<p>Abstract</p><p>This thesis explores how secondary schoolteachers in Swedish, prioritise from the Swedish language history materials. The study includes interviews with two Swedish teachers and inquiries with students in two classes at the social science programme (third year). The student literature that is used has been analysed and the teaching is compared with the Swedish central teaching plan. The results show that the students are weak in placing language at different historical time periods and make conclusions of this. The results from both the inquiries and teaching contents disclose a general weakness as it comes to Swedish language history. The interviews points at the standardizing attitude towards the subject, from the teachers influence the size and the depth of teaching the students get in Swedish language history.</p>

<p>The purpose of this essay is to investigate different types of feedback and how they are used in schools, and to see which of them are preferred when it comes to error correction. Feedback is used in schools every day even though it is difficult to know if students really learn from it. Students tend to only glance briefly at the paper or test when it is returned and then throw it away. They are interested in how they scored but not really in how to improve their errors until next time. In this study, students wrote essays which were corrected with four different types of feedback and handed back to the students. The students got a chance to revise them and then the result was analyzed. The students were also given a questionnaire in order for me to find out what kind of feedback they liked the most and compare it to the result of the essay corrections. The different feedback types worked well with different students in general, although, underlining with description did not only work best, it was also chosen as the best type by most students. They seemed to think that this type was good for learning something from the feedback. Most students wanted to look for errors themselves instead of getting the correct answer from the teacher.</p>

The aim of this study is to explore how young people act and the organisation of school practice, and what possibilities they have of influencing the content and the forms practiced. The study focuses on how the pedagogic practice is organised in two classes in their first year of upper secondary school, one Social Science programme class and one Vehicle programme class. This embraces questions as: How, where, when and for what cause do students act to influence, and then with what result? Are students offered influence, and in that case which students? How does the organisation of and the content in the pedagogic practice prepare students to act in order to be able to exert influence in the future? These questions have been studied with focus on differences between the programmes with regard to social background and gender. The thesis has its theoretical base in Bernstein’s theory of pedagogy and code (1990, 2000), feminist perspectives (Arnot, 2006; Arnot &amp; Dillabough, 2000; Connell, 1987; Gordon, 2006; Gordon, Holland &amp; Lahelma, 2000) as well as theories of structuration (Giddens, 1984). The empirical material of the thesis was ethnographically produced during one school year, through classroom observations, individual interviews with students, teachers and head teachers, and the gathering of school and teaching material. The main results in the analysis are that actions taken to gain influence were rare, that the organisation of and the content in the pedagogic practice was mainly focused on students as becoming, i. e. it focused students possibilities to be able to influence in the future and not the present. Furthermore, changing of pedagogic content or pedagogic forms was dependent on students’ own actions.   There was a lack of teacher organisation to promote student influence. Finally, what was evaluated in the pedagogic practice, i.e. factual learning, did not promote student influence. The thesis demonstrates how pedagogic practice was gendered and classed, which had consequences for how students could influence and how students were prepared to influence in the future. Since the Social Science programme mostly attracts students from a middle-class background and the Vehicle programme those with a working-class background, the content in the programmes contributed to reproducing hierarchical social relations. The content for the Vehicle students proved to be simplified, personal and context dependent, whereas the content of the Social Science programme was more advanced, general and context independent, knowledge which, in argumentation for influence, is usually highly valued. In previous research, working class masculinities have often been associated with opposition towards study-oriented   subjects.   However, the current  study indicates that there is an interest in studying Swedish, English and maths. The students argued that it was necessary for future employment, and that the Vehicle industry is now asking for this kind of knowledge.

The overall aim of this study is to investigate the attitudes of teachers of English and Modern languages towards assessment and the grading process. The inspiration comes from the notion that grades are not set on an equivalent basis in upper secondary schools. The syllabi for the subjects are formulated in a way that enables interpretation, and they have been constructed this way in order for the goals to be re-written on a local basis to better suit the needs of the specific students. This step in the process, formulating a local work plan from the national syllabus, is however often omitted and many teachers have no local work plan to base their teaching on and instead use the generalized syllabi as a base, which in turn are interpreted subjectively. This leads to the situation where there is a lack of equivalence in both education and assessment. In anticipation of the new Education Act including new syllabi and grading criteria teachers have also been asked their opinions and expectations on these, and if they think things will change. The results and analysis conclude that the only way equivalence in grading can be reached is through extensive cooperation between teachers, which would lead to greater objectivity.

This study was focused on understanding the students and parents of high school who how to face school accountability, including attitude, approaches and context index. The research process included literature review and questionnaire survey. The population of this study was the high school students and parents across Southern Taiwan, Kaohsiung area, 751 students and 443 parents¡¦ questionnaires were returned. The data was analyzed through item analysis, explore factor analysis, reliability analysis, descriptive statistic, one-way ANOVA, two-way ANOVA, multipack regression. The findings of the study were as follows: A. There are six types of school accountability approaches in students and parents, they are: respond to government, school chose, professional and democratic teaching, professional school administration, school route for retreat and respond to politician. B. There are six types of school accountability contexts in students and parents, they are: school equipments, administrational strategies, students¡¦ learning achievements, teaching and learning efficiency, origin and vent of students, percentage of satisfaction with students and parents. C. High school students and parents show high and positive attitude toward school accountability, especially in parents are higher then students. D. Different backgrounds of students and parents affect to school accountability attitude, approach and context index. E. The professional school administration affect students to school accountability attitude deeply; the respond to government approach, teaching and learning efficiency approach, and origin and vent of students affect parents to school accountability attitude deeply. The suggestions of the study for Taiwan policymakers were as follows: A. Promoting school accountability system can help parents and students to choose school. B. Promoting school accountability should be satisfied to any sort of school stakeholders¡¦ needs. C. School accountability should run in circle that was including in input, process, output and feedback. D. Different schools should be evaluated by different criterion.

<p>The essay has been written in order to give a picture of culture teaching within the subject of English in upper secondary schools in Sweden. Although earlier research within this field is still not very extensive, a theoretical framework has been based on the results available and the syllabuses for the subject of English in the upper secondary school. A questionnaire with open question has been used as a tool for collecting data. The main focus is put on analyzing the contents of and ways in which teachers deal with cultural studies, considering the goals in the syllabuses. The results support the results of previous scientific investigations concerning culture studies in Swedish schools and show that culture teaching is often dealt with in the traditional ways where culture is viewed mainly as customs, traditions and history of the target language country, and where teachers mainly choose cultural elements from the UK and the US and seldom from other English speaking countries.</p><p>Various factors that influence teachers choices in their cultural studies are examined and alternative changes considering the teaching methods, for example ethnographic training, are proposed. The uncertainty about how to approach and what to include in cultural studies is reflected in the testing of students on cultural issues. The survey shows that half the respondents do not test their pupils on culture at all. The conclusion, based on the results of this survey and the previous research, is that no great changes have taken place within this field over the last decade and that further continuous study of culture teaching is recommended.</p>

This project began with the basic preconception that there is a growing resistance towards reading among students and this has been partially proved correct. The research questions were: In upper secondary education, what is it that encourages or hinders the students’ incentives for reading? What effect does this have on the subsequent teaching of fictional texts? The aim of this investigation was to examine attitudes on reading among students in upper secondary education and how these attitudes affect the teaching of fictional texts. The project’s research material consists of a qualitative interview with a practising teacher, and a student questionnaire which was answered by two of the teacher’s classes; one studying the natural science programme, the other studying a vocational, practically oriented programme.  The overall majority of students recognise the importance of reading in their lives, seeing it as an activity that helps them understand themselves and the world. The importance of ”contact points” within the texts is vital for encouraging reading, yet finding texts which have a universal appeal proves to be an impossible task. Reading is seen by the students and the teacher as an activity that contributes to the students’ all-round education, although the teacher does not believe that most of his students truly understand this. A key factor which hinders reading incentives is time. Students grapple with a heavy workload of schoolwork and reading is not prioritised. Film is seen as an effective ”way in” to reading as many students state a preference for films over books, which is largely recognised by the teacher. Film is used as a supplement to the teaching of fiction and is found by the teacher to be a successful method. School texts are invariably described as boring on account of the difficulties that students have engaging and relating with them, yet many texts are also described in equal measure as exciting or interesting. Reading proves to be more popular among the natural science class, yet despite some very negative attitudes in the vocational class, there are still a number of encouragingly positive ones.

Gender plays an important role in all facets of human life and although great strides have been made against the gender discrimination, still the progress is gradual and slow. More specifically, in the field of educational management and leadership women’s attempt to gain equal groundwork with men is quite evident but the former still face gender related barriers that hamper their progress. The current research focuses on investigating the role and perceptions of women principals in the field of educational management and leadership and on drawing comparisons between their role in upper secondary education in Greece and Sweden. Therefore, the investigation takes place in the municipality of Thessaloniki and Stockholm with female principals from upper secondary schools to take part in the study. Ten from each city respond to the questionnaire, which is specially designed in their native language. The present findings provide an insight about women’s motivation to become upper secondary school principals, the reasons for their under-representation, the variations in managerial qualities and styles as part of their feminine identity, the difficulties they face towards identifying a position and ways to augment their involvement in the field. Drawing on the evidence of the survey conducted in Thessaloniki, despite the great progress that has been achieved in Greece in the field of educational management and leadership in terms of gender, women are greatly under-represented in upper secondary school management positions and significantly face sociocultural constraints and discrimination in their career path. However, the results of the study in Stockholm disclose that women progressively possess the managerial field in education currently outnumbering their male superintendents.

The present licentiate thesis comprises a review of Swedish and Anglo-Saxon literature on excursions and their history, followed by a study on three one-day excursions and two neighbourhood excursions, conducted by pupils at upper secondary school. The primary purpose of the thesis was to highlight the development of excursion procedures, aiming at increasing the interest of the pupils, improving their inner motivation, but also to develop the learning process. Thus, the work also attempted to identify learning models and excursion methods, furnishing pupils with a positive attitude during excursions and field studies. Article no 1 consists of a survey of Swedish (particularly in Geographical Notices) and Anglo-Saxon literature, describing and discussing how the excursion procedures have been developed, influenced, and designed. Excursions became a practiced teaching method at the beginning of the last century. The urbanization and instigation of a public school are described as incitements for arranging excursions. British as well as Swedish teaching authorities emphasized excursions in school activities in different curricula or school documents. The present study shows that arranging excursions and other activities in the field was in the interests of the teaching authorities and a number of different society instances. Excursion methods and their extent and incorporation into the school activities have been amply discussed in the excursion literature. Qualitative interviews with 50 pupils from five upper secondary schools were conducted after excursions. Observations were carried out during four of these excursions. Article II comprises one-day excursions in geography or biology, conducted by pupils in the social and natural science programs at three upper secondary schools. The methods applied in this study were group interviews and observations during two of the excursions. Two neighbourhood excursions in geography and science, performed by two upper secondary schools, were investigated, and form the foundation for article II. The neighbourhood excursions were examined by observations, 25 individual interviews, and a smaller questionnaire. The interviews generated information about how pupils perceive, experience, and interpret the applied excursion methods. Pupils have in interviews and in their questionnaire answers reported their motivation, which ranged from non-existent to a deep inner motivation. Preparations were identified as a key factor for pupils as well as teachers. The observations yielded knowledge about the focus of pupils, their attitudes and concentration level, and also how they use digital media in the field. Furthermore, the relevance of location, along with pupils’ comprehensions and experiences, created an applicable backdrop for future excursions. Careful selection of excursion locations, where pupils are able to discern correlations, was identified as important to their capability of interpreting their observations, which they afterwards might be able to transform into knowledge, inner motivation, or even flow.

The aim of this study is to analyse how mathematical problem solving (MPS) is represented in mathematical textbooks for Swedish upper secondary school. The analysis comprises dominating Swedish textbook series, and relates to uncovering a) the quantity of tasks that are actually mathematical problems (MPs), b) their location in the chapter, c) their difficulty level, and d) their context. Based on an analysis of 5,722 tasks from the area of calculus, it is concluded that the textbooks themselves contain very few tasks that can be defined as MPs, and that those that are MPs are found at the end of a chapter at the most difficult level, and are presented in a pure mathematical context. Implications are discussed.