During my practice as a teacher trainee at an upper Secondary school it became clear to me that many pupils had difficulties with mathematics. I was surprised to find that many pupils seemed to get stuck on the level of attainment for the senior level of the nine-year compulsory school. As I have not studied anything about difficulties in Mathematics during my training to become a qualified teacher, I would like to get to know more about this.After studying research done on this subject I made the following approach to the problem:? What fields regarding Mathematics do the pupils themselves find most difficult?? What factors have been contributory causes to these problems?? What are the factors that have helped pupils with difficulties in Mathematics to reach the goals for the syllabuses in Mathematics?The answers to my questionnaire and interviews resulted in the following conclusions:? Pupils find theory of equation and conversion of units as most difficult at senior level of the nine-year compulsory school.? Teaching should be done in special instruction groups to give the pupil the opportunity to develop his/her skills on an individual level.? Pupils find it hard to deal with all moments in Mathematics during the time given for each course.? The pace for teaching Mathematics is too high according to the pupils.? Pupils wish for instructions on a lower level.? There is often a lack of contact between teacher and pupil.? The teacher should use more time to help the pupil receive good self-confidence and increase the motivation for instructions in Mathematics..

This thesis explores in which ways the portrayal of the event known as the Stockholm bloodbath has changed during the period 1869-1996. This is done through textbook analysis. In Sweden, history has been a school subject since the 17th century, and has throughout its history had a formative role in the Swedish school system. In the middle of the 19th century it was specifically stated that the aim was to help students nurture a sense of national pride and love of country. The aim of the study is to investigate how nationally loaded events have been portrayed in text books, as well as if and how the evolution of said textbooks reflect the evolution of the history subject as a whole.

The aim of this study is to investigate how non-profit engagement influence voting in school election, but also how the school has influenced the pupils to vote and if there are any differences between a big and a small town.The methods which have been used for this study are quantitative and qualitative, both questionnaires and interviews. To be able to see differences between a big and a small town the study was carried out in one school from each category of town.By examine the empirical material and analyse it with theories which are used for this study we have come to the conclusion that there are no obvious differences between pupils in the big town and the small town. Pupils in both schools were pretty engaged in associations, though had the pupils from the small town some higher level of engagement. Moreover, both schools had a high participation for the election. The result of the study showed that there were no noticeable tendencies on if the pupils choose to vote depending on engagement in associations.Furthermore, both schools were very engaged in the school election indeed.

This study focuses on teachers? and pupils? experiences of their use of one-to-one computers in civics education in Swedish upper Secondary school. The experiences of teachers and pupils will also be put in relation to the content of the formal curriculum. The aim of this study is to investigate whether the access of one-to-one computers has changed teaching and learning within civics. The theoretical approaches used are both Tomas Kroksmark?s theory about traditional versus innovative learning and Ruben Puentedura?s SAMR-model.

The aim of this essay was to gain a deeper understanding about how school employees interpret and practice school law regarding cyber-bullying that occurs between pupils on the internet. To examine this we used a qualitative method. We completed eight interviews with five teachers, one headmaster, one school welfare officer and one special educationist. These eight school employees were from four different high schools. In our interviews we found that the school employees thought it was difficult to define different concepts within the school law such as in association with the occupation and offensive behaviour which prohibits them from interpreting the school law in the same way.

In this essay we discuss how the decentralisation of the Swedish school system affects the concept of ?equal opportunity school?. We investigate the development from both a historical and contemporary perspective, in order to identify changes over time. The central question of the essay is how the decentralisation of the school system affects the teacher?s perspective and experiences of the government?s framework about ?equal opportunity school?? The analysis is based on four qualitative, semi structured, direct interviews with respondents both active in municipal schools situated in the Malmö council and with more than thirty years of experience in their profession. Our analysis of the interviews show that both respondents experience the overall situation in the schools has deteriorated from an equal opportunity aspect since the decentralisation of the school system.

Abstract The use of electronic media plays an important part in the life of youth and especially Internet and mobile phones are important in the social and cultural networks of youth. The first step of this thesis is to examine the ICT-based activities of upper Secondary school students through an online survey. The second step is to examine what didactic implications can be derived from the ICT-based activities in the subject of Swedish. Results from this survey and national and international research show that young people spend the majority of their leisure time on the Internet. The result also shows that media activities displace other school related activities such as traditional reading and writing.

The aim of this thesis is to look for signs of students? understanding of algebra by studying how they make the transition from arithmetic to algebra. Students in an Upper Secondary class on the Natural Science program and Science and Technology program were given a questionnaire with a number of algebraic problems of different levels of difficulty. Especially important for the study was that students leave comments and explanations of how they solved the problems. According to earlier research, transitions are the most critical steps in problem solving.

Summary The purpose of this research is to find out if technology is being used in pre-school activity, to what extent, in which way and what part the pre-school teachers believe they should have in the process. To gather information for the research, questionnaires were sent out to all pre-schools in a municipality in central Sweden. Based on that information two were chosen for observations and interviews. The work with technology in pre-schools may vary. Some pre-school teachers believe they do not adopt any technology at all when asked and all this because of their own lack of interest or knowledge, while others believe it is contained in all of their educational activities.

Violence against teachers in Swedish schools, according to recent reports has increased and there have been many studies to investigate the situation for teachers. The surveys show that teachers are especially vulnerable to students. This study aims to examine the relationship between a number of teachers and their students to study the power relations that exist in the classroom. This is to see what violence is an expression of and also how violence is perceived by the teachers. The issues that are central in this study are:What is the importance of dialogue in the relationship between these teachers and their students?Is there power relations between teachers and their students?What is the violence against teachers and expression of?Is there any connection between dialogue, power relations and violence?The theories of the materials in this study was analyzed using power relations theories of the historian of ideas Michel Foucault and Philosophy Doctor Anders Persson, who to some extent has his theoretical basis in Foucault?s power relations.

The purpose of this thesis is to describe how principals apprehend the school library. In order to respond to this I formulated three questions: How was the improvement of the school libraries carried out in one municipality? Is the school library experienced as a part of the schools organization? How is the use of the school´s library experienced? To be able to answer these questions, for the purpose of this thesis, I have studied relevant literature on school libraries, the school organization and literature on qualitative methods. I have made six qualitative interviews. The objects of the interviews were three librarians and three principals.

 The purpose with my study was primarily to illuminate the students' expectations on gained knowledge during their studies at the upper Secondary school Hotel- and Restaurant program, and to what extent these expectations were fulfilled. Secondarily, the purpose was to compare the students' expected and perceived knowledge with the program goals set by the Swedish government and the knowledge requirements expressed in a pilot study made by the Education council of the Hotel and restaurant business (UHR, 2007).I chose a quantative approach and I used an anonymous group enquiry among students at the Hotel- and Restaurant program at two different upper Secondary schools to carry out my study.Tendencies in the result suggested that the students at the Hotel- and Restaurant program expected high knowledge level within the competence areas of Guest reception and communication, Cleaning and hygiene, Cooking of cold and hot dishes and Waiting. The expectations were not big within the areas Computers and Internet and Business economics and management.Fulfillment of expected knowledge tended to be high within the areas where the expectations were big. It might therefore be a good investment for schools to work on the student expectations to increase motivation within the low expectation areas.A confrontation of the tendencies in the result with the program goals and the competence requirements expressed in the UHR study, suggested that the upper secondary Hotel- and Restaurant education might focus some more the areas of Guest reception and communication, Beverages and Organization of banquets. Business economics and management should be given much more weight..

The Swedish state and educational system are secular, so to say they do not depend on the former protestant state church anymore. Many people in Sweden are also secular. Even so, in school teachers meet students with a religious faith. The purpose of this study is to examine how teachers without a religious belonging experience the encounter with religious students. The method used was semistructured interviews with five teachers in a upper Secondary school in a multicultural suburb of Stockholm.

This essay elucidates upper secondary students? literacy practices, (literacy events, literacy competencies and literacy culture) during a typical day, with focus on the daily literacy practices. A literacy ethnographic study conducted in the environment which participants naturally are, at home, at school and in leisure. The study is inspired of a project, Skriftbruk i arbetslivet, ´Literacy Practices in Working Life´, that conducted by Anna-Malin Karlsson, Per Ledin and Olle Josephson, in collaboration with Vetenskapsrådet ´Science Council´(2002-2004).The result of this study shows that students from professional preparing programs not use such literacy competencies that been tested in traditionally reading comprehension test, particularly much. However, do they read a lot during the literacy practices day by television, computer and mobile phone.

The aim of this study is to examine how the induction period for newly employed upper Secondary school teachers is implemented in practice, in relation to the Swedish Education Act and the National Agency for Education?s general guidelines. Although this induction period has been legally mandated since 2010, both previous research and current statistics indicate significant shortcomings or wide variation in its practical execution. The study is based on a qualitative interview study involving 13 school leaders. The interview responses were analyzed using three complementary theoretical frameworks: Lipsky?s theory of street-level bureaucracy, Meyer and Rowan?s concept of decoupling, and Schein?s model of organizational culture.