The importance of motivation in language learning has been emphasised and paid more attention to the last decades, and the topic of student motivation has also been touched upon in the Swedish school system. The issue of low results in the vocational programmes have been scrutinised both in media and the National Agency of Education, which resulted in an integration between the character subjects and the core subjects. The idea is to increase the students' motivation to the core subjects by integrating them with the character subjects in the vocational programmes. Therefore, integration is executed by teachers in vocational programmes, and included in the curriculum for upper secondary schools. The aim of this study is to investigate students' attitudes toward integrated and non-integrated English, and how it influences their motivation. 10 interviews have been carried out in the Electric and Construction programme, and the data has been analysed using a thematic analysis. Themes have been selected and discussed in relation to the aim and research question. The result shows that the students feel that the integrated English is useful, but that non-integrated English within their personal interests is the most motivating content in the English course. Students want to be more involved in their education and the need to express their unique personalities seems to be of importance when it comes to learning English. The results indicate that the concept of integration might not be the most motivating aspect to focus on, but rather the individual aspects of the students and what they feel is motivating

This study has investigated teachers’ apprehensions of interdisciplinary collaborations, education related to sustainable development and their conditions in education. When interviewing teachers, working in the vocational programmes in upper secondary schools in Sweden, the apprehensions illuminate diversity in how schools approach and implement aims and requirements in the curricula. Apprehensions of interdisciplinarity and sustainable development reflect content and methods in the classroom.The main purpose of the thesis is to study how teachers apprehend interdisciplinary education and the relation to education on sustainable development. The second part of the study aims to identify teachers’ apprehensions of the conditions for interdisciplinary approaches in education.The results show the connections and relations between apprehensions of interdisciplinary approaches, school organization and the ability to implement education for sustainable development in the classroom. Deliberation, participation, time and distance are essential for the planning and implementation process. Teachers’ knowledge in school subjects as well as an understanding for connections between different fields of knowledge is also essential. A team teacher organization as well as support from headmasters, are framing conditions for an open climate which enables meeting each other across disciplinary borders and barriers. Interdisciplinary collaborations in education are mostly described in terms of multidisciplinary approaches, with additive knowledge development. This often means that students are left to identify connections between subjects themselves. Some collaborations are, however, described with more enthusiasm. This study identifies a relationship between integration level and collaborations that are described as successful. In the field of education for sustainable development (ESD) a holistic view is essential to be able to identify the complex relations between man and nature. In terms of education related to sustainable development, the ecological dimension is the most associated dimension among teachers in this study, while the sociological and economical dimensions in general, are implicit. Concerning the environmental education traditions, many apprehensions in this study can be related to a fact-based tradition as well as a normative tradition.To be able to categorize apprehensions in the third tradition (education for sustainable development), abilities as emancipation and transformation have to be more explicit in the learning process.

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.