The inherited education and the (un)free choice? - A comparative survey between five different programs on University of Örebro The aim with this paper has been to examine and to report for different sociocultural background factors (class property, the parents' level of education, the parents' income) importance for the choice of type of education and to see if there is any differences between different university courses with respect to class property. Our issues were following: 1. What/which sociocultural factors have had most importance for the choice of programs on universities? 2. How is the distribution between the different classes in the different university programs? Our study is a comparative survey with the aim to detect possible connection patterns, differences and resemblances with respect to the students' social background. In our survey we have used questionnaires as a method for data collection. Our ambition has not been to give a comprehensive picture of what/which sociocultural factors that had most importance for the students' choices to begin to study on universities throughout Sweden. Therefore, we delimited us only to carrying out the survey at University of Örebro. Our population consists thus of a programme from each faculty on University of Örebro. The empirical material from the questionnaire survey, has been presented with appropriate statistical methods, it has been analyzed and discussed with the aid of Bourdieus habitus theory. In this survey we can among other things establish that it occurs certain differences between the different programs, which have been included in the study, among other things with respect to class property. We have also found other relevant connection among different variables. / Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka och redogöra för olika sociokulturella bakgrundsfaktorers (klasstillhörighet, föräldrarnas utbildningsnivå, föräldrarnas inkomst) betydelse för valet av typ av utbildning samt se om det finns skillnader mellan olika universitetsprogram med avseende på klasstillhörighet. Våra frågeställningar är följande: 1. Vilken/vilka sociokulturella faktorer har haft mest betydelse för valet av program/inriktning på universitet/högskolan? 2. Hur ser fördelningen av klasstillhörigheten mellan de olika programmen ut? Vår studie är en komparativ surveyundersökning med syftet att upptäcka eventuella sambandsmönster, skillnader och likheter med avseende på studenternas sociala bakgrund. I vår undersökning har vi att använt oss av enkäter som en metod för datainsamling. Vår ambition har inte varit att ge en heltäckande bild av vilken/vilka sociokulturella faktorer som haft mest betydelse för studenternas val att börja studera att på högskola/universitet i hela Sverige. Därför avgränsade vi oss endast till att utföra undersökningen vid Örebro universitet. Vår population består således av ett program från varje fakultet på Örebro universitet. Det empiriska materialet från enkätundersökningen, har presenterats med lämpliga statistiska metoder, har analyserats och diskuterats med hjälp av Bourdieus habitusteori. I denna undersökning har vi bland annat kunnat konstatera att det förekommer vissa skillnader mellan de olika universitetsprogrammen, som har ingått i studien, bland annat med avseende på klasstillhörighet. Vi har även funnit en del andra relevanta samvariationer mellan olika variabler.

Diskussionen om kunskap och lärande stannar aldrig, men för verksamma i skolan är det relevant att vara på det klara med hur kunskapsbegreppet kan förstås i skolan. Lärarens syn på kunskap och lärande bestämmer hur hon förhåller sig till sitt uppdrag och hur hon lägger upp undervisningen. Skoldiskursen kan undersökas på olika vis. I den här uppsatsen har fyra av Skolverkets publikationer analyserats. Syftet är att undersöka vilken kunskapssyn som förmedlas i texterna och vilken strävan som finns att upprätthålla eller förändra den rådande diskursen. I analysen har begreppen kunskap, lärande, skola, lärare och elev stått i centrum. Slutsatserna av analysen är att det finns en strävan att omformulera det som i texterna beskrivs som den traditionella diskursen inom skolan. Det råder konsensus om att skolundervisningen vanligtvis utgått ifrån ett ensidigt kunskapsparadigm, men att den traditionen nu utmanas av ett nytt paradigm som definierar kunskap som någonting situerat och som skapas i interaktion mellan människor. I samtliga texter förmedlas ett sociokulturellt perspektiv på kunskap och lärande. Det som skiljer texterna åt är att de förhåller sig till de två kunskapsparadigmen på olika vis. I två av texterna argumenteras för det nya kunskapsparadigmet, medan det i de andra två finns en idé om att de två paradigmen kan föras samman. Publikationerna fördjupar sig i begreppen kunskap och lärande. Däremot lämnar tre av de fyra texterna en djupare diskussion kring vad som ingår i lärarprofessionen om kunskap och lärande förstås som de definieras i texterna. En slutsats som också kan dras av analysen är att den didaktiska hurfrågan inte går att få svar på i publikationerna. Kanske är det decentraliseringens baksida, att Skolverkets publikationer inte behöver ta sig an de praktiska frågorna. / The discussion about knowledge and learning never ends. For those who are working in school it is relevant to have a clear idea of how the term knowledge can be understood in an educational context. A teacher's idea of knowledge and learning decides what pedagogical methods she uses. The school discourse can be analysed in different ways. In this paper has a discourse analysis been done of four publications from Nation (Sweden) Agency of Education. The aim is to see what ideas of knowledge that is represented in the texts and what ambition there is to alter or maintain the current discourses. The analysis work has especially focused on the terms knowledge, learning, school, teacher and pupil. Conclusions that can be drawn from the analysis are that there is a striving to reformulate a traditional school discourse. In the publications there is an agreement concerning that traditional teaching generally come from a one-sided knowledge paradigm that now is being challenging by a new paradigm. The new paradigm defines knowledge as something dependent of the context and that it is created in interaction between people. All four publications mediate a sociocultural perspective on knowledge and learning. The difference between the texts is the attitude they apply to the fact that there is two paradigms that have influences in the school discourse. Two of the texts argue for the new paradigm, while the other two mediate that the paradigms are complements. The publications enter deeply into the terms knowledge and learning. However they leavethe discussion about what a professional teacher is in a school where the terms knowledge and learning is understood as it is defined in the texts. Only one of the texts gives some answers on the didactic question how. A conclusion that lies near in hand is that the decentralisation of school gives the Nation Agency of Education the possibility to avoid concrete questions that give useful information in teachers' professional life.

I rapporten undersöks om det på kort sikt blir någon skillnad i elevers kunskapsutveckling beroende på om de arbetar utifrån ett behavioristiskt kontra sociokulturellt inlärningsteoretiskt perspektiv. Dessutom belyses positiva och negativa sidor med de olika arbetsmetoderna. Studien genomfördes i parallellklasser i årskurs 5 där den ena klassen arbetade sociokulturellt, den andra behavioristiskt, under ett lektionstillfälle. Elevernas kunskapsutveckling synliggjordes och jämfördes genom att låta dem göra en för- och efterhandsdiagnos. Efteråt genomfördes också intervjuer för att få fram elevernas syn på arbetssätten. Det fanns ingen större skillnad mellan de båda klassernas resultat. Av intervjuerna framkom dock att den sociokulturella arbetsmetoden ansågs mer engagerande och lustfylld än den behavioristiska. Vi tror att en enstaka lektion är för lite för att kunna hitta signifikanta skillnader mellan olika inlärningsmetoder. Det skulle vara intressant att göra samma undersökning under en längre tidsperiod i framtiden för att få fram ett resultat med högre grad av reliabilitet och validitet. Den här studien är intressant för den belyser skillnader i hur man som lärare kan arbeta i klassrummet och att kunskapstillägnande kan ske på olika sätt. / This study examine during a short period of time, if there is a difference in students knowledge development depending on whether the teaching method is based on a behavioral or sociocultural learning theory.  In addition, positive and negative aspects of each method are highlighted. The study was conducted in parallel classes in grades 5, where one class worked sociocultural and the other behavioral during the length of one lesson. Students' knowledge was visualized and compared by having them do a pre- and post-lesson diagnosis. Afterwards, interviews were also conducted to obtain students' views on working methods. There was no significant difference between the two classes' results. The interviews revealed that the sociocultural working method was more engaging and enjoyable than the behavioral. We believe that a single lesson is too little to be able to find significant differences between different learning theories, it would be interesting to do the same study for a long time in the future to get a result with more reliability and validity. This study is interesting for highlighting differences in how teachers can work in the classroom and that knowledge development can be achieved in different ways.

Abstract: When playing in teams, communication is important, not just communication with words but also non-verbal communication such as gestures and body languish. The purpose with this study is to see how there is a co-op among communicating players , between leaders and players and to examine what meaning communication and culture got  in a youth team. The ambition with this study was to increase our knowledge about communication and communicationculture in the youth floorball team. This study is qualitative and was inspired by an ethnographical method so we got the information from observations of a youth floorball team, totally we made four observations. The result were analyzed and categorized from our observation papers. The results where categorized into four headlines, One and two-way communication, Artifacts, The communicationculture of the youth team and actions. The leader got a very important role as communicator and pedagogical leader for the communicationculture that the individual of the group wants to be used in order to promote the development in the team. In the future, more teams needs to be studied to get a more reliable source of information that can be used on a greater populace.

In school, pupils learn to critically relate to sources of various texts. In the course of time they also learn how to make references and cite properly. Yet, alarming reports show increasing cheating and plagiarism in colleges and universities. Plagiarism prevention services are used today in Swedish high schools. We are questioning how this relates to the sociocultural perspective and curriculum view of imitation as a natural part of the learning process, communication and language. Material from depth interviews, with four teachers in the school subject Swedish about their theoretical and practical approach to students' writing process and writing development are used to deal with the issues of this thesis. The results from the interviews are analyzed in relation to a literature study on the subject. Research on the sociocultural perspective shows that imitation is a natural part of the learning process, communication and language. The form of intertextuality that occurs when texts are imitated and voices are borrowed - dialogism - is not only natural but also necessary for all writing development. We seem to be unable to discern the natural role of imitation in students’ writing development among all respondents.

The purpose of this thesis was to study some women's participation in two different kinds of computerised further education organised as distance edu­cation. Both groups used the FirstClass conference system as a tool for bridging distances. One was a university program for teachers in special education and the other was a computerised Network for professional special education teachers, run by the members. The dissertation was grounded in feminist theory and in a socio-cultural perspective on learning. The empirical material consists of questionnaires, interviews and analysis of the communi­cation in both computer conferences. The result showed that the women appreciated the opportunity to study at a distance. They enjoyed the flexibil­ity in time and space and the opportunity to be a part of a fellowship. There were great differences in the pattern of communication and the contents in the two settings. In the Special Education Programme the communication was regular and the inputs were usually related to the literature and examina­tion issues. In the Network the communication was more sporadic. The in­puts were usually short and consisted mostly of information. The contribu­tions in both settings were generally univocal and usually they did not show that the individual participants developed new pedagogical perspectives or views related to the actual question. This investigation showed that it was difficult to establish discussions and co-operation via the computer, espe­cially in the Network. However the women were satisfied with the continu­ing education and felt that the written communication via the computer con­ferences developed their knowledge in special pedagogy and helped them to reflect upon their work as special education teachers. Distance education could however become a gender-trap as it was found to allow the women to combine unpaid work in the family with both paid work and studies. / digitalisering@umu

An engaging education attends to the subjective quality of students’ perceptions and experiences within learning and school life: It converges on whether, how, and why students meaning-make and belong within the school; and focuses on the conditions for their attachment, participation, and commitment within school programmes, practices, policies, and people. Three main questions guided this two-phase, mixed-methods study: 1) What makes international schools engaging places for students? 2) What meanings do students attach to key areas of their day-to-day experiences within the international school in Hong Kong? 3) How might re-imagining student engagement through a cosmopolitan lens lead to clearer understandings of students’ experiences within the international school? In Phase 1, an achieved sample of 729 senior secondary students at 9 purposively selected schools were surveyed using a mainly Likert scale questionnaire: to describe their socio-demographics; to examine the relationships between their socio-demographics, attitudinal features, and schooling experiences, as measured by the researcher-designed Experience of International School – Revised (EIS-R) scale; and to cluster using their socio-demographics and attitudinal profiles. Building on the tripartite cluster solution, Phase 2 used observations and interviews with 30 purposively sampled teacher-leaders and 34 students, from across the three clusters, to investigate how the “institutional habitus” (Thomas, 2002) the students encountered at two international schools shaped their experiences of and engagement within the contexts of school culture, community, curriculum, and co-curriculum. A two-stage process of thematic content analysis revealed two super ordinate themes: 1) race/ethnic, linguistic, and nationality identities intersected to shape and challenge patterns of relationships amongst students (and between students/families) and the school to both include and exclude; and 2) the institutional contexts supported and constrained students’ sense of belonging therein. Overall, seen through a cosmopolitan lens the study implications are discussed as three lessons to achieve a better fit between students and the international school: 1) Attend to the school’s living and learning environment; 2) Take a cosmopolitan turn to school for cosmopolitan subjectivity; and 3) Adopt a student engagement-driven approach to improve and reform school policy, administration, and practice.

An engaging education attends to the subjective quality of students’ perceptions and experiences within learning and school life: It converges on whether, how, and why students meaning-make and belong within the school; and focuses on the conditions for their attachment, participation, and commitment within school programmes, practices, policies, and people. Three main questions guided this two-phase, mixed-methods study: 1) What makes international schools engaging places for students? 2) What meanings do students attach to key areas of their day-to-day experiences within the international school in Hong Kong? 3) How might re-imagining student engagement through a cosmopolitan lens lead to clearer understandings of students’ experiences within the international school? In Phase 1, an achieved sample of 729 senior secondary students at 9 purposively selected schools were surveyed using a mainly Likert scale questionnaire: to describe their socio-demographics; to examine the relationships between their socio-demographics, attitudinal features, and schooling experiences, as measured by the researcher-designed Experience of International School – Revised (EIS-R) scale; and to cluster using their socio-demographics and attitudinal profiles. Building on the tripartite cluster solution, Phase 2 used observations and interviews with 30 purposively sampled teacher-leaders and 34 students, from across the three clusters, to investigate how the “institutional habitus” (Thomas, 2002) the students encountered at two international schools shaped their experiences of and engagement within the contexts of school culture, community, curriculum, and co-curriculum. A two-stage process of thematic content analysis revealed two super ordinate themes: 1) race/ethnic, linguistic, and nationality identities intersected to shape and challenge patterns of relationships amongst students (and between students/families) and the school to both include and exclude; and 2) the institutional contexts supported and constrained students’ sense of belonging therein. Overall, seen through a cosmopolitan lens the study implications are discussed as three lessons to achieve a better fit between students and the international school: 1) Attend to the school’s living and learning environment; 2) Take a cosmopolitan turn to school for cosmopolitan subjectivity; and 3) Adopt a student engagement-driven approach to improve and reform school policy, administration, and practice.

The overall aim of this study is to investigate how and why teachers in the subjects of English and Modern Languages use group work in their lessons. This has been done with the help of a survey and interviews. The results indicate that all teachers in the study use at least some group work. Group work is often used to help the students practise their verbal skills as well as in teaching them to work together. The study has also shown that teachers find some parts of using group work in their lessons problematic.

El matrimonio, es decir, la unión duradera y legalizada de dos individuos de distinto sexo, es el elemento central de organización sociocultural de la mayoría de las poblaciones humanas. Pero, además, es un importante fenómeno biológico, puesto que determina (salvo excepciones raras en las poblaciones europeas) quiénes pueden entrar a formar parte de la población reproductora, cuando lo hacen y cómo lo hacen. Desde el momento en que los que se casan son una muestra de la población, sometida a presiones del ambiente socioeconómico y cultural, y proveniente de localidades varias, el matrimonio y sus circunstancias pueden ser indicadores excelentes del influjo de fuerzas tales como la selección, la migración o la deriva genética sobre una población determinada.Por otra parte, por su propia naturaleza, el matrimonio implica una densidad más alta de información en los Registros, ya que, al recoger características de dos individuos distintos y, muchas veces, de sus familias, proporciona un volumen muy notable de datos, los cuales, además, permiten estudiar la interrelación entre individuos distintos.Al mismo tiempo, hay que tener en cuenta el hecho de que si los patrones de cruzamiento son los que van a determinar la estructura genética de las generaciones posteriores, estos patrones están condicionados en muchas ocasiones por factores no biológicos, por lo que en el estudio del matrimonio se puede dilucidar la influencia de factores ecológicos y culturales en la estructura genética de la población.Dentro del marco general de la aplicación de los métodos de la demografía histórica en el estudio biológico de poblaciones humanas, existe desde siempre un interés especial por las comunidades pequeñas y aisladas ("isolates"). De manera general, en estas poblaciones el estudio de las fuerzas evolutivas toma un cariz muy interesante, en tanto se las supone similares a aquéIlas que han operado en una gran parte de la evolución humana.Debido a su particular estructura geográfica y demográfica, por no hablar de sus peculiaridades culturales, la Península Ibérica abunda en poblaciones que corresponden, más o menos estrictamente, al concepto de "isolate". Estas poblaciones son particularmente abundantes en las zonas pirenaicas, donde los condicionantes topográficos e históricos han conformado la delimitación de grupos comarcales bien definidos geográficamente y con fuerte personalidad social, cultural e incluso administrativa.Dos de estas poblaciones son las que sirven de base a este trabajo. La elección del VaIle de Salazar viene dada por reunir varias circunstancias notables: su personalidad histórica y administrativa, que lo conforman como una comarca natural y cultural bien definida; el tamaño de su población, lo bastante grande como para suministrar datos fiables y lo bastante pequeña como para resultar manejable; la existencia en sus parroquias de Registros de notable antigüedad; su estructura en núcleos discretos de población, muy a propósito para el estudio de la variabilidad geográfica de determinados caracteres; su pertenencia al área vascófona, con las implicaciones que esto tiene desde el punto de vista del análisis de apellidos.Otro aspecto de la población salacenca muy a tener en cuenta es su sistema de transmisión patrimonial, similar al que se da en otras partes del Pirineo Navarro o Aragonés, es decir, la libre designación de heredero, con transmisión de los bienes en el momento de la boda de éste. Este sistema, también conocido como "donatio propter nuptias", se ha aplicado durante siglos con gran rigor, lo que, sin duda, ha influido en la población. Naturalmente, la situación ideal para la aplicación de semejante sistema implica un reducido tamaño de la descendencia, tamaño reducido que se logra, entre otros factores, por un retraso en la edad nupcial.La elección del Pallars Sobirà como población de contraste se dio posteriormente, a raíz de una campaña desarrollada por un equipo del que el doctorando formaba parte (campaña financiada por la C.A.I.C.Y.T. como proyecto de investigación PR83-2405). Las similitudes entre ambas comarcas eran patentes, sobre todo en lo que se refiere a estructura topográfica y demográfica; pero las diferencias (mayor tamaño y población en el Pallars Sobirà, registros más modernos, sistemas económicos, transmisión patrimonial basada en el mayorazgo masculino) eran también lo bastante importantes como para justificar un contraste entre las características de ambas comarcas.El esquema que se sigue en este trabajo se articula en tres secciones. La primera, y más extensa e importante, trata de las características de los matrimonios en el Valle de Salazar, describiendo las circunstancias y fenómenos asociados a la nupcialidad, como su frecuencia absoluta y relativa (ya por años, ya por períodos más largos o más cortos), su estructura (por estado civil, por legitimidad y por edad), la movilidad marital e intergeneracional, la consanguinidad y el análisis de los apellidos de los consortes. Esta sección abarca los Capítulos 2 a 7, con los contenidos específicos que pueden verse en el índice adjunto. La segunda sección aborda una descripción similar de los matrimonios del Pallars Sobirà, si bien con una extensión más reducida (sólo el Capítulo 8), dado que se exponen los resultados de los análisis sin consideraciones teóricas ni metodológicas, incidiendo sobre todo en los aspectos cuyo contraste o concordancia con los análogos salacencos parezcan particularmente interesantes. La tercera parte del trabajo, la interpretativa, se plasma en el Capítulo 9, donde se resumen las conclusiones a que ha dado lugar el estudio.Naturalmente, la orientación del estudio viene dada por el mismo material con el que se trabaja, es decir, los matrimonios tal como se registran en los Libros Parroquiales. Por lo tanto, la deducción de los patrones de cruzamiento, tanto en sus aspectos descriptivos, como en sus implicaciones genéticas, como en sus condicionantes sociales, culturales y ecológicos, es el objetivo básico de este trabajo.El hecho de disponer de registros de una considerable antigüedad y la particular disposición de las poblaciones estudiadas permiten que esta búsqueda de los patrones de cruzamiento se enfoque desde una doble perspectiva, razón por la que una parte importante del estudio se concentra en la variabilidad temporal y espacial que presentan o que pueda afectar a dichos patrones de cruzamiento.Las conclusiones del trabajo indican que, tanto por la cantidad de información como por la propia importancia genética y demográfica del hecho que contienen, el estudio de las partidas de matrimonio se revela como un buen instrumento para el conocimiento de la dinámica y estructura de las poblaciones humanas.Por otra parte, las estructuras matrimoniales de las poblaciones estudiadas revelan, tanta en sus semejanzas como en sus diferencias, hasta qué punto están ligadas las características demográficas y genéticas de las poblaciones a sus respectivos entornos geográficos, económicos y culturales. La unidad matrimonial ha sida, y en gran medida lo es todavía, el elemento básica de gestión ambiental y de transmisión sociocultural. Estas circunstancias influyen en gran medida en la posibilidad de los individuos de dejar descendencia, por lo que es difícil enfocar cualquier estudio genético de una población sin tener en cuenta las peculiaridades de su estructura matrimonial y, por extensión, demográfica.