The thesis seeks to examine how newly arrived students are welcomed and introduced to the Swedish school system in Uppsala municipality. When organizing the structure of integrating immigrant children, municipalities in Sweden use different models. Depending on the model, different values are favored such as integration/segregation and collectivism/individualism.  Through interviews and textual analysis the model used in Uppsala is studied as an example of how municipalities choose to organize the structure around newly arrived students. The results show that the ambition in the organization in Uppsala is to actively use integration promoting arrangement in their every day work as well as they’re aiming to find individual solutions for each and everyone. The reality, however, reflects a lack of awareness about to what extent individual arrangements are in fact carried out and the special needs an immigrant child might have in comparison to other children. The mere existence of the school unit LYSA, which is responsible for children who have not yet received a placement in one of the permanent schools in the city, is also a drawback in achieving the ambition of the municipality, as LYSA is a separate unit that makes integration harder.

The purpose of the study is to examine how a specific group of English teachers interpret the differences between LPO-94 and LGR-11 which are two separate curriculums in the swedish school system. LGR-11 replaced LPO-94 (in 2011/12) and because of this, I wanted to look into what changes, if any, teachers experienced regarding their methods of teaching as well as how they assess students skills and knowledge. The study also investigates the matter of how teachers perceive the implementation of the new curriculum and how it has affected them in their profession. The study is partly a comparative policy study, regarding the different aspects of how knowledge is defined in the two different curriculums, and partly qualitative, with a number of interviews with English teachers. The teachers interviewed in this study claim that their understanding of the definition of knowledge is shared to a larger extent now and so is their view of the new curriculum which is considered, by most of them, to be more clear and structured than the previous one. This, in turn, gives these six teachers an increased understanding of the policy documents themselves, as well as a feeling that it is easier to track and identify learning progression and also that they have enhanced their assessment abilities. The study shows that the implementation of the new curriculum is perceived as satisfactory by the interviewed teachers who claim the changes have affected their profession in the desired direction and that it has benefited students with regards to both teaching methods and assessment situations.

Language learning strategies have been given a large role in the Swedish curriculum for modern languages and the usage of strategies is one of the requirements for getting a passing grade in the subject. However, language learning strategies is a term that is hard to grasp when seeing it without a context. Even in a context it can be hard to explain what is really meant. This study tries to explain what language learning strategies are in relation to the Swedish school system and aims to find out if these strategies are to be found and how they are used in two Swedish-German textbooks.The study shows that there are no explicit examples where a certain type of languagelearning strategy is to be found. Nevertheless, there are multiple instances where both books offer assignments that can lead to the usage of said strategies.

School segregation in Sweden is increasing and research shows that this may be due to the governance reform that has dominated since the 1990s, New Public Management. In recent years, the government has made statements that Sweden should instead move towards a new form of governance. A governance reform that has emerged from the criticism of New Public Management is New-Weberian State. In the essay, I examine which of these two governance reforms that dominates SOU 2007: 79 and SOU 2020: 28. This is done with a qualitative text analysis and the creation of ideal types that are applied in an analysis scheme. The results show that governance has not changed much over time and that it is New Public Management that dominates the most, even though Neo-Weberian State is also represented.

<p>This essay compares the public debate in Sweden 1992 caused by the reforms introduced by the then government giving parents a free choice of schools for their children with the current debate in France about proposals for a similar law there. The study concentrates on the positions taken by the teachers trade unions, in Sweden Lärarförbundet and Lärarnas Riksförbund (LR) and in France SGEN-CFDT. To do so it is necessary also to study the arguments given for and against the proposals by the political parties.</p><p>Some of the differences between the debates can be attributed to different circumstances. The Swedish reform was related to the opening up of possibilities to run private schools, which previously had been rare in Sweden. The French debate has no such connections. The private schools, mostly Catholic, have a very stable share of the students and no side is openly arguing for a change of any sort. Other differences depend on the French adversity to liberalism, almost always conflated with neo-liberalism which makes market-oriented arguments much less common in French public debate.</p><p>Among the trade unions the big difference is between the two Swedish organisations, LR was overall positive to the proposals while Lärarförbundet opposed them. In France SGEN-CFDT takes a position strikingly similar to Lärarförbundets in Sweden 1992 seeing free choice as undermining the idea of a school system for all. In Sweden that idea is seen as a part of the welfare state, closely connected to the Social Democratic party. In France it is seen as a republican idea, connected to an idea of citizenship.</p><p>The trade unions of the teachers in both France and Sweden are also in similar positions as their role has become merely reactive. There seems to be little room left for them to formulate policy and push the educational systems in their prefered directions.</p>

This empirical study investigates how English as a foreign language (EFL) learners in Swedish upper secondary schools succeed in their use of English prepositions. EFL learners in Sweden today represent a multitude of nationalities and ethnic groups with many different first languages (L1); therefore, English teaching could be subject to change in order to adapt to the new situation. The study is based on an online survey given to pupils taking “English 7” at upper secondary schools in Stockholm. The study aims to find patterns in how pupils with Swedish as their L1 handle English prepositions and use a control group consisting of pupils with another L1 in a comparative analysis based on language transfer. A teacher of English at the respondents’ school was interviewed to elicit teaching methodology and how they use the language diversity in the classroom when teaching prepositions. Even though it was hypothesised that negative language transfer was a factor, the analysis of the focus group shows that negative language transfer from Swedish did not inhibit the focus group’s ability to choose prepositions compared to the control group in the given context. In contrast, positive transfer from Swedish as an L1 contributed to a substantial increase in success rate. However, no clear connection could be made to teaching methodology as the interviewed teacher did not have any specific method for dealing with prepositions and mainly treated teaching prepositions implicitly. Furthermore, the interviewed teacher did not use language diversity in classroom as a tool for learning.

This essay compares the public debate in Sweden 1992 caused by the reforms introduced by the then government giving parents a free choice of schools for their children with the current debate in France about proposals for a similar law there. The study concentrates on the positions taken by the teachers trade unions, in Sweden Lärarförbundet and Lärarnas Riksförbund (LR) and in France SGEN-CFDT. To do so it is necessary also to study the arguments given for and against the proposals by the political parties. Some of the differences between the debates can be attributed to different circumstances. The Swedish reform was related to the opening up of possibilities to run private schools, which previously had been rare in Sweden. The French debate has no such connections. The private schools, mostly Catholic, have a very stable share of the students and no side is openly arguing for a change of any sort. Other differences depend on the French adversity to liberalism, almost always conflated with neo-liberalism which makes market-oriented arguments much less common in French public debate. Among the trade unions the big difference is between the two Swedish organisations, LR was overall positive to the proposals while Lärarförbundet opposed them. In France SGEN-CFDT takes a position strikingly similar to Lärarförbundets in Sweden 1992 seeing free choice as undermining the idea of a school system for all. In Sweden that idea is seen as a part of the welfare state, closely connected to the Social Democratic party. In France it is seen as a republican idea, connected to an idea of citizenship. The trade unions of the teachers in both France and Sweden are also in similar positions as their role has become merely reactive. There seems to be little room left for them to formulate policy and push the educational systems in their prefered directions.

The divided Swedish subject – a comparison of the curriculums in Swedish and Swedish as a second language The aim of this essay is to examine and appose the curriculums of the school subjects Swedish and Swedish as a second language in upper secondary school in relation to prevalent second language development research and didactics. My theoretical framework consists of discourse theory and the socio-cultural perspective on teaching and learning. The overall purpose of this essay is biramous and the study aims towards answering the following questions: 1. What didactic considerations are made in the two curriculums? And 2. In what ways is the curriculum in Swedish as a second language based on prevalent second language development research, and in what ways is it not? To answer these questions I have chosen discursive analysis as my main method to examine and compare the curriculums in order to delineate what implications its language use and goal formulations has for the perception of both student groups and in turn the possible quality of their language education. Through my analysis I have found that the curriculum for Swedish as a second language have some bearing in second language research, but that the differences between the two subjects’ curriculums as a whole lack feasible reasoning. The differences in language use and goal formulations between the two curriculums comes across as a result of both fleeting reasoning as well as fleeting judgement in relation to didactics and second language education. My proposition is to have a united Swedish subject for the currently existing student groups with the possibility of a new version of Swedish as a second language intended solely as a temporary educational form for newly immigrated students to assist their early Swedish acquisition.