Reviews recent studies on the effects of mixed-age grouping (MAG) in Swedish nursery and elementary schools. Although studies conducted in the 1970s and 1980s suggested that MAG was beneficial to children's learning and socioemotional development and to teachers' work satisfaction, studies conducted in the 1990s suggest that MAG does not promote…

The main aim of the present study was to describe children's perceptions and experiences of bullying: the way they define it, their thoughts about why children are bullied and their experiences of the way adults respond to bullying. The study group comprised 960 children in the fourth grade. The most frequent answers concerning why some children…

Local responsibility for school development in Sweden has led to new possibilities for teacher improvement. This paper looks at using the potential of action research generated by the decentralization for the inservice training of teachers. Decentralization offered opportunities for inservice development work through special funding for projects,…

This paper addresses some of the problems that society in general, and child care centers in particular, must confront due to the effects of the computer and mass media on the modern world. Children today live in a society increasingly dominated by computers and the mass media, and it is important that they be able to utilize these new…

A study sought information about the success of the Swedish 9-year compulsory comprehensive school for students with home language other than Swedish. Immigrant adolescents and a sample of Swedish students answered a questionnaire discussing their lines of study after comprehensive school and the students' views on the home language instruction…

Relations between aptitude variables and school achievement were investigated using a model of ability that permits simultaneous identification of general and specific abilities. Subjects were 866 Swedish students who were given aptitude tests in grade 6; results of that test were compared with course grades collected in grade 9. The usefulness of…

Because of changes in the Swedish educational system (including formation of a new upper secondary school), as well as changes in other countries, the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) is undertaking a new science study to provide evidence for policymaking and for better understanding the…

The ENKA Project is concerned with two major problem areas: the conceptions of physical and chemical phenomena, central to an upper level course, held by compulsory school pupils (grades 7-9) and the implications from descriptions of pupils' conceptions and ways of reasoning for current teaching practice. To determine conceptions held, pupils were…

An experimental scheme of bilingual instruction for Finnish immigrant children at the preschool level and at the junior level of elementary school was conducted between 1972 and 1980. The aim of the project was for the children to become functionally bilingual in an educational context equivalent to that provided for Swedish children. Between 1972…

Three measurements for describing different aspects of sociometric status in a longtudinal study are presented. The measurements were developed over the course of an investigation into stability and change in social positions within a school class The subjects were Swedish schoolchildren aged 10-13 years. Information about the pupils' sociometric…

Suggests practical activities which can be introduced into the training of Swedish nursery school and compulsory school teachers for the purpose of improving the organization of technology classes. Explains how simple inexpensive materials can be used in imaginative ways to intrigue and involve children, especially girls, in technical activities.…

This book describes survey data and an intervention program conducted in Sweden and Norway as part of a government-led nationwide campaign against bullying. The survey data support some conventional wisdom about bullying, but also destroy many longheld myths about bullies and victims. The goals of the intervention program were to: (1) reduce or…

Data were collected on the type of day care experienced by 119 Swedish children who were followed from their first year of life to age 8. Types of day care included: (1) center care continuing from the first or second year; (2) center care begun at a later age; (3) mixed care, or, transition from family day care to center care; (4) day mother…

The Process Analysis of Non-Grading (PANG) project evaluates the planned experiments with non-graded upper grades in communities with few pupils in Sweden. The main objectives is an analysis of the possibilities and difficulties that will appear through the new frame situation concerning realization of achievement goals and social goals. Six…

A comparison was made of ability and achievement test results and school grades for 323 pairs of Swedish male and female twins and 740 controls in relation to social background. An interaction effect of sex and social background was found for verbal ability and mathematics test results. (SLD)