AbstractIn this thesis I will discuss the relationship between the European Union and the regions of Europe. The development of the European Union has meant that many decisions are taken in Bruxelles. Many actors participate in the policyprocess ranging from national goverment to policynetworks of different kinds. An emerging actor has been the regions of Europe. Their influence on the policyprocess have grown and today almost all of them are represented in Bruxelles through Region Offices.

This work studied the information flow and information handling among different parties. The study focused on how educational materials on national tests from The Swedish National Agency for Education is managed by school principals and teachers and how the information is passed on to students. The data material was based on observations and interviews at two different high schools. Six teachers and their classes and principals participated in the study. The Agency was also interviewed.

Swedish as second language: A qualitative Study of Teachers view of pupils learning ability the Swedish language as the second language.

This report is a qualitative study on children aged three to five years who are in the Swedish preschool. The purpose of the study is to investigate how five experienced preschool teachers view the way children between three and five years acquire basic mathematical concepts, basic numeracy and geometry. The aim is also to find out whether teachers feel that the size of the group of children affects their learning.The study contains information about what preschool teachers think about the way children learn mathematics and how the size of the group of children affects this learning. From the results it can be seen that children learn Mathematics, both in everyday situations and when playing. Moreover, the group size does not seem to affect the mathematical learning of the child.

This paper is based upon a questionnaire and interviews with Swedish secondary school teachers (student of ages from 16 to 18). The purpose of the paper was to get a picture of teacher?s attitudes to astronomy in the physics courses and how this affects their teaching. The questionnaire showed that astronomy is the least prioritized field in physics in secondary school. Teachers seem to generally consider astronomy as the least important field and they spend little time teaching it, many teachers even exclude astronomy completely from their classes.

This essay has it purpose to view the assessment and grading in physical education in the Swedish school. Recently published reports from skolverket prove that boys have higher grades in the physical education than girls. Some mean that the reason of this is that the teachers don´t follow the curriculum. The problems we chose to examine are how much do teachers know how to use and connect the curriculum to their teaching? How much of the information and criterion in the curriculum do the teachers use to grade their pupils? And most importantly we wanted to examine why boys gets higher grades then girls, when the curriculum doesn?t seem to suit boys any better than girls.We have interviewed teachers in a certain district and our study shows that the teachers have good knowledge about the curriculum.

The main purpose with this study is to describe teachers? use of textbooks and other teaching materials in upper secondary school (gymnasiet) in Sweden, and to discuss the use according to school subject and teacher style. Data was collected in two different ways. At first twenty classroom observations were made during lectures concerning the subjects Swedish (mothertounge), English (foreign language) and religion. Then four open interviews were carried out with the teaching teachers.

In May 2008, the Swedish Government proclaimed several proposals in order to increase the status of the teaching profession. One of the proposals was that each teacher should be obligated to obtain a "teaching license" to be allowed to teach. The license/certification will guarantee that the teacher has the sufficient knowledge of pedagogy and subject obtained from University. The existing teachers who do not hold a proper certification today will be given a certain time period to attain one. The teachers that are certificated teachers but that are giving lessons in subjects not certificated in will be given a chance to obtain the proper knowledge of the subject.

In a preparatory class are newly arrived students who have no or very little knowledge of the Swedish language. Some of the newly arrived pupils may have arrived in Sweden very recently and some of them have no or very limited understanding and experience of how the school system works in their country of origin. The purpose of this study is to find out how education in a selected preparatory class works seen from two SVA-teachers and students perspective. Questions related to my purpose reads as follows:In which way can two of the SVA-teachers respond in a selected preparatory class to their group of newly arrived students?What methods can be used by the two SVA-teachers in a selected preparatory class to their group of newly arrived students' language learning?How does the newly arrived student in a selected preparatory class experience their education and friendship?The study was conducted through a qualitative approach in a selected preparatory class in a multicultural school in a suburb in southern Stockholm. Through observations on six separate occasions as well as interviews with two of the SVA- teachers in the selected preparatory class, and with three of the newly arrived pupils during a period of three weeks.

The legitimacy of the European Union is being questioned, and this has put focus on the democratic deficit, as the main reason for the negative outcome of the referendum about implementing the last initiated treaties of the union. In this essay the credibility of the problem solving strategy through the communication policy of the commission is being put under the scope. The objective is to treat the credibility of the solution to the main problems of the EU as an important part of how the democratic, political system works and how it deals with taking care of its? supporting and demanding channels of communication. The importance of a citizen platform to form common interests and a strictly European dialogue using media, common debates and several other possible ways to advocate this solution throughout the whole union is stressed here..

The world is getting smaller. Global markets, political processes and communication technology bring people together. Even though many of these processes are dynamic and constructive, they have also resulted in a need for better and more effective ways of international conflict resolution. This thesis investigates central issues connected to the concept of humanitarian interventions in relation to current and future legislation of the European Union. The overall question is whether the rapid globalization process has resulted in a change of international law towards more liberal view where authorization of the security council is not always needed? And, if there has actually been such a liberalization, how does that affect the legal possibilities for the European Union to carry out armed operations without the consent of the global community? The conclusion of the thesis is that international law has been modified mainly in two aspects: First, the concept of sovereignty is no longer seen merely as a right of the nation, but also as a responsibility.

The main purpose of this thesis is to examine how the European Union through the Directorate- General (DG) of Education and Culture, are calling forth a constructed sense of European identity amongst the citizens of the Union.It is a discourse analysis, which can be described in twofold. Firstly, it is a mapping of the European discourse; i.e. how the European Union defines the identity it seeks to mobilise. Secondly, it examines whether or not there are similarities in the European discourse of identity and the traditional nation-building discourse of national identity.According to this thesis a European identity is articulated in cultural terms, whereby its members are said to share the same values and a common cultural heritage.To bring the people of Europe closer together and to deepen awareness of their "common" history, the European Union encourages all manner of meetings and exchange schemes between Europeans. Although its goal is to develop a feeling of belonging to a shared culture, the EU is also keen to preserve the specific aspects of Europe's many cultures.

The conflict in Vaxholm was an important event since it influenced the view upon the Swedish labour market. The entire Swedish model was questioned and questions about what the concept of solidarity stands for and for whom it is meant arose.The Swedish union, Byggnads, was harshly criticised for having acted in a discriminating fashion towards den Latvian workers and the Latvian company Laval un Partneri. The debate in the media was intense.My intention with this essay was to scrutinise the arguments in one of the most prestigious newspapers in Sweden, Dagens Nyheter, and to put the argumentation into a perspective of solidarity. I wanted to investigate how the different parties argued about solidarity. One of the conclusions I drew was that Byggnads needs to question their definition of solidarity and how they wish to express that in a new world more influenced by globalisation and immigrated labours..

According to the curriculum for the Swedish preschool system, children?s development and learning should be documented and analyzed in order to evaluate and develop the preschool quality. Social criticism is directed to some of the methods of documentation for assessing the children´s individual knowledge development. The purpose of this study was to examine how, what and why some teachers use documentation in preschool. I wanted to examine which methods preschool teachers used when they documented the children and what they focused on.

This essay has it purpose to view the assessment and grading in physical education in the Swedish school. Recently published reports from skolverket prove that boys have higher grades in the physical education than girls. Some mean that the reason of this is that the teachers don´t follow the curriculum. The problems we chose to examine are how much do teachers know how to use and connect the curriculum to their teaching? How much of the information and criterion in the curriculum do the teachers use to grade their pupils? And most importantly we wanted to examine why boys gets higher grades then girls, when the curriculum doesn?t seem to suit boys any better than girls.We have interviewed teachers in a certain district and our study shows that the teachers have good knowledge about the curriculum.