Syftet med denna studie är att beskriva några särskoleintegrerade elevers uppfattningar om delaktighet vid planeringen av matematikundervisningen. Studiens frågeställningar är: Vad framkommer i elevernas utsagor om läroplanen och kunskapskraven? Vad framkommer i elevernas utsagor om kopplingen till läroplanen eller kunskapskraven vid planeringen och upplägget av matematikundervisningen? Hur beskriver eleverna sin vilja till delaktighet i matematikundervisningen och dess utformning? Hur beskriver eleverna sin delaktighet i planerandet av matematikundervisningen är i jämförelse med sina klasskamrater? De fyra intervjuade eleverna har alla diagnosen intellektuell funktionsnedsättning, de följer grundsärskolans läroplan och är placerade i grundskolan. Studiens teoretiska utgångspunkt är Harts Delaktighetsstege, vilken även har använts vid analysen av intervjuerna. Det empiriska materialet bygger på kvalitativa intervjuer som har kompletterats med metoden foto-eliciting vilket är när fotografier används som stimuli för olika frågor under intervjuerna. Fotografierna är från elevernas egna matematiklektioner. Denna studie bygger på kontakten med elever som har intellektuell funktionsnedsättning vilket ställer höga krav på etiska och moraliska riktlinjer. Studiens resultat pekar på att delaktighetsstegens steg 3 – Tokenism och steg 4 – Assigned but informed är de steg som förekommer oftast utifrån elevernas utsagor. Steg 1, 2, 7 och 8 syns inte i materialet. Vilket innebär att de två steg med lägst nivå respektive högst nivå av delaktighet inte framkom. Vanligaste anledningen till att det eleverna berättat vid intervjuerna bedöms motsvara steg 3 är för att eleverna inte har förstått syftet med uppgiften vilket är ett av kriterierna för att nå upp till det fjärde steget. Hur och när matematiken kan användas utöver matematiklektionerna tycks vara svårt att beskriva för eleverna. Det var lättare för flera av eleverna att förklara syftet med att räkna än syftet med matematiken. Alla fyra eleverna uttryckte en vilja att få delta i upplägget och planerandet av matematiklektionerna. Det skiljer i vad de vill bestämma, ibland handlade det mer om innehållet och ibland handlade det mer om arbetsmetoderna. / The purpose of this study is to describe some integrated special school group students’ perception of their participation in the planning and layout of mathematics education and their knowledge of the curriculum. The study's questions are: What appears in the students' statements about the curriculum or the proficiencies at the planning and layout of the mathematics education?　What appears in the students' statements about the connection to the curriculum or the proficiencies at the planning and layout of the mathematics education? How do the students describe their will to participate in the mathematics education and the layout of it? How do the students describe their participation in the planning of the mathematics education compared to their classmates? The four interviewed students are all diagnosed with intellectual disability, they follow the curriculum of the special school and are placed within the regular school system. The theoretical basis of the study is Hart’s Ladder of participation which has also been used when analyzing the interviews. Research studies about young people’s perception and their stories are not that common. The empirical material is based on qualitative interviews which have been supplemented with the photo-elicitation method, a method based on photographs that are used as stimuli for different questions during the interviews. The photographs were taken during mathematic lessons where the interviewed students took part. This study is based on contact with students diagnosed with intellectual disability and that places high demands on ethical and moral principles. The findings show that two steps on the Ladder of participation, step 3 – Tokenism and step 4 – Assigned but not informed are the most common steps regarding to the stories of the students. Step 1, 2, 7 and 8 are not shown in the material. This means that the two steps with the lowest grade of participation and the two steps with the highest grade of participation didn’t show in the study. The most common reason to that what the students have said at the interviews are graded as step 3 is that the students haven’t understood the purpose of the assignment, which is a criteria to reach step 4. How and when mathematics can be used beyond the lessons in mathematics seem difficult to explain to the students. Several of them found it easier to describe the purpose of counting than the purpose of mathematics. All four students expressed a will to participate in the layout and the planning of the lessons in mathematics. There are differences in what they want to be a part of in the process, sometimes it is more about the content of the lessons and sometimes more about the methods.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to knowledge about the influence of pupils in compulsory school for pupils with learning disability in parent-teacher conferences and in the work on individual developing plans (IUP) by examining teachers´ descriptions about this topic. The study has been done through a qualitative research approach, and five teachers who teach in compulsory school for pupils with learning disability has been interviewed. Theoretically, the study is based on Pathways to participation by Shier. Five concepts have been used for analyzing the results of the interviews: openings, possibilities, limitations, obligations and scaffoldings. Through these concepts it has become clear how the teachers experience the pupils´ possibilities for influence, but also what can be understood as limitations for it. By analyzing openings for influence it has become clear that the teachers do want to develop the influence of the pupils, but it requires different forms of scaffoldings. Three different aspects of the participation for pupils were discerned from the teacher interviews; Pupils´ motivation for practicing participation, Pupils´ possibilities for making choices and Teachers´ sensitivity to make pupils participation possible. These three aspects of pupils´ participation has also been analyzed from the theoretical concepts. The results indicate that the possibility for pupils to have influence in parent-teacher conferences and in the work on IUP requires them having access to a functional communication and an understanding for what influence is and how it can be used by practicing in everyday school-life. Pupils´ communication difficulties and lack of understanding constitute the large challenges in enabling participation for pupils in parent-teacher conferences and in the work on IUP. The results also show that the teachers´ attitude towards pupils´ possibility to participate is crucial. The teacher to be responsive is also crucial for these pupils´ motivation to practice their influence in parent-teacher conferences. The concept of pupils´ possibility to participate is close to the concept of participation (influence), due to some of the teachers in this study. For other teachers, pupils´ possibility to participate is more similar to pupils´ ability to influence. / Syftet med studien är att bidra med kunskap om grundsärskoleelevers inflytande vid utvecklingssamtal och i arbetet med individuella utvecklingsplaner, IUP, genom att undersöka lärares beskrivningar av ämnet. Studien har genomförts utifrån en kvalitativ forskningsansats där fem intervjuer av lärare i grundsärskolan genomförts. Med utgångspunkt i Shiers delaktighetsmodell har fem begrepp använts som analysverktyg då empirin analyserats utifrån forskningsfrågorna: öppningar, möjligheter, begränsningar, skyldigheter samt stödstrukturer. Detta har tydliggjort hur lärarna upplever att grundsärskoleelevers möjligheter till inflytande ser ut idag, men också vad som kan förstås som begränsningar för detsamma. Genom att analysera öppningar har det blivit tydligt att det finns en genuin vilja hos lärarna att utveckla elevernas inflytande, men att det kräver olika former av stöttning, det som tolkas som stödstrukturer. Tre olika aspekter av grundsärskoleelevers inflytande i utvecklingssamtal och IUP framträdde i empirin; Elevers motivation till att utöva inflytande, Elevers valmöjligheter samt Lärares lyhördhet för att möjliggöra elevers inflytande. Även dessa tre aspekter av elevers inflytande har analyserats utifrån de teoretiska begreppen. Resultatet visar att grundsärskoleelevers möjlighet till inflytande vid utvecklingssamtal och i arbetet med IUP förutsätter att de har möjlighet till fungerande kommunikation och att de utvecklar en förståelse för vad inflytande är och hur det kan utövas genom att få öva på det i skolvardagen. Elevers kommunikationssvårigheter och bristande förståelse utgör de stora utmaningarna i arbetet med elevers inflytande vid utvecklingssamtal och i arbetet med IUP i grundsärskolan. I resultatet framgår också att lärarens inställning till elevers inflytande är avgörande för deras möjlighet att utöva inflytande vid utvecklingssamtal och i arbetet med IUP. Att läraren är lyhörd för elevernas intresse lyfts som en förutsättning för att eleverna ska motiveras att utöva inflytande vid utvecklingssamtal. Begreppet elevers inflytande står för flera av lärarna nära begreppet delaktighet, andra lägger en betydelse av att eleverna kan vara med och påverka i begreppet.

The purpose of the study is to investigate the formative assessment work in Swedish compulsory special school, for students who read focus subject. The questions are how special educators working with formative assessment in different ways, and how they make the knowledge requirements visible by artefacts as the use of image support, alternative communication, digital tools and more. Theoretical approach consists of previous research on formative assessment. Sociocultural perspective has been used to analyse the results. Qualitative methods in the form of five observations and five interviews were used for the collection of empirical data. Results show that educators are working consistently with formative assessment in different ways and that teacher’s give students feedback for learning forward. In the categories peer assessment and the visibility of the knowledge requirements, it appears on the basis that it appears less in teaching. The study's implications based on the results is to make visible the objectives for students and help them to their own development. It also contributes to further research on the importance of students with intellectual disabilities may need alternative individual adaptations for perceiving information and communication about learning objectives and criteria. The work of visible learning and make students involved in their own development becomes more complicated when the curriculum and syllabuses exist only as text documents. Teachers need to create own image support in the student's immediate environment to increase the possibility for communication about the student's knowledge of the formative process

The purpose of the study was to investigate some pupils' experiences of learning situations, support for learning and peer relations in compulsory school compared to compulsory school for pupils with learning disabilities. The study aimed to highlight the advantages and disadvantages, support for learning and peer relations the pupils experienced in the two school forms. The study is based on six qualitative semi-structured interviews with inspiration from life history interviews. There were three informants in the study, who have experience of teaching in both the compulsory school and the compulsory school for pupils with learning disabilities. They were interviewed twice.   The result was analyzed based on the socio-cultural theory and its concepts of artifacts, mediation, appropriation, zone of proximal development and scaffolding. The result shows that in compulsory school the pupils were given individual special education, and in the compulsory school for pupils with learning disabilities the pupils were only taught together with the classmates. The pupils experienced both teaching situations positively, but the teaching together with the classmates in the compulsory school for pupils with learning disabilities was seen as a more socially and academically supportive environment, where the students developed new knowledge.  In compulsory school, the students were offered customized teaching material and concrete material, which only pertially perceived to support the learning. The teachers' explanations were perceived as the best support when something was difficult. In the compulsory school for pupils with learning disabilities, the teachers had time and ability to explain. In the compulsory school for pupils with learning disabilities, the students experienced that they had more and more genuine friends than in the compulsory school.

Most studies on parenthood and learning difficulties focus on mother and child, and very little is know about fathers with learning difficulties. Moreover, people with learning difficulties are rarely asked to tell their own narratives. The aim of the current study is to identify the role of the father in families where one or both of the parents have learning difficulties. Laws and regulations concerning the rights of people with learning difficulties in Sweden are accounted for and the he social support system for all parents in Sweden are described . The empirical study is a qualitative phenomenological interview study, inspired by narrative traditions, and describes how fathers with learning difficulties experience these support systems. The main data are two life stories of fathers with learning difficulties and one observation in a family. The findings suggest that although Sweden has a highly regarded disability policy and social support system, and even though fathers with learning difficulties are assured equal rights as members of the society and as parents by the Act of Human Rights, they are not treated equal but still faces structural inequalities. Their strengths and needs are not recognized, gender based support is not used and last but not least there is a lack of adequate competence in the support system. As long as the fathers are not included in the discussions about strengths and weaknesses in families with at least one parent with learning difficulties, these families are not given reasonable chances of fulfilling their parenthoods.

This study examines how the staff at a serviced housing for persons with developmental disabilities understands and manage their professional roles, and how they interact with the users. The material consists mainly of participant observation and interviews with duty personnel. The study has an existentialist/phenomenological framework and describes how personnel perceived their work situation as problematic and how this affected the staff's way of relating to and interact with the users. There was instances in which the staff exercised power over the users. The thesis also shows how the staff's jointly designed practical routine had compromising effects on the ethical principles they highlighted as important to follow in the interviews. The study shows that it is possible to understand the gap between the staff's ideals and practices based on their efforts to establish security, continuity and predictability in a situation that was perceived as unsafe.

Picturebooks with characters that have an intellectual disability provides an opportunity for children with and without disabilities of their own to identify with the story. The study examines a selection of five contemporary Swedish picturebooks for children that features characters with an intellectual disability. This study explores how ideologies of normalisation and inclusion influence the way these characters are presented and represented in text and imagery. Drawing from critical discourse analysis the aim of this text is to show if power relations in the story can provide different subject positions for the reading child to take. The results of the analysis show authentic and varied portrayals of characters with intellectual disability. There were two different kind of discourses on normality evident in the picture books: A child like everyone else and different like everyone else. The discourse of a child like everyone else means a perspective where the character with an intellectual disability is portrayed without a focus on the disability. This results in a normalization of the presence of a person with an intellectual disability but neglects to portray the specific experiences that character may have when it comes to their disability. The discourse of being different like everyone else gives a perspective on intellectual disability where difference is normal and part of everyday life. This perspective portrays disability and diversity as part of a normality.

People with moderate intellectual disability often have communication difficulties and are in need of augmentative and alternative communication, AAC, to replace lacking speech and/or language comprehension. It is imperative that support in the form of AAC is found in the environments where everyday interactions occur. The purpose of this paper was to investigate how the placing of picture-based AAC affects communicative behaviour among participants in a day centre. An intervention was made where communication pictures were moved from walls to hang from the belt of staff members. The effects were registered through behavioural observations of four participants both before and one week after the intervention. The behaviours observed were agitation, apathy, motor anxiety and the usage of signs and pointing. A simple sign test showed changes in expected directions (e.g. reduction of apathy or increased usage of signs) for half of the twenty completed observations. In only one case could negative results be observed while nine observations showed no change in the measured behaviours. There were considerable individual differences among the participants. Two of the participants showed little or no change in their behaviours, while two reduced the non-appropriate behaviours apathy, agitation and motor anxiety in favour of pointing to communication pictures and usage of signs. The conclusion drawn in this paper was that placing of communication pictures can have positive impact on the ability to communicate in individuals with moderate intellectual disability.

Syftet med denna studie är att bidra med kunskap om elevers perspektiv på användandet av digitala verktyg i socialt samspel, som stöd i undervisningen och i vardagen. För att belysa detta område har elever som går ett nationellt yrkesprogram i gymnasiesärskolan intervjuats. Intresset för denna studie uppkom då jag genom mitt arbete inom särskolans verksamheter ibland upplevt att jag inte haft tillräckligt med kunskap inom detta område för att kunna stötta eleverna optimalt. Tidigare forskning visar att användandet av digitala verktyg i undervisningen har positiva effekter för elever med utvecklingsstörning. Det finns även forskning som visar att användandet av digitala verktyg kan bidra till ökad självständighet och delaktighet i samhället för dessa personer. Studien utgår från ett sociokulturellt perspektiv, där lärande och utveckling sker i interaktion mellan människor. En kvalitativ halvstrukturerad intervju, valdes som metod för att samla in det empiriska materialet. Resultaten i studien pekar på att eleverna använder vanligt förekommande funktioner i mobiler och datorer i många olika kontexter. Enligt eleverna är verktygen en nödvändighet för både undervisningen och för att kunna vara delaktiga i samhällets alla delar. Inga specifika funktioner eller användningsområden som kan härledas till just gymnasiesärskolans verksamhet framträdde i studien. Eleverna uttryckte att de lärt sig använda verktygen av sig själva eller utav kompisar. De uppgav också att de själva funnit lämpliga strategier och användningsområden för verktygen som kompenserar olika funktionsnedsättningar eller andra svårigheter både i och utanför skolan. För att belysa området ytterligare kan det vara lämpligt att studera användandet av digitala verktyg utifrån speciallärares perspektiv och se vilka möjligheter det finns för att utveckla användandet av de verktyg eleverna redan är förtrogna med i undervisningen. / The purpose of this study is to contribute knowledge about students’ perspectives on the use of digital tools in social interactions, education and everyday life. In order to examine this area, students in compulsory school for pupils with learning disabilities have been interviewed. The interest for this subject arose when I during my work in special school sometimes experienced a lack of knowledge, regarding digital tools, on how to support the students fully in their education. Previous research shows positive results for students with intellectual disabilities regarding use of digitals tools during education. There are also studies that show that using digital tools can contribute to increase the independence and connection to the society for these people. This study is based on a sociocultural perspective, where education and personal growth is developed by interaction between people. In order to collect empirical data, a qualitative semi-structured interview method was selected. The results indicate that the students are using common functions in both smart phones and computers in a variety of contexts. According to the students, the digital tools are necessary for their education as well as their participation in all parts of the society. The study did not result in any features or applications used specifically for educating students in compulsory school for pupils with learning disabilities. The students expressed that they learned to use the tools by themselves or from friends. They also stated that they themselves found appropriate strategies and area of use for the tools that compensate for different disabilities or other difficulties both inside and outside the school. Regarding future research in this area one suitable approach could be to use the special education teacher’s perspective as a main source and explore the possibilities to further develop the digital tools the students already are familiar with, towards a better education.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether pedagogues, in their daily work with children with intellectual disabilities, have perceptions based on earlier work experience with for instance children with average intelligence and also if the perceptions, norms and categorizations of society affect the school environment in which children with intellectual disabilities exist.The study, which focuses on the pedagogues work experience of childrens with intellectual disabilities, was carried out by interviewing four pedagogues in a qualitative manner. The study was analyzed through the theoretical framework of social constructivism. Terms used in the study are: intellectual disability, inclusion, exclusion, integration, perception, categorization, normality, anomaly, norm criticism, power, the competent child and expectation.The results show that the pedagogues has his or her own perceptions about children with intellectual disabilities. The pedagogues’ own use of language affects how perceptions, norms and categorizations are conveyed to the pupils. They also points to their insufficient knowledge of intellectual disabilities. This lack of knowledge also affects how the pedagogues view the institutional striving towards student inclusion in a “school for everyone.” The study also shows that a norm critical perspective is preferable as it allows for perceptions, norms and categorizations to be made visible. The study showed that, in order to avoid unfavorable categorizations and norms, a communicative environment is needed in order to create an understanding in regards to the individual differences that exist between students in the school environment. This essay illuminates the fact that pedagogues – working with children with intellectual disabilities – are affected by the perceptions, norms and categorizations of society.