The main purpose of this C-essay is to answer the question: What have been the consequences and effects of the merit point system on language studies and the parties concerned (teachers, students and principals) during the school year of 2010/11?The merit point system is the result of a political decision and was implicated for the first time in the Swedish upper secondary school during the school year 2010/2011. Being a completely new phenomenon it is of great interest and importance to study its effects.The study in this essay also aims to verify, falsify or nullify two hypotheses very often referred to in the political discussions regarding the merit point system:The merit point system will replace affection and interest as main reasons for language studies in upper secondary school and cause a rectification amongst the students choices of additional courses.The merit point system will have a segregating effect upon society and make it harder for people to rise in society through education in the future.A verification of these hypotheses would imply the appearance of an increased rectification amongst students as well as an orientation towards an in the future more segregated society.The empiric material has been collected and examined with qualitative as well as quantitative methods (questionnaires and interviews) and belongs epistemologically to the phenomenological and hermeneutical traditions..

Abstract The use of electronic media plays an important part in the life of youth and especially Internet and mobile phones are important in the social and cultural networks of youth. The first step of this thesis is to examine the ICT-based activities of upper secondary school students through an online survey. The second step is to examine what didactic implications can be derived from the ICT-based activities in the subject of Swedish. Results from this survey and national and international research show that young people spend the majority of their leisure time on the Internet. The result also shows that media activities displace other school related activities such as traditional reading and writing.

The knowledge of early employment experiences has evolved over the last decade in countries such as Australia and Great Britain. In Sweden, this type of research is still unusual and the aim of this study was to break new ground by highlighting some areas that could be of extra interest in the Swedish early employment research to come. A focus in the study was to give an overview of what job sectors school students work in; and the amount of jobs aquired through school-organized work placement, private social networks or personal marketing of own merits. In addition to this, a multi variate analysis was carried out to find patterns in the picture of early employment experiences among students at upper secondary school. The findings of the study has relevance for ways of conducting career counselling and therefore the general aim of this study is to point out the importance of developing the practises of vocational psychology.A survey among 74 teenaged school students with economics as their main subject has been carried out in a mid-size Swedish city May 2012.

This study has examined how teachers in Swedish upper secondary schools work to foster a critical perspective through the education in the subject of Swedish. The study is based on qualitative interviews conducted with three teachers, who have given their views on the role of source criticism and critical analysis of literature in the subject of Swedish. Furthermore, they have described how they incorporate these views into their own teaching.The study has shown that the teachers find that source criticism and literary analysis are interconnected, since both depend on a general critical approach, which they both help foster. The main question the study examined was how Swedish education could help foster a critical perspective. The interviewed teachers' ways of working point out a way: teacher C has integrated source criticism and referencing into most of their education, which makes them central to the education in Swedish.

Popular culture is a phenomenon of growing importance in the society today. Children and teenagers are increasingly using popular culture in their everyday life to reflect and answer questions about their identities and the meaning of life. Swedish primary and upper secondary schools are expected to prepare their students for adulthood and to provide them with tools to explain understand and problematize contemporary society. From this perspective it is relevant to question whether the schools achieve this and whether the instruction given there represents the contemporary society. For the purpose of knowing more about how popular culture is perceived and dealt with in the Swedish education system, this study examines how eight textbooks in Religious Education (RE) and the national curriculum for upper secondary school discuss and treat popular culture.  The study focuses on when and in what ways the textbooks mention popular culture and if the curriculum provides any supportive base for including popular culture in religious education.

This is a thesis about an upper secondary  school library and its role as a pedagogkal resour­ce. My purpose has been to find out about the views and experiences of the staff at the school library and twelve teachers at the upper secondary school  conceming the school library as a pedagogical resource. Fourteen  qualitative interviews have been accomplished, twelve  with teachers and the rest with the staff of the school library. All the interviewees seem to think that their school library has an important function as a pedagogical resource and both the librarian and the teachers have given me some examples of occasions when the library has been used as a pedagogkal resource. This school library is mostly used as a complement to other pedagogical resources but for some longer projects with an investigative character it could sometimes be used as the main source according to the answers in these fourteen  interviews..

The purpose of this survey is to better understand how students in Swedish upper secondary school perceive knowledge in history. 44 students from two different schools took part in the survey. The students partaking were asked to make a rough plan for a course in history, in which they were to both suggest contents of the course and also motivate their choice of content by arguing their view of the purpose of knowledge in history. The results of the survey were then compared to the curriculum of the history subject. The survey shows that a majority of the students asked find modern history, especially World War 1 & 2, and Swedish history to be of importance.

The purpose of this research is to study the new curriculum in the topic of modern languages in the upper secondary school, and compare the curriculum from year 2011 with the one from year 2000 and thus try to find differences in the content and wordng. The research also aims to investigate teachers' interpretations and understanding of the new curriculum. The study is divided into two sub?studies and those are based on the two methods of text analysis and interview. Text analysis of policy documents is made parallell with some aspects found in the background materials of the upper secondaryschool reform, which can be summarized as precision and globalization.

Abstract Before the choice of upper secondary school in the ninth grade, young people need to have knowledge of themselves and the world. In this tough choice, the parents are the main support. The supporting role, which are their thoughts on how much they influence in their children?s choice of study? Based on these issues, we seek the answer to the question; which vision have the parents on their involvement in their children's choice of upper secondary school? Which visions have the parents on the impact on their children's upper secondary school? Do the parents think that the children's upbringing has influenced their choices? Young people's career decisions take place in interaction with their parents and with very different cultural, economic, social and symbolic capital. The concepts are Pierre Bourdieu's theory that intends to be our toolbox for this thesis.

Western scholars have long sought to grasp the essence of and explain Buddhism. Western representation of Buddhism has been in a manner that reflects their concerns and interests. In addition to this it is also known that Buddhism in Sweden is seen in a favorable way. This study tries to locate where this positive attitude toward Buddhism stems from and if it is represented in this manner in Swedish textbooks. Therefore three textbooks of upper secondary class of religion are to be examined, not only to see if there is a positive attitude towards it, but to see in what manner Buddhism is depicted in Swedish schools on the whole.

Newspaper articles and media have shown that the use of illegal weight loss compounds, such as ephedrine and Melanotan, is becoming more common among adolescent girls, who are at risk of becoming a new group of addicts. These girls are rarely aware of the risks that the use of these compounds entails and the consequences that could adversely affect their bodies, mentally and physically. The aim of this paper was to investigate the use of and attitudes towards illegal weight loss compounds amongst girls in year three, at Swedish upper secondary schools. In order to do that, a questionnaire was sent out to 120 girls in five different high schools, with varying college preparatory and vocational program directions. My research shows that the use of illegal weight loss compounds, particularly ephedrine, was found among girls in year three, at upper secondary schools. Seven percent of the girls claimed they use, primarily, ephedrine. This result exceeds earlier studies findings on boys' use of anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS).

This report is an assessment of the feasibility of using aerial photographs to estimate number of stems per hectare in young forest stands, used together with upper height to determine the need for pre-commercial thinning or ordinary thinning cutting. Aerial photo-interpretation was conducted in 2007 on assignment of Stora Enso Skog AB. A mean height function based on stand age produced with data from Bergvik Skog AB?s 2006 forest inventory assessment was used as a proxy for upper height and used together with photo-interpreted number of stems per hectare to determine the need for thinning cutting according to Bergvik Skog AB?s definitions. The test area is located north of Falun on Bergvik Skog AB?s land.Flight altitude was approximately 900 m above ground and the aerial photos were taken by L&L Flygbildteknik AB.

A quantitative study of student opinions of litterary teachings of upper secondary school pupils in their last year of education at the level..

Our study examining how well the guidelines, from Skolverket (School Department), aboutgrades in the course "Samhällskunskap A" are implemented in the Swedish upper SecondarySchool. The study focus on both teachers and students. To discover which knowledge the bothgroups have, we have used two different methods. The students have answered a survey,which was based on the phrases from the course plan "Samhällskunskap A" about grades. Thesurvey wanted to see how well the students could match the correct phrases with the gradesteps (the Swedish school uses three grade steps).

The question how teaching should be organized in order to give the students the help and support they need to reach their goals is always of vital interest. All students are unique individuals with different prerequisities, possibilities and needs. Streaming in mathematics could be one solution.The first week at upper secondary school a diagnostic test is carried through. Thereafter, the result is used as a basis for dividing the classes into different teaching groups. Thus, the groups working with mathematics become more homogeneous and the students? previous knowledge is approximately at the same level.