This study focuses on the teaching and learning of English as a second language and how different varieties of English are currently being used in education around the world and in Sweden. The purpose is to examine Swedish upper secondary students’ comprehension of different spoken varieties of English and their attitudes towards these varieties. Additionally, it will be investigated how important the students think exposure to different varieties is, which varieties they feel are important to have encountered, and what they think more generally regarding English language teaching and learning. 92 students in an upper secondary school in Sweden took part in the study. A listening exercise was carried out with follow up questions to test comprehension and examine how easy the students found the speakers to understand and how much they liked the sound of the pronunciation. This was followed by a questionnaire where the students were asked to indicate their level of agreement with statements about the importance of exposure to different varieties of English in their education. The results showed that the participants understood the speakers well in general, but that English English and American English were considered the easiest to understand and most pleasant to listen to, while Indian English ended up at the other side of the spectrum. Most of the students answered that it is very important for them to be exposed to various varieties of English in their education, and suggestions regarding which varieties to use in class were given. In conclusion, English teaching in Sweden should include more exposure to different Englishes to meet students’ requests.

Denna studie bygger på kvalitativa intervjuer med verksamma samhällskunskapslärare angående kontroversiella frågor i samhällskunskapsundervisningen. Bland respondenterna arbetar vissa lärare på yrkesinriktade och andra på studieförberedande gymnasieskolor. Resultatet visar att respondenterna ställer sig positiva till att arbeta med kontroversiella frågor, samtidigt som de uppfattar det som ett svårt ämne. Samtliga respondenter har erfarenheter av kontroverser som uppstått i klassrummet och har därför fått arbeta aktivt med kontrovershantering. I studien klargörs vad kontroversiella frågor är, hur man kan arbeta med det i klassrummet samt vad de tillfrågade anser vara viktigt i det arbetet. Detta kopplas till internationella forskningsresultat såväl som svenska. / This study is based on qualitive research interviews with actively working teachers in the subject civics about controversial issues in civics education. Among the respondents some work in labour-oriented upper secondary schools and others work in preparatory upper secondary schools. The result indicates that the respondents are positive about the work with controversial issues, meanwhile viewing it as a difficult topic. All of the respondents have experiences from controversial issues that has risen in the classroom, and therefore been dealing actively with controversial issues management. In the study the term controversial issues is clarified as well as how to deal with it in the classroom and what the respondents view as important in the process. This is connected to international as well as Swedish research findings.

Syftet med det praktiknära forskningsprojektet var att förstå hur läraren i undervisningen kan kombinera kunskaper om yrkesämnet med aspekter av läsning och vilka interaktioner det skapade i klassrummet. Vidare analyserades hur lärarens språkliga stöttning synliggjorts i elevernas egna texter samt elevernas tankar om undervisningen utifrån genomförda fokusgruppsintervjuer. Deltagare i studien utgjordes av elever i gymnasieskolan som läser inriktningen Samhällsbyggande och miljö på Teknikprogrammet. Eleverna är inte alltid medvetna om vilka strategier de använder när de läser en faktatext. Resultatet visar dock att eleverna som fått undervisning som inkluderar lässtrategier i ett yrkesämne har större förtrogenhet med ämnets innehåll och ämnesspecifika begrepp. Lärarens arbete med att inkludera läsning skapade interaktioner som väckte elevernas engagemang och gav eleverna fler möjligheter att medvetet välja strategi när de läste en faktatext. / The purpose of the action research project was to understand how the teacher can combine vocational knowledge and include aspects of reading and see what interactions it creates in the classroom. Furthermore, how the teacher's linguistic support was made visible in the students' own texts and in the students' thoughts about the teaching based on focus group interviews is analyzed. Participants in the study consisted of pupils in the upper secondary school who studied the specialization Community building and the Environment at the Technology program. The students are not always aware of which strategies they use when reading a factual text. The result, however, shows that students who have received vocational teaching that include reading strategies have a greater familiarity with the subject’s content and subject-specific concepts. The teacher's work on including reading created interactions that sparked student engagement and gave the students more opportunities to deliberately choose a strategy when reading a factual text.

Inledning Ungefär en tredjedel av all mat som produceras i världen, med syfte att konsumeras av människor, slängs eller går förlorad. Detta innebär att enorma resurser, som går till produktionen av livsmedel, går åt till ingen nytta. Om matsvinnet minskar skulle det innebära minskade utsläpp, lägre energi- och råvaruförbrukning och en minskad miljöpåverkan. Matsvinn är inte ett nytt forskningsområde, men det finns ett behov av fler studier som berör åtgärder för att minska det. En stor del av allt matsvinn i Sverige uppkommer i storkök och då framförallt i skolor, vilket leder till syftet med denna studie.   Syfte Syftet är att undersöka vilka metoder för minskat matsvinn som några utvalda gymnasieskolor använder sig av, personalens upplevelse av dessa metoder och deras tankar om förbättringsåtgärder.   Material och metod Intervjuer och observationer genomfördes i form av ett fokuserat fältarbete på fyra gymnasieskolor i Helsingborg. Det insamlade materialet bearbetades med hjälp av tematisk analys. Litteraturen i bakgrunden användes som ett analytiskt verktyg.    Resultat De metoder som skolorna använde sig av var: serveringssätt, tillvaratagande, utformning av sopkärl, kommunikation, tävling samt vägning och statistik. De förbättringsförslag som uppkom var bättre schemaläggning, förbättrad kommunikation mellan måltidspersonal och skolans personal samt undervisning om matsvinn.   Slutsats De metoder som upplevdes vara mest effektiva var mindre storlek på serveringsredskapen, tillvaratagande av mat, mindre sopkärl och vägning, medan smakskedar tycktes fungera sämre. Kommunikationen mellan måltidspersonal och skolans personal behöver förbättras för att underlätta matsvinnsarbetet. Undervisning om matsvinn kan vara ett sätt att involvera eleverna i arbetet. / Introduction About one-third of all food produced for human consumption in the world is either wasted or lost. This means that large amounts of resources, which are used in the production of food, are used in vain. If the food waste would decrease it would reduce the carbon dioxide emissions, lower the energy- and raw material consumption and reduce the environmental impact. Food waste is not a new area of research, however, there is a need for more studies that address methods for reducing it. A big part of the food waste in Sweden comes from large-scale catering establishments, especially from schools, which leads to the aim of this study.   Aim The aim is to study which methods a couple of upper secondary schools are using for reducing their food waste, the employees experience of the methods and their thoughts on measures of improvement.     Method Interviews and observations were carried out using focused ethnography in four upper secondary schools in Helsingborg. The collected data was reviewed using thematic analysis. The literature in the study was used as an analytical tool.   Results The methods used by the schools consisted of different ways of serving, re-using food, smaller garbage cans, communication, competition, and measuring and keeping track of the food waste.    Conclusion The methods perceived as most efficient were smaller sized serving tools, utilizing and re-using food, smaller garbage cans and measuring the food waste, while spoons used to taste the food before serving yourself was not considered as useful. The communication between the school and the kitchen staff needs to improve to facilitate the task of reducing food waste. Lectures about food waste could be a way to involve the students in the task.

Studiens utgångspunkt var skollagens bestämmelser sedan år 2014 om att stöd till elever kan ges i form av extra anpassningar och särskilt stöd (Prop.2013/14:160; SFS 2010:800. Enligt gymnasieutredningen behövs mer kunskap kring den praktiska tillämpningen av dessa bestämmelser (SOU 2016:77). Studiens syfte var att beskriva och analysera hur lärare upplever arbetet med stödinsatser för gymnasieelever. Som metod för datainsamling valdes kvalitativa intervjuer och tio lärare intervjuades. Lärarna uttryckte att extra anpassningar ansvarar ordinarie lärare för och de består exempelvis av uppläst material samt anpassade läromedel och uppgifter. Som särskilt stöd uppgavs bland annat stödundervisning utanför den ordinarie undervisningen. Resultatet visade att de två skolorna där lärarna arbetar skiljer sig bland annat genom organiseringen av stödundervisning. Studien fann att relationer och kommunikation mellan elever och lärare samt lärare och övrig skolpersonal är betydelsefulla faktorer i arbetet kring stödinsatser. / The starting point of this study is the regulations in the Swedish Education Act of 2014 about how support for students can be given in the form of extra adaptations and special support (Prop.2013/14:160; SFS 2010:800). According to a survey about the Swedish upper secondary school, there is a need for more knowledge on the practical application of these regulations (SOU 2016:77). The aim of this study was to analyze and describe how teachers perceive the work with supportive actions for students in upper secondary schools. As a method for data collection, qualitative interviews were chosen and ten teachers were interviewed. The teachers stated that the responsibility for extra adaptations lies with regular teachers and mentioned examples of adaptation such as access to read material and adjusted study material and tasks. Special support was mentioned, among other things, as a support for teaching outside of the regular teaching. The result showed that one difference between the two schools where the teachers work is the organization of this support teaching. The study found that relationships and communication between students and teachers, and as well as between teachers and other school staff, are important factors in the work around suppoortive actions.

Personal inom gymnasiesärskolan arbetar i en verksamhet som kan vara farlig. Det är inte så ovanligt att personal möts av hot och våld i sin vardag. Elever gör rätt om de kan och frustration och stress i situationer som de upplever att de inte kan behärska kan leda till utmanande beteenden. Det är därför personalens uppgift att arbeta förebyggande för att elever inte ska behöva känna stress och frustration. Syftet med denna studie var således att få en fördjupad kunskap om hur personal inom gymnasiesärskolan kan arbeta proaktivt med elever och utmanande beteenden. Elever som upplever att lärmiljön är begriplig, hanterbar och meningsfull behöver inte känna stress och frustration. För att uppnå studiens syfte utfördes intervjuer med elva personal inom två gymnasiesärskolor. I personalens beskrivningar av sin verksamhet visar de att de har ett proaktivt förhållningssätt och att de med metoder, strategier och i sitt bemötande av elever aktivt försöker reducera belastningar så att elever inte ska behöva känna stress och frustration. Det finns dock ramfaktorer som innebär att personalen inte alltid lyckas i det proaktiva arbetet. / Personnel in upper secondary schools for students with special needs work in a field that can be dangerous. It is not uncommon for personnel to be faced with threats and violence in their everyday lives. Students do well if they can and frustration and stress in situations that they find that they cannot master can lead to challenging behaviors. It is therefore the task of the personnel to work preventively so that students do not have to feel stress and frustration. The aim of this study was thus to gain an in-depth knowledge of how personnel in the upper secondary school for students with special needs can work proactively to avoid stress and frustration among students. Pupils who feel that the learning environment is understandable, manageable and meaningful need not feel stress and frustration. To achieve the aim, interviews were carried out with eleven personnel within two upper secondary schools for students with special needs. In the personnel's descriptions of their activities, they show that they have a proactive approach and that, with methods, strategies and in their treatment of pupils, they actively try to reduce pressure so that students do not have to feel stress and frustration. However, there are framework factors that mean that the personnel does not always succeed in the proactive work.

<p>Studiens syfte var att undersöka det pedagogiska mötet ur ett elevperspektiv. Vilka olika typer av möten upplever en elev och hur påverkas hon/han av dessa? Sju intervjuer genomfördes med elever som gick sista året på Omvårdnadsprogrammet. Undersökningen gjordes genom en öppen riktad intervju. Studien var kvalitativ och fem olika teman kunde urskiljas, det var mötet med kompisar, mötet med lärare, mötet med handledare, mötet med patienter och mötet med självet. Under varje tema framkom olika aspekter som haft betydelse för ungdomars lärande och utveckling. Analysen fördjupades med hjälp av Moira von Wright och hennes begrepp för att beskriva det pedagogiska mötet. Kompisar hade stor betydelse för hur ungdomarna upplevde utbildningen. Studien tyder på att ungdomarna insåg att de hade föreställningar om varandra men att dessa förändrades med tiden när de lärde känna varandra närmare. Eleverna upplevde att de flesta lärarna på Omvårdnadsprogrammet hade ett som von Wright beskriver relationellt perspektiv och ingick i en helhet tillsammans med eleven och att de lärde av varandra. Lärarna såg eleven som ett vem och inte ett vad. Handledaren var en viktig person för att den arbetsplatsförlagda delen av utbildningen av lärandet skulle fungera väl. Eleven ville känna att handledaren brydde sig och var intresserad av dennes lärande. I mötet med patienter fick ungdomarna stor erfarenhet av människor med olika behov. De träffade människor som befann sig i olika livssituationer som gav dem en ökad förståelse för de svårigheter människor kan råka ut för. De utvecklade den reflexiva processen och i mötet utvecklades också förmågan att bemöta människor i och med att de lärde av patientens reaktioner. Ungdomarna upplevde att de även utvecklade den egna personligheten. De hade lärt känna sig själva och sina egna reaktioner och blivit öppnare som personer och vågade vara sig själva. I och med mötet med människor med svåra sjukdomar och handikapp hade deras insikt mognat och de hade också fått en annan livssyn.</p><p>Seen or unseen? Upper secondary school students experience of pedagogical meetings. The aim of my study was to investigate the pedagogical meeting at an upper secondary school from a student perspective. What different kinds of meetings do students experience and how are the students influenced by them? Seven students from the third year at the Nursing Care Programme have been interviewed. Five qualitative categories or themes have been discerned, namely the meeting with friends, the meeting with teachers, the meeting with instructors, the meeting with patients and the meeting with themselves. In every category I have discovered important aspects of learning and development on behalf of the students. My analysis has been inspired by Moira von Wright`s conception of a pedagogical meeting. Friends were important for the students` educational experience in general. The results show that the teenagers tend to better understand the minds of each other and gradually change within themselves as they learn to know one another more. The students thought that most of the teachers at the Nursing Care Programme participated entirely in the social, pedagogical and mutual development of the students over time, which von Wright describes as the relationship of equals. The teachers tend to look upon the students as a who instead of a what. The instructor was an important person for the education at the working place. The students wanted the instructor to take care of them and be interested in their learning potential. In the meeting with patients, the students learned a lot about different people and their behaviour. They meet people who find themselves in different stages of life and come to understand the hardships and trouble that are sometimes linked to a human life experience. In doing so, the students developed a reflexive process which allows them to be more open to other people, by meeting them beyond the reaction of the moment, and, indeed, to dare being themselves. By meeting a large number of patients with diseases and various forms of handicap, the students learned more about themselves in the relative and shivering time span of life that awaits us all, and new thoughts keep growing as they gradually understand and tend to look upon life in a new and different way.</p>

<p>This thesis looks at conditions for selections of fictional texts in the Swedish subject in the upper secondary school. Three different empirical materials have contributed to the understanding of what conditions there are for the texts to enter the classroom. The first material consists of national policy documents from 1970 to 2005. Here there is a tendency that the student goes from being an object for knowledge to becoming a subject that creates his/her own knowledge. With this development the contents and the given aims with the subject become more abstract, which leads to the framework of the curriculum becoming wider and more difficult to interpret. Simultaneously the focus is moved from mediation of given knowledge, to the development of an identity for the individual.</p><p>The second material consists of debate and method articles from Svenskläraren, a magazine for members, published by an organisation of Swedish teachers. The study comprise articles from the same period of time as the national curricula. In the articles there are three tendencies reflecting the changes in the discourse of the Swedish subject. The first tendency shows how the overall ideological debate on the subject disappears during this period. The second tendency shows how discussions about the conceptions of the subject is replaced by more and more concrete examples of methods. The third tendency depicts that the concrete text selections have moved from being partly predetermined during the seventies to become debated during the eighties, to finally during the nineties end up in a situation where some texts has a sufficient cultural capital not to need justifications, whereas others need it.</p><p>The third material consists of interviews with, and observations of, four active teachers, in order to find what conditions there are for text selections in their rhetoric and practice. The results show a clear impression of informal institutional factors and of the school culture. However, this seems to decrease with experience. There are big differences in how the teachers speak about text selections and text use and what the result becomes in practice. Here professionalism in form of knowledge in subject didactics could have a vast impact.</p>

<p>Swedish as a school subject has long been debated in Sweden, and ideas concerning its content, role and function in school and society have varied greatly throughout the years. In 1994, there was an upper secondary school reform which resulted in a partial revision of the Swedish subject, including its introduction within a new course and grading system. The Swedish A and B courses became obligatory for all upper secondary students. Other courses in Swedish became largely optional.</p><p>This study consists of two levels – a rhetorical and practical level. The rhetorical level deals with understandings and ideas of the Swedish subject and instruction as they are expressed in curricula and course syllabi, as well as with the understandings and ideas expressed by the four teachers in the study. In addition, the external and internal frame factors which underlie this rhetoric are considered. The practical level concerns the four teachers’ concrete Swedish instruction, i.e. the aims and goals, content and working methods which underlie their teaching, as well as the factors which influence, limit and facilitate it.</p><p>The aim of the study is to attempt to describe, analyse and understand the role and function of the Swedish subject after the upper secondary school reform of 1994. What ideas do the four teachers express regarding the role and function of the Swedish subject in upper secondary school and society after 1994, and how should these ideas and reasons be interpreted and understood from a more comprehensive, general perspective? How do the teachers represent the Swedish subject in their teaching, i.e. how is their knowledge of subject didactics expressed? These are two central questions in the study. A third central question concerns notions of society and the good citizen implied in the chosen views of the Swedish subject.</p><p>The study has two theoretical starting points: subject didactics and curriculum theory. Shulman’s concepts of pedagogical content knowledge and transformation are central to the subject didactics drawn upon here, while frame factor theory and Bernstein’s concepts of “classification” and “framing” are central to the curriculum-theoretical perspective. The perspective of subject didactics deals with the relation between teacher and content, while the curriculum-theoretical perspective deals with the relation between content, individual and society.</p><p>This study shows that the teachers’ knowledge of subject didactics is vague.The teachers’ transformation of content in teaching resides to a high degree in an adaptation to the students; the focus is thus not on a transformation and content analysis of the Swedish subject. Further, the teachers have an instrumental approach to the steering documents. A common characteristic among the four teachers, and in Swedish instruction generally, is that a large degree of responsibility is placed on the individual student for their literary and language development. Collective meetings were very infrequent in the teaching of the four teachers in the study.</p><p>This study discerns four teacher codes which reflect understandings and ideas of school and education, formed by previous and current material and sociocultural conditions and which the individual teacher has encountered, adopted and reshaped into his/her own. These four teacher codes can be described as closeness and hierarchy, tradition and renewal, vision and reality and the individual and the collective. The teacher codes reveal that the four teachers have relatively similar teaching strategies, whereas their teaching aims, goals and content diverge significantly.</p><p>Viewed from the perspective of curriculum theory, it is evident that the teachers emphasise the individual student over the collective. It is a matter of developing one’s thought and personality and of fostering the students to be individual, active members of society. However, this active member of society does not appear to be aware and critically active, but rather a loyal and obedient member of society.</p>

<p>This thesis reports case studies of students working with context rich problems (CRP) and mini projects (MP) in physics in an upper secondary school class and in a physics teacher education class at university. The students report a big shift from physics in secondary school as fun and easy, to physics in upper secondary school as boring, difficult and with lack of time for reflections and physics talking, but they also found physics as interesting in itself. In order to study how group discussions in physics influence the students learning and to study the phenomena of students’ ownership of learning (SOL) we introduced CRP and MP. We video recorded five groups with 14 teacher students at university in the end of 2002, and five group with 15 students at upper secondary school during the beginning of their second physics course in the spring term in 2003. MP and CRP in physics were used as instructional settings in order to give students possibility to strengthen their holistic understanding and their possibilities to ownership. When students get the opportunity to manage their own learning and studying by open-ended tasks in physics, without the teacher determining all details of the performance, this gives more ownership of learning. The advantage of MPs and CRPs from the student’s point of view is more freedom to act, think and discuss and from the teacher’s view, to get insights of the students’ ability and how they really think in physics. The ownership is found to be crucial for motivation and development of competence.</p><p><em>Students’ ownership of learning (SOL) is the students’ influence/impact to affect tasks and the learning environment in such a way that the students have a real opportunity to achieve learning of physics.</em></p><p>Students’ ownership of learning (SOL) is found at two levels:</p><p><strong>Group level:</strong> At the start of a task the SOL is determined by the design of the task. The choice of task, the performance (when, how, where), the level of result and presentatio n and report have to be determined by the students themselves.</p><p><strong>Individual level:</strong> A person’s experiences and anomalies of understanding have created unique questions that can create certain aspects of the task that drive this person to be very active and highly motivated. This gives the person a high individual ownership. We developed hypotheses concerning the relation between ownership, motivation and competence and we see some evidence in the cases reported in this thesis. The importance of exploratory talks to enhance learning, and to see aspects of communication as part of the motivation are discussed in the model of ownership, motivation and competence that is proposed.</p>