<p>The Swedish school law says that students who need special education should have all the support they need to reach the qualification that is set up. The arrangements have to be written down in an Individual education plan (IEP). Before the IEP is set up there has to be an investigation about what kind of support and measures the student needs to reach the qualification that is set up. The aim of this study is to examine student’s participation in school and in the progress with their own IEP.</p><p>I have accomplished a qualitative study by interviewing eight students during the letter part in the nine-year school. Each student has an IEP. My study has been accomplished in a first person perspective where I have rendered the student’s own stories as I understood them. The result shows that the student’s participation varies between active and passive participation independent of whether the participation is social or task-orientated. The main reason for the students to come to school is to join their friends. The result also shows that the students describe that they are participating in school and in the progress with their IEP even if their participation often is described as a passive involvement. Connecting to earlier researches shows that participation is more often recognised when the respondents are adults in school than if the respondents are students.</p><p>My conclusion of this study is that students have to participate earlier and more often in the junior school. That will lead to more engagement and motivation and the students will take more responsibility for learning in school. In that way they will get more knowledge according to our curriculum which is necessary for the examination in the ninth year.</p> / <p>I skolans styrdokument står att elever i behov av särskilt stöd ska få det stöd som krävs för att de ska ha möjlighet att nå målen. Detta stöd ska dokumenteras i ett åtgärdsprogram där mål och åtgärder ska beskrivas. Innan själva åtgärdsprogrammet upprättas ska det göras en kartläggning av vilket behov av stöd som krävs för att eleven ska ges möjlighet att nå målen. I denna studie vill jag undersöka hur några elever i grundskolans senare år upplever skolan och då med särskilt fokus på hur de ser på sin delaktighet i skolan och i arbetet med sitt åtgärdsprogram..</p><p>Jag har genomfört en kvalitativ studie genom att intervjua åtta elever i grundskolans senare år med upprättade åtgärdsprogram. Studien har genomförts ur ett elevperspektiv där jag har återgett elevernas beskrivningar så som jag har uppfattat dem. Resultatet visar att elevernas delaktighet varierar mellan aktiv och passiv delaktighet oberoende av om delaktigheten är social eller uppgiftsorienterad. Aktiv delaktighet kräver motivation och engagemang. Med passiv delaktighet avser jag ett deltagande utan engagemang eller motivation. Resultatet visar också att eleverna i första hand kommer till skolan för att träffa och umgås med kamrater. När det gäller delaktighet i skolan och i arbetet med sitt åtgärdsprogram visar studien att eleverna anser att de varit delaktiga även om delaktighet ofta beskrivs som ett passivt deltagande. Vid jämförelser med tidigare forskning framkommer att elevers delaktighet beskrivs större i de studier som genomförts med skolpersonal som informanter än i de studier som genomförts med elever som informanter.</p><p>Min slutsats av denna studie blir att elever behöver göras delaktiga oftare och tidigare i skolåren för att eleverna ska känna motivation och engagemang för sitt lärande. Därmed får eleverna den kunskap som är nödvändig för att efter nionde skolåret nå de mål som beskrivs i läroplan och kursplaner.</p>

The Swedish school law says that students who need special education should have all the support they need to reach the qualification that is set up. The arrangements have to be written down in an Individual education plan (IEP). Before the IEP is set up there has to be an investigation about what kind of support and measures the student needs to reach the qualification that is set up. The aim of this study is to examine student’s participation in school and in the progress with their own IEP. I have accomplished a qualitative study by interviewing eight students during the letter part in the nine-year school. Each student has an IEP. My study has been accomplished in a first person perspective where I have rendered the student’s own stories as I understood them. The result shows that the student’s participation varies between active and passive participation independent of whether the participation is social or task-orientated. The main reason for the students to come to school is to join their friends. The result also shows that the students describe that they are participating in school and in the progress with their IEP even if their participation often is described as a passive involvement. Connecting to earlier researches shows that participation is more often recognised when the respondents are adults in school than if the respondents are students. My conclusion of this study is that students have to participate earlier and more often in the junior school. That will lead to more engagement and motivation and the students will take more responsibility for learning in school. In that way they will get more knowledge according to our curriculum which is necessary for the examination in the ninth year. / I skolans styrdokument står att elever i behov av särskilt stöd ska få det stöd som krävs för att de ska ha möjlighet att nå målen. Detta stöd ska dokumenteras i ett åtgärdsprogram där mål och åtgärder ska beskrivas. Innan själva åtgärdsprogrammet upprättas ska det göras en kartläggning av vilket behov av stöd som krävs för att eleven ska ges möjlighet att nå målen. I denna studie vill jag undersöka hur några elever i grundskolans senare år upplever skolan och då med särskilt fokus på hur de ser på sin delaktighet i skolan och i arbetet med sitt åtgärdsprogram.. Jag har genomfört en kvalitativ studie genom att intervjua åtta elever i grundskolans senare år med upprättade åtgärdsprogram. Studien har genomförts ur ett elevperspektiv där jag har återgett elevernas beskrivningar så som jag har uppfattat dem. Resultatet visar att elevernas delaktighet varierar mellan aktiv och passiv delaktighet oberoende av om delaktigheten är social eller uppgiftsorienterad. Aktiv delaktighet kräver motivation och engagemang. Med passiv delaktighet avser jag ett deltagande utan engagemang eller motivation. Resultatet visar också att eleverna i första hand kommer till skolan för att träffa och umgås med kamrater. När det gäller delaktighet i skolan och i arbetet med sitt åtgärdsprogram visar studien att eleverna anser att de varit delaktiga även om delaktighet ofta beskrivs som ett passivt deltagande. Vid jämförelser med tidigare forskning framkommer att elevers delaktighet beskrivs större i de studier som genomförts med skolpersonal som informanter än i de studier som genomförts med elever som informanter. Min slutsats av denna studie blir att elever behöver göras delaktiga oftare och tidigare i skolåren för att eleverna ska känna motivation och engagemang för sitt lärande. Därmed får eleverna den kunskap som är nödvändig för att efter nionde skolåret nå de mål som beskrivs i läroplan och kursplaner.

As soon as the school realise that a student has special needs, they must make an Individual educational plan (IEP). When the IEP is made both child and parents should participate according to Swedish educational law and United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This participation should, among other things, include the opportunity for the child to describe its own needs, plausible interventions and evaluate the support it has been given.    The purpose of this study has been to investigate more closely the perceived feeling of parents that they and their children were made involved in the creation of the IEP.  As a theoretical basis and starting point for analysis, Shier's and Hart's participation models have been used, supplemented with Lundy's participation model. Concepts from Foucault's theory of power and Bourdieu's theories of capital have been used as a complement. The design of the study was a qualitative interview study with a phenomenological focus where the focus was on the informants' own experience. Based on this, a thematic analysis was carried out. The themes that emerged were an experience of communication but not of participation, that the IEP is seen as a document that does not reflect reality, that the children´s participation is extremely deficient and that the parents are used as mouthpieces for the child. In the majority of the interviews, it emerged that the child was not asked at all about its opinion regarding its needs and the interventions it was offered.  This study was limited to the parents´ experience of their and their children´s participation in the establishment and evaluation of the IEP. Future studies could explore other perspectives on the phenomenon, such as the school´s or the child´s own perspective. However, after seeing how the results of the study reflect the shortcomings demonstrated by several years of studies in the field, future research should instead focus on how the school can practically increase participation and create a culture that values children´s participation highly and sets this as a priority. / Så snart skolan uppmärksammar behov av särskilt stöd ska ett åtgärdsprogram upprättas. I upprättandet av åtgärdsprogrammet ska barn och föräldrar göras delaktiga, både utifrån Skollagen och Barnkonventionen. Delaktigheten ska bestå i att barnet bland annat ges möjlighet att själv beskriva sina svårigheter, tänkbara åtgärder och får utvärdera insatser.  Syftet med denna studie har varit att närmare undersöka den upplevda känslan hos föräldrar av att de och deras barn gjorts delaktiga vid framställandet av åtgärdsprogrammet.  Som teoretisk grund och utgångspunkt för analys har använts Shiers och Harts delaktighetsmodeller som kompletterats med Lundys delaktighetsmodell. Begrepp från Foucaults maktteori och Bourdieus teorier om kapital har använts som ett komplement. Studiens design var en kvalitativ intervjustudie med fenomenologisk inriktning där fokus var på informanternas egen upplevelse. Utifrån detta genomfördes en tematisk analys. De teman som framkom var en upplevelse av kommunikation men inte av delaktighet, att åtgärdsprogrammet ses som ett dokument som inte speglar verkligheten, att barnens delaktighet är ytterst bristfällig och att föräldrarna används som språkrör för barnet. I majoriteten av intervjuerna framkom att barnet inte överhuvudtaget tillfrågats om sin åsikt kring sina behov och de insatser det erbjudits. Denna studie begränsades till föräldrarnas upplevelse av deras och deras barns delaktighet i upprättandet och utvärderingen av åtgärdsprogrammet. Framtida studier skulle kunna utforska andra perspektiv på fenomenet, som skolans eller barnets eget perspektiv. Efter att ha sett hur studiens resultat speglar de brister flera års studier inom området påvisat så bör dock framtida studier i stället fokusera på hur skolan praktiskt ska öka delaktigheten och skapa en kultur som värderar barns delaktighet högt och sätter detta som en prioritet.

Participation of minority parents in the Special Education IEP process continues to be a concern for public school administrators. With the disproportionality of African American males placed in special education and the mandatory involvement requirement in the IEP process, administrators and schools would benefit by understanding the obstacles that prevent the meaningful participation of parents/guardians of African American high school males in the special education IEP process. The purpose of this qualitative study was to analyze the obstacles faced by parents/guardians of African American males, grades 9-12, in the special education Individual Education Plan (IEP) process. This study involved interviewing ten parents/guardians of African American males receiving special education services, attending high schools in Contra Costa and Alameda counties in California. The results found the following themes that prevented the parents/guardians from meaningful participation in the IEP process: (1) Communication between home and school, (2) Knowledge of special education, (3) Parental rights and involvement in the IEP process, and (4) Attitudes of teachers. The strategies there were recommended to increase parental involvement were: (1) Engagement in active listening to parents and guardians at IEP meetings, (2) Changing of IEP meetings to work with parents' work schedules. (3) Improve overall communication with parents and guardians, and (4) Provide special education training for parents and guardians to teach them special education terminology and jargon. Lastly, the study provided various recommendations for further study.

Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur gymnasielärare i ämnet idrott och hälsa uppfattar och resonerar om elever som har åtgärdsprogram eller som riskerar att inte uppnå kunskapskraven. Vidare syftar studien till att belysa vilka diskurser och maktrelationer lärarna är en del av och hur dessa förhåller sig till varandra vid bedömning och betygsättning av dessa elever. För att nå syftet används fyra kvalitativa intervjuer tillsammans med fyra befintliga åtgärdsprogram i ämnet idrott och hälsa. Empirin analyseras sedan med hjälp av diskursanalys samt begreppen makt och kategorisering. Studien visar att lärarna delar in elever som riskerar att inte uppnå kunskapskraven i ett antal olika kategorier: lata och bekväma, rädda, ointresserade, språkliga förbistringar och fysiologiska och eller psykologiska orsaker. Beroende på vilken kategori eleverna anses tillhöra resonerar lärarna olika om hur undervisningen bör bedrivas gällande dessa elever. Genomgående är närvaron av stor betydelse för hur eleverna kategoriseras och därefter behandlas i undervisningen av lärarna. Studien visar även att lärarna inte har all makt när det gäller bedömning och betygsättning av dessa elever. Utan de måste i själva verket förhålla sig till andra diskurser såsom ledningsinflytande, elevinflytande och i viss mån även föräldrainflytande. Dessa tre diskurser befinner sig i kamp med diskursen om lärarinflytande om makten över bedömningen och betygsättningen. / The aim of this study is to investigate how upper secondary teachers in physical education describe and discuss about students with an individual education plan (IEP) or at risk of not achieving the national knowledge requirements. Furthermore, this study aims to illustrate the discourses and power relations teachers are a part of and how these relate to each other in the assessment and grading of these students. The investigation is based on four qualitative interviews plus four existing IEPs which are analyzed with help of discourse analysis and the concepts power and categorization. The investigation shows that the teachers divide the students at risk of not achieving the national knowledge requirements in a variety of categories: lazy and comfortable, afraid, uninterested, language difficulties and physiological and or psychological reasons. The investigation shows that the teacher reasons differently about the education depending on which category the student belongs to. Throughout the investigation the student’s attendance levels are important in relation to how the teachers categorize and thereafter treat the students. The investigation also highlights that the teacher does not have all the power when it comes to the assessment and grading of these students. The teachers have to relate to other discourses like the discourse of management influence, the discourse of student influence and to some extent the discourse of parental influence. These three discourses find themselves in a struggle with the discourse of teacher influence about the power over the assessment and grading.

Since 2006 Swedish compulsory school teachers are required to use individual developmentplans (IDPs) as part of their assessment practices. The IDP has developed through two major reforms and is currently about to undergo a third in which requirements for documentation are to be reduced. The original purpose of IDP was formative: a document containing targets and strategies for the student's future learning was to be drawn up at the parent-pupil-teacher meetingeach semester. The 2008 reform added requirements for written summative assessments/grade-like symbols to be used in the plan. This thesis aims to generate knowledge of the IDP as a tool in terms of what characterizes IDP documents as well as teachers' descriptions of continuous IDP work. It contains four articles. The first two are based on 379 collected IDP documents from all stages of compulsoryschool, and the last two build on interviews with 15 teachers. Throughout, qualitative content analysis has been used for processing data. The analytical framework comprises Latour's conceptual pair inscription – translation, Wartofsky's notions of primary/secondary/tertiary artifacts, and Wertsch's distinction between mastery and appropriation, which together provide an overall framework for understanding how the IDP becomes a contextually shaped tool that mediates teachers' actions in practice. Moreover, the activity theoretical concept of contradictionis used to understand and discuss dilemmas teachers experience in relation to IDP. In article 1, targets and strategies for future learning given to students are investigated and discussed in relation to definitions of formative assessment. Concepts were derived from the data and used for creating a typology of target and strategy types related either to being aspects (students' behavior/attitudes/personalities) or to subject matter learning. In article 2, the distribution of being and learning targets to boys and girls, respectively, is investigated. The results point to a significant gendered difference in the distribution of being targets. Possible reasons for the gendered distribution are discussed from a doing-gender perspective, and the proportion of being targets in IDPs is discussed from an assessment validity point of view. In article 3, teachers' continuous work with IDPs is explored, and it is suggested that IDP work develops in relation to perceived purposes and the contextual conditions framing teachers' work. Three qualitatively different ways of perceiving and working with IDP are described in a typology. Article 4 elaborates on dilemmas that teachers experience in relation to IDP, concerning time, communication, and assessment. A tentative categorization of dilemma management strategies is also presented. Results are synthesized in the final part of the thesis, where the ways in which documents are written and IDP work is carried out are discussed as being shaped in the intersection between rules and guidelines at national, municipal and local school level, and companies creating solutions for IDP documentation. Various purposes are to be achieved with the help of the IDP, which makes it a potential field of tension that is not always easy for teachers to navigate. Several IDP-related difficulties, but also opportunities and affordances, are visualized in the studies of this thesis. / <p>Svensk sammanfattning: s. 111-126.</p>

Mildly intellectually disabled (MID) learners, in South Africa, experience a great deal of discrimination. For the Black MID learner, the situation has been the worst in that even at a time when their white counterparts received education in separate schools, nothing of the sort existed for them. Most of them found themselves in ordinary schools, a situation described by many authors as "mainstreaming by default". The new education dispensation of 1994 brought along with it the need to begin looking at ways in which these learners are to be accommodated in the education system. However, such accommodation is made difficult by the fact that teachers are not familiar with ways of catering for diversity in the classrooms. An investigation was undertaken of the phenomenon mild intellectual disability. The characteristics of these learners were studied, in order to understand how these characteristics impact on their learning. The teaching principles and learning principles that make it easier for them to learn were studied. Most of these learners experience problems with reading, writing and mathematics. Existing educational programmes in developed and developing countries were examined, together with aspects of those programmes that might be of use in South Africa. A closer look was taken at provisions for these learners in South Africa before the new dispensation. An empirical study was undertaken to investigate what manifestations these learners display, how they are assisted once they are identified and to establish if teachers receive any support from parents, school management teams and the Department of Education. Finally, it was investigated if methods used for Outcomes-Based Education can be used to accommodate MID learners. Implications were then tabled on three levels, namely, the macro level, which is the provincial level, where decisions regarding educational policy and legislation for the Province are made, the meso level, which concerns implementation at the district level, and the micro level, which is the school itself. This level concerns the teacher's task in the classroom. Finally, a training manual for school support teams was designed, tested and finalised as a document to be used in assisting teachers to support MID learners / Early Childhood Education and Development / D. Ed. (Special Needs Education)

Mildly intellectually disabled (MID) learners, in South Africa, experience a great deal of discrimination. For the Black MID learner, the situation has been the worst in that even at a time when their white counterparts received education in separate schools, nothing of the sort existed for them. Most of them found themselves in ordinary schools, a situation described by many authors as "mainstreaming by default". The new education dispensation of 1994 brought along with it the need to begin looking at ways in which these learners are to be accommodated in the education system. However, such accommodation is made difficult by the fact that teachers are not familiar with ways of catering for diversity in the classrooms. An investigation was undertaken of the phenomenon mild intellectual disability. The characteristics of these learners were studied, in order to understand how these characteristics impact on their learning. The teaching principles and learning principles that make it easier for them to learn were studied. Most of these learners experience problems with reading, writing and mathematics. Existing educational programmes in developed and developing countries were examined, together with aspects of those programmes that might be of use in South Africa. A closer look was taken at provisions for these learners in South Africa before the new dispensation. An empirical study was undertaken to investigate what manifestations these learners display, how they are assisted once they are identified and to establish if teachers receive any support from parents, school management teams and the Department of Education. Finally, it was investigated if methods used for Outcomes-Based Education can be used to accommodate MID learners. Implications were then tabled on three levels, namely, the macro level, which is the provincial level, where decisions regarding educational policy and legislation for the Province are made, the meso level, which concerns implementation at the district level, and the micro level, which is the school itself. This level concerns the teacher's task in the classroom. Finally, a training manual for school support teams was designed, tested and finalised as a document to be used in assisting teachers to support MID learners / Early Childhood Education and Development / D. Ed. (Special Needs Education)