This paper examines pupils’ conception of the Swedish schools constitutive values expressed in the Swedish curriculum. The main question was, at to what extent the schools constitutive values have influenced the pupils conception of their own values. That question problematizes the relation between values, constructed and carried by central administration, and their interpretation at local level by pupils. The study was conducted with qualitative analysis which included qualitative interviews with seven pupils in the last year of the Swedish school system. Phenomenology, hermeneutics, and phenomenographics have influenced the study. The qualitative interviews were abstracted into categories, related to this papers theoretical framework. The categories were taken from a taxonomy that breaks up the constitutive values into smaller pieces. The categories are presented here: questions about conception of life, moral education, values education, civics education and citizenship education. As well as categories the taxonomy shows a variable that goes from private to public and questions about conception of life, is the most private area and citizenship education is the most public. What each category resulted in was that pupils´ conception of the schools constitutive values could relate to the theoretical framework. Although many of the informants’ quotations pointed out standpoints that were related to the theoretical framework, some weren’t. Those included mostly the categories of public questions, such as civic education and citizenship education. In question of the pupils conception of moral education and values education the quotations showed that schools tend to focus on a rule based philosophy when fostering the pupils in to good moral and values. Also, pupils tend to focus on private good and see the schools constitutive values as a way to gain private good. This papers result brings up questions about; if the schools constitutive values are not well understood by pupils or if the constitutive values only are to be understood as private good. It also shows that the values constructed at a central level have a long way to travel to be acknowledged by the pupils. And along that travel several actors, such as teachers, interpret the constitutive values.

In Sweden the latest curriculum, Lpo 94 was released in 1994. This document revolutionized the teaching profession. The school system was changed from a governmental control into a communal control. The earlier curriculums were controlled by rules; Lpo 94 is controlled by aims. This has led to a big spectrum of teaching styles which all of them agrees with the Lpo 94. Our purpose with this report is to illustrate two different leadershipstyles regarding the subject Swedish. We also want to illustrate how the individual teacher motivates their choice of leadership. The report takes place in three questions at issue: · What teaching style agrees best with the Lpo 94? · How do the two teachers understand their leadership styles? · What are the pupils’ opinions of the leadership styles? Our final conclusion is that the pupils prefer the traditional teacher who dictates the terms in the classroom, teaching as well as work procedures. However, the curriculum is relatively modern and the school as an institution has not been able to catch up with the Lpo 94.

Elever som är födda i ett annat land än Sverige, eller som har föräldrar som är födda i ett annat land, har särskilda behov som det är viktigt att ha kunskap om för att på bästa sätt kunna möta dem i undervisningen. Mitt huvudsakliga syfte med detta arbete är att belysa pedagogens roll och betydelse i arbetet med invandrarelever. Mina frågeställningar är: - Hur ser invandrarelevers möte med den svenska skolan ut? - Hur kan man som lärare främja dessa elevers utveckling? - Hur kan man arbeta i skolan för att öka kulturkompetensen och förståelsen för andra kulturer samt motverka fördomar och rasism bland eleverna? Mot bakgrund av mitt syfte samt mina frågeställningar valde jag att göra en kvalitativ intervjustudie med tre lärare som alla undervisar, eller har undervisat, i svenska som andraspråk. Genom dessa intervjuer samt genom att studera befintlig litteratur har jag funnit ett klart samband mellan identitet, känslor och språk. Lika viktigt som det är att öka samarbetet mellan modersmålslärare, svenska som andraspråkslärare och klasslärare, lika viktigt är det att arbeta med elevernas självkänsla och få dem att känna att de du duger som de är. Det är viktigt att eleverna är stolta över sitt ursprung och inte skäms över vem de är. För att på bästa sätt stödja och främja invandrarelevers utveckling anser jag att vi i skolan måste bli bättre på att bejaka det annorlunda och se mångfalden som något positivt. / Pupils who are born in another country than Sweden, or has parents who are born in another country, have special needs in which it’s important that we have knowledge about so that we are able to meet them in school. My primary purpose with this essay is to elucidate the teachers role and significance in the work with immigrant pupils. My questions at issue are: - How does the immigrant pupils meeting with the Swedish school look like? - How can you as a teacher promote these pupils development? - How can you work in school to increase cultural comprehension and understanding for other cultures and counteract prejudice and racism amongst the pupils? On the basis of my purpose with the essay, and my questions at issue, I choose to perform a qualitative study through interviews with three teachers, who all teach, or have taught, in the subject “Swedish as a second language”. Through these interviews and by studying the available literature, I have found a very strong connection between identity, emotion and language. As important as is to increase the collaboration between teachers in mother tongue, “Swedish as a second language” and class teachers, is it to work with the self-esteem of the pupils and make them feel that they are good enough as they are. It is important that the pupils are proud of their heritage and not to feel ashamed of who they are. The best way to support and promote the immigrant pupils development, according to me, is for us at the schools to be better at recognise and accept differences and look upon multitude as something positive.

Bakgrunden till denna rapport är ett gemensamt intresse av motivationsarbete med understimulerade elever. Syftet med rapporten är att undersöka hur pedagoger i grundskolans tidigare år motiverar understimulerade elever till kunskapsinhämtning. Detta för att blivande lärare skall få flera verktyg att motivera elever till att känna lust att lära och ta in kunskap. Det förekommer understimulerade elever i grundskolan. Dessa stimuleras inte att arbeta med tillräckligt intressanta och utmanande uppgifter utifrån den enskilda elevens proximala zon. Rapportens frågeställning är vilka tankar kring och erfarenheter av motivationsarbete med understimulerade elever som pedagoger anser sig ha? För att undersöka detta gjordes en intervjustudie med fyra aktiva tidigarelärare på tre olika skolor. Resultatet av undersökningen visade att pedagogerna hade olika erfarenheter och pedagogisk filosofi och arbetade på olika sätt med att motivera understimulerade elever till lust att lära. Detta trots att målet med motivationsarbetet hos samtliga pedagoger var detsamma.

This chapter investigates the relationship between the official aims and intentions of Religious Education (RE) in Sweden and the pupils’ attitudes. In Sweden, as in several Western countries, there is a growing recognition that teaching RE may contribute to social cohesion in an increasingly diverse society. This chapter argues that it is also necessary to take into account the cultural context in which the education takes place, for instance that Sweden has developed over a short period from a fairly monocultural society with a Lutheran state church to a religiously and culturally more diverse society, and that the country can be seen as highly secularised on an individual level. The aims of RE are investigated through analysis of official documents and the pupils’ attitudes are investigated by means of survey data from a nationally representative classroom questionnaire along with observations from focus group interviews with pupils in upper secondary school, aged 18–19 regarding attitudes towards RE and religious and cultural diversity. The chapter concludes that it is difficult to attain the lofty aims of intercultural understanding through RE teaching, especially among pupils who see themselves as nonreligious. It suggests utilizing the said gap between religious and nonreligious pupils. / Silence, conflict or exoticism? Views of religion and Religious Education among senior high school students and teachers in multicultural Sweden / Impact of Religion

Matematiskt begåvade elever är i behov av lika mycket stöd, variation och utmaningar som alla andra elever. Därför är det viktigt att dessa elever inte kommer i skymundan och får ”klara sig själva”. Syftet med denna studie är att synliggöra matematiskt begåvade elevers uppfattning om hur deras matematikundervisning ser ut idag, hur de själva lär sig bäst, samt hur de anser att matematikundervisningen ska utformas för att de ska ha möjlighet att utvecklas efter sin fulla förmåga. Med stöd i teori och tidigare forskning valdes sex matematiskt begåvade elever från år 4 ut för att medverka i denna undersökning. Metoden som valdes var att intervjua dessa sex elever för att få en djupare förståelse för hur de själva uppfattar matematikundervisningen idag, deras egna lärstilar, samt hur de vill arbeta i matematiken för att ha möjlighet utvecklas till sin fulla förmåga. Resultatet från intervjuerna visar att stor del av undervisningen idag genomsyras av ensamarbete och där dessa elever inte får det stöd och den hjälp de behöver. Det visade sig också att dessa elever var väldigt olika i sina lärstilar, precis som alla individer, och därför behöver en varierad undervisning för att alla lärstilar ska inkluderas. Det visade sig att alla eleverna i denna studie söker utmaning, mer arbete i grupp och stöd från lärare för att få möjlighet att utvecklas till sin fulla förmåga. / The mathematic gifted pupil needs support, variation and challenge as much as other children. Therefore it is important that these children do not end up in the background and that the teacher does not think that ”they can handle it on their own”. The aims of this study are to explore the mathematic gifted pupils´ beliefs about mathematics teaching, their learning styles and how they want to work to have the opportunity to develop their full mathematical capacity.  With support from theory and earlier research we chose six mathematical gifted pupils in the fourth grade to participate in the study. As the research method we chose to interview these pupils in order to get a deeper understanding of how they believe that their own learning in mathematic looks like, how they think they learn the best and how they want to work to have the opportunity to develop their full mathematical capacity. The result and conclusion of the interviews show that according to the pupils, a majority of the learning situations includes the pupils’ individual work and by that these children do not get the help and support that they need. The results from the interviewees also show that these pupils have different ways of learning, like everybody else, and therefore the learning situations have to be varying.  Finally, the result shows that the pupils want to have challenges, work together in groups and more support from teachers to be able to develop their full mathematical capacity.

The purpose of this investigation is mainly to study if pupils have enough knowledge concerning the water cycle and the life of the plants’, and what kinds of household word they have, to discuss pollution within these areas. I also studied how the pupils’ knowledge are holding up against what the course-plans says, since it have come to light by other investigations that knowledge are insufficient within the nature-oriented (No) subject in school. The survey has carried out on 28 pupils in a 5th grade, with help of a questionnaire survey. Their teacher has been interviewed and I have studied their local course-plans and also the pupils’ schoolbooks in No. The result of the questionnaire survey indicates that the pupils had insufficient knowledge within the areas of plants’ life and pollution, something their teacher had a presentiment about. The conclusion is that they need to go out more often in the nature and see how the plants and the environment are affected by different factors. Since the school have a school-forest it should be excellent too use in teaching. This should however be no worry since the school books are following the course-plans goals. / Syftet med denna undersökning är främst att studera om eleverna har tillräckliga kunskaper om vattnets kretslopp och växtfysiologi samt vilka begrepp de har, för att kunna diskutera miljöförstöring inom dessa områden. En jämförelse mellan elevernas kunskaper och vad som står i kursplanerna gjordes då det framkommit genom andras undersökningar att det finns brister inom det naturorienterande (No) ämnet i skolan. Undersökningen har genomförts på 28 elever i årskurs 5, med hjälp av en enkätundersökning. Deras lärare har intervjuats och jag har studerat deras lokala kursplaner samt elevernas grundskoleböcker i No. I resultaten av enkätundersökningen framkommer att eleverna hade brister inom områden gällande växtens liv och miljöförstörning, vilket även deras lärare hade en föraning om. Slutsatsen är att de behöver komma ut mer i naturen och se hur växter och miljön påverkas av olika faktorer. Då skolan har en skolskog, är denna utmärkt att utnyttja. Vidare behöver man inte oroas över elevernas bristande kunskaper eftersom elevernas grundskoleböcker följer kursplanernas mål.

Enligt Socialstyrelsen (2004) förekommer diagnosen AD/HD hos 3-6 % av alla barn i grundskolan. Av dessa är 2/3 killar. Det finns olika teorier om vad som orsakar diagnosen, ärftlighet är en vanlig teori. Symtomen hos personer med diagnosen är väldigt olika. Överaktivitet är den vanligaste men även underaktivitet förekommer. Litteraturens roll i läroplanerna har ändrats under åren. Fram till folkskolans inträde år 1842 var kyrkans inflytande total. Litteraturens betydelse har sedan varierat i läroplanerna, men i Lgr-80 får den en central roll. Enlig den senaste läroplanen, Lpo-94 menar man att läskunnighet är en förutsättning för att aktivt kunna delta i samhället. Mitt mål med detta arbete är dels att sammanfatta vad AD/HD är och dels försöka ta reda på vilken uppfattning elever med diagnosen har kring diagnosen och litteratundervisningen i skolan. Därför har jag valt att utgå från ett elevperspektiv och jag har genomfört sex intervjuer med elever som har diagnosen AD/HD. Av resultatet i min studie framgick det att eleverna anser att orsakerna till AD/HD kan vara flera, men ärftlighet betonas mest och fem av sex tillfrågade poängterar detta. Fem av sex angav även att de tyckte det var skönt att de fått diagnosen och att det hjälpt dem. De flesta eleverna tänker på böcker när de hör ordet litteratur men de nämner även tidningar, datorn, telefonen, spel och reklam. De uppger även att de har nytta av litteraturundervisningen. De blir glada av att läsa något de verkligen tycker om och de poängterar vikten av att litteraturen måste intressera dem. Eleverna nämner olika typer av stöd som de får i samband med litteraturundervisningen. Stöd som nämns är till exempel att det finns böcker av olika svårighetsgrad och olika tekniska hjälpmedel. De upplever dock att det finns för få böcker och att de ibland får för lite hjälp på lektionerna.

This report is a summary and a discussion of a research project on bilingualism in Tornedalen. Within the project "Education in sparsely populated areas", financed by the National Board of Education, a number of studies were carried out aiming at giving a description of the present linguistic situation (Swedish/Finnish) of the pupils in the comprehensive school. Another aim was to see if there was any correlation between school achievement and the linguistic abilities of the pupils (Swedish-Finnish) . In this connection the intention was also to develop methods of measurement and to construct tests. The basis of the work was a model originally developed by Spolsky (1974) and had in a broad sense a "sociology of language" approach. The population consisted of all the 354 pupils in grade 4 in the district of Haparanda, Övertorneå and Paj ala. The gathering of data in which combination of different methods such as interviews, observations and testings were used, took place at the turn of the year 1975/76. The results have been published in six reports (nr 78-83) in the series of reports of the Department of Education, Pedagogiska rapporter, Umeå (in Swedish). In this summary the main results are accounted for concerning the pupil's use of language and linguistic knowledge as well as results and marks. The results show that the use of the Finnish language is almost restricted to the home environment. As for the knowledge of Finnish it can be noted that about 40 per cent have active abilities and the rest of the pupils are purely Swedish speaking. The difference between the mentioned groups as regards the other measurements of achievement used were small or insignificant especially if the social background of the pupils was taken into consideration. The main conclusion was that the Finnish language in Tornedalen is decreasing and that in one or two generations probably all the area will be Swedish speaking. The consequences of this are discussed,and the importance of school and education is also dealt with. Suggestions for further research are given such as longitudinal and iterated cross-sectional studies and comparative studies in other bilingual areas. Studies about attitudes to the languages in Tornedalen are suggested as well as intensified work on the developing of methods in bilingual research. Finnally further investigations on the covariation between different factors and school achievement are recommended. / digitalisering@umu

A pilot-study was used to investigate, types of assistance, assessed needs, outcomes and effects of special-needs assistance given to a subsample of compulsory school pupils in an effort to develop an evaluation strategy for identifying educational impacts of specific special-needs inputs.  Preliminary results indicate a tendency for postive outcomes for most pupils in the pilot group (n = 11) but also that many pupils have residual difficulties.  Pupils with residual difficulties mostly required special education asssitance with Maths, English or Swedish.  More pupils also needed support with behavioral difficulties.  More research and an expanding knowledge base is required in order to effectively evaluate outcomes of teacher support.  Schools need help in devising different methods of assistance and particularly for pupils with behavioral difficulties.