This master thesis is based on the sociocultural perspective. A qualitative research study was conducted to investigate children's attitudes towards reading, texts and libraries.The theoretical background is constituted by ideas from the new sociology of childhood, literacy-studies and reader-response theory.The study was conducted with 23 children, 13 girls and 10 boys, participating in focus groups.The results of the study reveal that children's literacy-activities in school are strongly influenced and limited by adults. Children's interest in pictures and non-fiction-reading do not correspond to the school institution that favors traditional media and fiction. The study also reveals a gender division between children's literacy-activities that tends to grow with age. All the children in the study regard libraries as book-houses and wished for libraries that combine activity and serenity.The thesis shows the importance of being aware of, and engage in, children's reading-interests and reading-practices if the reading stimulating activities in schools and libraries are to be successful.

The overall aim of the study was to take part of teachers' experiences and work force mother-tongue education and literacy development in the Sámi School. The study was conducted through interviews with twelve teachers who teach at two Sámi schools. The focus has been on looking how to work with native speakers teaching at the Sámi School, what factors promote / hinder students' development of their first or second language, and the importance of collaboration between the schools` various professions work with multilingual students reading and writing skills. Through interviews of various categories of teachers, I have tried to visibility problems of the education of minority language children and their reading and writing skills. I discuss the teaching, the importance and the lack / availability of communication and consensus between different categories of teachers.

The aim of this study is investigating how some Elementary School teachers of special classes describe how they use iPad as an educational tool when teaching Swedish. To find out I have carried out an interview investigation. I have analyzed results using theoretical concepts from the sociocultural perspective, scaffolding and artefacts.The cummulative result shows that teachers describe that they practice linguistic consciousness and that pupils are trained in writing Swedish in this subject. Another result shows how all teachers describe that they work face-to-face with pupils using iPads in Swedish lessons. Further results show how teachers present possibilities of using iPad as an educational tool when teaching Swedish.

Open ecosystems, such as grasslands and pastures, have naturally been shaped by disturbances like fire and grazing. These processes play a crucial role in creating habitats with high biological diversity, particularly favourable for a wide range of herbaceous plant species. In recent years, many of these disturbances have ceased, leading to encroachment, fragmentation and habitat loss. The aim of this study was to examine and compare the effects of fire, herbivory and a combination of fire and herbivory on the emergence of herbaceous plants. The study was conducted at the Ecopark at Nordens Ark.

This study investigates the difficulties that may arise for students as a consequence of differences that exist in mathematics education between different educational systems. The questions asked are when and why difficulties as a consequence of differences in writing or types of student problems may arise and in which way teachers and students attend to these difficulties. The focus is thus on the written parts of mathematics education and the questions are asked within the frame of general upper secondary education.In order to answer these questions, a sociocultural perspective based mainly on Sfard?s (2006) participationist theories together with Vygotsky?s (1999) general theories on development and learning is used. An important analytic tool is the discourse concept which in this context means a type of communication that brings some people together while excluding others from the communication.

This study is about how the dialog can help students with special needs to feel participation and inclusion in the class and the teaching. My purpose with this study was to look for how the students with special needs interact with other students and teachers through the dialogue. I also wanted to know if there is any positive and negative effects to teaching students with special need in the classroom compared with the teaching at the special teacher.I have taking purpose of the sociocultural theory in my study because it says that children learn together when they communicate with each other. The theory central words are dialog and scaffolding in the zone of proximal development. I also describe central words like participation, inclusion and students with special needs in the special teaching.I have investigated in four interviews, two of them were with a teacher and a special aids teacher, and two of them were students with special needs.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to study howuniversity librarians in a South African context relate to theconcept of information literacy. We investigated differencesand similarities in approaches to user education andinformation literacy. We have based our study on thefollowing research questions: What are the prerequisites foruser education at the University of the Western Cape? Howdo these prerequisites influence librarians' approaches toinformation literacy and user education at the University ofthe Western Cape? We have used a sociocultural theoreticalperspective and Hofstede's cultural dimensions in orderto pay particular attention to the cultural and social contextof user education.

Today's fierce competition means that companies constantly must develop their business and internal processes. Focus on processes and continuous improvement is something that characterizes Lean Production which ICA logistics are applying with their concept Leading Logistics. Standardized routines for handling damaged gods were insufficient at the ICA distribution center in Kungälv. Handling and registration of damaged gods were not performed uniformly, resulting in problems with controlling and monitoring the process.The purpose of this thesis was to analyze and make recommendations how the process of internal handling of damaged gods could be improved. Therefore a comprehensive understanding was needed of the entire material flow through the warehouse and important quality aspects such as product safety and delivery reliability.The methods used are literature reviews, interviews and observations to produce a comprehensive process mapping of the current situation at the distribution center.

The construction and use of buildings in the EU accounts for half of the EU?s extracted materials and energy consumptions, and a third of greenhouse gas emissions. In the past decade, the construction sector has responded to such concerns by focusing on post production energy efficiency. However, new findings indicate that upstream construction processes influence emissions significantly ? necessitating a shift in focus to include material choices and building processes.

The purpose of this work is to explore the artistic processes of an ensemble where a musician and one or more dancers play together, either by improvising or by interpreting music that is written for the ensemble. The main themes are about finding ways to work with written material and still keep the communication between the music and the dance alive. The author is also interested in finding ways of identifying himself in the medium of dance although he is a musician. The result of this work can be seen in this text and in the attached film material..

This master of science thesis intends to examine how the established innovation theoriesinteracts with the social and cultural phenomena arising from the reduction in communicationcosts as a result of the development of the internet.The aim is to present a knowledge inventory of attitudes to and experiences of an openapproach, with emphasis on collaborative innovation, in product and service developmentdriven companies in different fields. The studied theories and the empirical results forms thebasis for an analysis of how companies can benefit from the diversified knowledge that existsoutside their borders as well as an exploration of the potential for this kind of knowledgeexchange to act as a catalyst for innovation.The theoretical part of the study is based essentially on two tracks: (1) innovation theories witha focus onopen innovation and user innovation, and (2) a broad review of how theories ofdiversified knowledgeand collective intelligence has become possible to apply in an innovationcontext. The empirical part of the study is based on material obtained from semi-structuredinterviews with respondents from six companies.The results show that companies have implemented unstructured innovation initiatives withoutany formal links to the structured product development processes, which are part of thecompanies core activities. The main conclusions include the following insights: There is a needfor structured links between the unstructured initiatives and the core activities, which makes itpossible to take promising ideas to market. The companies also have to lose some control of theunstructured initiatives; consequently it is impossible to pinpoint what the outcome will be.

This thesis falls within the realm of social studies, specifically social studies in literature, and attempts to establish whether the sub-genre of fantasy literature known as sword and sorcery contains elements which resemble the tenets of fascism. Robert E. Howard is considered the progenitor of the sub-genre and his stories have an influence on the nature of sword and sorcery literature today, 70 years after his death. Howards creation of the sub-genre coincides with the spread of fascist ideologies around the world in the 1930s and the study attempts a societal mirroring analysis of Howards texts. With the help of an analytical model based on fascism expert Robert O.

This master thesis investigates quality procedures and measuring of solid carbide end mills, with the main focus on measuring equipment. The thesis has been written in collaboration with a special production department for solid carbide end mills at Sandvik Coromant in Gimo. The department?s needs and constraints have been the foundation of the project and the main research question is: how to measure end mills in order to ensure good quality of the produced end mills. The project has contained both a theoretical study consisting of a literature review and practical studies in the workshop with the objective to identify an end mill?s main parameters and the relationship between an end mill?s geometry and the manufacturing processes.

The ambition of this paper is to study the construction of the categorization between ?us? and ?them? in a religious minority, represented by Jehovah?s Witnesses and a nationalist political party, represented by the Swedish Democrats. This will be done by a discursive psychology analysis of their official publications on each group?s website. By a deductive study using Henri Tajfel?s Social Identity Theory trying to disclose the psychological processes; social categorization, social identity, social comparison and psychological distinctiveness.

Jag har genomfört en undersökning där jag har observerat klassrummets fysiska miljö med fokus på dess möblering och utbud av material. Genom att observera två klassrum har jag försökt få en förståelse för hur klassrummets möblering och utbud av material kan gynna elevers lärande och kunskapsinhämtning. Min undersökning är genomförd utifrån forskningsfrågorna; - Hur är klassrummet möblerat? - Vilket material erbjuds eleverna? - Hur använder sig eleverna av materialet och möbleringen?Jag har utgått från ett interaktionistiskt och ett sociokulturellt perspektiv och använt mig av begreppen aktiviteter, interaktioner och verktyg. Förutom det sociokulturella perspektivet har jag även relaterat och jämfört mina resultat till den forskning som tidigare har gjorts på samma område.Det resultat jag har analyserat och diskuterat kring grundar sig på de fältanteckningar jag skrev i samband med observationen samt fotografier från klassrummen.