one of the most important subjects, despite the fact that many pupils also find mathematics difficult and boring.·For pupils of all ages, the teacher is the most important factor in the learning process. Older students have more specific demands on the teacher for knowledge and pedagogical skills.·A high noise level, talking and disturbances in the classroom are the most bothering elements when it comes to learning mathematics.

The purpose of this Bachelor thesis is to examine how children describe their experiences of their own reading, with focus on different aspects of reading: Choice of reading, reading environment, response to reading and book talk. Our aim is also to examine which approaches to reading their stories illustrate. The research is founded on semi-structured interviews with six children aged 10, in connection with book talks. For analysis we used Åse Hedemark?s study Barn berättar : En studie av 10-årningars syn på läsning och bibliotek as well as Aidan Chambers? theories concerning reading and reading environment.

AbstractThe purpose with this essay is to get knowledge about the consequences that speech-defects bring for children in pre-school ages. I got interested in this matter when I, during my teaching practice, got in touch with children carrying this specific disorder. I chose to apply qualitative interview as a method to investigate this and as a starting-point I used these aspects: How does speech-defects affect learning, understanding, friendship relations, and development in general?I interviewed three pre-school teachers in two different schools. One school in a smaller district and the other one in a middle-sized town, in the middle of Sweden.