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This article presents the main findings of an applied research project, which studied student experiences of the challenges and opportunities of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) in two master programmes (MPs) at Aalborg University (AAU) characterised by diverse student groups, who bring different educational backgrounds, skills and experiences to the table. Research shows that PBL holds a potential for integrating and promoting learning outcomes for diverse student population, but also that heterogeneity can have negative influence on group dynamics and collaboration central in PBL, but how students experience this is under-researched. The investigation shows that diversity in terms of age differences and varieties in educational backgrounds are experienced both as challenges in teaching situations, but also as an opportunity to increase student learning over time. The study concludes with recommendations for practical alterations of the introduction to and conditions for the PBL model.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relation between territorial stigmatization and community work in Denmark. In the paper, we firstly explore territorial stigmatization, relating it to the Danish context. We show how territorial stigmatization in Denmark happens via a complex amalgamation of bureaucratic practices which identify particular areas as problematic 'ghettos', and how this leads to top–down interventions upon many local residential areas, including local community work. Following this, we draw on participant observations in practices of local community work, and interviews with local community workers, to explore how they practically negotiate these particular political constructions of their work. We argue that local community workers come to take on interstitial roles—that is, they come to be in-between the state and authorities and the local communities themselves. This complex double role is what we call an interstitial position, meant to signify how Danish local community workers are both part of territorial stigmatization and simultaneously trying to escape from and undo this very role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Territorial capital is more than economy, business and socioeconomic status of residents. It is also the way residents of localities form social networks and how these are intertwined with the local political, institutional and administrative configurations. Sampson (2011) argues that while social networks foster the conditions under which collective efficacy may flourish, they are not sufficient for the exercise of social cohesion and social control. Networks have to be activated to be meaningful. Interaction is embedded in local traditions and social order is produced locally. Analysing interviews from a rural location in Denmark, we examine how referential features of group life (spatial areas, relations, shared pasts) generate action. We develop the concept of 'governance efficacy' to denote the capacity to mobilise collective efficacy in relation to territorial development. We argue that such a concept is an important element in explaining why and how a peripheral location is able to manage social challenges despite population decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An article discussing the importance of capacity building in the process of community growth and development is presented. The author examines the role of social capital and inclusion in neighborhood regeneration, noting the usefulness of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's concept of habitus in the context of capacity building. The history of addressing capacity in government policy making and an examination of the notion of "the third way" in European countries including England and Denmark are also addressed.