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Nordic popular education (folkbildning) has a history of emancipatory endeavours. At the same time it has also been involved in, and reproducing, different structures of power. By studying participants on a Folk High School course on global development, where intersectional power orders are critically challenged while also permeating and enabling the course, this article addresses this paradox. Interviews are analysed with tools from critical and cultural sociological theory. The purpose of the study is to deepen the understanding of the conditions and significance of critical popular education. The stories depict how the courses become alternatives to more male-dominated elite courses at the Folk High School; how class is mirrored as the course becomes a tool for either upward class mobility or (middle) class reproduction; and how a moral subjectivity is created through a relation to, and distancing from, discourses of tourism and traditional aid.

Reflective Internationalisation: Development Issues as an Educational Area for Folk High Schools in Step with the Times. This article explores discourses on internationalisation in Tidskrift för svenska folkhögskolan (Journal of Swedish Folk High Schools) between 1970 and 1989, an era when engagement for global development had become established within the Swedish popular educational system of folk high schools (FHS). The purpose is to examine what meanings are given to “internationalisation” and “the international” over time, whom and how it would affect, as well as how the FHS would engage with the issues. The study uncovers a retrospective understanding of “the international” through former nationalistic discourses as well as new postcolonial and anti-imperialist criticism. It also shows how the responsibility for development issues individualises over time. In parallel, the FHS start to work with advocacy addressing Swedish society and make the transition from seeing themselves as educators of the Global South, to expecting to become educated by the Global South. The study depict how developmental issues as an educational area continues shape the institutional identity of the FHS over time. It problematises the role of the FHS in both mobilising solidarity engagement and at the same time establishing development issues as an important area of education for the middle classes of the Global North in a society under advanced liberalism.

(Inter)nationalist Popular Education: Security Policy, Nationalism and Advocacy in the Swedish Folk High Schools’ Action on Development Issues 1950-1969 Folk High Schools in Sweden have a long history of engaging internationally, especially as regards courses on development studies (u-landslinjer) that emerged in the late sixties. The purpose of this article is to track some of the discourses about internationalisation, development and aid that preceded those courses, as well as to scrutinise ideas of the role of the Folk High School (folkhögskola) in the emerging field of development aid. Analysing material from Tidskrift för svenska folkhögskolan (Journal of the Swedish Folk High School) between 1950 and 1969, the study shows that the discourse on internationalism takes its starting point from an already established nationalism and nordism. National security also arises as an argument for engaging in development issues. The analysis also shows that there is a shift in the role of the Folk High School in the evolving development work; from “helping” to “advocating.” The results raise questions about how we can understand today’s Folk High School courses on global development against the background of the debates of the fifties and sixties.

The article is based on my postdoc project, financed by Åke Wiberg Foundation, that is studying national identification among a total of 23 Swedish internet and tech entrepreneurs based in Stockholm, Berlin, New York City and San Francisco. The purpose of this article is to explore how and when ”Swedishness” is considered as something of value for the informants, possible to use as an asset, for example, when it comes to attracting foreign investors, and how and when it is rather toned down in favor of a more cosmopolitan and meritocratic identification. In recent years, Sweden has had significant success in the tech/internet sector. Especially informants based in Europe highlighted the interest of Swedes on the tech scene as something important and used ”Swedishness” in their self-presentations. The informants who were based in the US, and especially in San Francisco, showed a tendency instead to emphasize an identification with a global elite. On the other hand, they also showed a greater tendency to highlight qualities of the Swedish society at large, which those who were still based in Europe did not do to the same extent. Furthermore, the article discusses how the possibility to chose the most useful identification or selfpresentation indicates a privilege that is not available for everyone.

The article is based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out on behalf of a research project about the Swedish startup/internet community and suggests that the 1990s can be seen as an iconic period of time for the Swedish Internet scene. It is argued that mental associations and imaginations associated with the 1990s are still relevant for the intellectual construction of the present-day internet-scene through providing a framework for the making of a space in Michel de Certeau’s sense of the word. The article presents reoccurring themes from the interviews with the informants, highlighted as examples of important stories about the 1990s that are active in constructing the framework for the organization of later experiences.

Improving routines for patients with vagus nerve stimulation Background: Vagus Nerve Stimulator (VNS) is a form of therapy which may reduce the frequency of seizures in people with epilepsy, who do not achieve remission with antiepileptic drugs. A corresponding magnet providing an additional dose of stimulation may stop or shorten the intensity of the seizure. Objective Investigate the practice and procedure regarding use and storage of a VNS Therapy magnet, to see whether introduction of a new routine with a permanent seat for VNS magnet may contribute to increased availability of the magnet. Method Registration of the magnets location was performed before, and after the magnetic board intervention. In addition staff answered a questionnaire related to experiences around storage of magnet. Results The number of not located magnets dropped from 70% to 25 % after the intervention. Conclusion A magnetic board as a storage area for VNS magnet on the patient's room increases the availability of the magnet.