Background: Worldwide, gender inequality has existed for a long time due to culture, religion and patriarchal structures, sometimes maintained by law. As a result, millions of girls lose their right to schooling, and it is affecting the development of entire nations. Uganda one the other hand, has for the past decade had many girls accessing school and hence, an increase in the quantitative perspective of gender equality. This is a result of efforts and different projects to bring girls to school mobilised by many organizations, together with the government. Uganda implemented free universal primary education over 20 years ago, and was the first of all nations in Sub-Saharan Africa to apply free universal secondary education in 2007. However, do these structural changes contribute to a development in the qualitative perspective of gender equality in Uganda? Have this led to changed perceptions in the rural households regarding education for their girls and boys respectively? Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to understand the development of gender equality in Uganda focusing on school attendance. This will be identified through listening to the perceptions of rural households towards sending their girls and boys to primary school. The result intends to contribute to a greater understanding of the qualitative development of gender equality in Uganda, in line with the Sustainable Development Goal number 5 implemented by the United Nations. Research question: What are the perceptions of rural households in Uganda towards sending their girls and boys respectively to primary school? Method: A qualitative method through 18 interviews, one focus group discussion and discussions with 22 children in a rural area. The village Lukonko in Eastern Uganda was chosen based on a convenience selection and since the number of girls attending school has grown rapidly in this area. Conclusion: Girls’ access to primary school was more valued than boys’ access which constitutes reversed gender inequality. The main reason was that girls provide more future support to the household. Yet, many of the reasons for sending girls to primary school were rooted in issues of gender inequality. The qualitative development of gender equality has progressed in terms of the value of the girls’ education, but not regarding the underlying societal issues of gender inequality.

The aim of this study is to quantify principals' professional opinion on school uniform. Qualitative interviews were conducted with five primary school principals to ascertain what they consider the phrase 'school uniform' to imply. The principals' arguements for and against scool uniform were investigated, in addition to how they gauged the importance of the discussion of school uniform. The qualitative data collected was subjected to a discourse analysis, in order to identify the principals' implicit motivations. The results of this study show that the principals interviewed did not consider school uniform to be a particularly hot topic, and none of them had previously read any research regarding school uniform. All of the principals mentioned the fact that a school uniform infringes on children's rights, namely their freedom of expression. None of the principals mentioned arguments for school uniform on the grounds of improved discipline, grades or attendance but rather mentioned the possibility that school uniform might 'level the playing field' with regard to children's clothing. This indicates that Swedish principals do not experience issues regarding poor discipline, grades or attendance to the degree that potential resolutions have been researched. Instead the issues that the principals experience pertain to differences in children's socioeconomic backgrounds, and the challenges this encompases; as such the principals were more interested in potential resolutions so such issues. That being said, none of the principals interviewed actually believed that school uniform would resolve the differences between children from different socioeconomic classes.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the efforts to reduce food waste in local primary schools in two municipalities in northern Sweden, as well as to highlight any similarities and differences. Food waste is a major problem around the world, globally an estimated 1.3 billion tonnes of food are thrown away each year. With a growing population and the environmental impact that is already provides significant consequences, it is not healthy that food that could be eaten are thrown away. Sweden alone are throwing away 1.2 million tonnes of food each year, and school kitchen alone contributes with approximately 40 000 tonnes. To answer the purpose of this study, electronic questionnaires were sent out to the principals for a total of 78 schools. The result of this study shows that 67 % of the schools participating in this study, has received directives from the municipality on how to work to reduce food waste in primary school. But even those who have not received directives from the municipality still perform activities when 12 out of thirteen schools in municipality A and all eight schools in municipality B stated that they actively working to reduce food waste. Even though the measures taken within schools were to some extent similar, the directives from the municipalities differed between schools, also within the same municipality. As consequence, participating schools worked differently with their students on this topic.

In 1977 Skellefteå municipality started their work with dance as art in the primary school. By this time, education in the art of dance was an unusual activity in Swedish schools. Commissioned by the Ministry of Education, Swedish Arts Council begun a development work 20 years ago.  In april 2005 The Swedish National Agency for School Improvement, Swedish Arts Council, NCFF (a national centra for work with health, ÖrebroUniversity) and the Pupil´s organization signed an agreement. The purpose is to support and develop dance education practice in schools.    The aim of this study is to increase knowledge about the tradition and development in dance delimited to dance education in the compulsory school in Skellefteå municipality. Another aim is to describe and analyze how dance contributes to learning in the school setting.    Data was collected through interviews mainly with dance teachers and administrators, and through a variety of documentary information, questionnaires and observations. Concerning obser-vations of dance education, ten different classes in primary school were selected.    The results of the study indicate that dance in school started as a pioneer work, initiated by the dance teacher Eva Dahlgren, thereafter together with her daughter, Cecilia Björklund Dahlgren. Several significant factors were however crucial for the continued work and the establishment of dance in school in Skellefteå municipality. Cooperation between different participants and an evident definition of dance as an intrinsic value, was important for the further development of dance education. Regarding the tradition of dance implemented by Dahlgren, attention was paid to joy and expression. The prime ideas about dance are still represented in the working plan for dance in school in Skellefteå municipality. In conclusion, there have been few organizational changes during the years.     Regarding learning in dance and dance teachers´ approach, a sociocultural perspective indicates the emphasis on interaction between the teacher and pupils. It also brings into focus the communication with body and movements. From a behavioristic perspective, reinforcement /feed-back is common in teaching dance. In summary the dance teacher is in many different aspects an important model for the pupils. By using metaphorical language, and a playful and imaginative educational situation, pupils´ ideas, thoughts and feelings are stimulated.

Historical consciousness can be regarded as the impact of our interpretations of our past has on our understanding of the present and expectations of the future. It also defines the researchproblems this paper focuses on; that research shows how history education mainly instills a past perspective and how influential textbooks are in shaping the schools' history education. The purpose of this paper is to extrapolate from these subjects and through qualitative textual analysis examine historical consciousness in two textbooks for primary school. Historical consciousness has been operationalized around three categories in this paper: Identity Values Narrative The results of the analysis shows that both books centers around the perceived Swedish culture through a perspective of Swedish heritage and a thorough critique can be made on the implicitexclusion of pupils with non-Swedish heritage. The results of the analysis also points at the lackof explicit expressions with regards to the future in the textbooks.

This study is a qualitative, phenomenological inquiry into teachers’ and children’s ‘lived experiences’ of the child-teacher relationship in an Irish upper primary school context. It highlights the current need to re-focus our attention on the child-teacher relationship which Biesta (2004) argues is the 'location' of education. An overview of the literature on relational pedagogy is provided which connects the child-teacher relationship to broader theoretical debates including Heidegger's (1962) concept of Mitsein and Buber's I- Thou relation (1937). Hermeneutic phenomenology describes the overarching methodology following van Manen’s (1990) ‘lived experience’ approach. The study was conducted in a large, suburban, primary school with designated disadvantaged status. Before data generation commenced, a Children’s Research Advisory Group was established in the school following Lundy, McEvoy, and Byrne (2011). The function of this group was to advise about conducting research with children. Research participants included three teachers and five children from each of those teachers’ classes. Data generation featured the use of protocol writing and conversational interviews following van Manen (1990, 2014) and the use of embodied, drama methods which were unique to this study but inspired by the work of Norris (2000) and guided by O’Sullivan (2011). Data was also generated using visual methods drawing on the work of Mitchell (2011), Tinkler (2015) and Chappell and Craft (2011). In line with the phenomenological approach adopted, data was interpreted in what Gadamer (1989) describes as a circular manner. This involves attending to ‘parts’ whilst keeping in mind the ‘whole’ picture. This study identified three overarching thematic findings which find resonance with the fields of relational pedagogy and embodied teaching and learning as well as new insights at the point where these two areas overlap. These include how teachers and children relate to one another as ‘whole, embodied feeling beings’; the idea that there is a tension between ‘closeness’ and ‘distance’ in the child teacher relationship and that there is a need for both ‘structure’ and ‘freedom’ to feature in that relationship. Further, this study found that the child-teacher relationship is experienced as ‘knotted’ with social and contextual relationships. These findings are discussed in light of the concepts of ‘connectedness’ and ‘emergence’, features of complexity theory. This study provides new insights into how teachers and children experience their relationships with one another, thereby extending the body of knowledge on the child-teacher relationship.

This diploma thesis is concentrated on perception of seniors by primary children (aged six to eight years). How primary children imagine seniors, how they perceive them and what characters children think seniors have got. The theoretical part is divided to three chapters. At first there is defined a primary school age. There are described characteristics and relationships between children, with their parents and mainly with their grandparents. In the second chapter there is characterized the old age, the role of seniors in families and their relationship with grandchildren. Then there is described the attitude to the old age seen by society. The last chapter of the hteoretical part contains the way I collected information (through a drawing and an interview). The practical part is focused on the fact how children draw seniors and searching for attributes in children´s drawings. Children´s attitudes to the old people are searched through interviews.

Enligt många teorier om läsning är läsförståelse en betydelsefull komponent för att bli en god läsare och likaledes en aktiv deltagare i samhället. Av den anledningen vill vi utforska detta ämne närmre. Syftet med denna konsumtionsuppsats är att belysa vad forskningen förespråkar som främjande undervisning för utveckling av läsförståelse. Studiens fokus är på frågeställningarna: Vilka undervisningsstrategier förespråkar forskningen för att stötta elever i att utveckla god läsförståelse? och På vilket sätt främjar dessa strategier utvecklingen av läsförståelse? Vår studie inriktar sig på årskurs F-3.   Denna kvalitativa litteraturstudies resultat bygger på 14 vetenskapliga artiklar som belyser främjande undervisningsstrategier gällande läsförståelse. Vår metod för insamlingen av dessa artiklar utgick ifrån sökningar i olika databaser samt manuella sökningar.   Analysen resulterade i tre övergripande teman. Dessa tre teman är: Undervisning med explicita instruktioner, undervisning med visualiseringar samt undervisning med utgångspunkt i språkets delar. Resultatet visar att de ovan nämnda undervisningsstrategierna som framkommit i artiklarna alla främjar utveckling av läsförståelse, men på olika sätt.   Utifrån vår analys, framkom att samtliga undervisningsstrategier kräver att läraren har en aktiv, modellerande och stöttande roll, för att eleverna ska kunna utveckla läsförståelse och bli goda läsare.

The thesis deals with teaching of the geography of religion in geography lessons at the 2 nd stage elementary school. The main objective of the thesis is to create design of own teaching material focusing on the geography of religion. The first part deals with the characteristics of selected religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam), the inclusion of religion in the context of geography and geography in elementary school curriculum and teaching methods. Another part is an evaluation of the geography textbooks with the current clause, the Ministry of Education for a given topic. The last part of the thesis contains own draft training material focused on the geography of religion produced in two versions version for teachers and version for pupils.

The diploma thesis explores the possibility to employ geocaching as a tool in teaching the basics of local history and geography at primary schools. It aims at creating own designs to implement geocaching in teaching basics of local history and geography and basics of science, using practical examples in teaching about the region of Jindřichův Hradec. The thesis includes an analysis of the state of caches in Jindřichův Hradec (as a municipality with extended competence) and their usability within the proposed framework of teaching activities. The theoretical part of the thesis concerns basic geographical characteristics of the selected region and basic principles of geocaching. The implementation part of the thesis aims at designing possible activities in teaching about the local region with the use of geocaching. The resulting designs of the teaching activities are provided in the form of worksheets which are fully capable of being put into teaching practice and have been tested by the author at the II. ZŠ in Jindřichův Hradec.