<p>During the Cold War, Norway was a member of NATO, Sweden was neutral but depended on Western support in the event of a crisis, while Finland's foreign policy priority was to win and retain the Soviet Union's confidence. The purpose of the thesis is to study whether the three small states' different foreign policy choices had consequences for the ways in which the Soviet Union and the USA were depicted in school textbooks for history, geography, and social sciences in the period 1930 to 2004. To this end, a theory derived from small states' strategies to maintain their independence was applied to textbook production. </p><p>The study demonstrates that there was a link between small state foreign policy and textbooks' accounts of the USA and Soviet Union. Swedish and Norwegian textbooks portray international conflicts from a legalistic perspective, taking the part of small states exposed to superpower aggression such as Vietnam and Afghanistan. In Finnish textbooks, however, an interest in defending small state's rights yielded to the need to demonstrate their goodwill towards the Soviet Union, which was described in far less critical terms than in Swedish and Norwegian textbooks. In time, in the name of neutrality, depictions of the USA also became increasingly uncritical.</p><p>All three Nordic states had government authorities charged with inspecting and approving school textbooks. Foreign policy's chief influence on textbooks was not effected by direct oversight, however; instead, it was established indirectly by means of the social climate, which determined what was considered politically correct in the three countries, and it was to this that the textbooks' authors adapted their work. </p><p>Textbooks are often said to be conservative and slow to change, but the thesis shows that in parts they were politically sensitive, rapidly adapting to changes in what society held to be politically correct.</p>

Research has shown that students achieved higher standardized test scores in mathematics and gained more positive attitudes towards mathematics after learning from reform curricula. Because these studies involve actual students and teachers, there are classroom variables that are involved in these findings (Silver and Stein, 1996; Stein et al., 1996). To understand how much these curricula by themselves contribute to higher test scores, I have studied the cognitive demand of tasks in two traditional and two reform curricula. This work required the creation of a scale to categorize tasks based on their level of cognitive demand. This scale relates to those by Stein, Schoenfeld, and Bloom. Based on this task analysis, I have found that more tasks in the reform curricula require higher cognitive demand than tasks in the traditional curricula. These findings confirm other results that posing tasks with higher cognitive demand to students can lead to higher student achievement.

Η παρούσα εργασία επιδιώκει να παρουσιάσει τον τρόπο με τον οποίο παρουσιάζονται οι Έλληνες και οι άλλοι λαοί στα σχολικά βιβλία Ιστορίας της Γ' Λυκείου από το 1965 έως σήμερα. Στόχος είναι να ανιχνευθεί ο τρόπος με τον οποίο κατασκευάζονται η ιστορική μνήμη και η εθνική ταυτότητα, σκιαγραφώντας έτσι την αντίληψη που είναι πιθανό να διαμορφώσουν οι μελλοντικοί πολίτες για τον εθνικό τους «εαυτό» (national ‘‘self’’) αλλά και για τους γείτονες λαούς, δηλαδή τον εθνικό «άλλο» (national ‘‘other’’).Η εργασία χωρίζεται σε δύο μέρη, το θεωρητικό και το ερευνητικό. Στο πρώτο μέρος γίνεται λόγος για το Σχολικό Εγχειρίδιο (Textbook), για τη Διεθνή Έρευνα των Διδακτικών Εγχειριδίων (International Textbook Research) αλλά και για το ρόλο της εικονογράφησης (the role of Textbook Pictures).Στο δεύτερο μέρος γίνεται η παρουσίαση της έρευνας των σχολικών βιβλίων Ιστορίας , τόσο ως προς το κείμενο όσο και ως προς το περικείμενο. Η παρουσίαση ακολουθεί την πορεία της ποιοτικής ανάλυσης περιεχομένου (qualitative content analysis), που επιλέχθηκε ως ερευνητική μέθοδος. / The current essay focuses on the way Greeks and the other nations are presented in the new textbooks of History in High school at the period 1695 to 2007. The purpose of the author is to enlight the way the historic memory and the national identity are shaped, so that it will be understood –up to a point- what the future Greeks will think about their ‘self’ and the other nations due to the books.The essay is separated in two parts. In the first part, the basic relevant theory and terminology are presented. In particular, the author is referring to Textbooks, to International Textbook Research and to the role of Textbook Pictures.In the second part, the analysis of the textbooks and their pictures is presented according to the process of the qualitative content analysis that had been chosen as the method of analysis.

1 Solving strategies of word problems depending on the context topicality ABSTRACT The thesis deals with word problems solvable by linear equations. The aim of the work is to show if the context, on which the word problem depends, influences how pupils participating in the research solve it and verify if word problem phrasing and modern language usage help pupils solve the word problem. It is accomplished by assigning pupils a set of varied word problems and assessing their solutions. More results were gained by assessing questionnaires related to the context of the word problems being calculated. The second aim of the thesis is to explain various definitions of word problems, putting the term into the context of school mathematics and a brief summary of the historical development of mathematics focusing on word problems. The work consists of three parts. In the first part, problems and word problems are defined and it is shown how word problems are included in the Framework educational programme. Word problems are put into historical context. The second part shows the conception of motion word problems, word problems on joint work and word problems on dividing a whole into parts in the present-day mathematical textbooks in the second stage of elementary schools and in the lower classes of secondary grammar...

The presented thesis focuses on the analysis of selected Czech for foreigners textbooks in terms of socio-cultural competence. In the first three chapters the term of socio-cultural competence is explained and its definition in the Common European Framework of Reference and in the descriptions of reference levels A1, A2, B1 and B2 for Czech is examined. Chapter four deals with a chosen research method - criteria catalogue. In chapter five selected textbooks (Česky, prosím I, Čeština pro cizince: Úroveň B1, Čeština pro cizince: Úroveň B2, Čeština pro středně a více pokročilé, Čeština pro život, Čeština pro život 2, Mluvme česky) are analyzed separately and in chapter six individual results of previous examinations are compared with regard to how the publications contribute to the development of socio-cultural competence of students. 1

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