This work by Hafiz, A. A & Lagerstedt, J. (2023). Specialdidactic instruments and strategies for inclusive religious education - High school teachers' and upper secondary school teachers' way of working with all students as well as students with extra support and special needs. Instutionen för Samhälle, kultur och identitet, Fakulteten för Lärande och samhälle, Malmö universitet, is part of a master's degree in subject didactics. The concept of special didactics used here in this essay has its background in the continental German tradition. The purpose of this master's thesis is to investigate the special didactic instruments and strategies that teachers of religious studies use in their work for increased inclusion. The aim is to gather valuable knowledge about how experienced teachers of religious education work when they plan their materials and teach in matters relating to students' life issues and identity, as well as how they work with extra adaptations and special support.  The research questions are as follows: What special didactic instruments and strategies do teachers in primary and secondary schools, teaching religious education, use in their subject planning for increased inclusion? What problems and opportunities do teachers experience when planning and working towards increased inclusion?  The theoretical perspective of this thesis is based on a phenomenological theory of knowledge. There are four special education perspectives, all of which were used in the analysis to highlight different definitions of inclusion. Students' identities are explained and theorized as the foundation for inclusion. A religious didactic model is exemplified to illustrate where in the planning process students can be included. Since there is not enough research on special didactics, the various theoretical special education perspectives were used together with subject didactic perspectives to create special didactic analysis methods.  The study's methodology is based on both exploratory researches to gather extensive knowledge and a case study approach to investigate more detailed information on how teachers work with inclusion in their planning. To obtain empirical material and collect the right data, five teachers working in different primary and secondary schools in Sweden were interviewed.  The results show that the teachers agree that it is difficult to include students both physically and socially. Teachers have different opinions about the concept of inclusion and work with inclusion in didactic contexts in different ways, adapted to the situation. Instruments and strategies are adapted to students in different ways, with some teachers placing more emphasis on language and others placing more emphasis on questions about the student's identity. Collaboration between teachers, student health services, and school management for the student's best interest occurs, but a quick assessment of the student's situation is always better than a late assessment discovered later. Regarding the subject of religious studies, teachers work to get closer to students' own life questions, worldviews, and identities, adapted to the classroom environment and the students.

Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur lärare i ämnet idrott och hälsa på högstadiet och gymnasiet upplever arbetet med dokumentation inför bedömning. Vidare vill studien svara på frågor som behandlar lärarnas syn på hur, vad och varför dokumentationen sker samt hur lärarna upplever den egna dokumentationspraktiken och hur denna påverkas av yttre faktorer. Studien har en kvalitativ ansats där mixed methods har använts då både enkäter och intervjuer har genomförts. Urvalet till enkäterna gjordes genom ett kriteriebaserat urval och besvarades av 27 respondenter och urvalet för intervjuerna gjordes genom ett bekvämlighetsurval vilket resulterade i att fem lärare intervjuades. Arbetets teoretiska perpektiv grundas i läroplansteori där bernsteins teori om pedagogic device samt Dahllöfs och Lundgrens ramfaktorteorin har använts för analysen. Studiens resultat visar att lärare i idrott och hälsa upplever sin okumentationspraktik som problematisk, där en av de främsta nackdelarna som framkom var bristen på tid på grund av dubbelarbete på mikronivå samt bristande organisation på makronivå. Slutligen framkom vikten av att effektivisera dokumentationspraktiken för lärare i ämnet idrott och hälsa för att förbättra deras profession som lärare. / The purpose of this study is to explore how teachers in the field of physical education and health at secondary school and upper secondary school perceive their work with documentation for assessment. Further, the study aims to answer questions regarding the teachers' view on how, what, and why documentation takes place, as well as how teachers perceive their own documentation practice and how it is affected by external factors. The study has a qualitative approach where mixed methods have been applied, incorporating both questionnaires and interviews. The selection for the questionnaires was made through a criterion-based selection and were answered by 27 respondents, while the selection for the interviews was made through a convenience sample, resulting in five teachers being interviewed. The theoretical perspective of the work is grounded in curriculum theory, where Bernstein's theory of pedagogic device and Dahllöf's and Lundgren's frame factor theory have been used for the analysis. The study's findings indicate that there is a problem in how physical education and health teachers perceive their documentation practice, with one of the main disadvantages being the lack of time due to duplicative work at the micro level and insufficient organization at the macro level. Finally, the importance of streamlining the documentation practice for teachers in physical education and health was highlighted in order to improve their professional role as teachers.

The results for the Swedish children and adolelscents in International surveys of literacy has since 2009 indicated a decrease. The aim of this thesis is to examine if there is a correlation between the education achievement and the level of reading comprehension for students at the upper secondary school. Vocational programmes and programmes preparing for higher education are compared. The scores and marks of two different reading comprehension tests and the average score for 58 students from a public upper secondary school has been studied and compared. The results shows development for students with a weak reading comprehension on both programmes and comparative good study achievments. Students with the highest measured reading comprehension shows higher study achievements but with an overall lesser impact in the vocational programmes compared to the programmes preparing for higher studies. There is no significant level difference in grades between the vocational compared to the theoretical courses. The reading test indicates to a greater extent accordance with the study achievement compared with the national exam. The existing differences between the reading test and the national exam may be explained by the elements of open answers in the national exam. The study indicates that girls at the programmes preparing for higher education with weak reading comprehension develops more and achieve higher results compared to the boys in the same group.

Abstract This study investigates Swedish upper-level pupils’ attitudes to grammar and grammar education. The study aims to explain what the pupils believe constitutes grammar and their views of its usability as well as attitudes towards grammar education. The research method is qualitative interviews with seven pupils from a school in Sweden. The theoretical framework combines grammar and sociolinguistics. The results indicate that the pupils associate grammar with terminology which has no connection to their own language usage. Therefore, they have a hard time seeing the use of grammar. Furthermore, the pupils describe different types of grammar usage depending on context. They use one kind of grammar in formal contexts and another is used informally and their attitude towards them differs. The pupils regard the informal grammar as useable and permissive and the formal usage as more correct and standardising. Regarding grammar education, the results show that the pupils mainly have encountered isolated grammar education although they indicate signs of integrated education where the grammar is incorporated in writing tasks. In accordance with other research results, the pupils’ attitudes towards integrated grammar education is more positive than when grammar is taught as an isolated element. The study also indicates that the pupils are more likely to find grammar useful when integrated with writing tasks as it allows them to see their knowledge instantly.

Dyslexia is a widely known disorder that impairs the diagnosed students’ literacy in multiple ways. There is a lot of research done on how dyslexia hinders literacy skills in a person's first language; however, not as much research has been done on how the disorder affects the reading skills in English as a second language (ESL). The purpose and aim of the literature review is to examine and evaluate how dyslexia affects the reading skills and reading comprehension, and to explore what pedagogical tools that are available to better facilitate reading skills for dyslexic students in ESL. The method used for conducting this literature review was through searching peer-reviewed scientific articles in two separate databases. Furthermore, the results showed that dyslexic students’ reading skills were impaired by poor working memory and poor phonological awareness. Nevertheless, the results also indicated that there are several pedagogical tools available, such as computer-based instruction for example, in order to aid dyslexic students in developing their reading skills in ESL. Consequently, the findings of this literature review coincided with the Swedish curriculum and the Swedish syllabus for the English courses in the upper secondary school concerning using various teaching strategies and pedagogical tools in the teaching of ESL. The almost certain inevitability of teaching dyslexic students in ESL in the future profession as an ESL teacher further validates and amplifies the importance of this study.

Abstract Task-Based Language Teaching has long been a method for education in different subjects. This study investigates the use of Task-Based Language teaching regarding vocabulary acquisition in English upper secondary/high school students. Through the use of a database, multiple scientific studies and research papers on vocabulary acquisition through TBLT have been included. This study contains the results of the use of TBL through similar teaching methods with the focus on vocabulary development in the L2 classroom. The findings show that studies have different results regarding what tasks to include but present a similar conclusion regarding what method to use; TBLT. The results also show that regardless of what task is used, communication could be beneficial and even played a big role in multiple studies where it increased students vocabulary acquisition. The conclusion of our study suggests that TBLT is an efficient method for developing vocabulary acquisition in upper secondary and high school students. All research papers analysed concluded that TBL and TBLT can be used as means for motivating students which aided the task engagement, thus helping develop their vocabulary acquisition.

Mental health is an important resource for a successful and developing athleticcareer (Schinke et al., 2018), which also results in better performance (Henriksen et al.,2019). Commitment to a dual career (DC) seems to be beneficial to the athlete inrelation to several aspects (Aquilina, 2013; Stambulova et al., 2015; Henriksen et al.,2020). A DC can also bring several challenges for a student-athlete (Brown et al., 2015;Stambulova et al., 2015; Linnér, Stambulova & Ziegert, 2021), which could contributeto mental illness instead (Stambulova et al., 2020). Therefore, the aim of this study wasto examine which DC-experiences predict mental health in student-athletes at uppersecondary school in sport. 405 student-athletes participated in this study, 141 women,259 men and 5 participants who identified themselves as neither male nor female. Allparticipants combined studies with sports and were between 15–19 years old (M=16.8;SD=3.3). Data was collected via web survey. Two multiple regressions analysis were conducted. The result of this study shows that DC-experiences such as DC-support, DC-obstacles, DC-competence, and DC-benefits predict mental health. In conclusion, student athletes who have more DC-support, DC-benefits, obtain DC-competencies and have fewer obstacles in their DC, maintain DC-balance and therefore seem to experience better mental health. / Mental hälsa är en viktig resurs för en framgångsrik och utvecklande idrottskarriär (Schinke et al., 2018), vilket även genererar en bättre prestation (Henriksen et al., 2019). Satsning på en dubbel karriär (DK) verkar gynnsamt för idrottaren utifrån flera aspekter (Aquilina, 2013; Stambulova et al., 2015; Henriksen et al., 2020). En dubbel karriär kan även medföra flera utmaningar för en idrottselev (Brown et al., 2015; Stambulova et al.,2015; Linnér, Stambulova & Ziegert, 2021), vilket kan bidra till mental ohälsa (Stambulova et al., 2020). Därav syftar denna studie till att undersöka vilka DK-upplevelser som predicerar mental hälsa hos idrottselever på gymnasienivå. I studien deltog 405 idrottselever, varav 141 kvinnor, 259 män och 5 individer som identifieradesig som varken man eller kvinna. Samtliga deltagare kombinerade studier med idrottoch var mellan 15–19 år (M=16.8; SD=3.3). Datainsamlingen genomfördes via webbenkäter och därefter utfördes två multipla regressionsanalyser. Resultatet indikerarpå att DK-upplevelser såsom DK-stöd, DK-hinder, DK-kompetenser samt DK-fördelar predicerar mental hälsa. Sammanfattningsvis verkar idrottselever som upplever DK-stöd, DK-fördelar, besitter DK-kompetenser och upplever färre hinder i sin DK, kan upprätthålla DK-balans och därmed erfara en bättre mental hälsa.

This essay analyses John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars (2012) with a theoretical approach of reader-response theory to show how the potential interpretations of the gaps in the novel make it a relevant choice of literary work for EFL education. The essay also examines whether the concept of gaps can be used as a tool in literary analysis. The concept of gaps stem from Wolfgang Iser’s ideas on the individual reader, which in turn is one of the perspectives, together with Stanley Fish’s interpretative communities, from which the gaps found in The Fault in Our Stars are analysed. The results are connected to a list of criteria, created by applying the criteria of English syllabuses for upper secondary school by the Swedish National Agency for Education to a revised version of Janice Bland’s list of what constitutes a good literary work for the classroom. The result is that The Fault in Our Stars covers difficult and relatable topics and emotions, which enables productive discussions that challenge students’ world views and help develop their interpretative skills. The findings also show that the novel bears literary complexity, with its prevalent use of metaphors and similes, as well as clear intertextuality with typically canonical works. The analysis also shows how the concept of gaps are an effective tool for interpretation in literary analysis. In conclusion, The Fault in Our Stars is a suitable and comprehensive choice of YA literature in the upper secondary school EFL classroom.

According to the Swedish school law, pupils should have the possibility to influence their education – both in learning methods and content. However many teachers find it hard to operationalize the pupils’ influence in their teaching. The motive for this study was therefore to explore how pupils’ influence can be incorporated in education in relation to subject traditions, here exemplified in the discipline of biology. The data was analysed from a sociocultural perspective by using a model of the didactical triangle for natural sciences. Inclusive methods for pupils’ influence in biology was also used as an analytical tool. The analysed material was derived from interviews with nine pupils and five teachers and was categorized using an abductive thematic method. The results demonstrate that pupils’ influence was strongly expressed in the relationship between the pupils and their teachers. However, in the relationship between the pupils and the biology content it was considerably less expressed. Teaching traditions in biology are often textbook oriented and tend to affect the teacher’s possibilities for allowing pupils’ influence. Methods for pupils’ influence in biology can include more diversified and interactive teaching practises. Using modelleling is another possibility which liberate the biology content and provides examples for influencing biology education.

Denna studie har granskat nedanstående frågeställningar, där punkt 2 varit i huvudfokus. 1. I vilken omfattning anser gymnasielärare att förkunskaperna i bråkräkning brister hos nyblivna gymnasieelever och vilka konsekvenser anser lärarna att sådana brister får när det gäller elevernas möjligheter att tillgodogöra sig gymnasiets matematikundervisning? 2. Vilka strategier använder gymnasielärare för att hantera bristande förkunskaper i bråkräkning och på vilka grunder vilar dessa strategier? Bakgrunden till studien var en uppfattning att förkunskapsbristerna i bråkräkning hos nyblivna gymnasieelever är utbredda och att gymnasielärare på något sätt behöver finna sätt att förhålla sig till dessa brister. Tidigare forskning indikerade stora brister i förkunskaper. Det teoretiska ramverket utgick bland annat från den didaktiska ämnesanalysen, framförallt såsom presenterad av Löwing (2016). Datainsamling gjordes genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med fem lärare på två skolor. Materialet bearbetades och analyserades med hjälp av tematisk analys. Lärarna i studien gav sammantaget en bild av att det finns ett icke oansenligt problem med bristande förkunskaper i bråkräkning, i synnerhet om man beaktar de många områden inom gymnasiematematiken där bråkräkning behövs för att adekvat tillgodogöra sig innehållet. En grund för att hantera bristande förkunskaper i bråkräkning, var att synliggöra elevernas förkunskapsnivå, på individuell basis såväl som för klassen. Ett huvudinstrument för synliggörande var de inledande diagnosprov som de undersökta skolorna använder sig av. De strategier som används för att möta förkunskapsbristerna kunde sorteras i två teman, Repetition och Eleven. Den dominerande repetitionen görs i inledningen av gymnasiet. Det som dock särskilt utmärkte de lärare i undersökningen som hade väl utvecklade ämnesdidaktiska strategier var dels att de hade en motsvarande utvecklad analys av problembilden, dels att de aktivt arbetade med konceptuell förståelse och integrering av procedurkunskap, snarare än att fokusera på renodlad procedur repetition. Det gick att dra paralleller mellan lärarnas ämnesdidaktiska strategier och den didaktiska ämnesanalysen i teoriramen, även om lärarna i denna studie inte arbetade på samma systematiska och detaljerade nivå. Under temat Eleven arbetades aktivt med att utveckla elevernas inställning, självförtroende och motivation när det gäller matematik, även här grundat i en aktiv problemanalys. De som läser natur- och teknikprogram, det vill säga matematikkurser på c-nivå, har typiskt inte denna utmaning tillnärmelsevis i samma utsträckning, som de som läser till exempel hantverksprogram eller estetprogram. / This study has researched two issues, where the second has been the primary focus. 1. To what extent do upper secondary school teachers view new students’ prior knowledge of fractions as deficient and what consequences do the teachers consider that such deficiencies have regarding students' abilities to assimilate the ensuing mathematics teachings? 2. What strategies do upper secondary school teachers use to manage deficiencies in prior knowledge in fractions and on what grounds do these strategies rest? The background to the study was a perception that the deficiencies in prior knowledge in fractions of upper secondary school students is substantial and that teachers somehow need to find ways to manage these deficiencies. Previous research indicated major deficiencies in prior knowledge. The theoretical framework was based primarily on the Educational Subject Matter Analysis, as presented by Löwing (2016). Data collection was done through semi-structuredinterviews with five teachers at two schools. The material was processed and analyzed using thematic analysis. Overall, the teachers in the study gave the impression that there is a substantial problem with prior knowledge deficiency in fractions, especially considering the many areas in upper secondary mathematics where fractions are needed to adequately assimilate the teachings. One basis for dealing with prior knowledge deficiencies, was to assess the students' level of prior knowledge, on an individual basis as well as for the class. A main assessment instrument was the initial diagnostic tests used by the surveyed schools. The strategies used to meet the prior knowledge deficiencies was sorted into two themes, Repetition and The Student. The dominant repetition is done in the beginning of the school year. However, what particularly distinguished the teachers in the survey who used well-developed didactic strategies was that they had a correspondingly developed problem analysis, and also that they actively worked with conceptual understanding, rather than pure procedure repetition. Parallels could be drawn between the teachers' didactic strategies and the Educational Subject Matter Analysis, although the teachers in the study did not apply it systematically. The Student theme primarily involved active work to develop the students' attitude, self-confidencea and motivation with regards to mathematics. Those who study science and technology programs, i.e. advanced level mathematics courses, typically do not have this challenge to the same extent as those who study for example craft aesthetics programs.