The aim of this essay has been to find out whether the individual development plan does make it easier to teachers to discover any needs of the students to get education or material changes and by that make adjustments in the classroom. I chose to seek information by interviewing special educators at four compulsory schools, since they have an overall apprehension of how the work is carried out at the school, especially the work with students in need of any form of extra support.All students at the Swedish compulsory school shall have an individual development plan. The purpose with the plan is, besides that the student is to be given possibilities to form his own pedagogical and social goals, that the teacher shall get early signals if a student may be in need of getting education and materials changed and adjusted for to easier manage his studies. The individual development plan of the student should have the function as a tool to the teacher to facilitate for his students.The answer of my question can be sum-up in a no, the inherent potential in the individual development plan is not utilized by the teachers that seem to have the apprehension that the plan is for the student all by him/herself. The teaching staff has obviously not understood the use they can get out of it. .

The number of blogs, from weblogs, are increasing every day. Blogs are also becoming more visible in the public debate as well as the awareness of their existance is rising among politicians and citizens. The aim of this thesis is to answer the question what democratic potential blogs can have. This question will be answered by initially studying the research that exists today about weblogs and democracy. The second part of the analysis consists of a selection of texts from weblogs that touches this subject.

ABSTRACTCitizendialogue in the District of RasboA Case Study in the Municipality of UppsalaAuthor: Camilla ÖstlundSupervisor: Stig MontinThe essay is written inside the scope of Örebro Universitys evaluation of the new organisation in the municipality of Uppsala.The purpose of this essay is to study the citizendialogue in the district of Rasbo. This will be done partly by an examination of how the participants themselvesperceive citizendialogue. Their descriptions are put in relation to deliberative democracy and its critics amongst other. Partly by study how those involved have choosen to put it into practice. The opponents of the reorganization chose to start a non-profit association, Rasbo in co-operation, to carry on local mobilization and it will be compared with other similar groups.

Title: School in Change : Good Grades = Good Democrat? Level: Final assignment for Bachelor Degree in Political Science Author: Marcos Castro Allende Supervisor: Per Strömblad Date: 2013 ? May Aim: The background to this study is a book published by Staffan. I Lindberg & Richard Svensson where they presented a hypothesis that the decline in trusting democracy within Swedish youth is a result of the deregulation of the education in Sweden. The aim of this study is to test this hypothesis and see if the declinne in democracy can be seen already before graduating from elementary school. Method: The method used in this study consist of a survey distributed to students at two elementary schools that differentiates in question of grades and social status. By comparing and analyzing the results of this survey with the claims of the hypothesis, former studies and Lipsets theory of the working-class authoritarism a conclusion is made of the hypothesis credibility. Result & Conclusions: The results showed that there may be a a difference trusting democracy between students with higher grades and those with lower grades.

AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to investigate to what extent LS ? a standard screening test for dyslexia ?is also relevant for the purpose of finding second language students with dyslexia. Starting with an overview of recent studies in the field, I have analyzed texts from parts of the chosen material. After a brief presentation of the test, I have presented it from a second language point of view. Furthermore, I have analyzed the way in which the test measures phonological awareness, lexical accessibility and correctness in language.

The aim of this thesis is to explore the institutional design of Participatory Budgeting (PB) in Sweden and how the design may contribute to realize central democratic goods. The study records the different PB experiences in Sweden and focuses on one particular case, which is the only case that successfully qualifies as a genuine PB-process according to international standards and definitions. To examine this, the following questions are asked: which municipalities in Sweden have implemented Participatory Budgeting? How can the institutional design of Participatory Budgeting be described and to what extent does it enable the realization of central democratic goods? To what extent does the institutional design enable the realization of the democratic goods inclusion, popular control, considered judgment and transparency? To what extent does the institutional design enable the realization of the institutional goods of efficiency and transferability?The study is based on an institutional theory of democracy. The method used is a mixed method ideal type analysis that combines document analysis, surveys and interviews.

The purpose of my study is to explore teachers reasoning regarding the motivation of students in religious education. I investigate the teachers' expectations of the students' behaviors which are being judged by the teachers, in order to assess whether the students their classes are motivated or not.                      In order to present views of the teachers? reasoning, the study uses qualitative method and is based on interviews, conducted with eight different high school teachers.The results show that teachers tend to expect the motivation of the students to contradict their own expectations before starting a course or they presume that the expectations are going to be confirmed in class. Furthermore teachers seem to have preconceived ideas regarding how motivated or un-motivated students behave in class.

The purpose of this essay is to analyse how and why culture and tradition is created and maintained within a minor student society at a Swedish university by looking at its history. The West Coast Nation student society provided the material which was subsequently analysed and three sociological perspectives were applied in order to give the study a theoretical base. In order to investigate the purpose of the society, durkheimian theories on functionalism were applied. Moreover, Bourdieu?s thoughts on social fields were used as well as Elias? theories on the established and the outsiders.

AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to investigate to what extent LS ? a standard screening test for dyslexia ?is also relevant for the purpose of finding second language students with dyslexia. Starting with an overview of recent studies in the field, I have analyzed texts from parts of the chosen material. After a brief presentation of the test, I have presented it from a second language point of view. Furthermore, I have analyzed the way in which the test measures phonological awareness, lexical accessibility and correctness in language.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the discourse on political exclusion in the official report Demokratiutredningen. It has been my ambition to relate the analysis of the report to a critical academic discourse on political exclusion and thereby make visible hidden norms and structures which functions to exclude certain individuals and groups from political participation.My paper point out that the report establishes a strong link between democracy and participation and that it, therefore, makes a strong case for a process of democratic inclusion. Though, in my study I suggest that that there is an unawareness of the importance of norms, hegemonic conceptions and structures and that inclusion, therefore, is unlikely to take place. Furthermore, I criticize the focus on deliberative democracy in the report. With insights offered by Mouffe in her argumentation on the necessity to acknowledge the dimension of antagonism present in all societies I underline that the focus on this democratic model is problematic.My conclusion is that the analysis presented in the report is insufficient if we want to create a democratic system characterized by equality..

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the schools? pupils have the capacity to understand societal change through social consciousness. In order to investigate that a theory has been developed specifying what social consciousness means and how it is used. The theory has been used as a tool in an ideology critical analysis of the steering documents on which the schools? work is based.

ABSTRACTSince Robert D. Putnam first wrote about the causes behind the regional differences in economic and political development in Italy, the theory of social capital has truly flourished in the fields of social science. This days you constantly hear politicians and scholars stressing the important role of the quality of the social fabric to a society?s wellbeing. There all looking at ways to construct policies and institutions that help the spread of social capital.

The purpose of this essay is to discover what Formative Assessment is used for in practice and also how teachers use the Curriculum for elementary school, preschool and after-school activity 2011 (Lgr 11) in their Formative Assessment work.The questions are as follows:What considerations do teachers take into account when assessing a student?How do teachers view assessment for learning?How do the teachers consider formative assessment works in relation to Lgr 11?I have used a qualitative research method to answer my questions. I have interviewed five teachers regarding their view on and experience with assessment. Using a hermeneutic approach I have tried to retrieve a deeper meaning from my interviewees regarding formative assessment. I have approached formative assessment using the socio-cultural perspective because I believe it to be the best fit.All of the informants believe formative assessment has made it easier to assess students and also that it works very well together with Lgr 11.

The aim ofthis study was to examine how economic growth affects the level of democracy inauthoritarian states. Some of these states have experienced high economicgrowth. However, one can discuss how it affects the country?s democratization-process.For that reason this study was needed to contribute to a clarification of howeconomic growth can affect authoritarian rule and democratization. This wasdone through an examination of the development in China.

?Liberal Democracy? is a common term in political theory, and it is used as if it had a commonly accepted referent, with both normative and descriptive content. This is certainly the case in democratic theory, where it on the one hand seems to refer to a normative democratic model; on the other hand it is used descriptively, to refer to real-life democracies. The deliberative democratic sub-field is not an exception; on the contrary, the term is frequently used albeit rarely defined; yet the concept it refers to is supposedly developed enough to allow detailed propositions about its citizens?s political behaviour.This essay is an attempt to analyze how Liberal Democracy is used by three deliberative democrats (Jürgen Habermas, John Dryzek and Stephen Elstub), in order to understand the democratic model (or models), whether normative or descriptive, they refer to.