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While research has pointed to the lack of gender mainstreaming in rural and agricultural policy, how rural policy determines what is seen as problems of gender inequality in the first place and how it constructs men and women in relation to rural development remains unexplored. In this article we perform an in-depth analysis of how rural policy constructs gender inequality problems and gendered subjects. We employ the 'What's the problem represented to be' approach to analyse the implementation of the European Union's Rural Development Policy in one Swedish region, Jonkoping County. We conclude that gender inequality is largely left unproblematic in relation to rural development, placing women in the subject position of being uninterested in rural development policy and lacking the ability to take it on. The focus on farmers and ICT broadband positions adult, Swedish-born men as the norm, reflecting a neoliberal emphasis on economic growth through competitive businesses. We also conclude that the policy twists 'gender mainstreaming' by claiming that it promotes gender equality, while it in fact takes no action. Paying lip service to gender equality rural policy thereby co-opts feminism, in line with a neoliberal 'postfeminist' discourse, which is harmful to the feminist project. Alternative approaches to gender inequalities suggest that there may be broader, and different, ways of discussing them in relation to rural development, making for a broader spectrum of problematisations and subject positions, which may, in turn, allow a transformation towards gender equality.

Introduktion: Litteraturstudien undersöker hur skolan kan förebygga barnobesitas. Socioekonomiska- och sociala faktorer i relation till barns hälsa uppmärksammas. Skolans roll i barns hälsonivå och potential att uppväga för sämre hemförhållanden diskuteras. Litteraturstudien betonar skolmatsalens betydelse, tekniska lösningar för ätbeteendescreening och skolkoncept för ökad fysisk aktivitet. Syfte: Undersöka vad skolan kan göra för att förhindra barnobesitas. Metod: En litteratursökning och kritisk granskning av artiklar för att samla relevant kunskap. Resultat: Inleds med presentation av inkluderade artiklar. Artikel 1 undersöker interventionen ”A Healthy Generation”s påverkan på hälsotillståndet hos föräldrar och barn genom hälsoresultatmåttet Health Related Quality of Life. Artikel 2 utvärderar effektiviteten i programmet ”Healthy School Start II”. Artikel 3 utvärdera effekterna av extra idrottslektioner på elevers kroppskomposition. Artikel 4 undersöker acceptansen, användbarheten och begränsningarna hos ett mHealth system som registrerar ätbeteenden och kostvanor hos ungdomar. Diskussion: Artiklarnas olika infallsvinklar framförs. Skolans och familjens roller i förebyggande arbete diskuteras, liksom tekniska lösningar och koncept för minskad stress i matsalen. Vidare diskuteras artiklarnas perspektiv på fysisk aktivitet och skolans roll i att öka mängden fysisk aktivitet. Slutligen diskuteras metoden, artiklarnas etiska aspekter och trovärdighet. Slutsats: Skolor kan införa ökad fysisk aktivitet på schemat och använda teknikbaserade verktyg för att förebygga barnobesitas. Långsiktig effekt förstärks av föräldrars delaktighet., Introduction: This literature review examines how schools can prevent childhood obesity. Socioeconomic and social factors related to children’s health are being recognized. It emphasizes the school’s potential to offset the negative effects of poor home environments and highlights the importance of the school cafeteria, eating behavior screening, and increased physical activity concepts. Objective: Investigate schools´ role in preventing childhood obesity. Method: Literature search and critical review of articles gather relevant knowledge. Results: Articles included in the review are presented. Article 1 examines the impact of the “A Healthy Generation” intervention on parents´ and children´s health using HRQOL. Article 2 evaluates the effectiveness of the “Healthy School Start II” program. Article 3 evaluates the effects of additional physical education classes on students´ body composition. Article 4 examines the usefulness, and limitations of an mHealth system that records eating behavior and dietary habits in young people. Discussion: Articles´ different perspectives on preventive work are presented, including the roles of schools and families. Technical solutions and concepts to reduce cafeteria stress are discussed, along with the school´s role in increasing physical activity. Conclusion: Schools can introduce increased physical activity and technology-based tools to prevent childhood obesity. Long-term effects are strengthened by parents` involvement.

Från inledningen: Den internationella forskningen om kvinnors företagande tog fart i början av 1990-talet. Redan 1989 publicerade pionjärerna Elisabeth Sundin och Carin Holmquist den svenska studien Kvinnor som företagare: Osynlighet, mångfald, anpassning. Studien banade väg för en livaktig svensk forskning inom ämnet. I början handlade forskningen om att visa att kvinnor som företagare faktiskt finns. Trots att kvinnor sedan många år utgjort ungefär en tredjedel av alla företagare så ansågs och anses fortfarande företagare vara män. I ett senare skede fokuserade forskningen på villkoren för företag drivna av kvinnor. Många studier visade till exempel att kvinnor har svårare att få finansiering för sina verksamheter än män. Det kan bero på direkt diskriminering, men också på att kvinnor är verksamma i feminint kodade branscher som exempelvis detaljhandel eller personlig service. I dessa branscher har man sällan stora tillgångar som kan ställas som säkerhet för ett lån. Branscherna är också arbetskraftsintensiva, vilket gör det svårare att uppnå skalfördelar och hög lönsamhet., Publicerad online 23 mars 2023.

Purpose: Policy for women's entrepreneurship is designed to promote economic growth, not least in depleted rural areas, but very little is known about the contributions of rural women entrepreneurs, their needs or how the existing policy is received by them. Using a theoretical framework developed by Korsgaard et al. (2015), the authors analyse how rural women entrepreneurs contribute to rural development and discuss the implications for entrepreneurship policy. This paper aims to focus on the aforementioned objectives. Design/methodology/approach: The authors interviewed 32 women entrepreneurs in rural Sweden representing the variety of businesses in which rural Swedish women are engaged. The authors analysed their contributions to rural development by analysing their motives, strategies and outcomes using Korsgaard et al.’s framework of “entrepreneurship in the rural” and “rural entrepreneurship” as a heuristic, interpretative device. Findings: Irrespective of industry, the respondents were deeply embedded in family and local social structures. Their contributions were substantial, multidimensional and indispensable for rural viability, but the policy tended to bypass most women-owned businesses. Support in terms of business training, counselling and financing are important, but programmes especially for women tend to miss the mark, and so does rural development policy. More important for rural women entrepreneurs in Sweden is the provision of good public services, including for example, schools and social care, that make rural life possible. Research limitations/implications: Theoretically, the findings question the individualist and a-contextual focus of much entrepreneurship research, as well as the taken-for-granted work–family divide. How gender and how the public and the private are configured varies greatly between contexts and needs contextual assessment. Moreover, the results call for theorising place as an entrepreneurial actor. Practical implications: B

Building on Alistair Anderson's work, this paper proposes transforming enterprise education to deeply address questions of sustainability, social justice and hope in our time of multiple and complex crises. New pedagogies, practices, vocabularies and connections help us to enact crises in entrepreneurial, ethical and creative ways, enabling us to remain hopeful in the face of unknown horizons. Drawing from critical pedagogies, from Epistemologies of the South, and from the wisdoms of Alistair Anderson, the paper outlines how transforming to a more, hopeful, socially just and sustainable enterprise education could move us beyond present alternatives. We suggest that transforming enterprise education (TrEE) would better facilitate students as ethical change-makers when they engage with their worlds, and its unseen future horizons. TrEE emphasizes the time needed for questioning dominant meanings and space for experimenting with new ones. It invites re-placing us in the margins and with the excluded. It takes an expansive view of the ecosystem, and places enterprise within its wider context. It focuses students, teachers, entrepreneurs and various other stakeholders in learning together with the non-human and relies on sustainable stewardship, social justice and hope at the core of transforming enterprise education.

Building on Alistair Anderson’s work, this paper proposes transforming enterprise education to deeply address questions of sustainability, social justice and hope in our time of multiple and complex crises. New pedagogies, practices, vocabularies and connections help us to enact crises in entrepreneurial, ethical and creative ways, enabling us to remain hopeful in the face of unknown horizons. Drawing from critical pedagogies, from Epistemologies of the South, and from the wisdoms of Alistair Anderson, the paper outlines how transforming to a more, hopeful, socially just and sustainable enterprise education could move us beyond present alternatives. We suggest that transforming enterprise education (TrEE) would better facilitate students as ethical change-makers when they engage with their worlds, and its unseen future horizons. TrEE emphasizes the time needed for questioning dominant meanings and space for experimenting with new ones. It invites re-placing us in the margins and with the excluded. It takes an expansive view of the ecosystem, and places enterprise within its wider context. It focuses students, teachers, entrepreneurs and various other stakeholders in learning together with the non-human and relies on sustainable stewardship, social justice and hope at the core of transforming enterprise education.

Purpose Contrasting two countries with different gender regimes and welfare states, Sweden and Tanzania, we analyse how the institutional context affects the ways in which a neo-liberal reform agenda is translated into institutional changes and propose how such changes impact the preconditions for women’s entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach We use document analysis and previous studies to describe and analyse the institutions and the institutional changes. We use Scandinavian institutional theory as our interpretative framework. Findings We propose that: 1) In well-developed welfare states with a high level of gender equality, consequences of neo-liberal agenda for the preconditions for women entrepreneurs are more likely to be negative than positive. 2) In less developed states with a low level of gender equality, the gendered consequences of neo-liberal reforms may be mixed and the preconditions for women’s entrepreneurship more positive than negative. 3) How neo-liberalism impacts preconditions for women entrepreneurs depends on the institutional framework in terms of a trustworthy women-friendly state and level of gender equality. Originality We demonstrate why any discussion of the impact of political or economic reforms on women’s entrepreneurship must take a country’s specific institutional context into account. Further, previous studies on neo-liberalism have rarely taken an interest in Africa. Research limitations/implications The study calls for bringing the effects on gender of the neo-liberal primacy of market solutions out of the black box. Studying how women entrepreneurs perceive these effects necessitates qualitative ethnographic data.

Purpose Contrasting Sweden and Tanzania, we explore the experiences of women entrepreneurs affected by entrepreneurialism. We discuss the impact on their position in society and on their ability to take feminist action. Design/methodology/approach We analysed interviews conducted in the two countries over 15 years, using a holistic perspective on context, including its gendered dimensions. Findings Our results amount to a critique of entrepreneurialism. Women in Sweden did not experience much gain from entrepreneurship, while in Tanzania results were mixed. Entrepreneurialism seems unable to improve the situation for women in the relatively well-functioning economies in the global north, where it was designed. Originality The paper adds to the understanding of context in entrepreneurship studies: Africa is largely an underexplored continent, and contrasting North and South is an underexplored methodological approach. We further extend and develop the model of gendered contexts developed by Welter et al. (2014). Research implications In mainstream entrepreneurship studies, there is a focus on the institutional context. From our analysis, it is apparent that equal attention must be given to the social and spatial contexts since they may have severe material and economic consequences for entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. The paper raises questions for further studies on the gendering of markets in different contexts, as well as questions on the urban-rural dimension. Policy implications In Sweden, marketisation of welfare services led to more women-owned businesses, but the position of women did not improve. Our results strongly convey the need for a careful analysis of the pre-existing context, before initiating reforms.

This new section, which will feature in every issue, aims to provide insight into critical approaches to entrepreneurship—which evolve within the community between ignorance and skepticism—via short contributions that question or re-establish the meaning of specific pieces of vocabulary used in the field of entrepreneurship. The format of the section is inspired by Gilles Deleuze’s ABC primer. As such, the contributions are not intended to be dictionary entries that objectify the terms used; instead, they aim to offer a critical perspective on entrepreneurial discourse. Guest authors are thus invited to write two pages on a word that resonates with their subjective and critical perspective on entrepreneurship. They can choose to do one of the following when writing their entry: —— present a traditional concept of entrepreneurship and redefine it through a critical lens; —— expand upon a critical concept in entrepreneurship; or —— discuss an ordinary word that reflects the everyday practices of entrepreneurs.

Innovation is filled with aspirations for solutions to problems, and for laying the groundwork for new technological and social breakthroughs. When a concept is so positively charged, the hopes expressed may create blindness to potential shortcomings and deadlocks. To disclose innovation blind spots, we approach innovation from a feminist viewpoint. We see innovation as a context that changes historically, and as revolution, offering alternative imaginaries of the relationship between race, gender and innovation. Our theoretical framework combines bell hooks (capitalist patriarchy and intersectionality), Mazzucato (the entrepreneurial state and the changing context of innovation) and Fraser (redistributive justice) and contributes with an understanding of innovation from the margin by unveiling its political dimensions. Hidden Figures, the 2016 biographical drama that follows three Black women working at NASA during the space race, provides the empirical setting of the paper. Our analysis contributes to emerging intersectionality research in management and organisation studies (MOS) by revealing the subject positions and dynamics of inclusion/exclusion in innovation discourses, and by proposing a radical – and more inclusive – rethinking of innovation. With this article, we aim to push the margins to the centre and invite others to discover the terrain of the margin(alised). We suggest that our feminist framework is appropriate to study other organisational phenomena, over time and across contexts, to bring forward the plurality of women’s experiences at work and in organisations.

Innovation is filled with aspirations for solutions to problems, and for laying the groundwork for new technological and social breakthroughs. When a concept is so positively charged, the hopes expressed may create blindness to potential shortcomings and deadlocks. To disclose innovation blind spots, we approach innovation from a feminist viewpoint. We see innovation as a context that changes historically, and as revolution, offering alternative imaginaries of the relationship between race, gender and innovation. Our theoretical framework combines bell hooks (capitalist patriarchy and intersectionality), Mazzucato (the entrepreneurial state and the changing context of innovation) and Fraser (redistributive justice) and contributes with an understanding of innovation from the margin by unveiling its political dimensions. Hidden Figures, the 2016 biographical drama that follows three Black women working at NASA during the space race, provides the empirical setting of the paper. Our analysis contributes to emerging intersectionality research in management and organisation studies (MOS) by revealing the subject positions and dynamics of inclusion/exclusion in innovation discourses, and by proposing a radical - and more inclusive - rethinking of innovation. With this article, we aim to push the margins to the centre and invite others to discover the terrain of the margin(alised). We suggest that our feminist framework is appropriate to study other organisational phenomena, over time and across contexts, to bring forward the plurality of women's experiences at work and in organisations.

Organiser: Department of Urban and Rural Development, Division of Rural Development (SLU).