The aim with this study is to analyze the different parts of the Swedish syllabus and writing assignments in textbooks used in Swedish education for children in first grade. The analysis is based on Ivanič’s (2004) article and framework for different aspects of language and discourses of writing. The study analyzes in what extent the discourses of writing are expressed in the different parts of the syllabus and in the textbooks. Further in the study the textbooks are analyzed from a qualitative perspective to notice the expressions of the discourses. The analysis is based on discourse analysis and Ivanič’s (2004) discourses of writing. The syllabus and the textbooks are analyzed in two stages – a quantitative and a qualitative. The results of the study show that all discourses are expressed in the different parts of the syllabus – but in various ways. In the parts that is addressed to grade 1–3 the skills discourse of writing and the genre discourse of writing dominates. The analysis of the textbooks shows that there is a variation between the tasks. The skills discourse of writing is dominating in the textbooks with 68 % of all pages. The result show that there partially is a conformity between the syllabus and the textbooks. Finally, the result is discussed in relation to relevant literature and previous studies. / Syftet med denna undersökning är att analysera hur skrivdiskurser uttrycks i kursplanen i svenska för årskurs 1–3 samt i skrivuppgifter i fyra läromedel för svenska i årskurs 1. Analysen utgår från Ivanič (2004) teoretiska ramverk för språklager och skrivdiskurser. Undersökningen analyserar i vilken omfattning skrivdiskurserna uttrycks i kursplanens olika delar och i de valda läromedlen. Vidare analyseras läromedlen ur ett kvalitativt perspektiv för att få syn på hur skrivdiskurserna uttrycks i läromedlens uppgifter. Metoden i undersökningen är diskursanalys och utgår från Ivanič (2004) skrivdiskurser. Kursplanen och läromedlen analyseras i två faser - en kvantitativ och en kvalitativ. Analysens resultat visar att samtliga skrivdiskurser uttrycks i kursplanens delar, men i varierande grad. I kursplanens delar som syftar till undervisning i årskurs 1–3 är färdighets- och genrediskursen dominerande. Analysen av läromedlen visar att det finns stor variation mellan läromedlens uppgifter. I läromedlen är färdighetsdiskursen dominerande och står för 68 % av alla sidor i de analyserade läromedlen. Sammanfattningsvis visar resultatet av undersökningen att det till viss del finns en överenstämmelse mellan kursplanen och läromedlen men det råder stor variation inom och mellan läromedlen. Slutligen diskuteras undersökningens resultat i relation till relevant litteratur och tidigare studier inom ämnet.

This study examines what support that exists in the Swedish upper secondary school curriculum and the English 7 syllabus for teaching postcolonial literature and the postcolonial literary concepts of binary pairs and Othering. This study also illustrates how Arvind Adiga’s The White Tiger (2008) could serve as an example of a postcolonial novel to exemplify said concepts in the EFL classroom. To answer these questions, a definition of the postcolonial genre as well as a definition of the concepts within postcolonial literary theory was formulated. With the theoretical framework in place, an analysis of the steering documents was conducted. The Swedish curriculum’s focus on the teaching of every human’s equal value and rights relate to the postcolonial genre, as the genre is dedicated to telling marginalised perspectives in the modern world. The syllabus states that teaching different genres of literature and the usage of different perspectives in the classroom should be a part of the English subject. This supports the teaching of postcolonial literature as it is a successor to Western classics as well as shift in perspective from the colonisers to the colonised. The teaching of the concepts of binary pairs and Othering were indicated to be potentially challenging to practically implement, as literary didactic literature stated the difficulties of adapting literary theory to an upper secondary school level. Teaching literary concepts was indicated to be achievable provided that teachers teach theory with clear guidance of what context to use it in and where not to use it. As for binary pairs and Othering within Adiga’s The White Tiger (2008), the examples focused on were the Indias of Light and Darkness, and how this binary pair Othered one another. As such, the results were found to indicate that there is support for teaching postcolonial literature as well as postcolonial concepts, and that Adiga’s novel would be an adequate text to use for exemplifying these in the classroom.

This study investigates what can cause significant gaps in grammatical knowledge in a class of English 5 and how such gaps can be healed or avoided. By triangulating results from two diagnostic tests, a focus group of pupils and a semi-structured interview with their teacher, data were analysed statistically and through a phenomenographic perspective.  The results expose grammatical gaps concerning genitive construction, relative pronouns, and tag construction. Moreover, the pupils’ experiences from earlier grammar teaching and learning indicate that cause, development, and possible healing of grammatical gaps are related to how grammar seldom is discussed or practised in school. Furthermore, the teacher’s experiences show how pupils and groups typically unaffected by grammatical issues now are involved and that extensive repair efforts are needed. In conclusion, the results and analysis suggest that grammatical gaps may be related to three main issues: how communicational theory within the syllabi is intended, how it is understood and then brought to the classroom and how teaching professionals’ schooling and tradition related to grammar teaching and testing may affect the outcome of the communicational classroom. If managed, they can be the key to bridging grammatical gaps in the future.

The purpose of this essay is to examine how four of the teachers employed in Huddinge municipality look at the language developing aspects of their teaching, and how their views relate to the curriculum and the national and local syllabi of the subject Swedish within upper level of compulsory school and upper secondary school. The municipality's ambitions and aims with language development as a prioritized area functions as a background throughout the essay. The main issues concern the teacher's views on language development, their opinions about the course syllabi, the teachers' roles in relation to language development, and their attitude towards the Huddinge municipality's ambition to prioritize language development. Information has been gathered through semi-structured interviews with working teachers, and through analysis of the syllabus documents using a modified level-analysis model. The empirical material is related to several theoretical perspectives, such as socio-cultural perspectives on learning, and curriculum theory. The main results state that teachers very much emphasize the social and communicative functions of language, and also that reading is stressed as important for good language development. The curricula and syllabi are regarded as supportive tools; however they are not used very frequently in the everyday work. The municipality's ambitions regarding language development are known to the teachers, but they would like to see coordination on a municipal level when it comes to the various language development related projects within the municipality. The teachers also request more occasions for exchanging experiences and dialogue with others.

TITLE: Psychological and Epistemological Aspects of Curriculum Design AUTHOR: Dominik Dvořák DEPARTMENT: Department of Primary Education, Charles University in Prague SUPERVISOR: Prof. PhDr. Vladimíra Spilková, CSc. ABSTRACT: The alarming trends in Czech pupils' achievement in reading, mathematics and science raised the question of quality of the Czech primary and lower secondary school curricula. A conceptual framework for analysis of the intended curriculum as a multi-level document has been devised. A review of available methods for curricular analysis is presented. The mixed method research design has been used to study the actual Czech curricular framework. Preliminary exploration of quantitative data on Czech pupils' success rates in individual items of TIMSS and PISA studies identified the "suspect" curriculum areas for the subsequent qualitative analysis. These areas (e.g. fractions in mathematics, reading literacy in language arts) were compared in past and present Czech curricula/syllabi. The international benchmarking method was used to compare Czech, English, Finnish, and U. S. curricula. The results revealed the idiosyncrasies that remain relatively stable feature of the Czech curricula. The neo-institutionalism may provide the theoretical explanation of the results of the analysis. KEYWORDS:...

Textbooks still dominate teaching materials in English classes in Sweden. This paper analyzes speaking tasks in two sets (textbook and workbook) of textbooks for year nine in Swedish schools, Happy, Workbook No. 3, and What’s Up? Textbook 9 and Workbook 9. The first analysis presents a content analysis, providing a general overview of speaking tasks found in both textbooks. Here, I will quantitatively account for the qualitative items types of speaking (monologue or dialogue), text types (narration, giving information, description, instruction, discussion/argumentation), cognitive operations (open/productive, open/reproductive, closed productive or closed/reproductive speech patterns), and classroom organization (single or pair work, pair or group work, or class work) in a matrix. This shows what kinds of tasks dominate the books and are required most of the students. The second is a close analysis of four speaking tasks against a framework of seven principles: scaffolding (actually demonstrating a solution), task dependency (tasks build upon each other), recycling (introducing language items in different contexts), active learning, integration (the task shows the relationship between meaning, form, and function of language items), from reproduction to creation (the order of tasks goes from reproductive to productive), and reflection (the task offers opportunity for reflection over one’s own learning). Two tasks will meet most, and two will meet only few of these principles.The content analysis reveals a vast majority of dialogues (100 out of 124 tasks, or 80.65%). This might not be surprising, keeping the communicative approach of the syllabus in mind. But it is surprising that discussion/argumentation is the text type most frequently asked for (46 out of 124 tasks, or 31.7%), not narration or giving information. They occupy a firm second and third place with 30 (24.19%) respectively 27 (21.77%) tasks out of 124. 21 (16.94%) tasks in total ask for description. Even more surprisingly, not one task demands that students give instructions. Giving instructions may not require as much two-way communication, but it still presents an important skill.This is an analysis, not an evaluation. An analysis aims at objectively accounting for what is presented and in what proportions without making some form of judgment on what is found. This would be the objective of an evaluation. This paper aims at analyzing speaking tasks and task design in English textbooks, not to pass or fail them against the needs of students or the demands of the Swedish syllabus for English.

The purpose of this essay is to explore what subject view is expressed in the new syllabus of 2022. Furthermore, since the textbooks used in school can be included in an expanded curriculum concept and many textbooks are produced according to the content of the curriculum this study aims to investigate if older textbooks could still be seen as relevant after the introduction of the new curriculum. According to Lyngfelt (2006, p. 98) research on textbooks used in the Swedish subject is scarce. Therefore, the study uses a thematic analysis according to Braun and Clarkes (2006) model to answer these research questions: Which subject view can be discerned in the changes in the core content in the syllabus? Are all changes in the core content for the Swedish subject covered in the selected textbook? Which changes in the core content in the syllabus are covered most and least? The results show that the textbooks cover the additions in the core content, especially with respect to non-fiction texts. However, the textbooks’ cover in orality is scarcer. The study is based on the paradigms of Sawyer and Van de Ven (2006) and the most prominent subject paradigm in the core content is the communicative paradigm, but traces of all the paradigms used in the study was found in the new additions.

The purpose of the study is to examine how the democracy mission appears within the different curricula 1980 and 2022 as well as the curriculum for civics. This is done through a qualitative deductive content analysis with theoretical connections from Gilljam and Hermansson's ideal types – electoral democracy, participatory democracy and deliberative democracy. These three ideal types are the theoretical framework for how the democracy mission emerges and is constituted within the various curricula. The essay's question is: Which type of democracy is most prominent in the 1980 and 2022 curricula as well as the curriculum for civics? The study's results show that participatory democracy is most prominent within the curriculum for 1980, followed by deliberative democracy and limited electoral democracy. For 2022s curriculum, knowledge-based electoral democracy and deliberative democracy are most prominent and participatory democracy limited. However, it should be pointed out that within both curricula there are traces of writings and formulations that can be linked to all ideal types.

Kunskaper inom naturvetenskap har stor betydelse för ekonomi, människors liv och hälsa samt inte minst vår miljö. För att erhålla både breda, allmänbildande kunskaper och mer specialiserade, djupa kunskaper behöver barn och ungdomar läsa naturorienterande ämnen redan i grundskolan. För att få elever att intressera sig för naturvetenskap behöver undervisning utformas på ett sätt som väcker elevernas intresse och nyfikenhet. Detta kan bland annat uppnås genom att varva laborationer med teori.Det här examensarbetet är en studie av hur kemilärare ser på laborationer och hur deras syn kan relateras till den nuvarande kursplanen i kemi. Resultatet visar att lärarna värdesätter laborationer, men även hur laborationer inte uppnår erforderlig kvalitet när lärarna saknar förutsättningar, som de uttrycker det, för att genomföra bra laborationer. Vidare framkommer det att lärarna uppfattar det som att kursplanen inte, på samma sätt som tidigare, tar fasta på laborationers betydelse för att uppnå undervisningsmålen.Studien underbyggs av kvalitativa intervjuer med åtta högstadielärare på två skolor i Stockholms län. / Natural science is of great importance to economics, people's lives and health as well as our environment. In order to obtain both broad, general knowledge and specialized, deep knowledge, students need to study science already in primary school. In order to make students more interested in science, teaching needs to be designed in a way that arouses students' curiosity. This can be achieved, for example, by finding a good mix between practical laboratory work and theoretical sessions.This is a study of how chemistry teachers view laboratory teaching and how their view can be related to the current syllabus in chemistry. The result shows that teachers value laboratory work, but also how laboratory work does not achieve the necessary quality when teachers lack the conditions, as they perceive it, to carry out good laboratory work. In addition, it shows that teachers think that the syllabus does not attach the same level of importance as before to laboratory exercises to achieve the teaching objectives.The study is based on qualitative interviews with eight science teachers at high school level in Stockholm County.

Detta examensarbete redogör för huruvida ämnesplanen för idrott och hälsa 1 samt tillhörande dokument möjliggör respektive hindrar lärare att ha en mångfald av elever i idrott och hälsa-undervisningen. Syftet är att synliggöra de möjligheter och hinder som ämnesplanen i idrott och hälsa kan innebära för lärare när de ska utmana och utveckla den mångfald av fysiska funktionsvariationer som finns bland elever. För att undersöka detta har en textanalys av Skolverkets dokument samt intervjuer av lärares tankar kring realisering av dessa dokument gjorts. I detta arbete valde vi att fokusera på den praktiska delen av ämnet där kropp och rörelse är i fokus på grund av begränsad tid och omfång till arbetet. Den övergripande frågeställningen som behandlas är: Vilka möjligheter respektive hinder kan skapas för lärare vid realisering av ämnesplanen för idrott och hälsa 1 utifrån elevers skilda fysiska funktionsvariationer?Undersökningen i detta arbete har en läroplansteoretisk utgångspunkt men analyseras även utifrån ramfaktorteorin som komplement. En textanalys gjordes för att undersöka styrdokumenten och en kvalitativ metod användes för att undersöka transformering och realisering av dessa. Ämnesplanen för idrott och hälsa 1 samt tillhörande kommentarmaterial och bedömningsstöd analyserades i förhållande till varandra. Kvalitativa intervjuer gjordes på sex lärare på sex skolor i södra Sverige. Resultatet visar att ämnesplanen för idrott och hälsa 1 överlag möjliggör för en mångfald av fysiska funktionsvariationer i undervisningen då den är öppet skriven och då lärare ska utgå från elevers skilda förutsättningar. Dock menar verksamma lärare att tolkningsutrymmet, skolans resurser, stor nivåskillnad, tidsbrist och bristande kunskap kring elevers skilda förutsättningar kan skapa hinder att realisera rådande ämnesplan, där speciellt friluftsliv framställdes som problematiskt. Slutsatsen är därmed att en eventuell konkretisering hade behövts göras för att skapa likvärdighet och att lärarutbildningen samt fortbildning är betydande för att lärare ska ha kunskap till att anpassa undervisningen för alla elever. Vidare önskas en uppföljning av hur ämnesplanen transformeras och realiseras av idrott och hälsa-lärare samt om ämnesplanen bidrar till en mångfald i undervisningen och vilka eventuella resurser som behövs för att stötta lärare i realiseringen av ämnesplanen. / This thesis explains whether the syllabus for Physical Education and Health 1 (PEH 1), as well as accompanying documents, enable Physical Education and Health-teachers (PEH-teachers) to have a variety of pupils within their teaching. The purpose is to visualize opportunities and obstacles that the syllabus for PEH 1 may imply for the variety of physical conditions among pupils. To investigate this, a text analysis of documents from ‘Skolverket’ and interviews with teachers regarding the realization of these documents have been made. In this work, we chose to focus on the practical part of the subject where body and movement are in focus, due to limited time and scope. The overall issue being addressed is: What opportunities and obstacles can be created for teachers in the realization of the syllabus for Physical Education and Health 1 based on the different physical variations of students?The empirical data collected has been analyzed and discussed based on Linde’s (2012) curriculum theory but also by the frame factor theory. A text analysis was conducted to examine the documents formulated on the formulation arena and a qualitative method was used to investigate the transformation and realization of these documents. The syllabus for PEH 1, and related commentary material and assessment support, were analyzed in relation to each other. Six qualitative interviews were conducted with six teachers at six different schools in southern Sweden. The result shows that the syllabus for PEH 1 makes it possible for a variety of pupils in the PEH teaching, mainly because it’s openly written and that teachers should design their teaching based on pupil’s different physical variations. However, according to the teachers in this study, the possibility of interpretation, the school's resources, a large variation of skills, time shortage and lack of knowledge about the pupils' distinctive conditions can create obstacles when realizing the current syllabus. Especially ‘friluftsliv’ was mentioned as problematic. The conclusion is that a clarification of the syllabus is needed to create equivalence teaching, and that the teacher education and continuing training are important for teachers’ knowledge of how to adapt their teaching for all students. Furthermore, a follow-up of how the syllabus is transformed and implemented by PEH teachers is needed to know whether the syllabus’ intentions of diversity are realized and what resources that are needed to support teachers in the realization of the syllabus.