Practice of mathematical proof increase the understanding of mathematics anddevelop creativity skills, problem solving, communication, logical thinking andreasoning which are all important tools not only within the subject of mathematicsbut also important tools for the society in which we are living. The aim of this projectwas to investigate whether it is accurate that proof and proving has a subordinate rolein mathematic education in the upper secondary school in Sweden. This was done byconstructing of a digital survey that was sent to approximately 100 practicingmathematics teachers in a normal size city located in the middle of Sweden. Theresults of the survey show that the teachers consider themselves comfortable withtheir own skills in teaching proof. Paradoxically, the results also show that there is alack of teaching of proof and proving in the upper secondary school, although the newcurriculum puts more focus on proof and proving. / Matematiska bevis ger eleven en ökad förståelse för matematiken och utvecklarförmågor som kreativitet, problemlösning, kommunikation, logiskt tänkande ochresonemang, vilka alla är viktiga även utanför matematiken och för det samhälle vilever i. Syftet med detta arbete var att undersöka om det stämmer att bevis ochbevisföring har en underordnad roll i matematikundervisningen i den svenskagymnasieskolan vilket gjordes med hjälp av en enkät som skickades digitalt till cirka100 gymnasiematematiklärare i en medelstor stad i Mellansverige. Det visade sig attlärarna själva anser sig tillräckligt kunniga för att undervisa i bevis men det förefallerinte som att undervisningen är tillräcklig trots att dagens läroplaner sätter bevis istörre fokus än tidigare.

This litterature study is an analysis of the concept of tolerance, as it is a central value in the curriculum for the Swedish upper secondary school (Gy11) and therefore an important part of interpreting the specific curriculum for religious studies. The scientific approach is drawn from curriculum theory and the method of analysis is hermeneutic. Four different understandings of the concept are presented from academic literary sources. To further problematize the understandings of the concept, critique against a ”pedagogy of tolerance” as expressed by normcritical pedagogical writers and scholars is presented and analyzed. Implications regarding didactical practice are discussed in the light of previous analysis. Two main criteria for tolerance were found in all four understandings. These criterias outline the necessary components of an act of tolerance. The critique mainly focuses on said act, as it is an act of power and differentiation. This implies the didactical importance of awareness regarding the complexity of an act of tolerance.

Den här uppsatsen studerar läroböcker anpassade för gymnasieskolans grundkurser i samhällskunskap för att undersöka läroböckernas beskrivning av politiskt deltagande. Syftet är att undersöka om läroböckerna uppmuntrar till politiskt deltagande. Ytterligare syften är att undersöka om läroböckerna fokuserar på någon form av det politiska deltagandet samt om det finns någon skillnad mellan läroböckerna för de praktiska- respektive de teoretiska programmen. Utifrån tidigare forskning och teori skapades ett analysschema. Analysschemat innehåller fyra fält: parlamentariskt kollektivt politiskt deltagande, parlamentariskt individuellt politiskt deltagande, utomparlamentariskt kollektivt politiskt deltagande samt individuellt utomparlamentariskt deltagande. Med hjälp av de fyra fälten har en kvalitativ innehållsanalys genomförts. Läroböckerna, två för det praktiska programmet och två för det teoretiska programmet, har därefter analyserats var för sig och slutligen jämförts. Resultatet visar att läroböckerna i stor utsträckning uppmuntrar till politiskt deltagande. Ytterligare resultat visar att läroböckerna har ett kollektivt och parlamentariskt fokus på politiskt deltagande. Dessutom visade analysen att läroböckerna för de praktiska programmen presenterade en mer nyanserad bild av politiskt deltagande än vad läroböckerna på de teoretiska programmen gjorde. Dock var resultatet att samtliga läroböckerna presenterade en relativt ensidig bild av politiskt deltagande. / This paper is examining the textbooks adapted for the basic courses in social studies in Swedish upper secondary school, in order to examine the descriptions of political participation. The aim is to investigate if the textbooks encourage political participation. Additional aims are to investigate whether the textbooks focus on some form of political participation, and if there is any difference between the textbooks for the practical and the theoretical programs. Previous research and theory generated in an analytical model. The analytical model contains four fields: parliamentary collective political participation, parliamentary individual political participation, non-parliamentary collective political participation and individual non-parliamentary participation. Based on the four fields, a qualitative content-analysis has been conducted. The textbooks, two for the practical program and two for the theoretical program, have subsequently been analyzed separately and finally compared. The result shows that the textbooks largely encourage political participation. Further results show that the textbooks have a collective and parliamentary focus on political participation. Additionally, the analysis showed that the textbooks for the practical programs presented a more nuanced view of political participation than the textbooks on the theoretical programs did. However, the result was that all the textbooks presented a relatively narrow view on political participation.

The aim of this study is to acquire knowledge regarding democratic education in upper secondary school programmes with different gender and social class profiles. It covers the teaching in and about democracy, pupils’ power-positions and their attempts to affect routine school activities. A particular focus of attention was processes of influence, through which the pupils themselves pursue issues in school. The analysis is based on theories and previous research focused on gender and class perspectives of fostering democracy. Basil Bernstein’s theories regarding power, control and pedagogic codes, in combination with feminist theories (principally those of Arnot, Reay, Skeggs, Gordon and Walkerdine), form the basis of the theoretical framework. Ethnographic methods have been applied, including participatory observations, conversations, interviews, and analysis of relevant documents over one academic year. Two Swedish upper secondary school classes were followed: one from the vocational Child and Recreation Programme and one from the academic Natural Science Programme. Teaching students about democracy and invitations for them to exert influence appeared generally to be unplanned and were marginalised in school. The few invitations that occurred had an individual stamp and focused on pupils’ choices, responsibilities and duties, rather than on their rights in school. Democracy was presented in the form of facts about formal democracy and formal participation in democracy in the future, while a more critical   attitude and possible influence strategies for youths were marginalised. Pupils in both classes wished and attempted to influence teaching, primarily through informal means. There were, however, significant differences between the classes in what they were able to influence. Analysis of pupils’ voices in relation to the pedagogic context revealed that the power relationships in these influence processes depend partly on the focal academic subject. More   importantly, they also differ between the upper secondary school programs, which differ in strength of classification (sensu Bernstein), demands, pace and difficulty levels. These   differences are related, in turn, to whether the programmes are intended to prepare the pupils for higher education and/or a vocation after school. Generally, the Child and Recreation pupils exerted influence more successfully when they wished to reduce the pace and difficulty of lessons than when they wished to get more out of their education, while the opposite applied to the Natural Science class. Who had influence over what was principally   related to the programmes’ gender and class profiles and the pupils’ expected positions in society. / Ett aktivt medborgarskap? Om demokratifostran i gymnasieskolan

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the use of literature within the Swedish Upper Secondary EFL-classroom from the students’ perspective. How do the students in the study relate to literature and its use to enhance and enable their communicative competence and cultural understanding? Also, how do their answers compare with their teacher’s and the adult perspectives and findings from previous international research? The empirical data obtained from the study has been analysed from the perspectives of sociocultural and motivational theory, and the findings show that the participating students believe literature to be a good didactic tool to apply in the EFL-classroom, both in order to enhance their communicative competence and their cultural understanding. The students prefer to have a sociocultural approach to their literature-learning, with group-discussions of various sizes. The key for the students in this respect is interesting, relevant and engaging subject-matter, as well as a positive and motivational teacher. The responses given by the students correlate with those given by their teacher as well as previous international research. The students regard literature as a way of gaining new perspectives, as well as experiencing language in use. Where they diverge somewhat from the international research is in regard to literature’s use for enhancing their competence to speak in class, and that some students seem to think that communication and cultural understanding are separable. Future studies within this field might include the conducting of a larger and more in-depth survey regarding the students’ ideas about literature, culture and communication. Why do so many of the student respondents neither agree nor disagree with the statement concerning communication and cultural understanding being inseparable? This can be an important issue to investigate in today’s global climate of cross-cultural and intercultural experiences, especially in view of the political climate of diverse attitudes towards refugees, immigrants and emigration

This study investigates the syntactic complexity of the example texts used as guides forassessment in the national tests of the Swedish upper secondary school courses English 5 andEnglish 6. It is guided by two research questions: (1) Is there a progression of increasedcomplexity between the grades assigned to the example texts, and, if so, is any specificmeasure of syntactic complexity more strongly linked to a higher grade than the rest? (2) Isthere a progression of increased complexity between the two courses, and, if so, how doesthis progression manifest itself? A set of 14 quantitative measures of syntactic complexity asidentified by the L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer (L2SCA) are examined to answer thesequestions. The majority of the differences between the grades and/or courses represented areshown to be statistically insignificant, and the few instances of statistical significance likelyoccurred either due to a small sample size or due to a questionable tendency of L2SCA whendealing with run-on sentences. In the end, syntactic complexity as expressed through the 14measures seems to be a poor indicator of why a text received a certain grade in either of thetwo represented courses.

Recent numbers on English Proficiency Index (2018) indicate that Sweden is in the lead ofEnglish proficiency, whereas Turkey is lagging far behind. Vocabulary plays a vital role inlanguage learning, and research confirms that learners become more confident and proficientusers of English when they receive enough support to expand their word knowledge. Thiscomparative study is twofold: one aspect focuses on how the steering documents in Swedenand Turkey support integration of vocabulary teaching through a content analysis, and theother is on what teachers, in qualitative interviews, report they do to help their learnersincrease their vocabulary knowledge. Although Sweden is in the lead of proficiency, thesupport for vocabulary teaching in the syllabus is relatively absent, whereas the Turkishsyllabus puts an emphasis on teaching and learning words. Furthermore, Swedish and Turkishteachers incorporate vocabulary in their classrooms differently as a result of how theyinterpret what the respective syllabus require. However, neither of these syllabuses areexemplary in describing vocabulary teaching and learning, and one could argue for combiningthe approaches in the two syllabuses, which could perhaps lead to a decrease in the gapbetween “word poor” learners and “word rich” learners.

Läroplanen för gymnasiets Kemi 1 och Kemi 2 förespråkar elevplanerade laboratorieövningar. Men de nuvarande populära kurslitteratur som används för att undervisa Kemi 1 och Kemi 2 beskriver primärt bara elevlaboratorier med fullständiga instruktioner för eleverna att följa. Denna litteraturstudie listar och beskriver 15 undersökande elevaktiviteter för i Kemi 1 och Kemi 2. Beskrivningen fokuserar på elevaktivitet, förutsättningar och läranderesultat. Varje aktivitet hittades i en publicerad referentgranskad artikel. Dessa 15 elevaktiviteter kan sammanlagt användas till undervisning av 11 av de 19 screenade centrala innehåll från läroplanen för Kemi 1 och Kemi 2. / The state prescribed curriculum for the two chemistry courses Kemi 1 and Kemi 2 for Swedish upper secondary school, advocates student planned laboratory exercises. But the current popular course literature book systems used for teaching Kemi 1 and Kemi 2 primarily describe student laboratory exercises with complete step-by-step instructions for the students to follow. This literature study lists and describes 15 inquiry-based learning activities for students attending Kemi 1 and Kemi 2, the descriptions focus on student activity, preconditions, and learning outcome. Each activity was found in a published peer-reviewed article. Combined these 15 student activities can be used for teaching 11 out of the 19 screened core contents listed in the state prescribed curriculum for Kemi 1 and Kemi 2.

Research shows that there are several benefits that can be extracted from the usage of literature in EFL. The question is which benefits teachers tend to make use of in their classrooms. The present study set out to map upper secondary school teachers’ reflections on the topic of literature in EFL, in general as well as in relation to language learning. The three research questions were to find out (1) teachers’ views regarding opportunities as well as challenges of literature in the EFL classroom, (2) how EFL teachers reason around their own uses of literature in EFL, and lastly, (3) how EFL teachers reflect on literature in relation to language learning. The data was collected from semi-structured interviews with three teachers. The study found that, overall, the teachers viewed literature as an important part of EFL partly because it can be utilized to acquire tools for literary analysis, to learn about the world, to create a basis for discussion about difficult topics and lastly, to develop language proficiencies.

This is a qualitative interview study aiming to examine the concept of tolerance as it is a core value in the curriculum for the Swedish upper secondary school and high school. The concept of tolerance is linked to the subject of religious studies. A total of six teachers were interviewed regarding their understanding and interpretation of the concept, as well as its place in their teaching. The method of analysis was hermeneutic and the statements made by the teachers were further analyzed in the light of normcritical pedagogy and didactical awareness. The results show a diversified understanding of the concept, manifested in a broad scale of attitudes to it, ranging from negative to positive, though all were based on a reflective approach. This affected the teachers' tendency to include, or focus on, the concept of tolerance in their teaching, varying from active inclusion to exclusion. The discussion focuses on the differences and difficulties associated with acts of tolerance versus attitudes of tolerance. The teachers define religious studies as a subject with heavy focus on interpersonal relations. Acts of tolerance are therefore problematic as they are also acts of power between individuals and groups. This shows the didactical importance of discussing the concept of tolerance, mainly in relation to attitudes and acts, between teachers as well as in the classroom.