The purpose of my study was to find out about the newly arrived students? views and perceptions of the Swedish high school, how this vision and perception looked like before they moved here, and if it has changed. I also wanted to find out how they perceived the meeting with the Swedish school, and if they believed that this meeting should or could be improved. In this study, I used a qualitative research method, the phenomenological method, in which I have used qualitative research interviews to collect the empirical data and detect patterns in my research. The theory I used is cultural encounters, and with it, I try to understand how people with different cultural backgrounds create interactions to work together in communities.

Although school librarians have an important role to play in high schools helping teachers and students during their education, Swedish school librarians are often considered to end up left out by teachers and head principals due to school librarians vague and unclear professional role in the school. The aim of this thesis is to attempt to study school librarians own apprehensions of their particular professional role in a high school context, and how their professional role is believed to be apprehended by teachers and head principals. The results are based on interviews made with eight school librarians working in different high school libraries in Gothenburg during April 2002. By using phenomenographic method various existing apprehensions of the specific phenomena that the professional role of the school librarian constitutes of are made clear. The aim of the method is not to study what the profession constitutes of, but rather how it is apprehended by the school librarians themselves.

AbstractMI stands for Motivational Interviewing, the Swedish translation of MI is Motiverande Samtal. Adolescence is a period in life when challenges are encountered and pivotal choices are being made. It is during this period adolescents form their lifestyle, which have an impact for their health for the rest of their life. MI has shown to be an effective and appropriate method for school nurses within school health care, to utilize in approaching by adolescents with risk behavior. This is because it gives adolescence to take responsibility and empowers them to make decisions regarding lifestyle-changes.

AbstractMI stands for Motivational Interviewing, the Swedish translation of MI is Motiverande Samtal. Adolescence is a period in life when challenges are encountered and pivotal choices are being made. It is during this period adolescents form their lifestyle, which have an impact for their health for the rest of their life. MI has shown to be an effective and appropriate method for school nurses within school health care, to utilize in approaching by adolescents with risk behavior. This is because it gives adolescence to take responsibility and empowers them to make decisions regarding lifestyle-changes.

The Swedish education system reflects the multicultural society in Sweden, therefore there is a need of school textbooks that pupils can identify themselves with to create meaning and value in their learning. According to the Swedish Education Administrations (Skolverkets) report (2006) and Selander (2003, s. 198) the school textbooks are the main source of education in class. There has been an implicit message in the older textbooks that is associated with the belief that non-Europeans are "seen" as victims, and that Europeans are privileged with a "good life".Many school texbooks has been analyzed from different points of perspectives, however, analysis from a postcolonial perspective on home economics books has practically been nonexistent.Analysis in this study are focused on how non-western people are been portrayed in six different textbooks in the subject to conclude if the colonial discourse is still maintained and reproduced in the school. To answer the question of formulation an image analysis is made of the six, previiously mentioned, textbooks.

The aim of this master´s thesis is to analyse what factors have an impact on the quality of school libraries. The research questions are: How do some school principals, school librarians and school inspectors view quality in school libraries and what has an impact on quality?How do they view some existing quality criteria?How important do they think the integration of the school library into the curriculum is?The theoretical approach is derived from research about school libraries by David Loertscher and by Sharon Markless and David Streatfield. The empirical material has been collected through half structured qualitative interviews. The informants chosen are principals and school librarians from three Swedish primary schools (6-15 years).

The purpose of this study is to the increase knowledge and understanding of the meeting between children with Arabian as native language and a Swedish school library. The study is made as a qualitative investigation built on interviews with eight-year-olds and eleven-year-olds. Only the childrens needs and views are considered. The study is centred on twelve key issues and aims to document the childrens thoughts and views of reading as well as their reading habits and their use of the school library. Through the childrens own words their evaluation of reading and literature, their abilities to assimilate the text and their de facto use of the books can be known.

In this composition we will treat issues about intercultural approach and managing diversity in Swedish municipal/public school. This survey includes several theories and conceptions as ethnicity, culture, multiplicity/managing diversity and intercultural approach/multiculturalism.We studied two different schools and their awareness concerning intercultural approach and managing diversity . The study is concentrating on two schools in two different communities. One of the schools had a greater ethnic multiplicity than the other school, and therefore, we thought, it seemed easier for them to accept an intercultural approach and managing diversity. But that was not the whole truth.

Truancy is a problem in the Swedish schools today, just as well as in other European and other developed countries where educataion is gratuitous. Teachers all over Sweden go to classes with a clear and well-planned schedule for the day. But some are unable to do their work because of asent students. In this study I have chosen to focus on the perspective of the youths and the main question is: how do students discuss and think about truancy. During the study I have chosen a qualitative approach and have therefore done observation in various classes in a Swedish senior high school in a suburb outside Stockholm during twelve weeks.

This essay deals with the issue how to define the concept successful school and what ingredients it includes. To aim this task I have interviewed four principals at upper secondary schools, two placed in community schools and the other two working for non-community schools. We have discussed how the principals define a successful school, whether they believe that the principal has a major part in contributing to the schools success or not and further if they think that schools have anything in common with private companies.The principals all agreed on what components they believe a successful school consists of, that is good school results from the pupils, a high comfort level for the pupils at school, professional management from the principal and a high level of young people who wants to attend the particular school.Further I have studied Swedish and foreign research in the area of successful schools and management in schools to get at good background in this matter..

Children of school age, who have just moved to Sweden can either start in a preparation class or in a normal class. There is no Swedish law or national policy that determines how new children will start and continue their education in Swedish schools. The decision is up to the schools or the communes.This study investigates what kind of educational methods teachers, from a sample of two different schools, are using to educate the newly-arrived students and if these methods are making any contribution to integrating these children into the Swedish school system. The study will raise questions like, how are the new students introduced to the Swedish school, what is the purpose of having the children in preparation class as opposed to normal class, and what methods do the interviewed teachers use to integrate the new children into the school system?Interviews were conducted with four teachers, an associate professor and a senior lecturer in education, who has done several years of research about children from abroad coming in to the Swedish school system.

Is there an unwritten art canon in Swedish schools? This work is about the art displayed and used in Swedish schools. The study examines whether there is an art canon in Swedish schools, or not. Through my profession, as an art teacher at a secondary school, I have come to take an interest in this issue. When I use art images in my own teaching it often strikes me that many of the pictures I use are the same as the ones my colleagues use.

The purpose of this study is to illustrate how some teachers in multicultural school environments reflecton and experience the educational work with national tests in the third grade for students who do not have Swedish as their native language. The research questions I have chosen to work with are:How do teachers experience working with national tests in groups of students where there are children with Swedish as a second language?How do the teachers reflect on the students linguistic preconditions relating to the national tests in these groups of students?What strategies in their teaching on national tests do the teachers use when it comes to students with Swedish as a second language?In this study I have chosen to use a qualitative interview method. Since the purpose of the study is to understand how teachers reflect on students with Swedish as a second language the obvious choice was to interview teachers who work in a multicultural school. In my thesis I have chosen to use sociocultural theory, Cummins four quadrant model and context for theoretical approach.

AbstractEssay in political Science (c-level) by Karin Forsling, Spring 2007A school for the best interest of the child? - The Swedish School System according to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.Supervisor: Stig MontinThe purpose of this essay is to investigate how the Swedish governments work with the im-plementation of this convention and what progress has been made. The inquiry of this study is to describe how the changing in the Swedish School System correspond to the national strat-egy for implementation of UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in Sweden and how the political protagonists.I have read some of the most relevant documents from the authorities and organisations work-ing with children?s rights in Sweden and papers and communications from the political pro-tagonists.Since UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was ratified by Sweden in 1990 the work for implementation has been quite successful but there are still lots to do. There are still some problems in School such as bullying, insulting, insecurity and lack of peaceful and harmoni-ous school environment.

Fountain of Knowledge? The Changing Role of the Library at the Upper Secondary School Level. There have been many changes in the Swedish society in general, and in the school system and hence the school library in particular during the last decade. The aim of this master thesis is then to study what students at the upper secondary school level consider to be the optimal school library to meet their specific information needs at school. In addition to and in comparison with this, the aim is also to study the present conditions of the upper secondary school library as described in documents, reports and other studies in this field.