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In this essay, we argue that pupils in compulsory school education seem to be exposed to conflicting pressures from an (internal) tendency towards individualisation and an (external) tendency towards standardisation. Drawing on Luc Bolanski and Laurent Thévenot's pragmatic sociology of orders of worth, we develop a theoretical framework to discuss the two conflicting cultures. In the first part of the analysis, we present the broad and enhanced tendency towards individualisation in terms of methods and content in Norwegian compulsory education -- the construction of an "inspirational pupil" -- and in the second part of the analysis, we present the development of standards for assessment -- the construction of an "industrial pupil." In the final section we discuss two forms of processes -- individualisation and standardisation -- rooted in two incompatible orders of worth, the inspirational and industrial order, respectively, and argue that these processes represent a major challenge in schools, a conflicting pressure to which pupils are being subjected.

Central among a range of reforms and policy measures aimed at enhancing the quality and social cohesion of Norwegian early childhood education and care (ECEC) services is the 2017 "Framework Plan for Kindergartens." In this article, we investigate the policy formation process and how framework plan reform has been carried out by public and private stakeholders at different levels. The reform is explored as institutional layering, referring to theoretical contributions that stress the role of incremental development and gradual institutional change. We ask: What are the policies added, and to what extent do added policies instigate institutional change? This article relies on qualitative document analyses, semistructured interviews, and quantitative survey data. We find high legitimacy for the framework plan in the ECEC sector, and informants broadly regard it as a continuation of earlier versions of the plan. Our analysis further shows that the implementation of the 2017 framework plan reform cannot be viewed in isolation, as it interacts with other reforms, trends, and instruments in the sector. We argue that blending reform design features with existing values and practices adds layers to Norwegian ECEC, instigating change. The analysis points to the need for further research on how national educational reforms are implemented in complex settings and to investigate the relationships between policy design and measures and between policy outcomes and ambitions. The relationships between different measures can be unclear to local implementers. Thus, we stress the importance of considering how reform outcomes depend on intertwined reforms and varying local conditions regarding capacity, norms, and values.

This study examines how nursing students in their final year use skills in information literacy (IL) in clinical placements when working on an assignment in evidence-based practice. The IL instruction and the assignment were designed to give the students room for reflective thinking. Reflective thinking is crucial for developing good practice and adequate care in nursing. The study is qualitatively oriented and sets out to examine what kind of skills and knowledge the students demonstrate when doing an assignment that is practically oriented, and where IL is integrated in other tasks. The empirical material consists of written reflection notes from clinical placement. These notes have been analysed using a version of Bloom's taxonomy. For educators it is important to focus on how to bridge the theory-practice gap and combine IL with practical work. In this study we have identified some factors that may need more attention when designing similar assignments for students. The conclusion drawn from the reflection notes is that the students are on different levels of maturity and that in designing assignments related to real-life contexts, this should be given more attention.

This study investigates the instruction of religious stories of Judaism at the primary school level in a Norwegian educational setting, with a focus on the perceptions of 8-year-old students regarding narratives about Moses. By integrating classroom observations and student interviews, it examines the teacher's pedagogical approach in instruction and how this influences students' perceptions. In addition, it explores student's ability to engage and express themselves independently in encounter with the stories. Theoretical perspectives of philosophy of language, particularly Bakhtin and Taylor, are employed to analyse students' expressions and perceptions. The findings are situated within the broader context of international research on teaching religious stories in elementary education. International literature highlights the pedagogical benefits of using stories to engage students in critical thinking and foster an understanding of religious narratives. The article aims to contribute to a nuanced understanding of how the youngest students navigate and interpret religious instructional material as well as their comprehension of the reasons for learning about Moses. Overall, this study contributes to a comprehension on how the youngest students engage with religious narratives and sheds light on teacher's pedagogical approaches in RE instruction at the lower primary level.

During COVID-19, distance learning has given students around the world unforeseen challenges, including the way their learning is being assessed. Assessment for learning (AfL) can contribute to the development of students' strategies to meet unknown challenges as lifelong learners. The purpose of AfL is to inform learning, and it can play a significant role in achieving lifelong learning strategies, such as self-regulation, effectiveness and independent learning. This article presents qualitative findings from a study examining students' perceptions (24 students) of teaching and assessment practices in upper secondary school in Norway in the spring of 2020. The findings show that students valued individual teacher feedback to support learning. The students experienced flexibility in teaching practices, and moreover, they were trusted to do the work they were told. However, regarding assessments, they felt it was unfair and that student involvement in assessment was lacking. There was little variation in the assignments, which were mostly individual, written assignments. An important message is that they missed collaborating with other students and that many of them were left alone with their schoolwork.

Changing views on childhood and children's rights entail an increasing demand for listening to children's voices, even in research. "All" children are, in principle, seen as vulnerable participants in research, but our concern is the particularly vulnerable children. By listening to them, researchers increase the chances of contributing to the improvement of the children's total situations based on their own experiences. In this article, after discussing why vulnerable children should take part in research and exemplifying how they should do it, we consider advice for enabling particularly vulnerable students' voices to be heard in research in ethically justifiable ways. Recommendations for considering vulnerable children's participation in research are proposed. While children may be regarded particularly vulnerable for a range of reasons, we draw attention to the student group in regular classes identified as having special educational needs by referring to examples from a recent research project in Norwegian schools.

This study explores school leaders' and teachers' experiences of leadership in assessment during the Covid-19 lockdowns. A total of 148 school leaders and 582 teachers participated in a survey, and 15 school leaders from four schools also participated in focus group interviews. In Norway, the pandemic led to closed schools for long periods, from spring 2020 to spring 2022. Moreover, all final exams were cancelled, and all final gradings were made by individual teachers. In a disruptive and chaotic situation, it was up to school leaders at each school to ensure that teachers' assessment practices used to decide students' final grades were valid and reliable. The extraordinary circumstances that the pandemic created in schools also created a need for leadership functions beyond the ordinary. It seems that the disruptive situation during the Covid-19 school lockdowns led to a re-distribution of school leadership tasks connected to assessment, which in turn motivated more development and innovation, even stronger collaboration, and a more focused ability to solve problems related to assessment challenges in school. This study also revealed a need for more teacher support and assessment capability within school leadership to ensure fairness, validity and reliability in final assessment.

STEM partnerships are popular initiatives but can be challenging to implement in practice. Accordingly, within the context of a nationwide, cross-setting STEM partnership program in Norway -- Lektor2 -- a co-design tool was introduced to support teachers to collaborate with STEM professionals in developing curriculum units involving authentic STEM problems and practices. Thus, the purpose of this study was to describe the teachers' and students' experiences from the curriculum units based on the co-design tool and how the tool might help facilitate partnerships in STEM education. Teacher and student data were collected in 2015-2018 (N=2479), and responses to open-ended questions were coded using a grounded theory approach. Findings indicate that the co-design tool, particularly "the commission" -- where students are commissioned by STEM professionals to design solutions to authentic problems -- enhanced teachers' collaboration with STEM professionals, led to changes in pedagogical approaches, and enabled the teachers to differentiate in their teaching. Student experiences from participating in the co-designed curriculum units are characterised as more expansive views of STEM, STEM learning, and increased STEM engagement. We discuss how the co-design tool enabled teachers to overcome partnership challenges and what aspects of the commission appeared to be important for the students' experiences. This study provides a specific example of a co-design tool that can enhance pedagogical designs developed through STEM partnerships.

Although there is a notion of a 'Nordic tradition' of outdoor education in the international literature, research from the Nordic countries is rarely included in research reviews. Therefore, this scoping review provides an overview of empirical studies on outdoor education (grades 1-13) from the Nordic countries. Of the 586 hits, 52 studies met the inclusion criteria and were subjected to descriptive and content analyses. The majority of the studies are qualitative and situated in primary school contexts. Multiple school subjects and science are the most common subject matter addressed by outdoor education, but "friluftsliv," mathematics, and language are also represented. The content analysis indicates that teachers' perspectives are most frequently investigated, followed by nature of outdoor education, well-being, and cognitive learning. Fewer studies investigate teaching and learning processes, digital resources, and education for sustainability outdoors. Suggestions for further research on outdoor education in Nordic countries are discussed.

This study focuses on the problem solving skills in technology-rich environments of teachers. PIAAC (Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies) data on adults' (n = 11,294) competencies, is used to investigate how problem solving skills of teachers are associated with sociodemographic, work-related, and everyday-life related background factors. In addition, the problem solving skills in technology-rich environments of teachers are compared with those of other adults with a higher education degree. The main statistical analyses are conducted with logistic regression models under the design-based framework. Our findings illustrate that teachers' strong or weak skills seem to be associated with sociodemographic factors and work-related factors. When comparing teachers with other professionals, for high problem solving skills numeracy skill use at home was important on top of the sociodemographic factors, while teachers' weak skills seem to be associated with fewer ICT skill-use at work on top of the sociodemographic factors. Combining our results with earlier research that emphasises the importance of daily activities at work on the one hand, and the lack of room for teachers to actually work and learn together on the other hand, we argue that teachers may benefit from more opportunities to develop professionally at work.

To prepare student teachers for the diversity they will face in schools, they have to develop intercultural competence. This paper analyses an assignment in teacher education, where the purpose is to impart this competence to student teachers. Student teachers read and reflected on a novel related to a multicultural context, and we examined in what way(s) fiction, in teacher education, may contribute to their awareness of attitudes related to othering and stereotyping of Third Culture Kids. The data consists of individual texts, group discussions, and group presentations. We found, first, the student teachers were made aware of how their ways of expressing diversity may contribute to othering. Second, they became aware of their stereotyping and questioned accepted truths. Third, they demonstrated they can transfer knowledge from one situation (the novel) to another (the society). Our understanding is that the assignment analysed can be a valuable supplement to theory in teacher education.

This qualitative study investigates how young students expressed, explored and expanded their ideas of how they could contribute to sustainable development. We analyse a trajectory in a Norwegian 8th grade class, focusing on the students' emerging understanding through microblogging and talk in individual, group and whole class activities. The material analysed are logs from a microblogging tool and transcribed video recordings from two lessons. We examined the trajectory as a whole to understand how the topic was treated, we sorted students' microblogs thematically, and we used interaction analysis to investigate talk excerpts. The results show that the students initially tended to suggest everyday actions related to reducing consumption, and that through classroom interactions about a challenging idea their understanding broadened. The combination of microblogging activities and discussions facilitated the travelling of ideas between activities and participants, prompted the students to question, elaborate and reason, supported broad participation, and helped students create links between everyday actions and wider sustainability issues.

This article draws on a classroom project to explore the complexities of collaborative teaching within the music classroom, where a professional team collaborated to facilitate digital music-making at a lower secondary school in Norway during a student teacher practicum placement. The collaborative team, including in-service and pre-service teachers, researchers, and a professional musician, facilitated a composing project by means of the digital audio workstation (DAW) "Soundtrap." The purpose was to shed light on the complexity and emergence of the collaborative music project; how material, structural, and educational conditions impacted the process; and the pre-service music teachers' ways of handling a complex situation. The study was theoretically guided by a socio-material perspective, more specifically by complexity theory, and an abductive analysis was performed. In keeping with the nonlinearity and complex causality of socio-materialism and complexity theory, the researchers created three reflexive viewpoints: emergence, enabling constraints, and entanglements. The results show that technological and technical issues permeated the classroom work, making it difficult to separate social and material aspects of the project. Awareness of the entanglement of social, institutional, historical, and material dimensions of education thus can provide a useful framework for emerging music teachers' professional development. In this way, our findings support the claim that music teacher education should aim at helping pre-service teachers prepare for encounters with complex and versatile educational situations.

Numerous studies emphasise the contribution of inquiry-based learning approaches to positive learning outcomes for students; however, in this study, we explore how a scientific methods assignment may qualify as a profession-oriented, inquiry-based learning approach in teacher education. The paper presents analysis of student teachers' reports on a scientific methods assignment completed during their fifth school placement. The student teachers were each required to conduct a focus group interview with a group of pupils. The overall aim of the assignment was to integrate aspects of inquiry-based learning and a profession-oriented approach. Our analysis demonstrates that the scientific methods assignment qualifies in some ways as a profession-oriented, inquiry-based learning assignment. However, several aspects of the assignment need to be improved and further developed to optimise its potential. The paper is concluded with some suggestions for further developments.

The lockdowns that began during the spring of 2020 changed the conditions for teaching and assessment across the globe. In Norway, schools were closed, and all school activities took place online. Moreover, all final exams were canceled, and all student grading was based on final grading by the individual teacher. Because of this, teachers' assessment skills became more important. This study examines students' and teachers' experiences of assessment during the lockdown period. The findings revealed that students got little support from the teacher in their learning process; they worked alone and felt insecure about assessment. Teacher collaboration about assessment seemed sporadic and the assessment routines were weak. The study raises concerns about equity in education when teachers have problems implementing assessment practices that support students' learning.

This article conceptualizes and discusses change in music teacher education. Results from the FUTURED research project provide the starting point for the article. The project explored various dimensions of change within the music education programs in Norwegian generalist teacher education. In this project, change was regarded as having a transformative capacity closely related to co-construction and complexity. Telling new stories about education, and thereby imagining different educational realities, may be seen as a possible trigger for change. In this article, therefore, the authors contrast the current situation against an imagined reality to create a heuristic framework for a critical discussion of change. Based on a meta-analysis of research findings, the authors propose a vision for a future music teacher education, which they then use to highlight and discuss several intersecting dimensions of educational change: values and traditions, demographics, educational practices, curricula, and society.

The research aim of the project presented in this paper is to contribute to an understanding of the meaning of push- and pull-out in inclusive school systems. We ask: How do Italian and Norwegian teachers regard the fact that it is sometimes seen as necessary for some students to spend time out of class? A vignette with short scenarios to stimulate responses was used for teacher interviews in lower secondary schools in Italy and Norway. Situations in two different contexts were designed for the vignette, including a description of some students, their class and the available resources. The main funding is that most teachers' opinions were sensitive to the context, here the way teaching and learning activities were organised. When presented for a traditional teacher-centred class situation (context 1), most of the respondents thought pull-out was a good solution for some students under certain conditions. Presented with the more differentiated and pupil-centred context 2, a clear majority found that the described learning environment would meet the educational and social needs of all learners within class, regardless of disabilities or learning challenges.

In March 2020, higher education institutions experienced a lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Numerous studies have shown the negative impact of the lockdown on students' mental health. The lockdown situation was unprecedented and describing the variety of experiences is therefore important. This study aims to describe students' lived experiences of how student life promoted mental health and wellbeing in everyday life under various degrees of lockdown during the pandemic. Twelve students from a Norwegian university were interviewed online. Phenomenological analysis was used. The essence of their experiences can be described as a balance between predictability and joy based on two themes: making sense in isolation and me related to the outside world. This balance was achieved through the students' own effort to create appropriate routines in their everyday lives and facilitate the achievement of their goals, allowing them to take initiative, feel included and disrupt the often monotonous COVID-19 lockdown. Universities need to offer as many in-person meeting points, spaces where small groups of students can meet, and interactive lectures as possible.

Purpose: The aims of this study were to investigate the occurrence of stuttering behavior across time and to evaluate the relationship between stuttering behavior and language ability in children with Down syndrome. Method: A national age cohort of Norwegian first graders with Down syndrome (N = 75) participated in the study. Speech samples from a story-retelling task and a picture book dialogue as well as standardized measures of vocabulary, grammar, and nonverbal mental ability were collected at two time points approximately 5 months apart. Stuttering behavior was evaluated through counting stuttering-like disfluencies and stuttering severity ratings. The relationship between stuttering behavior and language ability was investigated through hierarchical regression analysis. Results: The participants had stuttering severity ratings ranging from no stuttering behavior to severe and displayed all types of stuttering-like disfluencies. There were significant relationships between stuttering behavior and language ability at the first time point, whereas the relationships were not significant at the second time point. The stuttering severity ratings were significantly predicted by language ability across time, whereas the frequency of stuttering-like disfluencies was not. Conclusions: The occurrence of stuttering behavior was high across the measures and time points; however, the relationship between stuttering behavior and language ability varied across these variables. Thus, the nature of the relationship does not seem to follow a strict pattern that can be generalized to all children across time.

This study investigated the effect of the digital Down Syndrome LanguagePlus (DSL+) intervention on vocabulary outcomes through a school-delivered randomized controlled trial. A national sample of first graders with Down syndrome from 91 schools was allocated to an intervention group (n = 50), which received daily intervention for 15 weeks, or a business-as-usual control group (n = 53). The intervention involved picture book sharing and structured tasks and was organized as one-to-one, small-group, and full-class lessons. Children in the intervention group made greater gains than children in the control group in expressive vocabulary breadth (d = 0.429, CI [0.160, 0.699]) and receptive vocabulary breadth (d = 0.447, CI [0.193, 0.700]). The outcomes indicate that the novel DSL+ intervention is an effective intervention to increase trained vocabulary among first graders with Down syndrome, and it takes only 15 minutes of effort 5 days a week.

The number of doctoral students internationally is on the increase, yet low completion rates seem to be stable. Universities need to learn from each other to strengthen doctoral education. In doctoral education, the person and the doctoral project are intertwined and both must be nurtured and developed. This article presents the signature pedagogy of the Norwegian Research School in Teacher Education (NAFOL). The international and national context of NAFOL is described and the reasons for establishing NAFOL are presented. The pedagogical vision behind the research school is outlined, and examples of how the vision translates into activities are provided. The last part of the article analyses experiences from NAFOL and highlights points that might be useful to other research schools in different contexts. Based on the experience gained at NAFOL, a "whole person approach" to doctoral students in doctoral education is recommended.

Morphemes, the smallest meaning-bearing units of language, recur in many words. Therefore, morphological knowledge can facilitate the comprehension of novel words. This study tested the effectiveness of a morphological training program on children's learning and retention of exposed words and morphologically related unexposed words compared with an active control condition. Norwegian second graders (N = 717) unselected for ability were individually randomized to either a morphological (n = 366) or a mathematical training program (n = 351). Both programs lasted for 8 weeks and were delivered as self-contained apps in a classroom setting. The morphological training built on the principle that frequency of target elements together with variation of nontarget elements can support implicit learning. Treatment-blind examiners assessed participants' meaning-based knowledge (word comprehension and definitions) and code-based knowledge (word reading fluency and spelling) at pretraining, immediately post training, and at follow-up 6 months later. An intention-to-treat analysis showed lasting effects of the morphological training on meaning-based knowledge of exposed words (posttest: d = 0.37; follow-up: d = 0.31) and unexposed words containing trained morphemes (posttest: d = 0.27; follow-up: d = 0.27) and code-based knowledge of exposed words (posttest: d = 0.22; follow-up: d = 0.13). For code-based knowledge of unexposed words, there were significant training effects at the posttest (d = 0.12) but not follow-up (d = 0.05). There were no significant effects on a far-transfer measure of general vocabulary. These results demonstrate that a brief morphological training program can produce lasting and educationally meaningful gains in students' word knowledge.

Background: Persons suffering from a substance use disorder (SUD) in need of help from low‐threshold centres have complex and severe conditions together with uncontrolled use of mainly illicit substances. Their sufferings are all‐encompassing and demand ethically aware nurses with competence to take care of somatic, existential and spiritual needs. Aim: To explore and describe a new understanding of the ethical and ontological values upon which nurses base their work when caring for persons suffering from SUD. Methodology: The study had a hermeneutical approach. A focus‐group interview was conducted with five nurses working at a low‐threshold centre in Norway. Data analysis was carried out through a hermeneutical reading based on Gadamer's hermeneutics. Ethical Consideration s : The study was approved by the Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research (SIKT). Oral and written consent was obtained from the participants. Results: The hermeneutical reading revealed three dimensions; A wish to be useful; Nurses' motive for caring for persons suffering from SUD is a wish to be useful and needed. Nurses are fighting a battle against injustice and stigmatisation. Neighbourly love, the core value; Neighbourly love serves as the basis for the nurses' work. Nurses feel humble towards their clients, they feel privileged to have the opportunity to help others through compassionate care. The value of being clients' advocate; Nurses are trying to ensure that clients receive the help they need. A large part of nurses' job is to monitor and take care of the clients' condition. This involves working close to death, trying to save lives. Conclusion: Nurses wish to care in accordance with their ethos of usefulness. Sacrifice stands out as the ultimate form of neighbourly love, empowering nurses with moral authority to act as advocates for their clients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The schoolyard as a setting for teaching and learning is rarely the focus of chemistry education. Therefore, a chemistry unit combining activities in the classroom and the schoolyard was designed to support pre-service teachers'(PSTs) learning of redox chemistry. This study was conducted to investigate the PSTs' talk about redox chemistry as they identified, photographed, and explained phenomena in the schoolyard (i.e., university campus).Video data were collected from six groups of PSTs from two different teacher education institutions in Norway. Videos from two groups were selected for deeper analyses: one with PSTs who had specialized in chemistry during their secondary education and one with PSTs who had not. The groups' talk was analyzed with respect to (1) the types of talk, (2) the levels of chemistry displayed in the talk, and (3) the schoolyard phenomena that triggered the content-related talk. The talk was mostly exploratory, and the PSTs connected sub-microlevel redox chemistry to macrolevel phenomena. Moreover, the PSTs noticed several phenomena in the schoolyard that triggered chemistry-related talk. Although the talk that developed occurred differently in the two groups, this study indicates that the schoolyard can provide opportunities for learning chemistry for learners with different formal backgrounds in chemistry.

Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) focuses on the reading proficiency of students mostly in the fourth year of schooling. A wide selection of studies has shown that family background and early literacy activities at home have substantial associations with student achievement in reading literacy. However, research focusing on teacher qualities and teaching processes is inadequate. In this study, we focus on associations of teacher quality (formal qualifications and professional identity) and instructional quality (classroom management, cognitive activation and teacher support) with cognitive and affective-motivational student outcomes (variables Reading Achievement, Students Confident in Reading, and Students Like Reading). We analyzed PIRLS 2016 data from four Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden), consisting altogether of 923 teachers and 17,161 students. Using path analysis, we considered selected background variables from teacher and student questionnaires in relation to the outcomes. Overall, the associations of student outcomes with teacher quality and instruction quality were found to be weak in all the countries, and there was little variation between the countries. The strongest association observed in all countries was the positive relation between Teacher Support Perceived by Students and Students Like Reading. Further, a positive Working Atmosphere in the Classroom tended to promote Reading Achievement and Students Confident in Reading. Teacher's Specialization in reading and the language of the test was positively associated with Teacher's Self-Efficacy in teaching reading, which in turn was related to measures of instructional quality. The implications for practice are discussed.

The purpose of this review study was to conduct a thematic exploration of prior studies related to the transition between primary and secondary school. The aim of the paper was to discover (1) the extent of earlier research, (2) how earlier research thematises social and emotional issues, and (3) suggestions of those studies concerning how to improve schools. Searches were conducted across four international databases of peer-reviewed research to identify articles published in the last decade on the topic 'transition between primary and secondary school'. Articles related to social and emotional issues were further selected, and thematic analysis was conducted on the selected 29 articles to identify the topical focus. This review study draws attention to the importance of understanding challenges related to the transition between primary and secondary school. Overall, the analysed studies indicate that this is an important focus for educational research. Key issues related to support and wellbeing/bullying have emerged, which clarify the importance of further research in this field. The present study may also contribute to increasing awareness among policy makers and school leaders of the challenges related to the transition between primary and secondary school.

This article reports on a qualitative study investigating how perceptions of feedback and feedback practice developed over the course of a seven-month development project with students and teachers in ten lower secondary schools. The aim of the study was to contribute to the knowledge about how a development project with teachers can contribute to changes in perceptions and in the practice of formative feedback. The data are based on interviews with students and teachers before and after the development project, and the project builds on Hattie and Timperley's feedback model (2007). The findings reveal changes in perceptions and in the use of feedback in learning processes. It is less evident whether clarifying aims and criteria together with the students, provided opportunities for the students to use feedback as a basis for further learning. Formative assessment practice has been implemented to some extent in the schools, and it is essential to strengthen teachers' feedback practice to enhance student learning.

This paper explores youth sports parenting in the context of Norway, focusing on the orientations of parents living in predominantly working-class communities, specifically what they believe youth sports are for. Its particular focus is the ideas and resources that underpin the various positions parents in such communities take toward youth sports. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 19 parents of 13 and 14 year olds, we identify two orientations towards youth sports: the belonging orientation, in which youth sports are seen as a means of connecting to a community, and the structuring orientation, in which youth sports are primarily used for protection and to provide frames for children, particularly as a bulwark against excessive screen time and sedentary and unhealthy lifestyles. Despite their differences, both orientations may be seen as articulations of a shared parenting ethos of 'fitting in' instead of 'standing out', which is aimed at ensuring that children will become decent and able citizens with sound, respectable lifestyles. This parenting ethos differs from the investment and cultivational ethos that guides upper middle-class families' parenting practices related to sports and other enrichment activities. However, fitting in does not preclude projects of distinction; for some community-oriented parents, engaging in youth sports allows them to stand out as pillars of society.

The role of research in teacher education is a widely discussed topic by policymakers as well as by researchers and practitioners. At the policy level, there seems to be a general claim that teacher education shall be research based (OECD, 2005; European Commission, 2013; Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, 2021; Norwegian Ministry of Knowledge, 2020). The claims are strong, however, the interpretation and the operationalisation of the role of research in teacher education is, to say it mildly, vague. In this paper, I will briefly present voices of some international researchers with the purpose of illuminating the complex roles research plays in teacher education. A major part of this paper will present an example of how Norway has attempted to operationalise the complexity of balancing between teacher educators' researcherly and pedagogical dispositions by funding the National Research School in Teacher Education (NAFOL). The overall goal of the research school is to develop "researching teacher educators" with equal value of all the three words.

Peer rejections impair children's well-being in ECEC, impede their social and emotional development, and increase the risk of multiple forms of peer adversities. This study explores children's need for empathy when experiencing rejections from peers in free play situations in ECEC. The data were collected through video-recorded dialogical interviews with children between three and a half and six years of age and analysed within a phenomenological hermeneutical approach. The findings show that children's need for empathy was most dominantly initiated by the wish to play and experience belonging, and this need was felt in relation to other children as well as ECEC staff. The findings highlight the importance of the ECEC practitioner's being present and available for emotional and social support for children in play negotiations, as well as her or his involvement in facilitating participation, encouraging children's empathic expressions, and promoting inclusion.

This article addresses how elementary school teachers approach "Bildung" when planning and monitoring the in-school- and at-home work of 6- and 9-year-old pupils. By examining a national sample of 204 weekly work plans designed by teachers in Norwegian schools, we investigate whether and how curriculum practices acknowledge principles of Bildung by opening up multiple futures through encouraging pupils to engage in meaning-making processes. To identify how work plans structure pupils' schoolwork, we adopt a system-theoretical framework that distinguishes between conditional and purposive programme forms. The most interesting finding is that a substantial number of the investigated teachers use a purposive programme form. Through specifying objectives and assessment criteria, the teachers expect that pupils will develop and master a set of competencies. Some teachers apply a conditional form by devising work plans that emphasize subject matter content, but most of the work plans combine the two programme forms. By developing a typology of the various combinations, we find that, in addition to the pure conditional approach, a combined approach that provides objectives alongside broad descriptions of teaching content best reflects the principles of Bildung by promoting creative, dialogic interaction between teachers, pupils and parents.

This article seeks to look below the surface of pedagogical documentation with a temporal lens. We focus on the potentialities of pedagogical documentation as an intertwined research process with children and teachers as learners in 'slow pedagogies' (Clark [2020]. "Towards a Listening ECEC System: Valuing Slow Pedagogy and Slow Knowledge." In "Transforming Early Childhood in England," edited by P. Moss and C. Cameron. London: UCL Press). The article brings together two research studies: a small-scale study of Norwegian early childhood practice that adds an in-depth and a cross-national study based on key-informant interviews that adds breadth to thinking about the value of pedagogical documentation. We present a visual proposal, which extends our understanding of the ongoing process of children's explorations and teacher's observations, reflections and didactic decisions in open-ended learning processes (Carlsen [2021]. "Reggio Emilia -- Atelierkultur og Utforskende Pedagogikk" [Reggio Emilia -- Atelier Culture and Exploratory Pedagogy]. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget). The visualization shows the reciprocity in the co-researching process with children and teachers and contributes to the understanding of the temporal dimension and the complexity of the process of pedagogical documentation. The discussion points to the importance of early childhood teachers being able to 'catch the moments' in young children's explorations and the value of 'stretched time' that can be supported and recorded through the process of pedagogical documentation.

The main intention of this study is to explore the relationship between information and communication technology (ICT) and inclusion. The target group is students who are conceived as having learning difficulties or special educational needs. To illuminate this issue, we draw on data collected in a recent national research project about the quality of special education in regular schools in Norway, the "SPEED project". One of the results is that ICT use among students with learning difficulty is more frequent than among average students, but not as widespread as you would expect, considering the alleged affordances of ICT for these students.

In teaching situations, teachers constantly have to make spontaneous and more or less planned choices based on input from pupils, adapted to the specific school setting and within society's social and cultural norms. Two phenomena underpinning such a view on teacher practices are teacher agency and teacher improvisation. The focus of this article is to explore and discuss the relationship between these two phenomena and, more specifically, the role of teacher agency in teachers' capacity to improvise professionally in the classroom. The empirical background for this article is a qualitative study where we have observed and interviewed professional teachers and student teachers within the field of music in a Norwegian culture school and secondary school. The perspective of experience plays a central role in the study and gives us the opportunity to discuss what implications this research could have for teacher education.

This article deals with internationalization in the field of higher education, focusing on the impact of transnational academic mobility on the university communities. Drawing on the results of a qualitative research study at different departments in a Norwegian university, this article explores the interaction between transnational academics and their Norwegian counterparts in an academic professional community. The key questions are the impact of internationalization on the working day at the departmental level, and how academics themselves experience working together with colleagues from all over the world. The topics are presented in the following four themes: informal interaction, cooperation, language practices, and internationalization. In the light of data gained through observation and informal dialogs in two departments that collectively consisted of 108 academic staff members, and formal interviews with 34 of them, both transnational and national, the paper concludes that the academics regard internationalization as a great source of professional knowledge. However, considerable institutional and personal adjustment is required to fully exploit the professional potential of diversity among the academic staff.

Research has called for greater emphasis on outdoor science activities in preservice teacher education. Therefore, in this study, preservice teachers reflect on an outdoor chemistry unit that aimed to model outdoor science activities to be conducted in local settings within short time frames. Data from the preservice teachers' reflections were collected through videotaping discussions conducted in 10 small groups following their participation in the outdoor chemistry unit. The data analysis identified nine themes in the preservice teachers' discussions, which were categorized according to the concepts of essential aspects of out-door science activities and alternative methods of action for outdoor science activities in future teaching practice. The following essential aspects of outdoor science activities were identified: cognitive challenge, prior knowledge, purpose, structures that support learning, and contextual factors. The methods of action were mostly strategies aimed at supporting and managing the students' learning outdoors. Discrepancies between the preservice teachers' discussions of the outdoor chemistry unit, the essential features modeled through the unit, and the literature are discussed, demonstrating the importance of having preservice teachers reflect on a specific outdoor science unit modeled during their teacher education. An implication of this study is the need to support preservice teachers in comparing their previous experiences of outdoor science activities with those modeled most recently.

Teacher quality, or 'the good teacher' is not clearly defined in Norway, nor are there specific standards for measuring teacher quality. Everybody has an opinion about the good teacher, and teacher quality is frequently debated. Moreover, in Norway there is no systematic evaluation of teachers. Nevertheless, numerous reforms and popular discourses indirectly revisit and revise the formal qualification competences of teachers. This paper is an explorative journey into research, fiction and policy documents searching for how teacher quality has been, and is, perceived in Norway. The paper discusses relevant research, presents a historical contextualisation, my interpretations of selected fiction literature, and policy documents. I argue that teacher education has the responsibility of not merely translating policies into practice, but also to act as a critical bridge-builder between academic and relational aspects of teaching. Teacher education should offer a research-informed, practice-relevant education of teachers for the current and future school.

While earlier research on coaches' careers and the development of coaching expertise appears 'gender blind', the focus of this article on the underrepresentation of women in elite-level coaching is how various forms of capital interact in recruitment to coaching. Using Bourdieu's analytic concepts, the study explores Norwegian female and male elite-coaches' pathways to coaching positions with respect to qualifications and recruitment procedures. Qualifications are understood as being both individual athletic performance level (physical and symbolic capital) and coaching education (cultural capital). Qualitative interviews were completed with 24 female and 12 male elite-level coaches. The findings revealed that relatively more women than men had previously been elite-level athletes. The majority of the participants had coaching education from the sports organisations, while a few had coaching education from their university studies. Relative to gender, two men had no coaching education and several women had completed a programme developed by the sport organisations -- with the aim of increasing women's participation in elite-level coaching. Recruitment of coaches seemed to happen through informal channels, which indicates the benefits of social capital acquired through acquaintances and social networks. This indicates symbolic capital in terms of individual athletic achievement. The use of Bourdieu's analytic concept of capital and the 'labyrinth' metaphor facilitated identification and understanding of the longer pathways and challenges women must negotiate on their way to elite-level coaching positions when compared to men. The article closes with the implications of the findings, with particular attention to coaching education and the recruitment/employment procedures of coaches.

Our interest in this study is to investigate how bilingual teachers are recognised in Norwegian schools. The working conditions of bilingual teachers differ between countries, and in the Norwegian context, a bilingual teacher assists minority language-speaking students during lessons, using the students mother tongue and Norwegian. We have observed eight BTs during their regular workdays, and then interviewed them. Although there are some exceptions, we find that most of the informants have few opportunities to collaborate with class teachers, they have challenging working conditions and unpredictable working days. Based on these findings we claim that the informants lack recognition in school. Nevertheless, we find that the bilingual teachers are recognised by their students and their parents. Our assumption is that the strong monolingual discourse in Norwegian educational policy challenges the school when it comes to offering minority language-speaking students an equal and adapted education.

This narrative review aims to present and discuss the Norwegian school system as a context for inclusive education. Despite its clear political intentions, Norway lacks a common definition of inclusion and has limited insight into the quality of inclusive practices that are commonly implemented for students with special education needs (SEN) and the results of such practices. This study reveals that students with SEN are often educated in segregated settings and by staff lacking educational competence. Hence, future policy actions should prioritize the development of a common terminology and a report system that includes students with SEN. As SEN resources in Norway are allocated based on a lack of satisfactory learning outcomes from mainstream education and often result in segregated actions, an increased focus on school society, learning environments, educational practices, and individual learning outcomes is required. Additional research is needed to identify practices that can promote high-quality inclusion of students in Norwegian schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Partially driven by public concerns about modern food production practices, organic food has gained popularity among consumers. However, the impact of organic food consumption during pregnancy on offspring health is scarcely studied. We aimed to investigate the association between maternal intake of organic food during pregnancy and symptoms of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in offspring at 8 years of age. Methods: This study was based on the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) and the Medical Birth Registry of Norway (MBRN). The total study sample included 40,707 mother–child pairs (children born 2002–2009). Organic food consumption during pregnancy was assessed by six questions from a food frequency questionnaire in mid-pregnancy (sum score 0–18). Symptoms of ADHD and ASD in the offspring aged 8 years were measured by ADHD (0–54) and ASD (0–39) symptom scores based on the Parent/Teacher Rating Scale for Disruptive Behaviour disorders and the Social Communication Questionnaire. Associations between maternal intake of organic food during pregnancy and symptoms of ADHD and ASD in the offspring were analyzed using regression models with adjustment for covariates such as maternal anxiety and depression, including sibling analysis. Results: Mean ADHD and ASD symptom scores in the offspring differed only slightly by maternal intake of organic food. The covariate-adjusted unstandardized regression coefficient (adjusted(Adj)beta) with 95% confidence interval for the ADHD symptom score with one unit increase in organic food sum score was 0.03 (0.01, 0.05). Similarly, Adjbeta for autism symptom score was 0.07 (0.04, 0.10). For ADHD, the adjusted estimates weakened when adjusting for maternal symptoms of ADHD. The sibling analyses showed no significant results with Adjbeta − 0.07 (− 0.15, 0.01) and − 0.001 (− 0.12, 0.12) for ADHD and ASD outcomes, respectively. Conclusions: We observed weak positive associations between frequent maternal organic food consumption during pregnancy and offspring ADHD and ASD symptom levels at 8 years of age. This trend weakened or disappeared after adjusting for maternal symptoms of ADHD, and in sibling analyses, suggesting that the associations mainly reflect genetic confounding. Our study indicates that consumption of organic food during pregnancy should neither be considered a risk factor nor protective against symptoms of ADHD and ASD in offspring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aim: User participation is a prerequisite for receiving research funding in healthcare in Norway. Despite many positive benefits, studies report challenges from users' and researchers' perspectives. Limited knowledge exists concerning researchers' experiences in scenarios where the users are professionals within healthcare and research. The aim of this retrospective study was to explore and reflect on personal experiences as researchers from a process of planning and developing research questions for a PhD project, following the James Lind Alliance guidelines, which were a requirement for funding. We focused on how the process of collaboration with a specific group of users influenced the researchers' sense of selves. Design and Method: We used a qualitative design based on collaborative autoethnography, exploring personal experiences from a sociocultural point of view. Two of the three researchers in the team recollected their experiences from the user involvement process while applying the James Lind Alliance guidelines. We used different data sources to develop two autoethnographic narratives. The narratives were analysed using thematic analysis. Results: The autoethnographic narratives demonstrate the complexity of user involvement from the researchers' perspectives. We identified four themes in the analysis: intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, competing paradigms, hierarchy and dual roles. The accounts illustrated the researchers' ambivalence within the process, indicating that they feared a loss of control over the direction of the research project. The narratives visualised a struggle to appear as credible researchers, illustrating how the involvement of a specific group of users and adherence to a specific guideline for user involvement influenced the researchers' experiences of their roles and identities in the collaboration. Conclusion: The results point to the relevance of the sociocultural backdrop; researchers might become frontline providers of policy implementation in research, balancing tensions between regulatory constraints, user involvement and researchers' professional identity and research ideals, when a specific, detailed procedure for user involvement is required. Patient or Public Contribution: Two user panels comprising participants from clinical practice, education and research, along with a service user, collaborated in the planning and development of research questions for a PhD project. This autoethnographic study elaborates this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teacher education plays a central role in education and relates to various stakeholders of education. Currently, teacher education is not perceived as the sole responsibility of higher education institutions, and they are expected to work closely together with other partners. In this paper, the concept of "partnership" is defined and mutual benefits and challenges in partnerships with disciplines and institutions beyond teacher education programs are briefly discussed. Issues related to partnerships with students are addressed, and the last part of the paper discusses the partnership between teacher education and the practice field with examples from Norway. Three models illustrating such partnerships are described. The central argument of the paper is that partnerships in teacher education need to go beyond rhetoric.

Students struggle with observing scientifically and connecting observations to scientific theory. This study investigates how students actually use observation in rock classification -- a classical practical task in science education. To describe the level of students' use of observation, data was collected by videotaping 19 small student groups (55 students aged 16-18) in Norway while they were classifying rocks. A modified version of the observation framework proposed by [Eberbach, C., & Crowley, K. (2009). From everyday to scientific observation: How children learn to observe the biologist's world. "Review of Educational Research," 79(1), 39-68] is used to analyse how students' notice features of rocks (noticing) and interpret the geological processes forming those features (expectations) at different levels: everyday, transitional or scientific. The findings showed that none of the student groups used everyday observation. Three student groups used observation at a transitional level, whereas twelve groups performed observation that can be described as transitional/scientific level. Four student groups used scientific observation. Based on the findings, an observation framework for rock classification is proposed. The challenges encountered by the students are discussed, thus providing ideas for how teachers can support students to use scientific observation in rock classification.

The people who prepare teachers -- teacher educators -- are often explicitly or implicitly held accountable for teacher quality and are frequently blamed when school students do not meet national or international expectations. Despite high expectations, historically there has been little attention to the education of teacher educators or to local and larger policies that would support the development of teacher educators who are prepared to meet the complex demands of teaching teachers for the twenty-first century. This includes addressing the persistent discrepancies and "gaps" between historically privileged and disadvantaged groups in terms of educational opportunities and outcomes. In this article, Cochran-Smith and colleagues analyze how teacher educators are educated in four different countries -- the U.S., New Zealand, Israel, and Norway -- which vary considerably in terms of their historical, geopolitical, and policy contexts. The article suggests that international perspectives on the policies and practices related to the education of teachers and teacher educators are important politically, sociologically and educationally. They reveal commonalities and differences in how those in power desire to shape the education of those who will shape the lives of society's future participants and reveal a great deal about nations' priorities, assumptions, and values related to equity and inequity.

Playful interactions with peers have a significant role in children's lives, and experiencing belongingness and acceptance through interpersonal relationships is a fundamental presupposition for children's health and well-being. Peer rejections appear to be an inevitable component of peer interactions. Sometimes, rejection involves relational devaluation and deprivation of a sense of belonging. This article highlights the voice of the children and intends to contribute more knowledge about how peer rejections are experienced by the children in early childhood education and care (ECEC) institutions. The data were collected through video-recorded interviews with children between 3.5 and 6 years old and analysed within a phenomenological hermeneutical approach to examine the structures of their experiences. The findings reveal that the peer rejections are experienced as stressful and emotionally painful events, which affect the children's emotional state and impact their social self-perception. This study emphasizes the children as relationally dependent subjects, and the findings highlight the importance of creating within ECECs an inclusive and nurturing social environment that prevents peer rejections.

Growing up in a family with an affinity for sports increases the likelihood of participating in club-organised sports. Few studies to date have addressed whether the importance of family sport culture is stable or changes during the teenage years. This article examines the association between family sport culture and participation in club-organised sports during teenage years and whether it differs between boys and girls. We utilise data from Norway and the comprehensive 'Young in Oslo 2015' survey (N = 6121; 79% response rate; ages 13-18). Three questions were combined into a measure of family sport culture in the present study: the importance of sport in the family, parents' training habits, and whether parents would like their children to participate in sports. We observed a clear positive relationship between family sport culture and participation in club-organised sports. Except for a slightly weakened relationship with age among girls, the relationship was equally strong in all age groups. We suggest that the overall continuity in the relevance of family sport culture for young people's sport participation reflects a prolonged socialisation effect that we utilise Bourdieu's theory of habitus to understand.

Sports researchers often examine the subject of youth quitting sports through quantitative surveys using fixed-choice questionnaires. In this paper, we analyze 1,248 descriptions offered by youth in the survey Young in Oslo 2018 when asked to explain why they had left organized sports. We examine their reasons for opting out of sports and how different reasons may interact. Similar to studies with fixed-choice questions, we found both sports-internal and sports-external reasons for quitting. Our main finding concerns how sports-internal and sports-external processes appear together and reinforce the challenges some youth experience in their day-to-day lives in terms of their sports participation.

Aims: To describe trends in the use of anti‐obesity drugs in Norway during the period 2004–2022. Materials and Methods: We assessed the annual utilization of any available drug indicated for obesity recorded in the nationwide Norwegian Prescribed Drug Register for adults (age 18–79 years) from 1 January 2004 to 31 December 2022. Prevalence was stratified by sex and age group (18–29 years and 10‐year age groups thereafter). Additional analyses were performed in individuals initiating treatment with an anti‐obesity drug and on the cost of the anti‐obesity drugs since 2017. Results: The prevalence of anti‐obesity drug use decreased from 2009, when sibutramine and rimonabant were withdrawn from the market, and increased again after the approval of bupropion‐naltrexone in 2017 and liraglutide in 2018. The use of the peripheral‐acting anti‐obesity drug orlistat decreased from 2004. In 2022, 1.04% of the adult Norwegian population (72.8% women) filled at least one prescription of bupropion‐naltrexone, 0.91% used liraglutide (Saxenda; 74.2% women), and semaglutide without reimbursement was used by 0.68% (76.7% women). The prevalence increased with age, peaking in the age group 50 to 59 years, and decreased in older age groups. From 2017 to 2022, 2.8% of the adult residents initiated treatment with an anti‐obesity drug. The total sale of those drugs increased from 1.1 million euros in 2017 to 91.8 million euros in 2022. Conclusions: The use of anti‐obesity drugs in Norway has increased substantially in recent years, especially among women aged 40 to 59 years. Changes in availability and reimbursement have influenced the use of these drugs in recent years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently parental involvement in youth sport has intensified, challenging the understanding of youth sports as an arena where adolescents can develop their identity and autonomy. On this background, our study explores how adolescents understand and negotiate their parents' involvement in sport and how they define ideal and undesirable forms of parental involvement. Our empirical setting is Norway, and we draw on data from 16 focus group interviews among 13-14-year-olds (n = 92) recruited from two lower secondary schools. The analysis shows that young people distinguish between different aspects of the sport activity when defining ideal and undesirable forms of parental involvement. When discussing sport as a healthy activity necessary for physical and social development, the young people interviewed approve of parents' role in regulating and encouraging participation. When considering the athletic aspects and peer sociability, however, they see parental involvement as mostly undesirable. The analysis also shows that the adolescents generally describe their parents as attentive to the boundaries their children draw for them about levels and types of involvement. Therefore, young people should be seen not only as subjected to parental involvement but also as active co-constructors of valid parental roles in and beyond the sporting arena.