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One core aspect of learning a language is developing vocabulary, an endeavor that requires a structured and principled focus in the classroom. As the EFL textbook has a central position in the language learning classroom, it should have an important role to play in structuring vocabulary development. Yet, what guides decisions concerning the vocabulary content in textbooks has not been thoroughly studied. This paper presents an interview study with eight Swedish materials developers of frequently used EFL teaching materials aimed at school years 7-9. The results show that the materials developers focus primarily on providing engaging texts and base the vocabulary content on end users' opinions and their own intuition. The study also indicates that word lists are construed as a tool primarily for reading comprehension rather than for vocabulary learning. The study concludes that vocabulary research findings appear to have a limited impact on decisions about vocabulary content.

Teaching is a complex collection of creative actions with ongoing consequential choices and decisions; therefore, it necessitates educators' ongoing reflection. As educators who currently serve art teacher candidates at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, a small public university in the rural Northeast, the authors constantly seek to rework themselves and expand their lens on the world, and they continuously think about how they might inculcate reflection as a habit of mind in their teacher candidates who are embarking on a lifetime of collaborative learning. Within the pandemic's uncertainty and daily onslaught of the unforeseen, they noticed teacher candidates finding it challenging to step back and reflect. This climate was an opening for reflection as a means for sensemaking. The teacher candidates' reflections easily moved away from asset-based introspection to negative feelings such as regret and judgment. This facilitated the need to house and support their acts of reflection in a community of practice, a safe home to debrief and unpack in, with, and through a cohort of others.

Parental interventions can help parents use strategies to support their child's language and communication development. The ComAlong courses are parental interventions that focus on responsive communication, enhanced milieu teaching, and augmentative and alternative communication. This interview study aimed to investigate the course leaders' perceptions of the three ComAlong courses, ComAlong Habilitation, ComAlong Developmental Language Disorder, and ComAlong Toddler, and to evaluate their experiences of the implementation of the courses. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyze the interview data. Thereafter, three categories resulted from the findings: Impact on the Family, A Great Course Concept, and Accessibility of the Courses. The results indicate that participants perceived that the courses had positive effects on both parents and themself. Furthermore, it was described that parents gained knowledge about communication and strategies in how to develop their child's communication; however, the courses were not accessible to all parents. The collaboration between the parents and course leaders improved, and course leaders viewed the courses as an important part of their work. The following factors had an impact on the implementation: several course leaders in the same workplace, support from colleagues and management, and recruitment of parents to the courses.

Vocabulary is a core feature of language proficiency, requiring explicit attention in the language classroom. As teachers' conceptualizations influence their teaching, their understanding of vocabulary deserves closer attention. Yet, few teacher cognition studies focus on vocabulary, and even fewer on non-native teachers' conceptualizations of vocabulary. This paper presents an interview study with Swedish EFL teachers at secondary school level. Fourteen teachers were interviewed about their beliefs and practices in relation to vocabulary development in the classroom. The study shows that despite a general understanding of the importance of vocabulary in language learning among the teachers, vocabulary was not seen as a learning objective in its own right. Closely connected to this understanding, the teachers showed a great reliance on incidental vocabulary learning, where words were understood as "picked up along the way" while doing other things, such as reading and playing games. It was also found that although the teachers showed an awareness of the many aspects involved in word knowledge, they mentioned few methods to work with them. The study suggests a need for a more explicit focus on vocabulary instruction in the language learning classroom.

Both curators and educators craft ways for others to enter into relationships with objects and ideas, finding personal meaning therein. As university art educators of a teacher training program, the authors invited their preservice art educators to enter into curatorial acts that call on them to unpack their own teacher identities and philosophies. Their students explored their burgeoning roles as art educators through the process of curating objects that communicate their narratives--the stories they desired to tell about themselves. This article shares two of the learning encounters that the authors designed for their students, the Mystery Vessel and the Personal Identity Museum, both inclusive of curatorial acts and reflective practices. Their intent is to offer models of curatorial acts and advocate for art curriculum to include curation as a means of developing skills of critical thinking through collecting, organizing, and contextualizing objects, images, and ideas.

Based on Swedish register data from 2003 to 2012, this study attempts to explain over-education and upward mobility among tertiary graduates. Rarely used explanatory factors are central in the analyses, such as 'still in study' and 'field of education'. Tertiary graduates in low-wage jobs are regarded as over-educated. The results of this work suggest that the general increase in graduates correlates well with the increase in over-educated graduates. Many of those who were categorised as over-educated were students, and graduates from some specific fields were particularly vulnerable to working in low-wage jobs. Sixty per cent of the graduates found more suitable jobs, while up to 40 per cent stayed in jobs related to lower wages. Graduates from fields associated with higher risks of over-education were also less likely to experience upward mobility. The increasing occurrence of over-education among graduates may not only result in a substandard utilisation of human capital (and absence of social mobility), it also seems that the presence of large numbers of over-educated graduates in low-paid work may have implications for unskilled workers, through displacement effects.

Awareness of the mechanisms underlying training and development (T&D) programmes is crucial in creating sustainable learning conditions in organisations. The organisational and psychosocial aspects of the work environment in Swedish elderly care is the focus of this longitudinal study, and the relation between process and results of a T&D programme is investigated. A mixed-methods design enabled exploration of the content of the quality improvement efforts, followed by an examination of how aspects of the work environment are influenced. The perceived learning climate, workload and resource adequacy are shown to be influenced differently by different contents. Insights into the complexity surrounding T&D programmes are then offered. It is concluded that even if a seemingly sound method of quality improvement is implemented, this is not enough to guarantee success. Also, it is apparent that changes may sometimes be at the expense of employees' work environment, which may hamper continuous learning.

This article reports the findings of a comparative analysis of two English teaching course book series which are widely used in school years 4-6 in Sweden: Good Stuff and New Champion. The analysis comprises comparisons of the vocabulary component in the teaching materials and examines the extent to which words -- adjectives, nouns and verbs -- recur in the books, whether there is a common core of words in the two series and, finally, whether vocabulary in the two teaching materials corresponds with accepted measures of English high-frequency words. The study shows that variation in vocabulary is considerable in individual books, within a series and between the two series; all textbooks contain a high proportion of one-time and low-frequency words. As a result, it is difficult to pin down a common core vocabulary. The study further shows that even though many words do correspond to general high-frequency words, as much as one-third are not found among the 2,000 most frequent English words.

In this study we examine the long-term impact of second chance education (SCE) on incomes of poorly educated individuals who live in Sweden but were not born in a Nordic country, using data on income changes from 1992 to 2003 compiled by Statistics Sweden. Ordinary Least Squares regression analyses show that participation in SCE increased the work income of non-Nordics by a higher percentage than that of Nordics. The results also indicate that much of the effects of SCE on non-Nordics are related to increases in "Sweden-specific" human capital, rather than increases in their educational level per se, which seems to provide a form of "endowment insurance" that improves their labour market position in Sweden. Relying on the theoretical framework of the Capability Approach, we conclude that such effects are related to the instrumental economic value of individuals' capability to be educated, as well as the value of material well-being.

After 10 years of teaching art in public schools, Carrie Nordlund arrived at a state of query that set in motion her search for alternative approaches to learning. As she was feeling stifled in a seemingly sterile education institution with its overdependence on and pedagogy aimed at standardized tests, she came across a reference to Waldorf Education in Eric Jensen's (2001) "Arts with the Brain in Mind." She wondered if Waldorf Education, especially with its seamlessly arts-infused curriculum and focus on children's imagination, could provide public school educators alternate ideas and structures for supporting thinking in and through the arts. In this article, she takes stock of the current public school climate, defines Waldorf Education, and proposes four Waldorf-inspired pedagogical practices stemming from her research, "Art Experiences in Waldorf Education: Graduates' Meaning Making Reflections" (Nordlund, 2006). She acknowledges that philosophies and cultural structures unique to Waldorf Education cannot be replicated in public schools. Yet, by reflecting on Waldorf pedagogy, educators may implement in their own unique school settings improved approaches to learning that are Waldorf-inspired and may encompass greater opportunities for creative performance from educators and children as seen in established Waldorf-methods public schools.

This article investigates the relation between the second chance of increase in formal education amongst low-educated adults in Sweden and long-term wage development. Despite the awareness of the role of education for employability and individuals' overall life chances, surprisingly few studies have investigated the wage effects of Second-Chance Education for adults. Research contributions referring to long-term effects of such educational investment are particularly limited. In this study, we use a longitudinal register database compiled by Statistics Sweden where we follow all low-educated adults in Sweden from 1992 over a time span of 12 years. The results show both impressive direct and long-term positive effects on wages after the adult attainment of a completed secondary education. In further analysis, a large proportion of the long-term effects are shown to relate to further educational attainment after the completion of Second-Chance Secondary Education. The conclusion drawn is that Second-Chance Education in Sweden is an effective tool for improving long-term labour market prospects and economic opportunities for low-educated adults, not least through its ability to start educational trajectories.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the learning climate in elderly care, its potential improvements after the "Steps for skills," and its influence on knowledge from formal training. The assumptions were: the different activities of the Steps for skills should enhance the perceived learning climate; differences in working conditions in home help and residential homes should influence the perceived learning climate and its improvements; and changes in the perception of the learning climate should bring changes in the perceived usefulness of new knowledge. Design/methodology/approach: The study is a case study carried out in the public elderly care in Sweden, and used a repeated measurements design. A total of 270 nursing assistants answered a questionnaire at Time I, and 174 at Time II. Findings: Results show no improvements of the learning climate for the full sample. When contrasting the learning climate in home help services and in residential homes significant differences are found, and also a tendency for their learning climate to change in opposite directions. The perception of the learning climate seems to influence the perceived usefulness of new knowledge. Research limitations/implications: The sample was from one single organization. Practical implications: Developmental interventions should take in to consideration that context matters, and that the perceived learning climate influences the use of new knowledge. Originality/value: In this study, a 15-items learning climate scale (LCS) is presented. Another contribution is identifying working condition failure as a potential explanation to why interventions usually do not result in expected changes. (Contains 3 tables and 2 notes.)

Thirty years after its completion, "The Dinner Party" found a permanent home at the Brooklyn Museum in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. At the request of artist Judy Chicago, the authors developed a curriculum guide for educators to include this significant artwork in K-12 programs. Chicago's hope was that by engaging in serious investigation of the artwork, students would develop a consciousness about gender, along with a deep understanding of women's history, including the obstacles women faced as they struggled to participate fully in society. Focusing especially on K-12 teachers, the authors hosted an Invitation to "The Dinner Party" Summer Institute at Kutztown University in 2007. Their invitation to the participants was to investigate "The Dinner Party" and, in the spirit of its creation, assist afterwards in the development of curricular strategies for exploring the artwork in K-12 classrooms. Their planning process drew upon their deeply embedded orientations to feminism and social justice, as well as their beliefs regarding the importance of understanding artworks as situated within multiple and overlapping contexts. In this article the authors introduce these orientations and beliefs in the form of 15 principles that guided the planning and implementation of their summer institute program. The authors explain each principle, describe how they employed it in the Institute, and highlight how teachers integrated or might integrate it into their own elementary, middle, or high school art curriculum. At any given time, while planning and implementing curriculum, a teacher might be guided by more than one principle. (Contains 3 figures and 2 endnotes.)

This article describes a programme of autonomous language learning (ALMS) introduced at Helsinki University Language Centre in 1994. The programme was developed to encourage students to become actively involved in their own learning in terms of deciding what they need and wish to learn, setting goals and objectives, achieving these objectives, and reflecting upon and evaluating the outcomes. Learner support is offered in a variety of ways through the counselling system that is an essential element of the programme. The counsellors run the initial learner-awareness sessions in which the emphasis is on the learning process, strategies, needs and skills. They help the learners with their study plans and give guidance where necessary. They also meet the students in a series of one-on-one counselling sessions that foster individual contact and learner-counsellor dialogue. The ALMS programme draws from and feeds on continuous collaborative action-research projects, which address practices seen to be problematic on the basis of learner feedback or counsellor experience. (Contains 4 figures.)

This article discusses the implications of inclusion in education for the study and teaching of music. Regardless of interpretation, inclusion is labor-intensive and must receive administrative support and schoolwide cooperation in order to work, that is, ensuring learning success for all students as well as meeting individual needs.

Reasons/methods for standardizing discriminant function coefficients are reviewed, and use of the pooled within-groups variance estimate is examined. Use of total or pooled within-groups estimates can be justified only on purely mathematical grounds. Total variance estimates offer a more consistent and parsimonious approach than do pooled within-group estimates. (TJH)

The 1916 Federal Employees' Compensation Act is still the focal point around which the federal workers compensation program works today. The program has gone through many changes on its way to becoming a modern means of compensating workers for job-related injury, disease, and death. (Author)