This paper aims to present a holistic approach to special education in Sweden, focusing on early reading instruction and its compatibility with inclusive strategies at school. Special education is an interdisciplinary field comprising subjective and objective aspects of the individual and the environment. Particularly relevant in early reading instruction is the interaction of psychological and biological prerequisites in the environment’s individual, social, and physical characteristics. A case description is included to illustrate the complexity of special educational needs in relation to increased freedom of choice and inclusive strategies at school.

The aims of this study were to explore the organisational characteristics of junior high schools, to identify typologies of work environments and to explore the relationships between the type of work environment and how schools function. The educational profession and the role of teachers have been influenced by policies inspired by the principles of new public management (NPM). The Swedish version of the Organizational Checkup Survey is a general and expanded version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory. The present work analyses the 16 items concerning energy, involvement and accomplishment (‘Relations to Work’) and the 29 items concerning workload, control, reward, community, fairness and values (‘Fields of Work’). The answers from 749 Swedish junior high school teachers from a stratified selection of 32 schools were analysed with a structural equation modelling approach. The means of the answers from the teachers from the same school were dichotomised and analysed with partial order scalogram analysis. The polarising variables contributing to the identification of four main profiles were reward and workload. There were gender differences: female teachers were more exhausted, felt more involved and were more dissatisfied with their workload than male teachers. There were also age differences, the younger teachers reporting, in particular, lower professional autonomy (control). The results show relevant differences between schools, and that teachers' perceptions of their work environment can be considered an indicator of school quality. The results of the comparisons are related to the conditions of high efficiency and deprofessionalisation of NPM-inspired educational organisations, and indicate a possible link between school organisation and teachers' perceptions of reward.

Denna bok handlar om en pedagogisk utmaning: Hur får man människor i en grupp att utvecklas optimalt? Många faktorer styr undervisnings- och lärandeprocesserna: deltagarnas kunskaper, motivation och erfarenheter samt lärarens arbetssätt och metoder. Till det kommer sociala nätverk, samhälleliga och kulturella villkor samt den fysiska miljön. Författarna låter välkända teoribildningar möta utmaningen; dessa teorier lägger olika vikt vid hur individfaktorer, socialpsykologiska aspekter respektive samhälleliga faktorer påverkar människans lärande. Sammantaget blir det en första och lättillgänglig introduktion till ett interaktionistiskt synsätt på lärande.

Jämförelser över tid både inom Sverige och med andra länder visar på ökad ojämlikhet och sjunkande prestationer i den svenska skolan. En avgörande faktor verkar vara den valfrihet som uppträder på olika nivåer i systemet. Valfriheten ökar risken för utslagning och ohälsa bland grupper av elever som befinner sig i riskzonen och inte kan utnyttja systemets fördelar.

The aim of this study is to explore the organisational characteristics of educational environments, to identify typologies of work environments and to investigate the relationships between the type of work environment and the school’s functioning.

The Swedish version of the Organizational Checkup survey (Leiter & Maslach, 2000) is a general and expanded version of the Maslach burnout inventory. This study analyses the 16 items concerning Energy, Involvement and Accomplishment (Relation to work) and 29 items concerning Workload, Control, Reward, Community, Fairness and Values (Fields of work).

The sample consists of 749 Swedish high school teachers from a stratified selection of 31 schools.

The means of the answers from teachers from the same school were dichotomized and analysed with POSAC (Partial Order Scalogram Analyses). The polarizing variables contributing to the identification of four main profiles are Reward and Workload.

The answers are also analysed with a SEM (Structural Equation Modelling) approach.

The results show that there are differences in the work environment of teachers and that the variables from the Organizational Checkup survey that contribute most to these differences are Workload and Reward. The results are discussed in relation to the effort-reward imbalance theory. The results can contribute to a better understanding of significant differences in school’s organisational functioning, as they are perceived by the teachers, and they can be employed in planning adequate interventions.

The aim of this study was to investigate the longitudinal development of studentshaving difficulties with reading and their decoding ability in Swedish compulsoryschool. Another aim was to relate this to the experiences of educational activitiesexpressed by students and parents. The decoding ability was assessed by a wordchain test given at three occasions and was compared with results on a letter chaintest.  Retrospective  interviews  were  performed  with  students  and  parents.  Thedecoding ability tended to improve for most of the students over time, althoughsome of them failed to improve or even decreased their scores, indicating a lackof  environmental  adjustment.  Special  educational  support  was  according  tostudents  and  parents  organised  in  small  and  often  very  heterogeneous  groupswhere  the  students  sometimes  received  adequate  support  but  often  felt  deviantfrom friends in their regular classes. The responsibility for helping the childrenwith  their  schoolwork  was  allocated  to  the  parents.  Research  in  this  areademonstrates the necessity of a well-structured and stimulating learning situation.Yet, the development of these students’ decoding abilities, personal experiences,and  parental  involvement  indicate  that  competence  and  resources  at  schoolregarding children at risk for developing reading difficulties are often lacking in  the Swedish educational system.

This study applies a general theory about the content and

structure of values on characteristics of learning environments, reported by 14-years old students. The IEA- civic education study collected data from 70 thousand students in 24 countries. The items in the IEA Civic Education Study concerning characteristics of learning environment, attitudes and

behaviour have been analysed on the basis of the theoretical model. The 37 items were reduced to eight factors (political self-efficacy, self-efficacy at school, participation, stimulation of engagement, stimulation of traditional citizenship, stimulation of communication, freedom and diversity, curriculum reproduction). The factors have been tested with CFA. A WSSA of these factors gives a picture of the relationship between these factors, of the correspondence with the hypothesis made, and of the stability of the model across countries.