This study aims to increase the understanding of how some teachers and special education teachers work and relate to pupils with difficulties, and in which way they use guiding documents in their daily work. Over the last four decades the curricula in Sweden have aimed at creating a school for everybody though, without any significant success. Today, many students leave the comprehensive school without grades in the subjects Swedish, Maths, and English. Since the obligatory school was introduced, pupils that have been considered un-normal have been sorted out to other groups and classes, where teachers with special competence have been working. The designation “a school for everybody” is described in perspective from four different definitions. Two general, national, guiding documents, the school law and the curriculum, Lpo -94, is described. The study covers pupils with difficulties, but without diagnoses. They are considered disturbing in the classroom. Different designations of these pupils are described in the study. To get in contact with these pupils, it is important that teachers have knowledge about different strategies how to help them in a positive manner. It is valuable to know which basic needs that people need to get satisfied in order to develop. The competence in special needs education is pointed out in order to create understanding of when and where it can be used. It should not only be used when the situation already has become untenable, but also in a proactive manner. A qualitative interview survey among four active teachers working with children in the ages 4-9 years and two special education teachers has been accomplished. The results of the survey show that the teachers achieve their good results through their positive attitude. They are able to meet the pupil on its own level, even though the teachers in many respects are responsible to interpret Lpo-94 on their own. The teachers are aware of their profession, and therefore they know when a situation must be changed. They know when they must call for help and they are also able to hand over responsibilities to other professions if needed. According to the teachers, a school for everybody can only be achieved if changes are made within the organisation of the school system. Special education teachers are working proactive and, if needed, together with all relevant persons related to the pupils with difficulties.

The aim of this thesis is to study teachers’ manner of teaching and its role for students’ meaning making. In order to shed light on this interplay, a methodological approach, based on pragmatism, a sociocultural perspective on learning and Wittgenstein’s later works, is developed and applied. As the methodological approach is designed to study meanings as constituted in action, the empirical material consists of conversations between teachers and students. The practice in focus is science education in Swedish compulsory school. The thesis includes four case studies. In the first study, the method EMA (Epistemological Move Analysis) is developed with the aim of describing teachers’ role for the students’ learning of scientific knowledge. In the second study, another method – CACM (Communication Analysis of Companion Meanings) is developed and illustrated. With CACM, epistemological norms and companion meanings are analysed in order to describe students’ socialisation into a specific practice. In the third study, CACM is used to analyse and describe two central epistemological norms and companion meanings in three teachers’ teaching. The fourth study seeks to describe in full one teacher’s manner of teaching in terms of educational philosophy and selective tradition. Using the developed approach, an analysis of one teacher’s teaching during the course of four lessons is conducted. The results show that, without prescribing teachers and students a specific view of science, it is both possible and fruitful to study how meanings are constituted in action in classroom practice. At the same time as the students learn scientific knowledge, they are also socialised into specific ways of approaching science. Teachers’ epistemological moves, in encounter with students’ meaning making, play an important role for students’ learning in science as well as about science.

This thesis consists of an overview of the subject, where in particular five papers are put into a frame. The research conducted for the thesis concerns the views of preservice teachers on the concept of function. Preservice teachers’ conceptions of the function concept are in particular examined in relation to mathematical statements that can be related to different topics on a variety of levels in mathematics; in this research, concept mapping technique is a research tool of interest. Questions concerning preservice teachers’ conceptions of the significance of functions in mathematics, and the presence of functions in school mathematics, are also considered relevant aspects of their views of functions. The final part of the research study includes an intervention study regarding the concept of function, located to a calculus course as one of the concluding courses in mathematics on the educational programme. There is a range of findings from the study that is summarized and further discussed in the overview part of the thesis. One result, is that preservice teachers in their reasoning show signs of knowledge compartmentalization which is an issue of concern in their development of conceptual frameworks rich in meaningful connections. This might have consequences for their abilities to operate in a constructivist environment and reason with their students from different points of view. The function concepts’ large network of relations to other concepts is frequently omitted in the preservice teachers’ reasoning. One reason for this is that to preservice teachers, properties of functions seem to be results of isolated procedures, associated with operational conceptions rather than structural conceptions of functions. The findings imply that preservice teachers should encounter functions in a variety of context, to develop their views of the concept of function – including frameworks rich of meaningful relations – and realize that the concept of function is one of the underlying concepts of mathematics, and an important concept to introduce to their future students. The preservice teachers’ reflections concerning functions in school mathematics contribute to emphasize the significance of the process of transformation of subject matter knowledge to pedagogical content knowledge. Further results of the research study, and an outline of the implications, are included in the concluding discussion of the overview part of the thesis. The preservice teachers participating in the study are enrolled in a four and a half year teacher preparation program in mathematics and science, grades 4 to 9. The five papers included in the thesis, describe parts of a larger study essentially conducted until the sixth term during the concluding mathematics courses of the program.

1989 there was a big strike among teachers in Sweden. The strike lasted for over five weeks and got a lot of space in the media. In this study the author has focused on the Swedish press opinion about the strike and the striking teachers. The study is comparative one between Non-socialists press and press connected to the Socialists. The author has used a form of qualitative text analysis to examine the data which consists of editorials from six different morning papers. The conclusion of the study is that the papers connected to the Socialists disagreed with the striking teachers and wanted the strike to have an quick ending. They also stood up behind the employer, in this case the Socialists government The non-Socialists papers on the other hand were much more positive to both the strike in general and the striking teachers. They also gave a lot of critic to the Socialists government and their way of running the Swedish school in general. The result is surprising because the Socialists in normal cases take the side of the employees and non-Socialists the employer's side.

Denna studie handlar om kommunikativa uttryck hos elever med grav utvecklingsstörning och utan verbalt tal. Det är en kvalitativ studie med en fenomenologisk ansats. Syftet är att beskriva uttryckshandlingar hos elever med grav utvecklingsstörning på en gymnasiesärskola ur ett kommunikativt perspektiv. Resultaten visar hur de genom att uttrycka känslor och använda sig av kroppsspråk, gester och ljud ofta lyckas påverka och uppnå delaktighet i sociala sammanhang.

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