Every place is a stage where people interact. The nature of the stage and its scenography to some extent shapes the interaction. Considered as a place, the school ground gives rise to many varying expectations. Lower school pupils often have clear ideas of how they are expected to behave and how they are expected to use the place. But as the pupils age, the purpose of the school ground grows less obvious.

This study is about youths, democracy and school. It seeks to describe and problemize the school's role in the democratic society. Firstly, using Social Representations Theory, 44 upper secondary shool pupils? representations, or conceptions, of democracy are described and discussed. These representations are then analyzed in relation to the school's role in the democratic society, as it is described by different researchers.The results show that many of the youths have a rather simplistic and abstract view of democracy, describing it only in terms of general principles and the main features of the representative democracy, such as voting in national elections.

The authors of this paper intended to study and compare local secondary schools(municipally owned schools) and independent secondary schools(privately owned schools) in Stockholm County. The purpose oft his paper is to explore how secondary schools market themselves and whether the view and use of marketing is different between municipal and independent secondary schools. The essay is by nature multi-case study and interviews were conducted with representatives from four high schools, two municipal and two independent, one representative from Education Committee and one from Privet Schools? Association.The introduction of School reform in 1992 enabled opening of privately owned schools and empirical datas hows that before 1992 secondary schools did not have the same extent of competition and the need of marketing was not widespread, but today there is fierce competition among secondary schools. The introduction of School reform changed the conditions for the Swedish school market, greater freedom of choice led to atougherfight for the students, which in turn increases the competition between secondary schools.

In order to be a good teacher according to preferences from outside the school area, there are many different voices to listen to. The different roles that are assigned for teachers are colliding with the latest research from the pedagogical institutions and therefore the role as a teacher of today is in a complex state of mind. Somewhere, between the traditional role of teaching and the moderating ideal image, reality is revealed in the ambivalent role of the teacher of today. In this pedagogical essay on advanced level we are focusing on obstacles that are hindering the moderating teacher?s role, to be fully developed in the classroom.

This is a study, where we have deepened ourselves little more in the Swedish and the Turkish teacher training. We have both looked on the differences and the resemblances. We are also aware about that the essay builds on a small study and a limited material, special when it comes to the Turkish teacher training. Therefore we have drawn our conclusions with big caution. They are examined and preliminary, but we are than however convinced about that.

Ungdomar idag står inför en mängd valalternativ. Syftet med studien var att få förståelse för hur ungdomar i ett individperspektiv hanterar och upplever sin beslutsprocess beträffande sitt gymnasieval. En kvalitativ metod användes och intervjuer genomfördes med åtta elever i år nio från en skola i en medelstor kommun. Resultatet visar att tanken på gymnasievalet initieras främst från personer i ungdomarnas närhet. De har periodvis tänkt väldigt intensivt på gymnasievalet.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the tendencies among pupils concerning their attitudes towards History and some of the stated goals in the present and in the proposed course plan of History, since there is, probably, a change coming in 2011. The study is built on questionnaires answered by one hundred pupils at a Swedish upper-secondary-school. The results point to the fact that most of these pupils like history, but still they do not wish to make it an obligatory subject, which is a government proposal at the moment. Furthermore, the answers about sources, democracy, the use of History and the consciousness about History, have a clear tendency; there have been too little education about these areas during the pupils former nine years in school, still the pupils think that these are important areas to work with. Moreover, this study shows a disheartening picture when it comes to pupils knowledge of their cultural heritage. Only half of the pupils know which century Gustav Vasa lived in and just a third know what year universal suffrage was introduced in Sweden, two facts that ought to be set in most Swedes? mind..

 This thesis is based upon the assumption that in Swedish school today it is a wide gap regarding the information flow when pupils are switching school. This was one of the reasons Skolverket published a report clearly stating that this is the case. The purpose of this thesis is to examine and describe how teachers are working in a teacher team at transitions to see and understand what their work may mean individually, in a group and to the school as an organisation. The questions at issue is to see how the teachers cooperate during transitions and how they notice students in need of extra support and students level of knowledge during transitions. The two last questions at issue is first to see how teachers approach parent?s expectations on the school and the teachers, secondly it is to examine what implications their work will have on the school.

The purpose of this essay has been to study the comprehensibility and the plainness of chapter 1 and 2 in ?Läroplan, examensmål och gymnasiegemensamma ämnen för gymnasieskola 2011? that is one of the governing documents of Swedish upper secondary school. The Swedish government approved a national language policy in 2005 which involved an aim that the official Swedish language would be refined, easy and comprehensible. Plain language has since the eighties had a prominent place in Swedish research and science and is now a thought-out principle at almost every public authority. This essay has performed a linguistic text analysis, a plain language analysis, a plain language test and a critical discourse analysis on the two chapters from ?Läroplan, examensmål och gymnasiegemensamma ämnen för gymnasieskola 2011? that is common for all upper secondary school programs.

The aim of this paper is to elucidate and analyze history teacher's didactic choices in the conflict between unequal educational materials and the requirements of equality in the curriculum of Swedish secondary school. The empirical data consists of interviews with five secondary school history teachers, observations of their lessons as well as analysis of their tests. The starting point was to investigate teachers' didactic work in the role as a bridge between the non-equal historiography presented in textbooks in history and the curriculum?s demands for equality. Three different approaches have been observed in the teachers' didactic work when considering gender perspective into their teaching: that women become extensions in a male-dominated historiography; that another part of the story is presented when a gender perspective is considered; and that the gender perspective is included in history teaching and becomes an integral part of all the content of the subject.Several of the teachers acknowledged that gender equality is less prioritized than the courses core content and related assessment criteria.

While almost 23 percent of the students in the Swedish upper secondary school are foreigners, only a fraction of the school libraries? collections consists of literature written in other languages than Swedish or English. This study examines how five school librarians experience the task of working with literature composed in foreign languages in the multicultural and multilingual school of today. The results of the qualitative interviews are analyzed in relation to the legislation and policy documents that the school libraries are working by, and also in relation to the theoretical framework of sociocultural theory and the theories on second language acquisition developed by linguist Jim Cummins.The study shows that while multilingualism is discussed as an important matter in the legislation and policy documents that the school libraries work by, the librarians in this study largely view the question of foreign literature as peripheral. Most part of the librarians connects first language reading to leisure-time activities rather than curricular activities, and stresses that the Swedish language should be prioritized in Swedish schools.

 The purpose of this study is to investigate the attitude to and experience of information and communication technology (ICT) in teachers teaching and what motivates them. The study is qualitative and its research material is based on interviews. There are eight interviews and they where carried out at one school with a stated IT profile and at another school without a stated IT profile. The two schools are located in different municipalities, but both are secondary schools. The result shows that there are differences in attitude between the two schools. The school with a stated IT profile seems to have a more open mind of using ICT when teaching, but both schools sees the lack of availability as one of the main hindrance for using it. None of the participating teachers saw themselves as controlled to use ICT in their teaching.

The aim of this essay is to get a deeper understanding of a teachers' profession and to get knowledge of how earlier experiences can influence you as a teacher. I have interviewed a female teacher, Pia to get this understanding. As a tool to get the teacher's whole story I used the life story method. In her profession she is influenced by her own importance of security as a child.Her own needs of security has given her an deeper understanding for pupils like herself during the childhood; insecure and afraid. Her understanding for all kinds of behavior among the children has increased by her own experiences.The story shows that Pia is frustrated by the fact that she can't control her own working time.

The purpose of this examination paper is to get an understanding as an upcoming teacher about how friends make an important impact on children?s identity development in school, their choice of friends circle and what kind of groups there can occur among them. With a deeper comprehension of these circumstances should an educationalist be more considerate and adapt his or hers education to prevent negative group formations and to be an outsider. To achieve my results I used a qualitative research method where I through observation handpicked eight students from upper level of compulsory school with different friend circles from two classes for further interviews. Beside this I observed students in their school environment for three days.

Aim: The aim of this study is to investigate how context-specific and generic scaffolding affect upper secondary school students' conversations during laboratory work in chemistry and find out if meaningful exploratory conversations taking place that increase the students' understanding. Theory: Previous studies show that there are difficulties for students to both handle practical material in laboratory work and create meaningful conceptual understanding. It needs to be more minds on than hands on. This study has a socio-cultural basis where language is an important basis for thinking. Previous studies show that the exploratory conversation is important for creating understanding.