During the 12th to the 16th century the Scandinavian region went through a cultural change, from Germanic to Latin culture. This change effected a wide variety of areas for example law, piety, clothing, religion and system of writing. It is the change in the system of writing this essay will examine i.e. the change from runes to the Latin alphabet. The medieval runic Europe (including the Nordic countries and the north Atlantic islands) has a great variety in their numbers of runic material but in total there is about 2800 of them. Most are from the Scandinavian countries Sweden and Norway. The runic alphabet and the Latin alphabet coexisted during the Nordic Middle ages but the Latin alphabet became dominant over time.The runic alphabet changed during the 11th and 12th centuries from 16 runes to 28 (as many letters as the Latin alphabet) and was in continues use during the whole time period. The question is why it survived for so long? How come the runic alphabet did not die out sooner given the introduction of the Latin alphabet and the influence from Latin countries (i.e. Western Europe)? Earlier research has largely focused on the Viking age carvings and has not problematized the change from an historical point of view or from a cultural perspective. This essays goal is to explain that change by categorizing the inscriptions according to their theme and content in order to identify runic usage as a cultural belonging, be it a passive or active choice. I will also discuss the literacy level (or to be precis the runeliteracy) of the Scandinavian countries. Who could read the runes and in what context where they used?

The purpose of this study was to get a greater understanding for how the people surrounding children in foster care support these foster children in their education. In order to learn more about that, I had to understand these individuals own opinion on education for foster-children. Do the people that stand close to a child in foster care think that foster children have the same abilities to learn in school as other children? And is it fair to require the same investment as we ask from other children? And how does the way professionals and foster parents inform each other and work togeter influence this process? The study was conducted through six semi-structured interviews. The perspective of four different foster parents, a teacher and a social worker were examined in this qualitative study. To help understand why some people have better chances in life than others and how a foster family can make a difference in that for a child, I have used Pierre Bourdieu's Cultural Theory. The theory helps understand that a foster child is in a very low social position in society, especially at the beginning of the placement, and has to work itself up to get acces to more symbolical resources. The results of the study show that support from people around the foster child is a very important factor for a child to succeed in school. Every one of the individuals I have interviewed was aware of that fact. The main obstacle people experience is that information about the child is not always shared and they do not alwas know how other organizations function. The factor that is most favorable is a positive work relation between the professionals, foster parents and the child.