Key findings based on data from the Second International Science Study for 19,036 third, fourth, seventh, eighth, ninth, eleventh, and twelfth graders in Sweden are discussed. Findings concerning achievement, attitudes, gender differences, future education, and career choices indicate that science achievement is increasing, and gender differences…

This study examined children's perceptions of child-rearing norms and values of the culture where the child is raised and provides a cross-cultural comparison of child development in India, Kenya, and Sweden. Children ages 8 through 13 in Kenya were asked questions regarding good and bad behavior and parents' sanctions, the results of which were…

Describes a project that looked for new forms of inservice training that would be more in line with teachers' own ideas about developing their method of teaching. The process emphasizes letting teachers control their own inservice training and letting the problem, not the method, guide teacher development. (SM)

Examines children's production and participation in play and games in an Italian preschool and a Swedish after-school program. Considers play as part of a process of interpretive reproduction in children's lives, and demonstrates how children at play use a range of communicative skills, collectively participate in and extend their peer cultures,…

Written in Swedish with an English-language summary, this report describes a study which examined the interaction between mothers or caregivers and their children with profound mental retardation and multiple disabilities, particularly looking at the function of play in communicative interaction. The six children all had five or six handicaps in…

Four cities in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark have been engaged since 1977 in a joint study of the junior level of elementary school. (More than 5,000 pupils are involved in the study.) The Department of Education at the University of Turku joined the project in the autumn term of 1979. The purpose of the Swedish project, reported here, was to…

A group of about 200 students in Malmo, Sweden, was followed through three grades of elementary school (grades 4, 5, and 6) in order to observe the development of their composition writing skills. The project involved three problem areas. (1) "How does the written language develop and how is it viewed by judges?" The data gathered shows…

To project the future of schools in the 1990s, current societal trends are discussed--from the Swedish perspective--that have resulted in dramatic problems of large urban schools. School institutional changes are needed to meet societal changes. The inherent conservatism of the school can result in a mismatch with society. (SLD)

A total of 318 grade-5 pupils in Swedish schools were questioned in regard to why English is a compulsory subject. Two hundred and one pupils thought that English is compulsory because it is a world language, 94 thought so because it is useful, and 23 thought so because some authority decided so. Contains 22 references. (MDM)

As part of a continuing evaluation of the Swedish school system, changes in intelligence test scores from 1960 to 1995 were studied in relation to cohort, gender, and socioeconomic background. Changes in verbal, spatial, and reasoning ability were studied by comparing results on identical tests given to representative samples of Swedish…

This report presents results of research conducted in conjunction with a Swedish project focused on the bilingual instruction of immigrant children. The main aim of the project was to construct a model for teaching children with a mother-tongue other than Swedish (in this case, Finnish) in a way that would provide them the same educational and…

Data were collected between 1965 and 1971 concerning the physical status and school achievement of a nationally representative sample of Swedish pupils comprised of 360 girls and 380 boys. Pupils were followed from grade 3 through grade 9 of compulsory school. For boys, similar data were collected in connection with military enrollment. Main…

This longitudinal study examined the experiences of out-of-home preschool child care to performance and adjustment in elementary school. Subjects were 145 children in Goteborg, Sweden, who were on average 16 months of age when they were enrolled in this study. Within 4 weeks of enrollment in the study, 54 children began center-based day care, 36…

In a follow-up study of the effects of early day care on children's cognitive and socioemotional competence, children who entered day care before the age of 1 year were found to have a better academic performance at ages 8 and 13 and to receive more positive teacher ratings than other children on several socioemotional variables. (Author/GLR)

Several studies were conducted to investigate the nature and development of creative social problem solving among older and younger children in Sweden and the United States. First, the behaviors of older children were investigated formally in a large-scale experimental study of California 10-year-olds. Results indicated that children receiving…