Torstensson, Niklas (2012): Anledningar till olikheter mellan Svenska kommuners skolkvalitet (Causes behind the differences in Swedish municipality´s quality of school) Örebro University.This essay is an explorative case study that will compare four Swedish municipalities quality of local school system against the municipality ´s backgrounddata and a governing document: Skolplan. This study begins in a previous benchmarking study made by one of Sweden?s teachers unions Lärarförbundet. This is a statistical study that ranked the Swedish municipalities against each other?s according to their accomplishments in a number of areas related to their school systems.

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.

My purpose in this paper is to study teachers' work in reading and writing in primary school and special school. I want to find out if they use the same methods, strategies and materials to help students learn to read and write. I will find out the answer to my purpose by performing two qualitative observation and two qualitative interviews. Lundberg (2010) is the researcher I relate to during my study. Through observation, I see how teachers work with students in the classroom during a lesson in the Swedish language. During the interviews, I received answers to how teachers work with language, the materials, methods and strategies they use. I found out that teachers use specific strategies when they help their students. They use a work material that is tailored to curriculum in Swedish language and it is based on the phonics method. .

The debate in the media on a new Swedish sex education movie sparked our interest in this study. The twenty-eight minutes long movie ?Sex on the map? is the first of it?s kind in twenty-five years. It is also part of a bigger sex educational project that contains, apart from the movie, a book about sex education, a documentary and a teachers guide. The project is a co-production between the Swedish Educational Broadcasting Company (UR) and the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education (RFSU).We were interested in how teachers received information about the project, and what their attitudes were towards it.

The poor results of 15 year old Swedish students in the 2012 PISA-investigation serve as the main inspiration for this essay. Though aware that PISA measures a range of skills, including math-, science- and reading abilities, a deliberate focus has been placed on the latter. Unsatisfactory math- and science results are sure to bare consequences ahead, but poor reading skills affect the comprehension of all other subjects combined and is therefore of utmost importance.This essay explores the roles of teachers and school librarians in the promotion of reading, as well as their ways of cooperating in strengthening students' reading abilities. Questions of particular interest are:? In what ways do teachers' and school librarians' views of ongoing reading promoting activities differ?? How does the school and school library contribute to reading promotion and reading comprehension among students?? What factors unite teachers and school librarians in their attempts to promote reading, as far as pedagogical roles are concerned?Working on this essay, a total of seven qualitative interviews were conducted.

This study investigates the internet habits of students in the Swedish gymnasium. The part that internet plays in their lives and their attitude towards the educational system is reflected upon the philosophical background that stretches from Kant to postmodern philosophers such as Baudrillard. The aim is to create knowledge about how the social aspects of the internet affects their concepts of reality and their own and others identities. The method used for the collection of empirical data has been semi-structured interviews, preformed with students in a Swedish gymnasium. The data is then interpreted against the theoretical and philosophical background.

My purpose in this work was to find out how staff in a middle sized school uses its local Equal treatment plan in its work against bullying. But also to see how the use of a standardized anti-bullying program works to prevent bullying. I have interviewed the principal, teachers, and what we in Sweden call a ?fritidspedagog? and the members of the anti-bullying team to get answers to my questions.  The conclusion of this study is that the school follow and work according to what the Equal treatment plan states, both in terms of prevention, as in working with actual bullying cases. The school has also followed the National School Agency's recommendations on what should be the local Equality plan, but also to follow up and revise it each year. The interview shows that the staff at the school placed great emphasis on talking and discussing with students about how to behave towards each other, they also brought up things that happened at one time and talked about this. The staffs were very committed to work towards the prevention of bullying and the same was true with the school's headmaster.

This thesis is an evaluative study of the political reform, Friskolereformen, which enabled independent schools to receive state funding. The study evaluates to what extent the incentives, which preceded the reform, have been fulfilled. The evaluation is defined to include upper secondary schools in the municipality of Halmstad during the years of 2005?2010. The reform was enacted on the basis that it would result in a higher standard of quality, efficiency and freedom of choice.

The EU Council adopted in 2007, environmental and energy goals with the aim of them must be met by 2050. This, in combination with those of the Swedish government 15 enacted environmental goals is supposed to lead the way for the Swedish environmental work.This report has examined measures in properties in the Swedish Cooperative Housing Society (SKB) stocks.The report discusses a range of measures that might be appropriate to apply on the properties to make them more energy efficient.One of the measures discussed, the vent whose primary purpose is to create a good indoor environment for the residents but is also where the most energy is lost.Another measure discussed is insulation of the building envelope on the estate to make it more energy efficient. To put extra insulation on the building envelope is important because of the large amount of energy that is lost through the walls, ceilings and floors.Future actions that may be implemented is individual billing of heating and hot water. This system has been used in European countries since the 70's and today the EU wants to increase the own individuals control over their electricity costs. This has led to a discussion whether to implement the system in Sweden or not.However, there are a number of equitable measures to be sorted out before the system can be used in any great scale.Finally, it is important to remember that environmental measures should be the primary and the pursuit of cost reductions the secondary otherwise you risk the environmental work to be counterproductive..

In Sweden there is a large interest in renewable energy but the market for solar power is still small compared to other countries such as Germany. Here many farmers produce their own electricity. The Federation of Swedish farmers have acknowledged the potential for Swedish farmer to produce electricity and there is an interest among the farmers. The agricultural branches in Sweden most suitable for solar power are pig production and poultry due to the even electricity need throughout a year. Swedish pig farmers are going through a period of unsteady profitability which makes it interesting to see whether producing their own electricity can affect the economic situation.

Mathematics is a central topic in today?s society. There are many different approaches each teacher has their own way. In this essay, I compare four teachers? mathematics teaching in two different countries with regard to ways of learning, particularly in the four operations.

The Swedish society woke up Boxing Day 2004 to the greatest disaster in modern times. As a result of a strong earthquake in the Indian Ocean tsunamis occurred that devastated resorts where thousands of Swedes were. In the disasters tracks were uncovered government paralysis and shortcomings of the systems control. The purpose of this study is to examine the capacity and means to demand accountability of politicians and officials of the Swedish political system. Extensive studies and the report from the commission of disasters will form the basis for the study.

I meet in my work as art teacher many students of different descent, were they, or their parents, have different school experience than the Swedish. This, in combination with therecent discussion after the Muhammad caricatures about the banning of images in Islamic religion, made me curious to study what art education in a Muslim country looked like. I went to visit the Maramra Egitim Köyü school in Istanbul, Turkey, and especially their art classesfrom grade five to eight, which are the same age of students that I have been working with thelast ten years. This was my first visit to Turkey.The question I ask is: What does the practice of Turkish art education look like, using the Marmara school as an example. Which discourses can I identify in the art teacher practice? What surprised me the most was the frequent visual exposure of the founder of the Turkishstate, Kemal Atatürk.

In this essay, I investigate Swedish possibilities to influence the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union (CAP). After having summarized my findings, I try to explain the structure of influence by using Multi-level governance theory.Ten years have passed since Sweden joined the Union, and many changes have followed in the agricultural sector. By investigating the small country of Sweden's possibilities to influence CAP, I hope to be able to get a notion of the possibilities to influence the EU in general. The essay examines four possible paths for agricultural interests to influence the policy process in Brussels:* Through elected representatives of Sweden in the European Parliament, the Council of Ministers and in the Swedish Parliament* Through subnational institutions, such as the local authorities and regional representatives.* Through the Swedish Agricultural Office* Through the Swedish pressure group within the agricultural area, LRFThese four groups all have very different channels to the policy process on agricultural issues. The differences are mostly in terms of decisive power or advisory power and institutional contacts or lobby contacts.

AbstractThe Swedish Road Administration in the region of Mälardalen has since 2004 worked to in¬crease the efficiency of the maintance of bridges based on limited functional requirements and time demanded action.The maintenance of the bridges is contracted in the county of Uppsala since 2004, and Örebro since 2007. The county of Nyköping and Västerås is contracted by the traditional system. The contractor will perform a regular maintenance on all bridges. The bridges are inspected by the contractor at least once every year.The contractor registers the result of the inspection in a database called BaTMan. BaTMan is a Bridge and Tunnel Management system and is a strictly web solution were the user logs in via the internet.The Swedish Road Administration also inspects the bridges to se that the demands on the bridges are followed.My work is to compare these different inspections and to see any development..