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Using an intersectional analysis, this article critically analyses implied and expressed norms to identify perceptions of appropriate behaviour in children's play, and to explore how social communicative arenas such as Internet forums construct knowledge and values. Adults' responses to an incident that occurred amongst a group of children in Swedish early childhood education as part of free play during the preschool day were analysed. The incident was described in a thread posted on the "Familjeliv" (Family Life) internet forum. The research questions were: what images of children are prominent in discourse on appropriate behaviour as part of free play; what discursive categorisations of children related to age, gender and sexuality can be identified within this discourse; and how do these categorisations intersect? Netnography provided the method used together with thematic content analysis. Findings reveal two contrasting views: first, the view that four-year-olds cannot commit sexual assault on another person; and second, the view that they can. Young children were constructed either as non-sexual, innocent, curious and playful, or as perpetrators who lack consequentialist thinking. Age was the dominant discursive category utilised in relation to sexuality and appropriate behaviour, followed by gender.

This study used video feedback in a collaborative development study to help improve teachers' perceptions of the learning needs of students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and intellectual disabilities (ID) and enhance their active participation in the classroom. Crucially, teachers need the necessary skills to discern students' subtle communications, as students with ASD and co-occurring ID may have reduced or non-existent verbal language and may express their needs mainly through behaviours. The first author video recorded ten classroom lessons and collaborated with three teachers to discuss the recordings in six meetings over the course of one semester. The data used for the analysis was taken from the first (February) and last (June) collaborative meetings of the semester. The results show how collaborative video feedback can influence teachers' judgements about students' learning and further their professional development; the subtle signals that students use to communicate become more visible when the video recordings are viewed multiple times. The collaborative discussions facilitated the teachers' understanding of students' behaviours and actions. In addition, the teachers' focus shifted from identifying general aspects of their students' behaviours to their skills and knowledge.

This study aims to determine what pre-service teachers know about the path of water through the body, and how they intend to explain this knowledge to five-year-old preschool children. This study aims to see the opportunities young children in preschool can obtain from an explanation of the nature of science related to an everyday life activity. A questionnaire was distributed to 42 pre-service teachers participating in the study. They study part time at the university (75% studying and 25% working), and most of the students are or have been working in preschools. All the students have passed the mandatory science courses. Data were collected through a questionnaire where the students explained their knowledge using drawings, and explaining pedagogic standpoints in open-ended questions. The results concluded that four pre-service teachers could sufficiently explain the workings of three organ systems. However, only one of the four intended to mention the three systems necessary for providing a coherent explanation of the body to a five-year-old child. Even the pre-service teachers who could describe more than one system did not intend to explain what they knew to the children. A typical response from the students was that they would seek facts together with the child.

This article investigates linguistic practices related to students' social and academic lives -- something that has been overlooked in the research literature on international schooling and elite boarding schools. Pierre Bourdieu reminds us that language has a social dimension linked to relations of symbolic power. Boarding schools serve as excellent case studies on how language structures social life due to their closed social space. Drawing on Bourdieu's relational sociology, an ethnography was carried out at the College of Europe, an international private boarding school. Findings show that the practice of bilingual code-switching was endowing the institution with social distinction while hierarchically dividing its students. Three modes of student attitudes towards bilingualism were identified. While students' bilingual attitudes and strategies were correlated to their social positions, socioeconomic origins and previous trajectories, the former were not deterministically an effect of said social position, evidenced by an observed case of habitus transformation.

Previous studies investigating how the school choice paradigm shapes school segregation have found that students' ethnic school preferences drive school segregation by leading students to rank and change current schools following ethnic homophily orientations. This study investigates an intermediate moment in which these preferences contribute to the exacerbation of school segregation: students changing schools after being allocated to following admission rules but before the start of the academic year. We refer to these changes as micro-changes. Using Swedish register data on 9th-grade students applying to upper secondary education in Stockholm schools, this study evaluates how micro-changes affect school segregation. Our findings reveal that micro-changes are not neutral and increase school segregation levels because (1) students tend to reject of schools with a low share of in-group members and low representation of 9th-grade classmates, and (2) micro-changers move into schools with a high share of in-group members and 9th-grade classmates. Furthermore, our simulation model shows that micro-changes impact on school segregation have a cumulative effect.

The loss of insect biodiversity is a major global sustainability issue that is highly relevant to science education. Science education can support and develop learners' competence to take actions to sustain insect biodiversity and empower learners to deal actively with this sustainability issue. However, we currently lack an instrument to assess these aspects of individual competence. This paper aims to fill this gap by introducing the Self-Perceived Action Competence for Insect Conservation scale (SPACIC). This scale allows for investigating learners' action competence by focusing on self-perceived knowledge, confidence, and willingness to take insect conservation actions. The scale is grounded in theory and face-validated by external experts. The piloting with 180 secondary school students showed a good quality of the instrument in terms of reliability and validity, as the reliability analyses and confirmatory factor analysis show. The SPACIC scale is applicable to various formal and informal educational settings. Applying the scale can yield information about the effects of educational approaches and inform learners, educators, and researchers about changes in self-perceived competence. In this way, the SPACIC scale can contribute to the evaluation and design of educational approaches and eventually boost learners' development into becoming active environmental citizens.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the discussion concerning adaptations and improvements of preschool teacher education. Such changes are crucial, because many newly qualified preschool teachers struggle to live up to the requirements the profession places upon them. This study is conducted in Sweden, where early childhood education has a long tradition and is well established. Simultaneously, Swedish preschool education follows the international tendency of schoolification in early childhood education. A Q methodological study design was selected to investigate the views of preschool principals on newly qualified preschool teachers. Q method results were enriched with qualitative data from a written questionnaire and findings reveal a consensus among the 55 participants. This confirms previous research stating that newly qualified preschool teachers are perceived as competent in planning teaching and adhering to curriculum intentions. At the same time, this study shows that the increasingly academicized preschool teacher education does not seem to sufficiently prepare the next generation of preschool teachers to build relationships with guardians and colleagues. The study suggests the need for a comprehensive understanding of the profession and intensified collaborations between various stakeholders to better support newly qualified preschool teachers in Sweden and beyond.

Purpose: This study aimed to identify and describe how mentoring influences the mentor, by operationalising and specifying learning outcomes involved in mentoring. Design/methodology/approach: This study used an action research approach, by uniting theory and practice to explore new ways of learning and evolve the field of practice in education. Thematic analysis was used to identify and organise patterns or themes that emerged from the data. Findings: The results showed that mentoring changed the mentors' perspectives towards improved understanding, more flexibility and approval of other cultures. It seems that mentoring expanded the mentors' search for values, wishes and resources, including an awareness that our values, wishes and needs are more similar than different. Mentoring also seems to have improved the ability to reformulate, be flexible, strive to optimise user engagement and engage with people as they are, based on their own prerequisites. Research limitations/implications: The low number of participants means the results cannot be generalised, and voluntary participation may have led to more motivated involvement and positive results. Practical implications: This study shows that mentoring has had an impact on students' development of intercultural competence and cultural sensitivity through regular meetings with individuals from a different cultural background. Mentoring seems to have revealed insights into underlying prejudices and changed perspectives towards better understanding, thus increased acceptance of other cultures. Originality/value: Search for similar studies shows a lack of research that operationalises and specifies the learning outcomes that mentors gain from being a mentor.

Critical thinking as a concept, has a rich history and is central to much of the debate within international educational research and increasingly within environmental and sustainability education (ESE). Currently, it is gaining a foothold in the curriculum and in practice in Nordic countries. However, to date, there has been no proper account of what critical thinking entails in formal ESE settings in Nordic countries. In this article, we utilise a theoretically explorative approach to discuss the following research question: "How can various conceptualisations of critical thinking be understood in relation to a selection of ESE positions and current challenges in the Nordic educational context?" Through a theoretical exploration of critical thinking and action in relation to selected ESE positions, we find that although critical ESE positions favour critical thinking, which enables a strong degree of deliberate and detectable action, conceptualisations of critical thinking that promote cognitive skills are also important for critical ESE.

This study delves into the intricate dynamics of controversial issues in environmental education, challenging conventional notions. It explores the relationship between "controversy" and the field of environmental education, elucidating its multifaceted dimensions in and ambitions of teaching practice. In dialogue with previous research and based on our empirical study, we contend that controversy's existence transcends the mere content of education and extends to its perceived fundamental core and normative underpinnings. We argue that controversy, including controversial sustainability issues (CSIs), is not confined to educational content alone but encompasses the purposes of education. We propose that controversy in educational encounters cannot be neatly categorized as a fixed, predictable social product and is not solely dependent on student interaction. This challenges earlier research positions that linked controversy to the presence of debate or dissensus in a subject area. Our study challenges the traditional understanding of controversy, highlighting its partial spontaneity and unpredictability in teaching. This contrasts previous positions that emphasized the epistemic dimension of controversy. Instead, our findings suggest that controversy plays an active role in the process of self-formation or subjectification in relation to any content.

Background: Within classroom research, there has long been agreement on the importance of dialogue and discussion for student learning. However, how the concept of knowledge influences classroom conversation needs further investigation, as this has key implications for students' active participation. Purpose: Our research sought to conceptualise the assumption of knowledge in standards-based curricula and explore some implications of teaching based on this kind of curriculum. To do this, we drew on a larger research project undertaken in Sweden, which involved a comparative classroom study. Methods: Four natural science lessons were examined in terms of student's opportunities to engage in the teaching content. The analytical framework was based on curriculum theory, the concepts of a lesson as a curriculum event, and students as co-authors of teaching content. We analysed two concepts of knowledge - social realism and transactional realism - in relation to an openness towards 'critical moments' during lessons, either noticed or unnoticed, and related them to the logics of curriculum and knowledge. Findings: When framed by classroom teaching designed from knowledge criteria, students' opportunities for acting as co-authors can become restricted, with critical moments overlooked because of a teaching focus necessarily limited by curriculum. Thus, opportunities for creating spaces to pay attention to students' questions and reactions can be constrained. Conclusions: Standards-based curricula, a concept of knowledge with a strong focus on subject-specific facts and ways of reasoning, together with high-stakes assessment, may lead to fewer openings for genuine discussion and student reflection. This highlights the need to leave larger spaces for teachers and students alike to influence content that engages students.

The study of variables related to the use of ICT in the classroom is a topic of interest that has been frequently researched. In this paper, after examining the importance of teacher training in explaining the use of ICT in the classroom, we focused on analysing the weight of variables related to teaching practices and the organisational context of schools, which are variables that are less frequently addressed in the literature. To do so, a secondary analysis was carried out using data provided by the Teaching and Learning International Study (TALIS 2018). Specifically, we worked with a sample of 3,918 principals and 64,899 teachers from a total of 3921 schools in 21 countries. A multilevel binary regression model with random intercept, fixed coefficients and a two-level structure with teachers at level 1 and schools at level 2 was used. The results indicate that the presence of ICT in the classroom is associated with self-efficacy in teaching and the cognitive activation of students and with the organisational aspects of the school, which are scarcely addressed by the existing literature on this topic of interest, such as school climate, educational innovation and cooperation among teachers. Based on these results, we reflect on possible ways to promote the use of ICT in the classroom.

Purpose: This study explores the role of previous occupational identity in the formation of the (new) teacher identity of vocational teachers. The focus is on how vocational teachers discover their teaching identity, how they describe the connection between their previous occupation and teacher identity and how they describe a competent member of the teaching community. Design/methodology/approach: The theoretical approach is inspired by Communities of Practice (CoP) theory. More specifically, the realignment between socially demanded competence in the profession and personal experience as well as identification with the teaching community are discussed. The research material comes from 14 interviews with vocational teachers in different disciplines. Findings: Findings indicate first that the process of professional identity (trans)formation was initiated by "finding one's teaching self" when the individuals became aware of their interest in teaching by discovering that they had already achieved some sort of teaching-related competence. Second, individuals had been "connecting their professional identities" -- finding common competence between their previous occupation and the teaching role. Third, vocational teachers experienced "legitimising their competence and their new identity" with reference to what their new CoP instructed as important competence (regime of competence). Originality/value: While teachers' vocational competence is not scrutinised, their teaching competence needs to be constantly proved. This imbalance often leads to teachers returning to an aspect of their identity that is well established -- their vocational competence. Looking back to their occupational competences constitutes a realignment backwards, when teachers attempt to serve their new professional goal by drawing on old competence.

In this article, we analyse the level of and development in students' academic stress due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We devote particular attention to students that first entered university in 2020, 'the COVID cohort', who had fewer opportunities to integrate in ways that theoretically should mitigate the impact of pandemic-induced disruption to their studies. Using four waves of data, collected 2020-2022, we find evidence of both pandemic and cohort effects among Swedish university students (N = 3138). During the pandemic's first year academic stress due to COVID-19 increased regardless of pre-pandemic university experience. The stress, in turn, negatively impacted students' life satisfaction, a factor theoretically linked to key student outcomes like persistence and academic performance but had limited effect on students' long-term optimism. The COVID cohort expressed higher levels of academic stress and experienced a greater drop in life satisfaction compared to the most senior students (3 years or more), but largely overlapped with students with some university experience (1-2 years). These group differences persisted in spring 2022. Finally, we found that the higher levels of pandemic-induced academic stress in the COVID cohort were mitigated by experiences that foster academic and social integration, specifically by teacher support and social cohesion.

This design case describes the thought processes associated with redesigning an educational technology course for undergraduate preservice teachers from a 15-week hybrid course to a 5-week online course. The redesign is part of a push to create more flexible courses for working and rural students to remain competitive despite multiple alternative licensure paths now available to aspiring teachers. The designers face and overcome challenges regarding right-sizing the course content and assignments while maintaining student engagement. Additionally, the designers discuss how they streamlined the course without sacrificing standards or critical and relevant topics, like AI in education. The case details the development of the online course within the learning management system (LMS; Google Classroom) and the design questions that emerge during that process. The redesigned 5-week course was tested through two iterations in the 2023 summer semester: Summer 1 and Summer 2. The designers collected student feedback after both runs of the course using the standard course evaluation survey, their own Google Forms survey, and the instructor's reflections. The feedback from Summer 1 informed the Summer 2 iteration. Finally, the designers observed that the experience of condensing the course from 15 weeks to 5 weeks required them to think critically about the course goals and how to make the content manageable for students. The redesign was so successful that the course instructor (also a design case author) determined to redesign the 15-week version of the course for Fall 2023 using the new 5-week design as an anchoring point.

The aim with this article is to contribute knowledge about the meanings of "friluftsliv" in educational practice. This is done by investigating what "friluftsliv" becomes in the ongoing practices of PETE in Sweden and "how" these meanings are established in the studied activities. The empirical material consists of different kinds of material from "friluftsliv" activities in PETE programmes: study guides, field trip plans, students' vlogs from overnight stays outdoors, video recordings from two longer field trips, audio recordings from evening seminars during the field trips and students' written reflections after them. In order to identify meanings of "friluftsliv" and how these are established we used a transactional analysis based on Dewey. Five different ways of what "friluftsliv" becomes in PETE practice were identified in this study. The different meanings reflect the complex picture of contradictions and lack of common ground for the content and motives identified in the outdoor education field. Our study also confirms how the meaning of "friluftsliv" as skills is established by putting up tents, lighting fires, building wind shelters and so on, and how this contributes to a focus on the instrumental values in PETE. On the other hand, our study shows that other meanings of "friluftsliv" are established in the ongoing practice, where more intrinsic values are at stake even if they are often overshadowed in PETE practice. In conclusion the results also point to the potential of "fritluftsliv" in terms of a suggested move away from an activity-based personal and social development discourse in favour of experiences of educating for environmentally sustainable human-nature relations. The challenge is how to make these experiences educational in PETE and how to guide students in transforming experiences in more exclusive "friluftsliv" into pedagogical competence as future teachers using "friluftsliv" for different purposes in school PE.

This article examines how university students assess the coordination of the courses their programmes contain and how course coordination affects how content they are with their studies. The study is based on survey data from more than 5700 students, collected through Lund University's Student Barometer. The survey examines the students' views on course coordination based on content, workload, administrative procedures and whether or not teachers of different courses provide coherent information. The analysis shows that the coordination of courses has a significant impact on how students experience their studies. The better the course coordination, the more satisfaction students will get from their studies; and the correlation remains stable when several other factors of importance for student satisfaction are included in the analysis. The conclusion of the study is thus that course coordination clearly contributes to explaining variations in students' appreciation of their university studies.

The importance of notetaking for English for academic purposes (EAP) students and teachers is growing due to a rapid increase in the number of universities offering English as a medium of instruction (EMI) courses around the world (e.g. [Teng, H. C. 2011. "Exploring Note-taking Strategies of EFL Listeners." "Procedia -- Social and Behavioral Sciences" 15: 480-484.]). While there have been several studies on second language (L2) notetaking that focus on the types and styles of notes students take (e.g. [Siegel, J. 2016. "A pedagogic cycle for EFL note-taking." "ELT Journal" 70 (3): 275-286]; [Crawford, M. 2015. "A Study on Note Taking in EFL Listening Instruction." JALT2014 Conference Proceedings, Tokyo, JALT, 416-424]; Tsai and Wu 2010), student perspectives regarding their stated beliefs about and reported habits related to notetaking remain in need of further exploration. This paper reports on an investigation of notetaking from EAP students' perspectives. It presents the results of a cross-cultural survey on the views and habits expressed by Japanese (n = 256) and Swedish (n = 272) students. Findings from the study demonstrate the similarities and differences between students in the two countries in relation to notetaking in EAP courses.

Background: The imperative for social justice in education means that pre-service teachers should learn how to teach for and about social justice, including pedagogical and content knowledge. Understanding how physical education (PE) pre-service teachers and teacher educators construct and develop their knowledge of social justice pedagogies and critical content, intertwined with values based on social justice and equity, is needed to best support future teachers. Purpose: The focus of this paper is how physical education teacher educators and PE and sport pedagogy university faculty have developed their knowledge of teaching for and about social justice: where their knowledge came from and how they draw upon it in their teaching and programme design. Method: Seventy-two faculty from seven countries engaged in an in-depth interview about their conceptualisation of social justice, their knowledge, practices, institutions, and policy contexts and completed a demographic survey on their social identity and professional experiences. Using a social justice pedagogical and content knowledge (SJPACK) model, thematic analysis generated formal educational study, workplace experience, and personal or social identity bases of social justice knowledge. Findings: Many of those who expressed a commitment to teaching about and for social justice had personal and professional experiences that had provided 'eye-opening' moments. For instance, some had encountered marginalisation and discrimination based on their identity. If social justice issues were not a part of a participant's lived experience, but they had professional experience in the field, they were struck by what they did not know and subsequently sought out postgraduate or professional development. Professional experiences in the field were much more likely than formal education experiences to provide recognition that participants needed to learn more about social justice. Social justice is both knowledge and an ideological stance, so learning about social justice is as much about values and disposition as about content. Social justice must be important enough for teacher educators to embed in their belief system so that it becomes part of their pedagogical practice. Conclusion: This study prompts consideration of the professional development needs of teacher educators concerning social justice that goes beyond acknowledging the existence of sociocultural issues by moving towards changes in pedagogical practices in PETE and PESP programmes. We advocate collaborative and reflective professional development for educators if SJPACK is to be woven throughout teacher education programmes and not just incumbent on educators with personal experience of social justice issues.

Policies of dispersal are increasingly favoured internationally for the resettlement of refugees and asylum seekers. With forty percent of the world's forcibly displaced people being school-aged children, the dispersal of refugee-background people into regional areas means that rural schools are central sites of community response to refugees. Little is known in published research about how rural schools engage in refugee education within the policy context of 'dispersal'. This review of relevant literature examines the educational dimensions of dispersal policies, drawing on research in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and Sweden. Research linking refugee resettlement, refugee education and rurality shows a complex interplay between histories of exclusion and contemporary challenges in both the construction of rural spaces, and the deployment of humanitarian dispersal policies at national and international levels. This literature is thematically organised to show that in refugee education within a policyscape of dispersal, rural schools may be 1) operating in racialised community contexts; 2) working within poorly resourced infrastructure; 3) unfamiliar with refugee-background students; and, despite these challenges, they may become 4) key sites of resistance, creativity and support for refugee-background students and their families.

Increasingly pervasive digital technologies in societies are placing complex demands on the development of young people's digital citizenship and digital competence. Social science education and teacher education (TE) play important, but poorly understood, roles in this development. Through reflexive thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews, this paper explores 15 Swedish teacher educators' (TEDs) views of teaching for digital citizenship, particularly social science TE's role. We also consider organisational and personal conditions that may influence TEDs' views of professional digital competence (PDC) for such teaching. Their views are examined through a postdigital lens, with a focus on democratic implications in evolving socio-technical environments. The results indicate that TEDs acknowledge the importance of social science TE in teaching for digital citizenship, but find maintaining responsiveness to societal changes challenging. Challenges are also posed by the multidisciplinary character of social science education, including how personal trajectories shape TEDs' views of their dual-didactic task of teaching to teach for digital citizenship. This paper contributes knowledge of how TEDs, as 'street-level bureaucrats' in social science TE, navigate between written and performed education policy in teaching for digital citizenship, with specific attention to the dynamic character of PDC in social science education.

This article aims to deepen our knowledge about the work and competences of local education authority (LEA) officials when implementing new policy directives for documentation in the decentralized Swedish school system. The results show that the LEA officials used strategies and actions that improved relevance for principals and schools through changes in what was documented and how they understood results, supported by continuing professional development. In their brokering position the LEA officials proved to be key actors, contributing to empowerment, confidence and trust. Hence, the results indicate the importance of LEAs finding balance between steering and supporting in policy implementation.

This paper discusses how Bernsteinian concepts ('pedagogic rights', 'discursive gaps' and 'pedagogic code') from the field of sociology of education can be used as didactic tools to illuminate how different ways of organising teaching in VET has implications for citizenship preparation. The paper is based on results from a five-year research project investigating the extent and nature of learning processes that can be characterised as civic education in Swedish VET. Results from the project show how VET often contributes to social reproduction through provision of class-, gender-, and ethnicity-based access to knowledge with different powers to students. However, we also identified many variations in the VET-contexts studied. In the paper at hand, examples of when and how students got access to different types of knowledge through different ways of organising teaching, and how different ways of teaching prevented or promoted different types of questions with implications for the kind of citizenship preparation the students were offered, is discussed. Our hope is that these discussions contribute to a conversation on how to make a language accessible to VET-teachers that is helpful to problematise and plan their teaching to offer greater access to an active citizenship for students in vocational programmes.

In Sweden, many children between the ages of 6 and 9 years attend Swedish school-age educare (SAEC) institutions before and after school, when their parents work or study. This study aimed to explore and compare safe and unsafe spaces in children's everyday lives at SAEC institutions. Ethnographic fieldwork, including observations and interviews with the staff and children, was conducted at two different SAECs. Using space, agency, and violence, this study explores how the staff relates to safe and unsafe spaces in children's everyday lives. Findings revealed differences in how everyday life plays out in the two SAECs, where unsafe spaces, with a risk of violence, more frequently exist in one SAEC than the other. The manner in which staff members perceived safe and unsafe spaces also impacted how children's agency emerged in different spaces. The study findings have important implications for politicians and decision-makers.

This paper reports on a two-year project focusing on health communicators working with refugees in Sweden. By employing participatory action research and the theory of practice architectures, the study examines a health information practice for newly arrived refugees and highlights its potentials and constraints. The joint meetings that occurred between the participating researcher and the health communicators during the project were the primary source for collaboration, development, and data collection. The findings show that perceptions of limitations due to existing power structures initially hindered the group from experimenting with new activities for the groups of refugees. However, as the communicators gained experience, the conversations in the joint meeting practice changed, which facilitated the action research process. By challenging common working methods, which were initially perceived as causes for concern, the communicators recognised that the concretisation of the health information they wanted to convey could also function as a useful pedagogical tool. The analysis shows that, despite constraints during the working process, the participatory action research practice created a democratic work process which empowered all participants. Collective talks in the communicative space nurtured an architecture that generated new ideas and made it possible to leave the classroom-based teaching situation for new ways of learning about health and physical activity. The findings also show that participatory action research made the communicators aware of their capacity to implement change by offering various movement-based activities that benefited the participating refugees and increased their agency and empowerment.

This article seeks to introduce a new historical explanation as to why left-wing working-class women engaged in liberal, middle-class organisations during the first wave of feminism. The article specifically deals with middle-class associations and clubs that had educational purposes. Instead of focusing on the larger explanatory scheme of the power of patriarchal societal structures or bourgeois feminisms as a hegemonic force, the account revolves around the political educational functions of liberal feminist engagement for some politically active social democratic women in Sweden. The case of social democratic women who entered the liberal middle class educational organisation Tolfterna (the Dozen) is the point of departure for a micro-historical analysis of the political capital accumulation practices that class collaboration entailed. Finally, the article explores how working-class women's choices and actions can be considered a group-specific strategy to expand their political resources to attain what is called feminist liberal political capital.

Today, adult individuals must be able to continuously learn and adapt to the rapid changes occurring in society. However, little is known about the individual characteristics, particularly personality traits, that make adults more likely to engage in learning activities. Moreover, few studies have longitudinally and objectively investigated the influence of personality on engagement in lifelong learning throughout working age. This study therefore used longitudinal data (15 years) to examine which personality traits predicted level and long-term changes in learning activities among 1329 Swedish adults aged 30-60. The results from growth curve modelling showed that over the follow-up period, novelty seeking and self-transcendence were both positively related to overall level of engagement in learning activities, although not to rate of change. Regarding specific activities, novelty seeking was related to higher levels of engagement in attending courses, taking on new education, and making occupational changes, while harm avoidance was negatively related to the likelihood of changing occupation. The results of this study underscore the importance of considering personality in relation to engagement in lifelong learning activities. Insights from this study can potentially increase the likelihood of finding methods to promote lifelong learning, which can be beneficial for educators, policymakers, and companies.

Background: Physical education (PE) teachers in practically all countries are expected to help their students develop movement capability. To achieve this objective, teachers need certain knowledge and competencies. The question of how PE teachers should develop their capacities to achieve this task has received only limited research attention. Aim: The broad objective of this paper is to contribute to the literature on how PE teachers can develop knowledge and competencies in the area of movement capability related to students' learning. The specific aim is to identify aspects of the design of instruction in physical education that enhance teachers' actor-oriented transfer of movement pedagogy knowledge, during a collaborative professional development intervention. Method: The study is an analysis of three conducted learning studies in PE at upper secondary schools in Sweden. The studies involved seven PE teachers from two different schools. Our empirical material consists of (a) notes from team meetings (n = 14), (b) lesson plans (n = 9), (c) video-recorded and transcribed lessons (n = 9), and (d) results of students' learning outcomes (n = 9). Findings: PE teachers' analysis of their own teaching sequences in teams supported their actor-oriented transfer of movement pedagogy knowledge, which developed their abilities to further elaborate their instruction in new teaching situations. Moreover, teachers gained insights into how to further develop the quality of instructional design as expansions of earlier experiences. Lastly, a relationship between PE teachers' actor-oriented transfer and students' increased learning of movements was found. Conclusion: Our conclusion is that collaborative professional development for PE teachers, which supports actor-oriented transfer, should be offered to enhance teachers' movement pedagogy knowledge.

Background: Combining Game-Based Approaches, video feedback, and debate of ideas "(débat d'idées)" constitutes an emerging field within pedagogical literature in Physical and Health Education. Nevertheless, more work is needed to understand how this digital tool can be effectively integrated into the teaching and learning process. Purpose: This study sought to further investigate the effective implementation of video tagging in games lessons with 14-15-year-old students. The central aim was to explore how a Game Sense Approach can be effectively integrated with video tagging and student-led debates. The secondary aim was to investigate the emergence of so-called 'action rules' (game plans) which emerge from these verbal exchanges. Participants and Setting: Game Sense pedagogy and video tagging were used as a stimulus for student-led debates during seven lessons. A pragmatic epistemological approach underpinned iterative cycles of action research using recordings from student-led debates critical collegial discussions, and teacher reflections to inform the implementation of the approach. A "post-hoc" thematic analysis of the PHE teachers' reflections and content analysis of student debates were then conducted. Findings: The results of the action research process revealed that "organisation" and "what to tag" were key considerations in the successful implementation of the approach. The results from student interactions showed a high level of team-based positive action rules, with a low level of negative feedback. Conclusion: This study highlights the importance of critically considering technology integration, the content of student interactions, and their pedagogical implications. The integration of video tagging in diverse game-based situations can provide pedagogical and organisational challenges. However, key considerations of "organisation" and "what to tag" may help PHE teacher identify appropriate learning situations to use video tagging as a stimulus for the debate of ideas.

Although co-creation of artefacts is a common practice in virtual exchange (VE), there are still few studies that explore the connection between collaboration on multimodal texts and student teachers' development of intercultural and pedagogical awareness. Based on a trinational VE, coincidentally developed during the outbreak of the pandemic in March 2020, this case-study explores how COVID-19, as the impromptu context for VE, fostered preservice teachers' intercultural and pedagogical perspectives. Through a multiliteracies approach, findings indicate that co-creation both generated and scaffolded intercultural dialogue and that, the disruption caused by the pandemic was experienced by students as an expansive learning opportunity.

Digital devices such as iPads are prevalent in children's play from an early age. How this shapes young children's play is an area of considerable debate without any clear consensus on how different forms of play are brought into the iPad interaction. In this study, we examined 98 play activities of children in two preschool settings, featuring 2 and 4-5-year-olds, their play with iPads and non-digital artefacts. Three analytical approaches were used: an index built on a digital play framework [Bird, Jo, and Susan Edwards. 2015. "Children Learning to Use Technologies Through Play: A Digital Play Framework." "British Journal of Educational Technology" 46 (6): 1149-1160. doi:10.1111/bjet.12191], a quantitative description of the index, and a qualitative interaction analysis of children's play. Results show how play with iPads is characterised as less ludic than play with other artefacts, and diverges from the age-typical norms of play. We discuss what these results might mean for children's play in contemporary early childhood settings and for children's learning.

This study addresses normative orientations to smartphone use in Swedish upper-secondary classrooms. We present a Nexus Analysis from a policy enactment perspective of a material comprising ethnographic interviews, classroom video observations, and smartphone screen capture, investigating how a cultural conception of the smartphone as a source of disturbance is negotiated in discursive and embodied social action. Three groups of policy actors -- head teachers, teachers, and students -- balance competing agendas such as digitalization strategies, popular media narratives, and student autonomy and peer relationship maintenance. There is a tension between orientations to the smartphone as a legitimate resource for socialization and learning in the digitalized classroom, but also as an exception to desired digitalization -- a potential threat to the social and disciplinary order of the classroom. Notably, the students display considerable awareness of such tensions, in reflective comments made in interviews and in displayed strategies for managing their smartphones in class.

Background: Authenticity in schools has been highlighted as important for improving students' engagement and learning, and to prepare them for future job markets, especially in science and technology. Purpose: This study investigates students' perceived authenticity of a developed innovation project when implemented in an upper secondary technology education program. Sample: Three cohorts of students (n = 199) attended a first-year technology course at a Swedish upper secondary school in 2016, 2017 and 2018, respectively. In addition, eleven students from the 2016 cohort were interviewed two years later to obtain their views on how the innovation project in the first-year course influenced their performance in a subsequent advanced technology course taken in 2017-2018. Design and Methods: Groups of students participated in the first phase of an innovation project in the first-year course, a five-week module, cooperatively designing solutions to real-world problems. A Likert scale questionnaire measured the degree of perceived authenticity in line with Herrington, Reeves and Oliver's (2010) key elements. Focus group interviews were conducted after the second phase - a 20-week follow-up module in the subsequent advanced course - about how authentic they perceived the first and second phases to be. Results A questionnaire measured the degree of perceived authenticity of the students for the first phase, for each of the three years. "Coaching and scaffolding" received the highest ratings across all three years, whereas "Reflection" was perceived as having the lowest authenticity. In a qualitative component of the study students found both phases positive, and five new themes of students' perception of their experiences were revealed. Coaching and scaffolding Reflection Conclusions: The similarities in perceived authenticity between the three cohorts suggest consistency in students' perceptions of authenticity. However, they did not feel that the project gave them the opportunity to reflect on their learning. According to interviews conducted two years later, they perceived their experiences of the innovation project as having induced creativity, commitment, ownership, motivation, and real-world connection, although at times it was also a challenge to think for themselves and to collaborate with others.

Background: Informal learning environments (ILEs) like Fablabs and Makerspaces have potential to facilitate development of STEM skills. However, these environments might be difficult for teachers to adopt in their teaching because of teaching approaches grounded in constructionism where the role of the teacher changes from a transmissive instructor to an active co-creator, and using high-tech equipment not normally found in schools. Purpose: The aim is to investigate teachers' self-efficacy and perceived role when teaching STEM in Fablabs and Makerspaces. This is investigated related to teaching in ILEs and using high-tech equipment. The study was conducted in two countries/regions, Flanders (Belgium) and Sweden We also compare differences between teachers depending on nationality, gender, and years of teaching experience. Sample: A total of 347 secondary school teachers completed an online survey. Quantitative analyses was used for all questions in the survey, except one open-ended question, which was analysed through inductive thematic coding. Results: The teachers reported moderate self-efficacy for teaching in ILEs , and low self-efficacy for using high-tech equipment. Some teachers described themselves as having active roles as a coach or as co-learner during visits with their students. Others saw themselves as having a passive role. Many teachers did not know what kind of role to take. The teachers who perceived an active role as a teacher in high-tech ILEs reported higher self-efficacy to teach in these environments than other teachers. Conclusions: This study shows that a constructionist approach to teaching is important if teachers are to develop self-efficacy to teach in high-tech ILEs. Thus, developing teacher practices in line with constructionism in relation to teaching in high-tech ILEs is imperative, in teacher education. The results also highlight that staff in Fablabs and Makerspaces are important for handling high-tech equipment. Hence, collaboration between staff in ILEs and teachers is of importance.

Background: The subject of technology looks different depending on context. There is also an epistemological complexity to technological knowledge in technology education. Purpose: To gain a deeper understanding of the epistemological foundations of the subject of technology and technology teaching, the teachers' views are needed. The aim of this study is to examine how teachers discuss technology education, with a particular focus on how they talk about technological knowledge. Sample: 19 Technology teachers from compulsory school in Sweden participated. Design and methods: Through focus groups, teachers' views of knowledge in technology education were collected and then analysed. Results: The results consist of three parts. Firstly, it was found that the teachers were unfamiliar with discussing epistemology in technology education. Secondly, interpreting their views of knowledge in technology education through a theoretical framework for knowledge in technology education yielded examples of knowledge from the three constituent categories: technical skills, technological scientific knowledge, and socio-ethical technical understanding. Finally, an inductive analysis revealed two categories based on the teachers' broader views of knowledge: civic capabilities and engineering capabilities. Conclusion: Overall, the results provide an understanding of teachers' ways of describing technological knowledge. The teachers perceived the term knowledge in a broader way than traditional epistemology, including capabilities in their descriptions. We propose a new perspective on the character of knowledge and capability in technology education, called technology education competence. The results of this study point to important aspects of the nature of the subject, which might lead to reflection about what knowledge should be considered of value in the future regarding research but especially development of curricula.

For over two decades now, the application of Citizen Science to Education has been evolving, and fundamental topics, such as the drivers of motivation to participate in Citizen Science projects, are still under discussion. Some recent developments, though, like the use of Artificial Intelligence to support data collection and validation, seem to point to a clear-cut divergence from the mainstream research path. The objective of this paper is to summarise the development trajectory of research on Citizen Science in Education so far, and then shed light on its future development, to help researchers direct their efforts towards the most promising open questions in this field. We achieved these objectives by using the lens of the Affordance-Actualisation theory and the Main Path Analysis method.

Research has identified several aspects that influence students' transition to mathematics studies at university, but these aspects have often been studied separately. Our study contributes to the field's understanding of the transition between upper secondary and university mathematics by taking a multifaceted perspective not previously explored. We analyse experiences and attainment in mathematics of 154 engineering students with respect to known aspects of this transition, and our results show that it is important to consider several aspects together in order to understand the full complexity of the transition. It is revealed that students with previous experiences of university studies, when compared with new first year undergraduates, perceive a larger difference between studying mathematics at the upper secondary level and university. Our results also show that the engineering students enrolled in distance programmes experience larger differences between secondary and tertiary levels than engineering students enrolled in campus programmes. Furthermore, our analyses show that students' success in mathematics is related to their perceptions of the rift experienced in the transition. In all, our results highlight the importance of taking a student perspective in the development of explanatory and useful models of students' transition between upper secondary and university mathematics.

Debates around internationalisation-at-home (IaH) focus on the benefits accrued to students from the integration of internationalisation dimensions in their studies, curricular developments and interactions with international students, but, with scant attention to how these vary in different subject areas. In this article, we focus on the disciplinary experiences and framings of internationalisation from the perspectives of students in two Swedish universities. Drawing on 67 interviews with students sampled across different subject areas, we examine how the disciplinary definitions of study objects and pedagogic approaches filter the students' experiences and shape their views around IaH, and their ambitions for the future. Our findings suggest first, a discipline-specific set of positionings regarding the nature of subject areas as lenses through which internationalisation is understood. Second, the students hold strong views around the contribution of IaH in strengthening the disciplines themselves. In addition, the student voices paint a dynamic picture of internationalisation positions, not always consistent with disciplinary stereotypes.

The supervision of degree theses is one of several institutional practices in higher education that are regulated by various systems of rules. However, the social roles involved in the practices may still be largely based on interpretation, negotiation and personal choice. Research on supervision has primarily targeted the doctoral level, but the present study targets the Bachelor level. Existing inventories of roles are based on supervisor roles, but the present study also includes student roles. Existing inventories are not always based on empirical data, but the present study uses focus group discussions with supervisors and responses to open-ended questions from a questionnaire to students as a basis for extracting supervisor and student roles. The supervisor and student participants came from two language departments at a Swedish university. The local guidelines relevant to supervision underspecify roles. The findings show a considerable complexity and a broad repertoire when it comes to roles attributed to supervisors as well as students. Some roles may be plotted along a scale, where stakeholders may have different preferences and needs, such as along transactional and interactional types, or between support and management; or between seeing the thesis primarily as a process or a product.

Research on school improvement has accumulated an extensive list of factors that facilitate turnarounds at underperforming schools. Given that context or resource constraints may limit the possibilities of putting all of these factors in place, an important question is what is necessary and sufficient to turn a school around. We use qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) of 77 Swedish schools studied over 12 years to answer this question. Our core finding is that there is no "silver bullet" solution. Instead, there are several distinct combinations of factors that can enable school turnaround. The local school context is essential for which combinations of factors are necessary and sufficient for school turnaround. We discuss implications for research on school improvement and education policy.

As programming emerges as a critical skill in the digital age and digital tools continue to evolve, understanding students' perspectives on the integration of such technologies into their education is crucial. This empirical study explores the perspectives of students in Sweden and Taiwan on the use of digital tools in their programming courses. The research employs both qualitative and quantitative methods, including correlation analysis and inductive content analysis, to understand students' perceptions of the usefulness and challenges involved in the application of different digital technologies. The study reveals the importance of immediate feedback, visualization of concepts, online discussion platforms, and programming tools' tutorials. However, concerns about potential bias in AI grading systems and the need for more time and guidance to become familiar with new technologies are also highlighted. The study provides valuable insights that can guide the development of more user-centered tools for supporting programming education.

Return on investment (ROI) has become part of the policymaking toolkit, particularly pertinent for activities like school-based career guidance deemed optional by some policymakers. There are institutions supporting ideal ROI methods alongside an academic critique, but little research on how ROI has been applied in practice in a guidance setting. In this systematic review, we document 32 ROI studies across nine countries that address either school-based guidance or one of three congruent fields: widening participation in education, behaviour in schools and adult career guidance. We find the corpus highly heterogenous in methods and quality, leading to problems in comparability. We argue for a pragmatic approach to improving consistency and the importance of policymakers' capacity for critically reading ROI studies.

In many parts of the world, researchers and policymakers alike report possible threats to democracy and its institutions. Accounts in the media of hatred and threats aimed at people taking part in public discourse, and of a polarized political debate, raise general questions about the current state and future of democratic dialogue and processes. Solutions are sought, by both research and policy, in the educational context. Some researchers have turned to the agonistic theory proposed by Chantal Mouffe, highlighting the democratic role of conflict and dissent. Empirical research on agonism in education is, however, scarce. In this article, we explore agonistic democratic theory in educational practice, more precisely in a conversation about a literary classic in an upper-secondary Swedish L1 classroom. Based on the analysis of data generated through a teacher-researcher collaboration, we propose six didactic conditions that are fruitful for what we call agonistic literary discussions. Contributing to the debate on how education could meet a possible threat to democracy, we argue that an agonistic approach is a productive path. This approach views democracy as an ongoing process, and it views the classroom as a place where the meaning of democracy can be negotiated.

Positive behaviour support (PBS) has been receiving increased attention recently but has not been studied from the perspectives of staff and students in Sweden. This article presents an integrative and systematic literature review focusing on international research concerning staff and student perspectives on the effects of PBS. The aim was to describe staff and student perspectives regarding PBS and its effects, between 2000 and 2022. The findings indicate that there is a lack of empirical research involving the combination of staff and student perspectives of the effects of PBS. The existing research is mostly from elementary schools age range 6 to 13. However, the findings suggest that there have been several studies that aim to gain a better understanding of teachers' and students' perspectives of how PBS enhances student social relationships, lowers problem behaviour and increases academic performance. According to the current findings, the success of the PBS approach is greatly influenced by the efficacy of execution and the leadership of the school's support for implementation.

This article describes how some Swedish compulsory schools work to achieve collective development of practices in mathematics and science. The overall aim is to increase knowledge about factors influencing progression to professional learning in different school contexts. Data were collected through four case studies by interviews with teacher teams and principals and were analysed in a meta-perspective by using the components of the Collaborative Action Research model. The findings showed that the schools had reached different phases concerning progression to professional learning. Changes aiming to improve teaching and learning are context-bound. Therefore the authors suggest some crucial questions to support professional learning in the prevailing school culture.

During the last few years, the Swedish preschool curriculum has undergone several changes. Among those changes is the introduction of the concept of teaching as a goal-oriented activity. Preschool teachers have been given a specific responsibility for leading the teaching in preschool. This study aims to explore how preschool teachers' didactical leadership can be understood in relation to the didactical questions expressed during collegial meetings. The empirical data consist of audio recordings of 17 meetings. The participants were five qualified preschool teachers, a pre-service preschool teacher and an unqualified preschool teacher. The audio recordings were transcribed and analysed using some of the key concepts of Bernstein's theory of pedagogical practice. The results show that preschool teachers' didactical leadership is established in a pedagogical discourse where children's social development and learning is at the foreground while content knowledge is often implicit. Furthermore, the child as a guide is expressed as a core idea, whilst preschool teachers position themselves mostly in the background. The results of the study point to a didactical leadership embedded in an invisible pedagogy.

This study focuses on teacher professional learning in early childhood education and care (ECEC) in response to the contemporary challenge of understanding the role of teachers in play. It explores the learning process of teachers when investigating how an ECEC work team in Sweden collaboratively changes their way of reasoning regarding their role in play when introduced to a theoretical framework that takes on this topic. This study is part of a combined research and development project, including focus group conversations (FGC) with video-stimulated recall. From a sociocultural perspective, the findings show how the participants' reasoning is mediated and re-mediated at two levels. The first level includes the re-mediation of the concept of steering (from a more negative connotation to a more positive one). The second level explores how this shift re-mediates the team's reasoning regarding their role in children's play, from uncertainties regarding the risk of over steering the play to reasoning about the teacher's key role in play for teaching to take place. Another finding focuses on the nonlinear progression of learning, as reasoning evident in the first FGC remained in the last but to a lesser extent. Implications for professional development training are discussed.

According to the Swedish Education Act, schools should support both students' knowledge development and personal development. Students' levels of knowledge are measured and compared through their examination results and formal grades as well as through international comparative studies and other tools. However, students' personal development is not measured. The purpose of this study is to explore the efforts of local governance chain actors -- the Local Educational Authority (LEA), superintendents, principals and teachers -- to realise these two normative requirements and to learn more about the tensions and power struggles between these actors. The overarching question is: How do the actors in the governance chain prioritise and act with regard to the requirements for developing students' knowledge and students as individuals? This study is designed as a case study in a compulsory school setting. The empirical data were collected by interviewing LEA chairs, superintendents, principals and teachers in a small town in the south of Sweden. The results show that the LEA and the superintendents focus on students' knowledge development, but principals and teachers resist a too strong focus on knowledge development. The normative requirement -- students' personal development -- is not explicitly discussed at any level in the governance chain.

Universities engage in international collaboration for a number of reasons. In the global North, which is characterised by wealth and power, universities increasingly use international collaboration for competitiveness and marketisation. In contrast, the global South engages in collaboration to strengthen research and build knowledge capacity. Prior studies argue that trust, mutual benefits, and achieving shared understandings and ways of working are important for sustainable collaboration. However, the studies generally examine what makes a "good" collaboration well after collaboration has been initiated. The contribution of this study is therefore to exemplify the relationship-building process between academics from an Ethiopian and Swedish university. The study is based in "co-operative inquiry" and uses data collected in April 2019 from questions composed by each set of academics, which were deliberated during their initial meeting. Their experiences of enablement and constraint in research collaboration and their motivations for pursuing a new collaboration are in focus.

In this paper, we critically discuss the impact of policy documents on the construction of national narratives on the provision of support for cultural-linguistic diversity in education systems in two European countries. The analysis focuses upon a selection of national policy documents that deal with the planning and provision of HLE since the 1990s. We take critical pedagogy and sociomateriality as theoretical lenses to investigate educational policies on HLE. Thus, this study critically traces the ways in which language ideologies are enmeshed with legislative, political and educational discourses by following an inductive and retroductive process, wherein key-concepts, themes and critical configurations of HLE are mapped, compared, re-assembled and discussed in terms of a complex system. The analysis shows that the (non-)provision of HLE shapes the educational space and the value references and world views that prevail and are (re)produced in it. Emerging deficit perspectives, linguistic assimilation and marginalisation processes limit the path towards more inclusive and equitable educational institutions and practices.