Participation of the people is essential for a democracy's vitality and survival. In this study we focus on the individual as an active participant in the traditional political arena and beyond its sphere into the society as a whole. The first part of the study has a normative aim. Firstly we examine why political participation is essential for democracy, and especially the ideal of representative democracy and the restricted passive participation of its citizens in comparison to the ideal of participatory democracy and its ideal of an active participant in all aspects of society. An ideal participant is drawn up to set the course for the empirical part of the study.

This paper is based upon a questionnaire and interviews with Swedish secondary school teachers (student of ages from 16 to 18). The purpose of the paper was to get a picture of teacher?s attitudes to astronomy in the physics courses and how this affects their teaching. The questionnaire showed that astronomy is the least prioritized field in physics in secondary school. Teachers seem to generally consider astronomy as the least important field and they spend little time teaching it, many teachers even exclude astronomy completely from their classes.

Syftet med föreliggande uppsats är att undersöka hur användningen av det vidgade textbegreppet ser ut i praktiken hos några aktiva lärare som arbetat i skolan cirka 20 år. Jag fann det vara av intresse att undersöka hur mer erfarna lärare hanterat de nya medierna i sin pedagogiska verksamhet. I litteraturgenomgången presenteras ett antal artiklar och undersökningar om nya medier och det vidgade textbegreppets relevans för att motivera eleverna i skolarbetet. Följande frågeställningar har varit ledande i undersökningen: Vilka olika medier använder lärarna i sin undervisning; i vilket syfte använder de olika medier; hur tycker pedagogerna att eleverna reagerar när lärarna och de själva använder olika medier i undervisningen? Jag har intervjuat tre pedagoger som undervisar i svenska på högstadiet och gymnasiet.

The society?s view of pupils with needs of special support in nine-year school has changed over time in Sweden. The teachers? views of the pupils have had an influence of how the special education process is designed. The aim with my paper is to make a comparative study of how special education teachers in rural schools and schools in Stockholm have designed their work with pupils with needs of special support.

AbstractThe purpose of this investigation was to understand how teachers/pedagogues nowadays work with mathematics in school. In what way can they pin point the difficulties a pupil with another language might have with mathematics.I started the process of this investigation by reading litterature on the subject. Then I did interviews with several teachers and pedagogues teaching in different schools with children at different ages.The results found in my investegation pointed to a lack of practical work with mathematics especially in classroom and revealed from the teachers a strong desire to work with mathematics in different ways.?Talking maths? with pupils in class will help them understand the subject better. Several teachers are of the opinion that the pupils will reach the goals in school with this method.The teachers are also aware of the importance of having practical mathematics.

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.

This report is a hermeneutic analytical study of a practical pedagogical situation. For three occasions I observed my own practice as a dance teacher and how a moment, choreographic approach in the governing documents for upper secondary school GY11 was executed in a group of dance students. The part is formulated in the course objectives for the courses on the arts program under the topic Dansgestaltning with focus on choreographic approach. The study is based on a socio-cultural thinking but also takes into account the prevailing gender theories and focuses on how the process of formulation level, through the transformation level is portrayed in the realization level of the dance regarding choreographic approach. The study illustrates educational research from both a dance perspective and a school development perspective.

The purpose of this essay is to examine how some individual PE teachers view knowledge and what they think about the status of physical education whitin the school. The method used in this examination was both sudies of literature and a qualitative investigation. Six PE teachers, from three diffrent schools in Sweden, were interviwed from a phenomentographic research approach. I made the analysis from a sociocultural approach. The result indicates that th teachers had difficulties to describethe conception of knowledge, but that the pupils/students achieve knowledge in physical education.

The Swedish society has gone through a radical change. From being a monoculture society it has developed into a multicultural society representing a mixture of people from all around the world. This change has had a significant impact on both the Swedish school system and the teacher?s role. Therefore a subsequent ambition for a multicultural school would be to recognize this diversity and establish guidelines for how to meet each individual students need.

A Geographic Information System (GIS) is about presentinginformation with the map as a base. This is increasingly being used on internetsites and in mobile apps. With a GPS it is possible to see where you are andhow to reach a destination or check if the bus is in time. A question to ask isif this technology is possible to implement in ordinary primary schooleducation. If it is, learning history, geography, religion and so on with a GISlearning tool might be possible.

AbstractWe decided to explore former school pupils? experiences of not conforming to the norm. Earlier studies have focused on the children as ?the problem?.  We see this as worrying, especially since there is very little research focusing on the pupils? own experiences. The children?s own perspective needs to be brought to the fore.

The aim of this study is to examine how the induction period for newly employed upper secondary school teachers is implemented in practice, in relation to the Swedish Education Act and the National Agency for Education?s general guidelines. Although this induction period has been legally mandated since 2010, both previous research and current statistics indicate significant shortcomings or wide variation in its practical execution. The study is based on a qualitative interview study involving 13 school leaders. The interview responses were analyzed using three complementary theoretical frameworks: Lipsky?s theory of street-level bureaucracy, Meyer and Rowan?s concept of decoupling, and Schein?s model of organizational culture.

AimThe Swedish government has allocated a milliard Swedish Crowns on the project ?Ett handslag med idrotten?, (A handshake with sports), to make it possible for more children to participate in sports. The project goes on for four years and my work is an evaluation of the projects that have received fundings from Gästriklans Idrottsförbund for the second year. One aim is to see how many pupils that have been involved with the projects and especially the numbers of pupils earlier not active in a sport club and the number of girls. It is interesting to see what?s in common in the sport clubs that have had a large number from those two groups.

The Swedish construction industry is dominated by men; however this is starting to change. The average age of Construction Engineers is high and approximately 40 per cent of the employees will retire by the year 2015. Currently, female engineers dominate the graduating classes of Swedish Universities but this is not reflected in the Swedish Construction industry.With so many female engineers available, why is this? Does it require a change in company culture and their condition of work to attract them? Is it the attitude towards women in the industry among the employees that has to be changed? Or is it a woman?s thoughts and prejudices of the industry that creates obstacles?The purpose of this final thesis is to describe how contracting firms in the construction industry can make themselves more attractive for female engineers. To reach the purpose, a study among salaried employees and craftsmen was conducted.