Syftet med denna uppsats är att bidra med kunskap om vilken roll utomhuspedagogik kan ha i undervisning i grundskolans tidigare år. Jag undersöker vad utomhuspedagogik innebär ur ett didaktiskt perspektiv. Genom kvalitativa intervjuer med fyra pedagoger, tar jag reda på hur lärare uppfattar att de använder sig av utomhusmiljön i undervisningen. Jag kommer fram till att utomhuspedagogik erbjuder unika möjligheter inom didaktikens olika områden och har förmåga att göra en helhet av de olika didaktiska frågorna, vad, hur och varför. Lärarna motiverar utomhusvistelse genom att referera till hur barn lär sig, snarare än vad som ska läras ut. Resultatet visar ett fokus på skogsupplevelser, vilket begränsar utomhuspedagogikens möjligheter till varierade autentiska utgångspunkter. Genom att vara medveten om utomhuspedagogikens didaktiska syfte tas dess potential till vara. / The purpose of this essay is to contribute knowledge about which role outdoor education can have in teaching in primary education. I examine what outdoor education implies from a didactic perspective. Through qualitative interviews with four teachers, I find out how teachers perceive their use of outdoor environment in their teaching. I reach the conclusion that outdoor education offers unique opportunities within the different areas of didactic and it has the ability to get a total impression of the didactic questions, what, how and why. The teachers justify outdoor activities by referring to how children learn, rather than what should be taught. The results show a focus on experiences in the woods, which limits the opportunities of outdoor education for various authentic starting points. By being aware of the didactic purpose of outdoor education it is possible to take care of its potential.

The mission with this essay is to find out how children talk about religion and what they associate the concept to. The purpose is also to investigate how children resonate about  religion as a subject in school. Do they think the education is important or would they rather be without it? And what do they actually know about differences within religion and cultures? It is important in today´s society that children have knowledge about different religions as it can contribute to mutual understanding between each others different religions and cultures. Such mutual understanding can counteract religious conflicts. Eighteen children have been interviewed and the method that I used for the interviews is called focus-groups. It's a kind of group interview where focus is based on the children’s interaction with each other and to find out how they in group talk about religion and religion as a subject in school. The results show that most of the children have a positive view of religion. They think it's an important subject in school. Some think it's so important that they could not live without it.  It was a few children who didn't have as big enthusiasms about the subject as others. The results also show that the religion that was primarily conveyed in school was Christianity. And the survey also shows that teachers use varied methodology in religious education, such as through ICT and aesthetic learning processes

This thesis deals with the topic of spending of free time by pupils at lower secondary school level in connection with their school subjects - Czech and English. The aim is to find out how much of free time of these pupils is devoted to activities that are somehow connected with subjects Czech and English and to compare if there are some differences between spending of free time by pupils from bigger cities and pupils from smaller towns or villages. The theoretical part concentrates on the explanation of term ?free time?, ?pedagogy of free time? and other findings from this area and it also defines the main free time devices. The theoretical part also brings the information from the field of didactics of Czech and English language as a school subject. The practical part of the thesis is based on the results of a questionnare which find out how much of the free time of pupils at lower secondary school level is spent by the activities which are connected with the school subject Czech and English and if the results are the same or different in bigger cities and smaller towns or villages.

Images are used in history education for a variety of reasons, not least to generate interest through a better understanding of historical events and people. The aim of this study was to investigate how historical pictures, either illustrated or documentary/photographic, can be used as a resource for activating and improving pupils' historical empathy, in the way described by Stéphane Lévasque. I conducted a reception study on five different focus groups consisting of pupils from different upper secondary schools in Sweden. The pupils varied with regard to number of credits for admission to upper secondary school. A sixth group of pupils was interviewed as a contrasting control group in order to add perspective to the results. The discussions were based on the pupils' interpretations of 34 selected pictures, all of which were taken from the most common history textbooks. Each pupil was asked to choose the picture he/she felt was the most representative historical image. On the basis of the strategies used by the pupils when interpreting the pictures and discussing them, the material was analysed in accordance with Lévesque's categories: imagination, historical contextualisation and morals. The last category, morals, was further divided into three sub-categories: sense of justice, sympathy and progression. The reflections of the pupils and the degree of contextualisation varied. It appeared that the pupils were less inclined to discuss assumptions about the persons in the pictures; instead they chose to discuss the historical context in question. The pictures in this study did not seem to trigger the pupils to fabricate anachronistic reasoning about history; when they did produce lengthy reasoning, it was contextual, structural and metahistorical. In this context, the pupils who belonged to the group with the highest average of credits showed some signs of reflection on the basis of historical context and some criticism about the historical sources. On no occasion did any of the pupils choose a picture as a concrete expression of injustice. One of the questions this study aimed to explore was whether a lack of historical context affects how pictures trigger emotions and reasoning on the basis of moral aspects. Some of the pupils displayed moral standpoints, primarily the degree of morals concerning injustice. One possible interpretation could be that the feeling of being unfairly treated and subjected to insulting behaviour and social injustice was something the pupils could relate to. The group of pupils who had not yet studied history at upper secondary school, the control group, generally made reflections using this sort of reasoning when they discussed the historical aspects of the pictures.

According to standardized tests, Swedish students’ reading comprehension skills are getting worse. The Swedish National Agency for Education has also stated that the lack of sufficient reading comprehension skills is particularly noticeable in regards to reading fiction. This study aims to examine theories and methods for using fiction with the purpose of increasing reading comprehension in upper secondary school. The study of previous research is coupled with interviews where four teachers share their experiences on working with fiction and reading comprehension. The results show that researchers and teachers are largely agreed upon one thing: the reading experience should come first. The teachers also claim that the students’ interest in what they are reading has a considerable impact on the development of their reading skills. However, students’ interests and experiences while reading are not explicitly part of the regulatory documents teachers are required to relate their teaching to. Furthermore, the regulatory documents are conflicted on the purpose of reading literature. While the aim of the subject Swedish focuses in part on the merits of fiction as a source for self-awareness and understanding of other people’s experiences, this is not reflected in the knowledge requirements needed to pass in the subject. If interest and reading experience were deemed as important aspects in the regulatory documents it might become easier to increase students’ reading comprehension skills. / <p>VT 2018</p>

Denna studie är baserad på vetenskaplig litteratur. Studien syftar till att sammanställa hur didaktisk forskning framhåller användandet av skönlitteratur i de samhällsorienterande ämnena i årskurs 4 – 6. Studien är baserad på fyra frågeställningar. De är utformade utifrån de didaktiska frågorna vad, hur, varför skönlitteratur bör användas och för vem. All forskningslitteratur till denna litteraturstudie har samlats genom olika databaser. Resultatet av forskningen visade att användandet av skönlitteratur i de samhällsorienterande ämnena kan ha en positiv inverkan på eleverna. Detta främst för att de utvecklar förståelse för sig själva men även för andra. Dock kan fel val av litteratur leda till motsatt effekt.

The focus of this study is planning for the school subject History in the Swedish upper secondary school. In a goal-oriented educational system teachers have – to some extent – the possibility to interpret and decide how the formal curriculum should be realized in practice. The starting point of this study is the claim that planning is a complex process and that more knowledge is needed about its implementation in today´s school. The planning of the History syllabus, as planned and performed by two teachers in upper secondary schools has been studied during one term with special emphasis on the teachers´ planning related to the national documents. Starting from the teachers´ description of their planning, a model that seems to be a relevant tool to help describe and analyse central aspects of planning, has been used. Their planning has also been described by the help of various concepts and perspectives. The study includes, among other things: the teachers´ selection of story and organizing principle, the measure of intention when planning for the goals in the formal curriculum, the selection of various analytical tools, the teaching for resonance, the planning for transparency and progression of the assessment, the selection of assessment tools and the basis for assessment. The study has also included the issue of whether the goals in the formal curriculum have primarily been interpreted in a general manner or related to the special school subject History, and to what extent the goals in the formal curriculum have been integrated in the didactic decisions made in order to plan teaching and evaluation. / Baksidestext Beskrivningen av planeringsuppdraget i ett målstyrt system handlar ofta om hur uppdraget är tänkt att utföras och mer sällan om hur uppdraget genomförs i praktiken. Med tanke på att det är lärare och elever som i sista hand beslutar om hur undervisningen och bedömningen ska utformas så är det praktiska genomförandet intressant att studera och diskutera. Den här studien har som mål att med praktiknära utgångspunkter analysera frågan om vad planeringsarbetet för en kurs i historia kan handla om. I undersökningen har två lärares beskrivning av sin planering av undervisning och bedömning följts under en termin. I studien har det visat sig att planering av en kurs i historia handlar om en mängd olika beslut som kan beskrivas med olika begrepp och perspektiv. Som exempel kan nämnas: val av kursens berättelse och organisationsprincip samt val av olika redskap som eleverna ska få. Med utgångspunkt i lärarnas beskrivning av sin planering har undersökningen lyft fram en planeringsmodell som framstår som ett relevant verktyg för att beskriva och analysera centrala aspekter av planeringsarbetet. Studien har uppmärksammat frågan om i vilken grad som kursplanens mål tolkats generellt eller ämnesspecifikt samt frågan om i vilken grad som kursplanens mål integrerats i de didaktiska beslut som tagits för att utforma undervisning och bedömning. Förhoppningen är att begreppen och perspektiven kan underlätta diskussion och reflektion vid praktiskt planeringsarbete.

Sweden has an integrative approach to religious education and the classroom is a platform for religious plurality. At the same time, school is one of the sources for youth to get their information about religions. The aim of this thesis was to describe how teachers of religious education in Sweden perceive their own teaching in relation to a religiously diverse context. The research questions were as follows: How do upper secondary school teachers of religious education describe their teaching, as taken place in a religiously diverse classroom, as well as a religiously diverse society? and How can we understand the image of religious diversity which is being conveyed by the teachers', in relation to James A. Beckford's clarification of the concept religious pluralism. By using an inductive qualitative content analysis, four semi-structured interviews with upper secondary school teachers of religious education were analysed. Through the results three themes emerged, which were: motivations, selection strategies and teaching strategies. To understand how these were related to religious diversity in society as well as in the classroom the results were analysed from a didactics perspective. To understand the image of religious pluralism that was constructed in the teacher’s descriptions James A. Beckford’s concept of religious pluralism was applied To conclude, the results answer to the questions of didactics. The religious diversity within the classroom emphasizes the question of how the teaching is conducted, while the religious diversity in society emphasizes the question of what is being taught. The question of “why” relates to both the diversity in the classroom as well as society. The description mirrors different forms of religious diversity. The teachers’ aim is to generate recognition and acceptance towards religious diversity which is in line with the curriculum. The teachers’ description of the content constructs an image of the level of religious diversity which relates to what is current in society. The religious diversity in the classroom is also described to have a certain positive value for the teachers as it allows different teaching strategies to be used.

Images are used in history education for a variety of reasons, not least to generate interest through a better understanding of historical events and people. The aim of this study was to investigate how historical pictures, either illustrated or documentary/photographic, can be used as a resource for activating and improving pupils' historical empathy, in the way described by Stéphane Lévasque. I conducted a reception study on five different focus groups consisting of pupils from different upper secondary schools in Sweden. The pupils varied with regard to number of credits for admission to upper secondary school. A sixth group of pupils was interviewed as a contrasting control group in order to add perspective to the results. The discussions were based on the pupils' interpretations of 34 selected pictures, all of which were taken from the most common history textbooks. Each pupil was asked to choose the picture he/she felt was the most representative historical image. On the basis of the strategies used by the pupils when interpreting the pictures and discussing them, the material was analysed in accordance with Lévesque's categories: imagination, historical contextualisation and morals. The last category, morals, was further divided into three sub-categories: sense of justice, sympathy and progression. The reflections of the pupils and the degree of contextualisation varied. It appeared that the pupils were less inclined to discuss assumptions about the persons in the pictures; instead they chose to discuss the historical context in question. The pictures in this study did not seem to trigger the pupils to fabricate anachronistic reasoning about history; when they did produce lengthy reasoning, it was contextual, structural and metahistorical. In this context, the pupils who belonged to the group with the highest average of credits showed some signs of reflection on the basis of historical context and some criticism about the historical sources. On no occasion did any of the pupils choose a picture as a concrete expression of injustice. One of the questions this study aimed to explore was whether a lack of historical context affects how pictures trigger emotions and reasoning on the basis of moral aspects. Some of the pupils displayed moral standpoints, primarily the degree of morals concerning injustice. One possible interpretation could be that the feeling of being unfairly treated and subjected to insulting behaviour and social injustice was something the pupils could relate to. The group of pupils who had not yet studied history at upper secondary school, the control group, generally made reflections using this sort of reasoning when they discussed the historical aspects of the pictures.

With multimodal methods and material gaining traction in classrooms, the need to critically assess these becomes increasingly important, especially in order to verify their efficacy and ability to meet the needs of each individual student, regardless of ability or special requirements. In the case of this study, the focus is on textbooks produced for the course Historia 1b at the upper secondary level of the Swedish education system. By analyzing the readability, layout, and functions of illustrations in three textbooks, as well as the gender representation in the material, the aim of this study is to generate a quantifiable dataset, on which conclusions regarding the efficacy of said illustrations can be made. Additionally, the results of this study are compared to those of previous studies, to ascertain whether there is a quantifiable difference in the use of illustrations in textbooks published for use in different curricula.  The results of this study indicate that there is a marginal improvement in the use of illustrations between textbooks produced for the current and the previous curriculum. Additionally, the data suggests that the representation of women in illustrations in textbooks has increased in comparison to previous studies. However, the findings indicate that there is still a need for further improvements regarding the use of illustrations in textbooks, as well as more thorough evaluations of the possibility of diminishing returns in the case of their readability.