Svenska barn har det generellt sett mycket bra. Ändå vet vi att en del individer drabbas av större sårbarhet och sämre utveckling. Går det att identifiera vilka faktorer under barns och ungdomars uppväxt det är som verkar uppbyggande repktive nedbrytande? Vilken betydelse har förskolan och skolan? Familjeförhållanden? I denna andra rapport fokuserar författarna på 101 barns utvecklingsgång under hela livsperioden 1-25 år och utvecklingsprocessens betydelse för dem som unga vuxna.

Hur går det i livet för unga människor som upplevt misslyckanden i skolan? I denna första rapport från FABASKO-projektet analyseras enkätmaterial från en stor grupp 25-åringar. Ungdomarna besvarade första gången enkäter när de var 18 år gamla och gick på gymnsiet.

Syftet är att få en bild av hur dessa unga vuxna anpassat sig till sin vuxenroll och till samhällets krav på dem. Författarna försöker också ta reda på om vissa av dem kan antas vara mer utsatta än andra och se vad som karaktäriserar denna grupp.

This thesis aims at describing and analysing the process and content in knowledge development within a research circle. The participants in this circle are seven teachers who work with multilingual children diagnosed within the autism spectrum, and me as a researcher.

The study is conducted within the tradition of participatory-oriented research. The research issue concerns the questions these teachers ask themselves in their everyday work. The study, consisting of twelve meetings, was carried out during 2004-2005. In the final meeting material collected in the circle was analysed together by all participants. The knowledge-content analysis disclosed four main themes: mother-tongue issues, disabilities and diagnoses, the issue of frames and matters related to working with parents and other professionals. The results show that once a child is diagnosed within the autism spectrum the diagnosis “takes over” and mother-tongue instruction is seldom discussed.

The participants in the circle found it difficult to collaborate with the various authorities involved in working with a child and its family. They also found it difficult to communicate with parents, due to language barriers, different cultural contexts, and the observation that interpreters did not translate properly. The participants noted an existing hierarchy in relation to doctors and psychologists, regarded as having the mandate to assess a child’s ability and suggest placement in class.

A conclusion is that the work of the teachers entails a high degree of complexity, and that knowledge meetings and collaboration between parents, teachers, and the various authorities are needed. During the circle process emancipating collective knowledge was constructed transcending what any participant had from the start. Experiences discussed in continuing dialogues, and in an on-going process, seem to be essential for generation of knowledge. When experiences were challenged, potentials for different actions were revealed.

My objective with this paper is to contribute of the understanding of how the perspectives of our gender have been constructed and how we as individuals contribute to maintaining these constructions through repetition in our daily lives. During my time at the Stockholm Institute of Education, I have questioned my earlier conceptions and understandings surrounding gender, which have resulted in changing my perspective of gender, from what it was earlier. How this journey has gone up until today and with consequences this brings to daily educational practices is what my paper is about. 

In my analysis I have been inspired by feminist poststructuralist perspective, in order to enable the reader to understand the many different ways the subject acts in my empirical material. To my aid, in order to understand in what ways a subject can be understood, I’ve used several different theoretical concepts like modernism, post modernism, post structuralism and the feminist post structuralism.

IN my paper, I´ve used deconstruction as a tool for understanding this phenomenon in different ways. My hope is that the reader will gather an understanding of how this tool is used to question the long-standing perspectives that surround us. Through the use of deconstruction, we get an opportunity to expand our views and by this we can accomplish a continued broadening of our views on how one, as a subject, can be without risk of being judged as different. In other words, I want my paper to ”break through the socially constructed framework” that tends to limit us in different ways in our daily lives. 

ICT as a link for promoting inclusion of children with disabilities

Focus is on ICT in education and in-service training of teachers working in special education

What opportunites and obstacles exist when children with profound intellecual disabilities play computer games and how can the obstacles be abolished and the opportunities be promoted

Focus is on childrenwith motor disabilities in school and how technology can be used to promote inclusion.

Åsa Bäckström är noga med att påpeka att hon inte är den bäst lämpade recensenten för den bok tjänstgörande redaktör valde att skicka henne, nämligen Game Skills: A Fun Approach to Learning Sport Skills av Stephanie J. Hanrahan och Teresa B. Carlson (Human Kinetics). Hon är inte idrottslärare och inte idrottsledare. Och boken avser att vara en inspirationskälla för just lärare och ledare inom idrott och fysisk aktivitet, en idébank för att hålla elever och studenter sysselsatta med lekar och spel och samtidigt ha roligt. Vår recensents specialkompetens, skriver hon, lämpar sig bättre för att göra en kulturanalys av boken. Och just en tilltalande kulturanalytisk ton är det som präglar hennes fylliga, problematiserande och intresseväckande recension. Game Skills presenterar dryga hundratalet ”lekar” för deltagare i varierande åldrar, med detaljerade instruktioner, lättfattligt, och med glimten i ögat. Boken lämpar sig väl, menar Bäckström, för blivande idrottslärare eftersom den också erbjuder en nyttig lektion i engelska. Men hon skulle nog först se vad den svenska litteraturen på området kan erbjuda innan hon själv tog in den i undervisningen.

In the children’s voice

One-year-olds “tell” about their preschool

The overall aim of this study is to advance the child’s perspective. This is done by a study of one-year-olds in a toddler unit in a Swedish municipal preschool, located in a multicultural suburb in the city of Stockholm. A full day preschool programme is common today in Sweden. More than 40 percent of the one-year-olds and more than 80 percent of the two-year-olds take part in preschool education. The National Curriculum for the Preschool describes the preschool child¬ren (aged 1–6 years) as active participants, and gives them the equal rights to come up with ideas and to influence the activities and the environment.

The study is theoretically placed within phenomenology. One’s perception forms images of different phenomenon in the everyday life of the children, and these phenomena create the world for us. In a phenomenological study the researcher tries to describe and even to understand the life-world of the participating people. Phenomenology is well aligned with the child’s perspective. Six one-year-olds, three girls and three boys, within a toddler group of fourteen one- to three-year-olds were followed during nine months, from April to Decem-ber, 2006. Participatory observations with field notes and video re-cordings were used in the data collection. The teachers’ interaction with the children was not studied.

The result is presented as “stories” told by the children, stories which of course are the researcher’s descriptions, based on the emerg-ing phenomena. Making up “stories” and presenting them as the chil-dren’s “stories” is a conscious choice in order to enhance the chil-dren’s perspectives. The “stories” tell about friendship among the children, shown when they give attention to each other and when they actively choose their playmates. The children play together most of the time and the play consists of continuous and repeated play ses-sions with regular interruptions, during which the children wander around the premises. Longer uninterrupted periods where the children kept focus on the same activity were also frequent.

Key words: one-year-olds, preschool, child’s perspective, play, identity formation, friendship

I denna studie fokuseras barnets tidiga kunskaps-bildning i aritmetik, med utgångspunkt i den radikalkonstruktivistiska teorin. Enligt denna teoribildning ärtalbegreppet inte statiskt utan en individuell konstruk-tion,  som  genomgår  kvalitativa  förändringar  underbarnets  aritmetiska  utveckling.  De  räknehandlingarbarnet kan utföra ses som beroende och präglade avdet konstruerade talbegreppet.

From a Radical Constructivist (RC) perspective this thesis deals with children’s construction of early arithmetic learning as an evolving process through the cognitive system of self-regulation and self-organising. Thus the child’s learning must guide teaching. RC views early arithmetic as verbal and preceding the system of written arithmetic.

The purpose in my thesis is to build hypothetical models of the child’s conceptual progression, in the case of four fundamental rules of arithmetic, and thereby construct the ontogenesis of arithmetic. The material for this is documentations of longitudinal research of the child’s arithmetic carried out over a lot of years and with different children within the RC paradigm. Through analysing about 250 transcriptions from video recordings, included in my material, I construct what concept is lying behind the child’s counting activity, when it solves problems with its counting scheme. Following children’s progression longitudinally, I could make my hypothesis of the child’s knowledge viable.

In short, my results show that the child gives through five counting schemes qualitatively changeable meanings to numbers. It begins with perceptual and figurative collections in two pre-numerical counting schemes. In the three subsequent numerical schemes the significations of numbers are a numerical composite, an abstract composite unit and an iterable unit of one.

The models provide the discipline of special education a starting point for didactical decisions how to assess and influence the child’s early arithmetic learning. Research is needed to document the children’s progression in the course of schooling in order to elaborate or modify the models. This theoretical perspective makes both teaching and researching viable through longitudinal approaches. Further, it highlights the need to bring research into the practice of education.

This thesis is based on five empirical studies of pupils with visual impairments, their reading ability and processes of reading acquisition within the framework of mainstream education in comprehensive schools. The aim of the thesis is to increase our understanding and knowledge of reading acquisition in pupils with visual impairments in mainstream education. A further aim is to find factors, which influence reading acquisition from an individual, as well as an environmental, perspective. Developmental theories regarding the individuals' possibilities to acquire an optimal development in interaction with their environment offer a theoretical framework for the thesis.

Different research designs, descriptive and explorative, have been used to fulfil the purpose. The studies have revealed a heterogeneous group of readers with visual impairments bearing in mind functional visual ability, reading media (print and braille) and reading ability. As a result of these studies, it was possible to divide the readers into three groups with regard to reading performance. About one quarter of the population was average or high achievers, another quarter extremely low achievers, irrespective of visual acuity, reading media or reading devices. In most cases, additional impairments, intellectual impairment or language problems caused low achievement. The largest group, about half of the population, consisted of readers who were able to read but demonstrated difficulties in other ways. Visual acuity and reading media varied greatly in this group. There were uncertain readers, readers with low reading rate but good comprehension, readers with less stamina and readers who did not use their reading ability except for schoolwork. The pupils were well equipped with optical devices, lighting and special desks but seldom used the facilities for reading. In general, the pupils with visual impairments read less compared with their sighted peers. Nor were they exposed to text in natural situations in society, which decrease their incidental reading training. Consequently, a large group of readers with visual impairments need an adapted reading program in order to stimulate reading from the start and to use their potential ability. Competence in the school and home environment is necessary for compensating lack of training and preventing the visual impairment being the reason for reading difficulties.

Reading disabilities due to biological factors were significant for a smaller group. Visual impairment as a reading handicap is, in this thesis, identified when a person, able to read, does not have access to the text in an appropriate reading medium or format, reading and writing tools are missing or reading must be performed in a badly adapted environment. Increased knowledge and effective environmental measures could reduce a reading handicap caused by a visual impairment for a larger group of children and young people.

In a social and political climate which encourages active participation in decision-making by people who have severe and profound intellectual disabilities, the onus is often on practitioners, carers and advocates to represent the wishes and interests of individuals. The issue of the validity of their interpretations is then foregrounded. This paper discusses theoretical issues associated with the development of guidelines to support a process of validation. It is argued that meaning should be viewed as the negotiated outcome of interactions, always involving inference. Validity of interpretation is thus a continuous rather than a categorical variable, and needs to be supported by the systematic collection of evidence from a range of sources. This framework is compatible with a social constructivist view of communicative development, and allows for information derived from subjective, intuitive insights to be combined with information obtained through observation and testing.

I förberedelseklasser går elever som helt saknar eller har mycket begränsade kunskaper i svenska språket och därför behöver intensiv träning i detta. Dessa elever är oftast nyanlända i Sverige och kan ibland helt sakna tidigare skolerfarenheter. Syftet med vår studie har varit att undersöka lärares syn på nyanlända elevers behov, samt hur de arbetar för att bemöta dessa. Genom att besöka två olika förberedelseklasser har vi observerat arbetet och intervjuat lärarna om deras verksamhet. Vi beskriver lärarnas tankar om elevernas behov och hur de i den dagliga verksamheten arbetar för att bemöta dessa. Vi belyser även olika sätt att utveckla elevernas interaktion med varandra och läraren i klassrummet, genom att se interaktion utifrån det sociokulturella- och det multimodala perspektivet på lärande. I vår diskussion drar vi slutsatsen att det finns mycket att utveckla i arbetet med de nyanlända eleverna. En tätare kontakt med modersmålslärarna, ett bättre samarbete med övriga skolan, en omfördelning av skolans resurser och handledning till pedagogerna samt en öppnare inställning till arbetet med nyanlända skulle kunna bidra till att underlätta lärarnas mångsidiga uppdrag att bemöta nyanlända elever i förberedelseklassen.

Målet med vår studie är att försöka ta reda på hur det ligger till med våra ungdomars kost och motionsvanor. Man läser ofta i tidningar om den växande ohälsan bland våra ungdomar, så vi vill med denna uppsats försöka belysa detta problem genom denna undersökning. Vi har sett en tendens på våra respektive skolor att eleverna verkar dricka mycket läsk och äter ofta godis innan första lektionen. Vi undrar därför om eleverna äter frukost? Vi har även studerat om eleverna är fysiskt aktiva eller inte, samt hur mycket tid de lägger ner på tv tittande och datoranvändning. En av våra frågor som vi vill ha svar på är om eleverna blir informerade av skolan och föräldrarna om betydelsen av att äta rätt kost och om hur de äter beror på deras identitetsbegrepp. Genom att studera aktuell forskningslitteratur och undersökningar på området så hoppas vi få svar på hur förhållandet kost och motion i relation till våra ungdomars vanor ser ut. Vi har valt att jobba med två klasser från Tullängsskolan i Örebro där eleverna går på Energiprogrammet och Elprogrammet vilket representeras till stor del av killar och en klass från Dackeskolan i Mjölby där eleverna tillhör Hotell och restaurangprogrammet och representeras av tjejer. Samtliga elever är årskurs 1 elever. Det är totalt 46 elever med i vår studie.

Vår undersökning är av kvalitativ karaktär men vi tar hjälp av en enkätundersökning som oftast betraktas som en kvantitativ undersökningsmetod.

The article is built upon a historical study of the establishment of an early form of school ("Hjälpskolan") in the Nordic countries. It is shown that in the public educational discussion in the beginning of this century, stress was laid on involvement and integration of the deviant and poor children into regular education. Notwithstanding, during the first decades of this century the segregated form of school became common. The author relates questions about what "abnormality" is to the overall discussion of "deviance" in contemporary education policy and to the prevailing epistemological debates. Furtermore, determinants of the emerging discourse "specialpedagogik" are specified, e.g. how "deviance" is socially constructed, how its understanding is corraborated in the philosophy of science, and how theories in fields or disciplines like macroeconomics, social policy, education, physiology, and psychology have contributed to the development of "specialpedagogik". 

Uppsatsen är en litteraturstudie som syftar till att definiera begreppet dyspraxi och kartlägga de faktorer som ger upphov till dyspraktiska svårigheter. I arbetet framgår hur svårigheterna manifesteras i individens vardag samt hur man på bästa sätt kan möta och stödja individer med dyspraxi. Det som framkommit av vår studie är att dyspraxibegreppet är ett mångfacetterat begrepp med olika definitioner beroende på i vilket land man befinner sig. Det är i hjärnan och nervsystemet man kan finna de bakomliggande faktorer som ger upphov till svårigheter i främst tre specifika områden nämligen: perception, motorik och sensorisk integrering. Det har visat sig att det neuropedagogiska synsättet är ett ypperligt sätt att se på individens svårigheter men även att lyfta fram individens starka sidor och potentiella utvecklingsmöjligheter. Det neoropedagogiska förhållningssätt är brett och inkluderar flera olika sätt att tänka på, närma sig, se på utveckling och lärandet. Vi har funnit flera olika tips på övningar som kan utveckla individer med dyspraxi i olika avseenden som han/hon kanske inte fullt ut behärskar. För oss har det neuropedagogiska förhållningssättet blivit en självklar del i vårt arbete.

This examination project illustrates the knowledge and consciousness of seven separate teachers' concerning how to adopt reading aloud when teaching. The teachers results are related to research made in a comparative prospect.

Reading research stresses the importance of reading aloud to young children not only for pleasure but for a variety of reasons. The aim of this study is to learn how and why teachers read aloud to young children and if they are aware of the fact that reading aloud can be used for stimulating the development of word, language and reading comprehension. The result show that the most experienced and well educated teachers are those who use reading aloud not only for pleasure, but for above reasons, compared with less experienced and less educated teachers. Thus, this highlights the importance of having a deep understanding of how children can benefit from teachers' reading aloud.

The reader may take part of the compilation to get a deeper insight and deeper understanding of the result of this examination.

.The Whole language program is in Sweden generally referred to as “Kiwimetoden” - “the Kiwi program” (author’s direct translation) partly due to the fact that the Whole language program originates from New Zealand. Whole language is basically a literacy program and approaches literacy from a holistic point of view. Children learning to read and write should do so in the same natural way children learn to speak their native language which is in the context of authentic language as a whole. In Sweden the program is generally practiced together with a commercial and pre-organised material called “kiwi” or “Stjärnsvenska”. The material is basically made up of small- and big book- fiction and fact books organised to meet several different levels of literacy proficiency and interests.

The purpose of this study was to identify some key factors that base the choice of the Kiwi program in the classroom. The informants of the study were four teachers with varied experience who practice the Kiwi program along with (or only uses) the pre-organised material. Through interviews the teachers informed about reasons behind their use of the Kiwi program and how they practice it.

The study analyses four key factors to why the teachers chose “the Kiwi program” to begin with and why they choose to continue practicing the program which are: the pre-organised material, the methods within the program, colleagues and dissatisfaction with previous practice. The main key factor was the use of the materials.

Our conclusion is that the materials are indispensable and essential for the teachers in the study regarding the practice of the Kiwi program. The teachers considered the materials to be all-purposed, fun, individualised, well thought through and able to include children with special needs (as well as children with Swedish as a second language), generating good academic results, reading pleasure and self confidence for the children. Even though the teachers thought that holistic whole language teaching generates good results in literacy, they all had complimentary teaching approaches towards literacy in analyzing letters and sounds.

Conclusively, the study finds that the teachers’ choice of the Kiwi program naturally comply with their previous experience and tacit knowledge of teaching literacy. However, the Kiwi program is utterly dependent on good co-operation with teacher colleagues and the use of the pre-organised materials.

Observation and documentation has been used in Sweden during all of the past century, with many different purposes. The dominant purpose has been to determine the child’s development in relation to paediatrics and different theories of developmental and psychodynamic psychology. In the genealogical readings made in this study, these practices are understood as disciplinary and normalising practices. In a feminist reading of the same practices, they are understood as important tools in the constructions of a public sphere of professionalization for women. In this construction, essentialist notions of femininity and motherhood have been made to coincide with the liberation and needs of the Child as Nature in the modern society. Today the tools are used foremost as a part of evaluation processes, but also as a means to make visible children’s competence and learning-processes, within the new dominant constructivist framework. This study sets out to theoretically, historically as well as practically, investigate if it is possible to understand the practice of what we today call ‘pedagogical documentation’ as a practice which empowers children as well as teachers in their respective as well as co-operative learning-processes.

In this project the researchers own learning-processes in relation to the research has also been investigated. A theoretical displacement is illustrated from a modernist understanding of the practices of observation and documentation, to a feminist poststructural position. Documented practice from Åkervägens pre-school was co-operatively researched together with three pre-school teachers. What started as a participant ethnographic study, transformed into what is conceived as a feminist poststructural research study. In the cooperative learning-processes the possibilities of understanding the tool of pedagogical documentation as a practice of continuos ’resistance’, against taken for granted or dominant meaning making and practices, was investigated. Deconstructive talks as well as collective biography work and storyline deconstructions were used with the teachers. Values and ethical notions of children as equal citizens, with rights to a pedagogical practice with possibilities to investigate their surrounding world together with other children and adults, formed the platform for this co-operative work. The study reveals the possibilities and difficulties with pedagogical documentation as a practice of ’resistance’, but also shows the obvious ‘emancipative’ effects for children and teachers. Conceiving themselves as meaning-making and knowledge-producing subjects, in processes of challenging and continuous change, had certain and important empowering effects.

The aim of this dissertation has been to increase the knowledge about support to children with CP injuries and to find out what they and their families need, expect, desire and can hope to receive. The aim is also to describe conductive education and investigate what ideas and experiences children, parents and habilitation staff have of it. Can conductive education give something to children and parents beyond the support that is already given by the habilitation system, and in that case what? The dissertation is made up of five articles and a theoretical framework. The studies were carried out via observations, interviews and questionnaires.

The habilitation staff members see conductive education as merely intensive movement training in groups. The parents see, in addition, that the education includes all of the child’s functions and that the child makes progress in different areas including communication, cognition and social skills. The parents appreciate the intensive but pleasurable training and feel that the children are interested, stimulated and motivated to activity. The parents gain a great deal from the fellowship and information exchange they have with other parents during the courses. They get opportunities to share their feelings and reflect together with other parents over how they can manage their life situations. Almost all parents who have taken part in courses go on with play and training to varying degrees when they return home, and many of them take part in courses regularly in order to maintain knowledge, motivation and to get new ideas for play and activities that will suit their child. The parents see conductive education as a way of life that they use in their everyday lives, and they expect that it can give results in the future. In conductive education great importance is given to the parents’ acquisition of knowledge and capabilities to stimulate and activate their child as soon as the child’s injuries are diagnosed. It is also important that the parents at the same time get opportunities to meet other parents in the same situation for give-and-take support, hints and information. In some municipalities parents receive financial support for courses in conductive education and help with follow-up from the habilitation teams, while in other municipalities parents receive none of this support.

This study concerns the ethical issues related to interviews with children. In a sub study of the Basic Skills, Social Interaction and Training of the Working Memory (BASTA) project, 10 children between 10 and 12 years of age were interviewed. Interviews involving children have to address many more ethical issues than interviews with adults. Children constitute an overexposed group because they are under age, and because they stand in a dependent relationship with adults. One ethical dilemma for the researcher in interviews with children might be the conflict between professional secrecy and the obligation to report, as stated in the Swedish Social Services Act. According to this Act and to ethical research principles, researchers are bound to maintain professional secrecy.

“A child has been born unto us”, is the most beautiful expression of humankind’s ability to cherish hope and trust for the world, writes Hanna Arendt. She describes how every child’s birth is the beginning of something new, something that the title is intended to emphasise. “Us” in the title also indicates that the child with a functional impairment becomes a public child in a special way.

The purpose of this study is to describe the experience of becoming a parent when the child has a functional impairment. The study is based on a relational perspective. The theoreticians whose ideas have been used are, aside from Arendt, also Buber, Stern and Winnicott. In the analysis of the parental narratives, inspiration was taken from Ricoeur in a hermeneutic phenomenological approach. Encounters are the themes in this thesis, and have been formulated as encounters with the child, the environment and the professionals. 30 parents (19 mothers and 11 fathers) were interviewed about their experiences of parenthood.

The diagnosis of the child’s functional impairment was a chaotic and upsetting situation for the parents. Many strong, different feelings came into play. The parents could feel that they had been “thrown out into space”, and that their future was suddenly taken away from them. The future was what worried them most, and the question that was singled out was “How can we live this life?”

Many professionals became involved in the child’s life, which could be both advantageous and disadvantageous for the family. The professionals’ attitudes and advices had a profound influence on the parents.

Even though the child became in a sense a public child, the parents also had a feeling of having to carry on a struggle for their child in society, a” struggle of love” demanding the consideration of the child’s potential. Another “struggle of love” initially involved the parents’ own attempts to establish a relationship to the child. Thus there were two “struggles of love”.

In their new, hesitant parenthood they had to “find their place in the world” and a way to exist. In their interaction with the child they had two competing figures of mind during the first period, “to be” and “to act”.

The grief the parents had felt for the diagnosis could after a while be separated from the child, and it was the child who helped the parents to handle the grief.

In the thesis the parents’ experiences are discussed, based on questions confronting them. How playing and training are interrelated is also discussed, as well as the significance of narration and the responsibility of the professionals.

These results can be expected to have consequences for special educational work in this field.

This dissertation deals with the two languages of the deaf, sign language and Swedish. The aim of the dissertation can be expressed in four questions:

• What ideas about the deaf and his or her education were influential during various time periods from 1809 to 1990 and what were the reactions of the deaf to the influence of these ideas?

• What were the opinions of the teachers on introduction of bilingual education?

• What was the pattern of communication in the schools for the deaf when bilingual education was introduced?

• What function is fulfilled by bilingualism in the recognition of the deaf from an equality perspective?

Four historical periods are analysed. The first has its focus on the mental development of the deaf (The "Spiritual" Man) and the conflict between sign and oral language education. The second period was dominated by oral language and technical audiological assistance (The "Bodily" Man). Johan Prawitz was opposed to this one-sided approach and argued that the deaf needed two languages separated from each other (sign language and Swedish). The third period stressed the necessity to integrate all children in mainstream education (The "Integrated" Man). The deaf defended the special schools and the importance of sign language. The last period is characterized by bilingualism. The Swedish society acknowledged the sign language as the primary language for the deaf (The "Bilingual" Man). During this period sign language was implemented in the special school. Both teacher experiences and classroom interaction have been documented.

This historical material has been analysed using a power and communicative approach, referring to Michel Foucault and Jürgen Habermas.

Finally, the results are discussed from a defectological as well as an intersubjective point of view.

Praxis-related research – a survey and a case study is an analysis of the relation between research and development. The survey is summarized in terms of various research strategies more or less oriented towards theory, social action, dialogue and participation. Quoting Kurt Lewin “Research that produces nothing but books will not suffice” the author explores the role of research, researchers and co-researchers in a social and pedagogical context. What research methods can be used to involve other people in a research project? What makes a project "scientific"? How does it bring about a change? What about participatory research? Referring to Reason and Bradbury, Zeichner and Noffke, Carr and Kemmis, Alvesson and Deetz the author outlines criteria for assessing praxisrelated research.

How could praxis-related research be evaluated? What aspects and criteria should be taken into account? Is praxis-related research in any way different from other, more conventional types of research? These questions will be discussed here, based on findings from a Research and Development project (R&D project) carried out in the local community of Upplands Väsby, just outside Stockholm. The aim was to improve the quality of student teachers´ degree projects by encouraging them to focus on professional practice knowledge. A parallel aim was to explore alternative and complementary ways of assessing students´ achievements. In this chapter, the Upplands Väsby project and the students´ achievements are analysed.

One conclusion is that assessment should to a greater extent involve experienced teachers and school leaders. Attention should be paid, not only to students´ individual achievements, but also to qualities related to the interaction between the participants, involved and to the “practice architectures” that prefigure their projects. The quality of degree projects is discussed in terms of ‘inquiry culture’, ‘academic literacy’ and ‘pragmatic validity’. The findings are summarised in a frame of reference that might be of importance in evaluating praxis-related research.

Författaren diskuterar olika kunskapsstrategier: fundamental ansats, praxisorienterad ansats, forsknings- och utvecklingsarbete, informella läroprocesser. Avslutningsvis presenteras några olika bedömningsgrunder för praxisorienterad forskning.

Some characteristics of civic society and social capital made it quite difficult to bring about change in the local community of Gullänget. Gullänget is located in the northern part of Sweden. A community development project was carried out aiming at strengthening civic society and participatory democracy. Initiatives related to females, youngsters, children, care and public sector were very hard to realise. Initiatives related to males, industry, housing and market economy were favoured by the community ethos called the spirit of Hägglund. Experiences from this project generate reflections on civic society, social capital and community work strategies. Social capital proved to be a phenomenon integrated with the local power structure which was in certain aspects quite suppressive.

Forsknings- och utvecklingsarbete (FoU) är ett svårfångat fenomen. Hur skiljer sig FoU från andra, mera etablerade former för kunskapsproduktion? Vad menas med en fundamental respektive en praxisorienterad ansats? Hur kan man se på relationen mellan forskning, utbildning och utveckling? Hur kan forskare och praktiker samarbeta på fältet? Författaren diskuterar FoU med stöd av olika forskare bl.a. Carol Weiss, Donald A Schön, Paulo Freire och Pierre Bourdieu. Ett särskilt kapitel handlar om aktionsforskning och självförvaltande forskning. Boken avslutas med beskrivningar av två fall som visar hur forskning och utvecklingsarbete kan kombineras i praktiken.

What knowledge is of value in Special Education? That is the title of this evaluation report focusing on a teacher education programme at Stockholm Institute of Education. What kind of knowledge is of importance? What is relevant to the academy and what are the requirements formed by the field of professional practice? The concept of “inclusion” is important in the Stockholm programme. The practitioners do not generally use this concept. In the field of professional practice there is a focus on individual pupils. The differences between “academic” knowledge and “professional practice” knowledge is analysed with reference to Plato and Aristotle and their different epistemologies. Other references are Crozier and Friedberg, Foucault, Gustavsen, Habermas, Kemmis, Lewin, Polanyi, Schön and Zeichner and Noffke. The author argues that "the gap" between theory and practice should be recognized as a point of departure for changing praxis in special education. Nine strategies for changing praxis are outlined.

Mattsson introduces the contributions made by each co-author in the edited volume Examining Praxis (Mattsson & Johansson, 2008). The title "What is at stake?" refers to the public interest in how to foster good teachers and to examie quality in teacher education.

Reflecting on the neo-Aristotelian perspective and the issues in the edited volume, Enabling Praxis (Kemmis & Smith, 2008), Mattsson discusses a different meaning of praxis. Based on the examples and cases presented Mattsson outlines six strategies for praxis development: "the agent as a role model", the reflective practitioner", "a collaborative approach", "an indirect approach focusing on practice architectures", "an indirect approach supporting professional development" and "an activist approach". Mattsson argues that praxis development requires well experienced agents that have a broad repertoire of strategies.

This article elucidates criteria which might be helpful in evaluating praxis-related research. We explore both sides of the Research & Development project; we examine different ways of understanding contributions to knowledge through research but more especially exploring ideas about contributions to changing praxis. Changing praxis necessarily involves changing not only each participant as an individual actor, but changing patterns of activity. In most praxis-related research, this is pursued by involving a widening range of participants in a setting. This poses the further problem that the rippling effects of the project are not entirely under the researcher’s control. Thus, as our title suggests, praxis-related research serves two masters: very often, R & D projects aim to make contributions to social science; generally, they also aim to make contributions to the world of human affairs. Different criteria are appropriate for judging each.