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Purpose: This paper considers the relevance of critical and decolonial approaches to global education in northern Europe through theoretical and empirical research. Methodology: We present a case for an approach that engages the modern/colonial dynamic (Mignolo, 2000; Andreotti, 2014) and pluriversality (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018). We conducted a project involving workshops with secondary teachers in England, Finland, and Sweden centred on Andreotti’s (2012) HEADSUP tool. We recorded discussions at the workshop and individual interviews after applying the tool in practice. Findings: Teachers are both strategic and reticent in how they take up colonialism when teaching global issues. Wider political contexts and teachers’ and students’ own experiences with colonialism and racialisation are very much part of how ethical global issues are framed, unpacked, and responded to in classrooms. While there are some significant challenges evident, several teachers deepened their approach and co-produced a teacher resource supporting the application of HEADSUP to classroom practice.

The Bloomsbury Handbook of Global Education and Learning brings together the main elements of the debates, provides analysis of policies, and suggests new directions for research in these areas. This chapter presents the argument for centring of critiques from environmental and sustainable development scholarship and critical global citizenship education scholarship in response to enacting United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4.7. in Global North contexts. As educators and researchers working in these two areas respectively, we draw on Andreotti’s (2012) HEADSUP tool as a bridging framework. The tool centres pedagogical applications towards explicit attention to the ways education for sustainable development and global citizenship education can reproduce colonial systems of power. The chapter shares findings from a small-scale research study engaging secondary and upper secondary teachers in England, Finland and Sweden with the tools and engages with teacher perspectives to consider key possibilities and challenges of applying HEADSUP in both classroom pedagogy and reflexive practice.

I denne masteroppgaven undersøker vi hva som er norske låntakeres motiv for å velge fastrente på boliglån​.​ Studien tar utgangspunkt i tre hypoteser som legger ulike økonomiske konsepter til grunn. Datamaterialet omfatter Husbankens utlånsvolum og rentesatser, samt makrotall fra Statistisk Sentralbyrå. Tidsserien går fra 2006 til 2019. Etterspørselen etter fastrente forklares ved hjelp av variablene arbeidsledighet, inntekt, renterisiko og risikopremie ved fastrente. Metoden som anvendes er tidsserieøkonometri, og hypotesene besvares på bakgrunn av kvantitative effekter fra henholdsvis teori og resultater. Analysen ga overraskende funn som strider mot antatt utfall. Resultatene viser at ​økt renterisiko​ gjør Husbankens låntakere ​mindre tilbøyelige til å velge fastrente når man i utgangspunktet kan forvente økt behov for risikoreduserende tiltak. Samtidig tyder funnene på at lavere arbeidsledighet at etterspørselen etter fastrente øker. Oppgaven diskuterer om betingelsene ved norske fastrenteavtaler begrenser låntakers fleksibilitet og handlingsrom i den grad at fastrente blir et mindre velfungerende produkt enn hva som er tiltenkt. Dette kan forklare hvorfor økt renterisiko fører til at færre låntakere ønsker fastrente på sine boliglån, som er det motsatte av hva som kan forventes. This master's thesis addresses the following research question: ​What are the motives of Norwegian borrowers for choosing a fixed interest rate on a mortgage?​ The research question is answered using three hypotheses, all of which use different economic concepts. The data comes from Husbanken's lending volume and interest rates, and macro figures from Statistics Norway. The time series runs from 2006 to 2019. The demand for fixed interest rates is explained by the following variables: unemployment, income, interest rate risk and risk premium at a fixed rate. The method used is time series econometrics, and the hypotheses are answered using quantitative analysis derived from both theory and results. The analysis yielded surprising findings, contrary to what could be expected. The results show that increased interest rate risk makes the Husbanken's borrowers less likely to choose fixed interest rates when one can expect that borrowers need risk-reducing measures. At the same time, lower unemployment leads to demand for fixed interest rates to increase. The thesis discusses whether the terms of Norwegian fixed rate agreements limit the borrower's flexibility and scope to the extent that fixed interest rates become a less functional product than is intended. This may explain why increased interest rate risk causes fewer people to want fixed interest rates on their mortgages, which is the opposite of what would be expected.

This article builds from scholarship in Environmental and Sustainability Education and Critical Global Citizenship Education calling for more explicit attention to how teaching global issues is embedded in the colonial matrix of power (Mignolo, 2018). It reports on findings from a small exploratory study with sec-ondary and upper secondary school teachers in England, Finland, and Sweden who participated in work-shops drawing on the HEADSUP (Andreotti, 2012) tool. HEADSUP specifies seven repeated and inter-secting historical patterns of oppression often reproduced through global learning initiatives. Teachers dis-cussed the tool and considered how it might be applied in their practice. The paper reviews two of the key findings from their discussions: a) the mediation of charity discourses and global-local relations and b) emerging evidence of how national policy culture and context influence teachers’ perceptions in somewhat surprising ways.

According to sustainable development target 4.7, by 2030, all signatory nations must ensure learners are provided with education for sustainable development and global citizenship. While many national curricula provide a policy imperative to provide a global dimension in curriculum and teaching, mainstreaming an approach to teaching about sustainable development through pressing global issues requires strong attention to what happens between students and teachers in the classroom. In this article, we aim to help teachers think through an ongoing reflexive approach to teaching by bridging important theoretical and empirical scholarship with the day-to-day pedagogies of global educators. This collaborative praxis offers an actionable approach to engaging with values, conflicts and ethical consequences towards bringing global issues into teaching and learning in a critical and fruitful way. Our results show that teachers and students can both experience discomfort and experience a sense of significance and worthiness of engaging in a more critical approach. In addition, if we critically reflect and support students in doing so, as these teachers have done, we open up possibilities for approaches to global issues pedagogy that come much closer to addressing the pressing issues of our deeply unequal world.

The prostitution debate in Sweden is generally divided into two dualistic counterparts; one side that sees prostitution as the worst form of oppression, and the other that wants to acknowledge it as a profession and normalize the perception of sex work. The purpose of this essay is to implement a comparative analysis between two organizations that appear to belong to these two counterparts, Intedinhora (Notyourwhore) and Fuckförbundet (Fuckunion). The method involves a comparative analysis, where the two organizations are set against each other to find similarities and differences. Intersectionality, queer theory and discourse theory are used in the analysis - theories that emphasize the importance of the social, cultural and historical contexts that forms individuals and groups structures. The theories help to explain how the organizations looks at prostitution. In a derivation from the theories I found three key concepts that I applied on the material: power, sexuality and victim. The analysis is divided into these key concepts where similarities and differences are described. It appears that the organizations share some similarities, mainly in the view of why some people sell sex and not others. They, lean towards an intersectional understanding of the interaction of power symmetry on people’s lives, where class, race and sexual identity affect what choices a person has. However, they seem to differ greatly in the view of the future of the prostitution industry. Intedinhora belongs to those who want prostitution to cease and acknowledge the Swedish sex law as something good, while Fuckförbundet wants to elevate it as a legitimate profession, annul the law in a way to transform the view on the sex worker as an active agent. To sum up, the debate can be understood as dualistic, although there are some similarities between the two sides, mostly in their emphasis on the importance to look at class, sexual identity and race to describe why some sell sex, and another buy it. Fuckförbundet, however, seems to be more ideological than theoretical in their argument than Intedinhora.

Det här temanumret handlar om teoretisk och empirisk forskning som rör miljö- och hållbarhetsfrågor. Syftet med tidskriftens ”call for papers” som gick ut hösten 2016 var att belysa och visa på den mångfald av riktningar som utvecklas för att möta vår tids utmaningar. En ekologisk hållbar utveckling ses inte separat utan som intimt sammanlänkad med frågor om social rätt-visa, global resursfördelning inom och mellan generationer och hur vi lever tillsammans med andra varelser. Etiska och moraliska ställnings taganden är därför en väsentlig del av hållbar utveckling. I flera vetenskapliga, politiska och mediala sammanhang uppmärk sammas de allvarliga hot som världen står inför (Bonnett, 2013; Leach, Raworth & Rockström, 2013; Stables, 2013). Det brukar då framhållas att alla har ett ansvar att motverka dessa men att skolan och utbildning har ett alldeles sär-skilt ansvar. Det kan inom utbildning beskrivas som ett ansvar att utveckla en pedagogisk verksamhet som skapar en medvetenhet och en erfarenhet hos elever som bidrar till att de kan göra kunskapsbaserade och moraliska ställnings taganden i olika globala utvecklingsfrågor.Varje forskningsfält har sina begrepp som definierar och ringar in dess intresse områden. I de artiklar som ingår i temanumret kan några sådana begrepp urskiljas: hållbar utveckling, hållbarhet, utbildning för hållbar utveck-ling samt miljö- och hållbarhetsutbildningsforskning. Dessa begrepp intro-duceras och diskuteras nedan. En kort exposé av framväxten av forsknings fältet och forskarnätverk nationellt ges även.