The focus of this thesis is the group as a pedagogical tool. It investigates whether and how what is known of group size can help further schools in fulfilling knowledge and democracy goals and moreover how such knowledge can influence the principals? management. The mission of school education is to provide the basis for each pupil?s individual development and in the end it is pupils? individual performances which are graded.

Citizen participation is fundamental in place analysis, where the aim is to define the sites specific character and identity. The local citizens know the village better than anyone else since they lead their daily life in the environment. I have in cooperation with Sala municipality suggested guidelines on how to involve the local people in dialogue during place analysis. The target was to involve and enthuse as many people as possible with relatively small resources in time and money. The suggested methodology was tried out in a place analysis of Västerfärnebo, a community with about 3 000 inhabitants of which 500 live in the main village.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine and present the programmes and activities of school library centres in order to see what functions (purposes) they can fulfil in a municipality and also if and how they can contribute to school library development. In order to fulfil my purpose I have made qualitative interviews with five librarians from school library centres. The theoretical framework is primarily based on David Loertscher?s.

This study is of a qualitative phenomenological approach. Its background lies in recent reports that show the problem of self-harm increasing among adolescents. The intent of the study was to highlight school counselors? view of self-harm, and their experiences of meeting self-harm through their work. Six school counselors, all employed in secondary school, have participated in semi-structured interviews.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to study librarians? views on children and young people as Internet users in Swedish libraries. It examines what types of problems and possibilities the librarians see with children?s and young people?s use of the Internet, how these problems might be solved, and what they think about regulations and filters. Qualitative interviews were conducted with nine librarians, and their statements were analysed with David Buckingham?s After the death of childhood as a theoretical foundation.

The purpose of the essay is to discuss from the theory about the established and the Outsiders if the Culture Centre Blå Stället can serve as a meeting point between the majority of the people and the minority of the people in Gothenburg. The idea of Blå Stället is that it shall work as a house available for everyone and as a cultural meeting point between people in and outside Angered. I argue if Blå Stället really is a place where people from Gothenburg as a whole go or if there are some hindrances for their visions. My study is comprised of interviews with three of the staff at Blå Stället. With the theory about the established and the outsiders I want to show that the division in the city between ?them? and ?us? has to do with differences of power.

Purpose: The purpose of the present study is to investigate whether and how nine teachers of special education for older students, primarily at Upper secondary school, consider the smartphone an appropriate pedagogical means of assistance to improve participation and to support students with special education needs within and outside the school environment. Theory: The theoretical framework for the study is the sociocultural perspective on learning. The sociocultural perspective is related to the relational perspective and sociocultural learning theory involves learning and participation in school. It views the human being as socially active within a certain historical and cultural context which actively influences the way we act, how we learn and develop through interaction with others in the social, everyday practice. The latter is of vital importance here.

The purpose of this qualitative research study is to examine if and how the teachers from a multicultural International School work with intercultural pedagogy. The school in question isprofiled and consists of both Swedish- and English classes. The study examines if and how the teachers related to the great variety of cultures and created opportunities for integration between the students and handling with values at school. It is important to be aware as a teacher to be able to take an active part in working towards a school that gives possibilities for different cultures to meet. If this is neglected, it may increase the risk of problems and cultural clashes between the students.

In this essay, I analyze the syllabus for Swedish with specific regard to literature teaching. I identify three different perspectives which carries seperate implications. First, a text-centered perspective, which tends to position the importance of the text as a part of a tradition. However, this seems to distance the reading from the reader, and place the importance of the reading event outside the student. The consequence might be that the student employs an instrumental reading which simply responds to a pre-set idea of meaning.

In this essay I have chosen to explore how computers are used in preschools. The study was done as a survey. How does preschool seize the children´s culture? In today´s society ICT and computers are a big part of children´s everyday life and reflects on their upbringing.Since I am using computers as a pedagogical tool in teaching the children at my preschool, I find this topic interesting to explore.Are the teacher´s using computers for an educational purpose with the children at preschools or are they using it in other ways?Do the teachers think they have the required knowledge to computers usage in teaching the children in a pedagogical way?What is the teacher´s attitude towards computers in preschool?The essay starts with a introductorial background section where I talk about my own experiences of using computers with the children in my preschool, and then referring to the society then and now, school law, curriculum, teachers' computer skills, media situation amongst children and young people, computer use in preschools/schools and health effects. I have composed a survey based on the answers of 50 teachers in 30 different preschools and in nine different municipalities.The result of the survey is reported and concludes with a part of discussion, where the results are put up against the introductorial background section.

The purpose of this study is to describe the three most significant pedagogical ideas and their impact on the national curriculum from the concept of communication. As the school is a social learning community this study looks at some teachers? perceptions and experiences of teaching with a communicative approach, and the obstacles they claim to meet. The educationist Kieran Egan argue that these three pedagogical ideas are incompatible and that a curriculum that compromises them is doomed to fail. He mean that a new coherent view on education is required and should be based on students? understandings.

This phenomenological study explores the mental health problems of asylum- seeking children in Sweden and highlights possible ways of meeting their needs. Open interviews with 13 clinically experienced psychologists were conducted.The results of the analysis suggest that experiences of trauma and separation, the child's developmental level, parental functioning and family dynamics contribute to the mental health problems of asylum- seeking children. When meeting these children the psychologists continuously face ethical dilemmas since the asylum-seeking process seems to aggravate the problems as well as complicate the use of traditional interventions. Promoting structure and activity, normalizing symptoms, educating about trauma and crisis, sharing and accepting anxieties and sometimes thoroughly working through traumatic experiences are treatment strategies found clinically useful. Systematic follow-up studies are needed to decide the effects of these interventions..

The aim with this essay was that on the basis of the care staff?s interpretations study how the unaccompanied refugee children consider cultural differences in the Swedish society and how it influenced the children. The study was carried out through six qualitative interviews with care workers at a municipal group accommodation for unaccompanied refugee children in the south of Sweden. The individual interviews were semi-structured and built on a list of questions with different subjects that were linked to the aim and question formulation for the essay. The analysis was carried out from Lazarus theory about coping and Antonovsky?s theory about ?SOC?, sense of coherence, with focus on the three components, comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness.

The town square is an important public space and is often described as the city´s living room. By creating a lively city center a sense of security is developed among the citizens which makes them wanting to use the town square regardless the time of the day. One important meeting point in Gävle is the centrally located Stortorget, sited between Drottninggatan and Nygatan. The town square went through an extensive renovation followed by both positive and negative reactions among the City´s inhabitants.  The aim with the study was to investigate the main walking paths and meeting points as a planning support to Gävle Municipality in their work with a new city plan. By studying the pedestrian movement patterns at Stortorget, Nygatan and Drottninggatan, the main walking paths and meeting points during all hours of the day was obtained.

The aim of this study was to examine the knowledge and the experience that school counsellors have about tics and Tourette syndrome. This study is based on a qualitative research which we conducted with semi-structured interviews. We have done five interviews with different school counsellors in a small municipality in southern Sweden. The theoretical approach that was used in this study was theory of knowledge as a comprehensive theory and professional competence which includes formal knowledge and tacit knowledge. Some of the study?s conclusions are that the School Counsellors had different professional competence about tics and Tourette syndrome.