The purpose of this study was to examine the use of manipulative materials in mathematics education with the main focus on grades 4 to 6. With the use of a phenomenological approach all the aspects of this phenomenon was examined. Qualitative interviews, participant observations and comparative content analysis of textbooks has been conducted to investigate the use of manipulative materials in mathematics education. The results indicates that the teachers that were interviewed possesses good knowledge of this teaching method. However these teachers struggled to find time to put this method into practice and there was not enough teachers to attend these classes.

The aim of this study is to examine the opinion of teachers as to the situation of young people suffering from Aspergers syndrome in the Sixth Form(gymnasium. In order to find this out I have chosen to interview four teachers with work experience of Aspergers in three different gymnasium in middle Sweden. They were confronted with the following questions: What resources are available for these pupils in the gymnasium? How do they experience that the school situation functions and how would they as teachers like the school situation to function for these young people at school?The result shows that special teachers have an extremely important function to fulfil. Those interviewed felt that there are sufficient resources available, for example guidance and further education for techers as well as both support and means for helping the young people.However, every teacher does not understand this handicap.

The purpose of my work is about how teachers work with dramatization. How they solve a conflict, and if they use dramatization to solve a conflict. I have therefore chosen to interview two teachers how they work with conflict and dramatization.I was inspired to look into this when I had drama at college and we would solve different conflicts using dramatization.The results of my interviews were that teachers do not use dramatization to solve a conflict. They use discussion as a method to come up with solutions to the students, but they would like to learn more practical methods to solve conflicts..

The aim of this study was to investigate how four middle school teachers use and process the contents in read-aloud books, to stimulate the pupils interest in reading and increase reading comprehension. A qualitative approach was used to collect data, through interviews and observations. The findings show that all of the teachers work with read-aloud books regularly. The teachers state that read-aloud books have a positive effect on pupils language, vocabulary, reading comprehension, imagination and ability to reflect. The teachers have three distinctive purposes with read aloud-books, a moment of relaxation, create an interest in books and increase the pupils reading comprehension.

Abstract   In this thesis, my aim was to investigate how preschool teachers view their involvement in children's free play. In order to answer this, I chose to do semi-structured interviews with four preschool teachers in three different preschools. My interviews has revealed similarities and support for as how history of research looks at the involvement of educationists. Both research and my results stresses the importance of being active in children's free play and to be a supportive teacher, particulary in conflict situations. For those children who have difficulty entering into the free game its the educationists task to co-play and help the children find the game.

The thesis of this essay is how literary texts are selected in the teaching of Swedish in upper secondary school, and how teachers reflect upon gender in these selections. To answer the thesis question three methods have been used. Firstly interviews were held with five teachers of Swedish, which have been the primary source for the essay. In addition to the interviews, I have examined two literary anthologies used as teaching aid in the teaching of Swedish and lastly I analyzed the literature and authors that the teachers explicitly express that they use in their tutoring. The secondary sources of this thesis contain research on selections of fictional texts, literary canon and students? re-production of gender.

The aim of this qualitative study was to examine and understand how teachers see and handle the signs of child poverty within a classroom context. The paper is based on an interview study involving 8 teachers in 2 Swedish schools for children between the ages of 6 to 12 years old. Poverty is a complex word and there are many definitions of it. What do teachers interpret as signs of child poverty in the school context? How do they act when they think it?s necessary to protect a child from being affected by it, and how can we understand their choice of action with the help of action theory? We discovered that the teachers notice different things as signs of child poverty, and they all react in both different and similar ways.

The phenomena of cyber bullying is relatively new, but it is now more prevalent than ever as children today have access to the internet on a daily basis, in school as well as at home. Although cyber bullying is an increasing problem in today?s society, there seem to be few guidelines for teachers to follow when using the internet with their students in school. The purpose of this study is to investigate who, according to six teachers, has the responsibilities revolving cyber bullying ? teachers or parents.

Because of my interest and experience within the field of children and teenagers with an antisocial behaviour and who are acting out I wanted to devote my essay to researching these children through the perspective of the teachers. In this essay I, therefore, interviewed 4 teachers with 4-16 years of experience within this occupation. The method I've chosen can be described as qualitative interview with semi-structured questions to enable the teachers to thoroughly describe their answers without diverting from the original question. The questions that form this essay are: What strategies do the teachers possess to enable stability, a safe work environment and enabling knowledge-sharing for the children that are acting out? What kind of tools do the teachers use when they work with children who are acting out? The results were analysed through the theory of socialization, which simplified can be compared with upbringing.

The purpose of this study is to determine which approach preschool teachers from a Reggio Emilia inspired preschool and a traditional preschool have on children, knowledge, learning and their own role in children?s learning. The two pedagogical approaches have different basic visions; Reggio Emilia follows the thoughts of Lori Malaguzzi and the traditional preschool follows the Swedish curriculum Lpfö 98. The main research questions asked were:What view on children, learning and knowledge does the preschool teacher from a Reggio Emilia inspired preschool have in comparison with a traditional preschool?Which role does the teacher believe that they should take regarding children?s learning?What differences and similarities can be identified in the teachers' perceptions?To carry out this study, I used a qualitative research method.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine the profession of librarianship by studying tasks in Swedish public libraries. The method is a textual analysis of articles inspired by the critical discourse analysis of Norman Fairclough. The theory applied consists of the profession theory of Andrew Abbott and the gender theory of Yvonne Hirdman. The questions raised are: how do librarians speak about their tasks, which discourses can be constructed and how can profession theory and gender theory explain the result.

In Based upon disciplinary foundation... ? A study on teachers? prerequisite for continuing pro- fessional development (CPD) I have examined the prerequisites that teachers in Nacka have for CPD, due to the new school law that states that all teaching must be based upon disciplinary foundation and proven experience. According to a recently published governmental report, as well as international research, not only structural aspects like time and financial compensation are crucial to whether teachers continue their development. Encouragement from the principal and colleagues are also a contributing factor; and not to mention those factors combined.There is a world wide shared consensus among educational researchers claiming that one very important piece in creating a successful school is having a well-educated and updated staff.

There are different ways of developing a second language. The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate whether and possibly how music, focused on singing, can improve the development of Swedish as a second language. Through interviews with three vocal teachers, from three different schools in Sweden, and observations of one of the vocal teachers, information about how they work and think about the subject has been collected. The vocal teachers teach groups of second language learners by singing songs made especially for second language learning. The vocal teachers consider singing beneficial in the development of the pronunciation and improvement of the prosody, which affects the students? capacity to sound like a native Swedish speaker.

This is an empirical study based on Physical Education and health (PE) teachers' experiences and builds on, for the study, significant literature. The study is about PE teachers? consideration of gender in the assessment as well as in the selection of lesson content. Semi-structured interviews were employed as method for the data collecting process. Four teachers were interviewed, teachers of PE in elementary and upper secondary school with varied length of professional experience and ages.

This qualitative study aims to investigate some secondary school teacers' attitudes to and experiences of motivation in their second language classrooms. Through qualitative interviews with five teachers some different perspectives on motivation and its function in second language acquisition have come to light. First, motivation is seen as something important and some teachers tend to distinguish between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Those who do so tend to value intrinsic motivation more highly. Secondly, teachers believe they can affect students' levels of motivation.