Early during my education to become an afterschool-teacher a concern was raised that afterschool-programs will continue to be seen as an institution for childcare services. In this experience-based essay, I discuss what I see as the coreproblem: the free- and planned activities. What do the free- and planned activities actually mean for children's development and what is it that determines how much space the various activities will be allowed to take?In my attempts to answer this question, I go through the concept of leisure, the importance of children?s play and adults responsibilities in children?s play, what the different policy documents say about children?s play and the creative work, staff skills and theoretical and practical knowledge. I question whether I was right in the story that I begin this essay with, and conclude that it is more difficult than I previously thought to find an answer to the question..

The purpose of this study is to find out teachers and students thoughts about sustainable development. Research shows that sustainable development should be a part of all education. When this is the case, the student´s will develop a competence to act in this matter. This is important so student´s encourages to act and make decisions based on knowledge about sustainable development. This field investigation is based on four interviews with teachers and eleven interviews with student´s. The result shows that the teachers has learned a lot about the concept, and in different ways realizated this in their teaching.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how twelve middle school teachers use educational tools and what influences their choice of educational tools in Swedish language writing instruction. To answer this purpose, three research questions were formulated: What does writing instruction look like for middle school students according to the teachers in the study? What influences teachers' choice and use of educational tools in writing instruction? What opportunities and challenges do teachers experience in Swedish language writing instruction when using different educational tools? Twelve teachers from variously sized municipalities and with different experiences participated in the study through purposive sampling and convenience sampling. The chosen method is qualitative semi-structured teacher interviews. To analyse the results, this study employs analytical tools from the sociocultural perspective, using concepts such as mediation, appropriation, the zone of proximal development, and scaffolding. The results show that both analogue and digital tools are used in the teachers' writing instruction. The choice of tools should be based on pedagogical considerations, with an emphasis on social interaction and collaboration during the learning process.

The aim with my work was to gain a deeper understanding of some adult adopted children?s experiences and reflections about which role parent ship plays for the adopted child?s development of identity. Following questions have been in focus: What does a working parent ship imply, seen from the perspective of adopted child? In which way can the development of identity for the adopted child be supported by a functional parent ship? Semi-structured interviews were carried out with the two following themes: Support and confirmation. The sample consisted of five foreign-adopted between the age of 18 and 37 years.

This essay is a comparative research between pupils' experience of how the headmaster, teachers and other school staff interpret and apply the democratic education. The results are based on a survey carried out in senior high school, as well as interviews with the school staff. The democratic education charge has a long history of Swedish school system and is the basis for the maintenance of a democratic society. Both policy paper of state investigations and researchers in the field, regard to school as the primary and unique instance in order to promote and develop democratic skills in children and young people. However, it is shown that those who come out from school lack of knowledge and awareness of democracy and the will to speak their mind.

The main purpose of this essay is to study how classroom interaction can take place in a class for Second Language Learners (SLL).1 I have applied a case study methodology on a linguistic method used by a Teacher in Swedish as Second Language working on a primary school situated in the Southern suburbs of Stockholm. The learning method is based on extensive reading of books which comprehend several learning techniques organized into a process that support the development of linguistic skills such as discussing in a group, writing, reading and thinking in a second language. The methodology applied is based on observations, on an interview with a Teacher in Swedish as Second Language and on a questionnaire answered by 11 students that participated on ?Boksamtal?.Based on a theoretical framework about socio cultural theories on learning and scaffolding,2 I attempt to integrate theory and practice to investigate how the Teacher succeed on applying effective methods for second language learning. Through the analyses of the data is also my intention to emphasize the advantages and disadvantages of such a method.

AbstractIn this essay, I have chosen to examine how four teachers in a work unit think and work with linguistic development and strategies, particularly in grade 4-6. The teaching profession has gradually become more like a cooperative profession. Therefore it is in a general pedagogic interest, to know, how each one of the teachers in the work unit, are thinking about linguistic development, teaching profiles and the significances of a work unit to achieve their aims to provide for all the individuals in their classrooms. My intention was to find out if a homogeneous work unit or a heterogeneous work unit is to prefer in work with linguistic development, which initially made me focus and realise the importance of each one of my informants? answers.

Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union a lot of hope has been put on civil society to help develop Russia into a more democratic society. This study explores the constructive elements in the relationship between civil society and the state in Russia, and how this enables the work toward political development. By using Julie Fishers theory about political development and organisational autonomy I discuss the varying and often complex ways in which civil society and the state interacts. These are often not mentioned in the liberal tradition, which believes that civil society's most important democratic function is to act as a watchdog for the state.There is very limited political space for NGO's in authoritative Russia. The existing oppositional NGO's are important for the political development, but they are few and their impacts on society are limited.

The purpose of this study was to examine what social workers include in the term "parenting ability". More specifically the purpose was to investigate how social workers view the parenting ability among parents with an intellectual disability. Furthermore the aim was to examine what difficulties social workers come across in their work with families where one of the parents are intellectually disabled. The study was based on six interviews with social workers that specifically work with children under the age of 18, and occasionally come across parents with this type of disability. The interviews were analysed using Donald Winnicott's terms "good-enough-parenting", "holding" and "the holding environment".

The purpose of the study has been to recognise good development and the factors behind this development. We have chosen an aid-project co-financed first by the Swedish government and later by the government of Great Britain for our study. One of the conditions for good development, according to our chosen theory Another development, is peoples participation. To study good development and peoples participation we conducted a Minor Field Study (MFS) in Rajasthan in the north-west of India in June-August 2001. We had a hermeneutic approach and consequently accomplished interviews and participant observations in the Lok Jumbish project in Rajasthan.

This is a thesis in Personal- och Arbetslivsprogrammet at Dalarna University with thepurpose of evaluating an education initiative in Borlänge kommun. The educationCoaching Leadership is an initiative for the managers in the organization to exercisegood leadership and the education also serves as an incentive for managers. Eightbusiness managers and one from the HR staff have completed the training. Out of thetotal 9 participants in the training, six of them took part in this evaluation. Based on thethesis aim and questions we wanted to explore participants' attitudes to the education,and what skills and abilities they have acquired on the basis of educational goals andcontent.

Through a quantitative examination, 26 pedagogies in the pre-school activity answered a few questions in an enquiry about outdoor education. The purpose with this examination was to find out what pedagogies think and apprehend about outdoor education, and also if the "education plan" is in their minds during outdoor activities and if they see them self´s as competent in nature studies. They have also answered questions whether they think that they have good outdoor environment that stimulates children´s development and learning and if there´s any forest that they visit on regular basis.The pedagogies think that during time spent outdoor, it´s the motor skills that are best developed. All of the pedagogies mentioned above think that they need to get more educated in nature studies and also that pedagogies attitude towards time spent outdoors affect the children. They do not think about the goals and intentions of the "educations plan" all the time.

The stakeholders for requirements elicitation need to be identified at an early stage and their knowledge is the basis for what is to become a requirements specification. Just because a stakeholder holds a lot of expertise and knowledge it does not mean that the stakeholder can communicate the knowledge in a clear way. Validation of knowledge means that knowledge is valued and recognized in a structured way. People and organizations can evolve by exchanging knowledge, experience and skills.  The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of knowledge management between requirement elicitation and external stakeholders.

The aim of my ?two years master thesis? was to examine school administrators perceptions about important information literacy skills that the students should be able to control, perceptions about what role the teachers and the librarians have in teaching students information literacy and perceptions about the collaboration between these groups. My questions have been: Have the school administrators reflected upon the conception of information literacy? What conceptions do school administrators have about important information literacy skills that the students should be able to control? What role do they consider the teachers and the librarians to have in making all students information literate? How do they consider the collaboration between the teachers and the librarians work? What role do they consider themselves to have on a management level to make all students? information literate? I used a phenomenographical method and carried out six qualitative interviews with school administrators from five senior high schools in the municipality of Gävle. Both public schools and independent schools were included in the study. Most of the school administrators considered information literacy to be the same as criticism of sources, which they also considered as one of the most important information literacy skills.

ABSTRACT System development has become more and more concentrated on development for the Web and this has resulted in larger target groups. It will most surely continue to be so considering that the Web will be the infrastructure of business and services in the future. A big target group involves that the owner of a system can earn a lot of money from the paying users, but that assumes that the system can meet user needs. If a system on the Web does not satisfy the user?s demands then they will use the competitor?s system instead because it is only a mouse-click away.