We are witnessing the renegotiation of cannabis substances in many parts of the world. After being classified as narcotics and subjected to a worldwide ban for several decades, cannabis has now been legalized in Uruguay and in several US states, and decriminalized in some other countries. This paper aims to study how the ongoing renegotiation of cannabis, which involves the legalization of the substance in different parts of the world, is constructed in Swedish print news journalism. This is done with the purpose of understanding how news journalism in a context of a traditionally strong drug prohibition (de)legitimizes different positions and perspectives in the ongoing renegotiation of cannabis, and to what extent journalism in such a context offers challenges to the reigning prohibitionist hegemony. Although cannabis and the media has been researched extensively, very few studies have been conducted by media and communication or journalism scholars, and contributions have been placed mainly in areas as for example drug policy, drug use and misuse, and public health. The current study, in contrast, wishes to contribute to the critical study of drug journalism. The paper draws on critical theory, understanding the ongoing renegotiation of cannabis as bringing disequilibrium to the hegemonic view of cannabis as dangerous drug that needs to be banned. Journalism is perceived as playing a key role in this context, since journalism is an arena where different discourses on cannabis struggle for prominence. Journalism can in this sense serve the strengthening of counter-hegemonic discourses on cannabis or the reinforcement of the prohibitionist hegemony. The study uses critical discourse analysis as a method to study 49 print newspaper items. The results show that the studied media invites opposed discourses regarding the health risks and the medical benefits of cannabis to be part of the news pages, which creates a somewhat pluralistic view on cannabis. The study also finds that the construction of cannabis legalization as a means to combat organized crime is given significant framing power. These results suggest that the ongoing renegotiation of cannabis in different parts of the world invites Swedish journalism to broaden the debate on the substance and to provide certain legitimacy to positive discourses on cannabis that are otherwise considered deviant in the Swedish drug debate. This serves as an example of how changes in distant political contexts affect the ways in which journalism ascribes legitimacy to specific discourses on drugs.

Attacks on academic freedom in Turkey have become increasingly systematic in recent years and thousands of academics have been dismissed. This study reflects on the effects of this worsening repression through interviews with academics in the social sciences, both those dismissed and those still active in their profession. Although the dismissed academics are socially in a very precarious position, they are continuing their scholarly activities in alternative, underground forms. This resistance stands in contrast to the accommodation and self-censorship that seem, according to the interviewees, to prevail in university departments.

In wide-ranging attacks on academic freedom in Turkey in recent years, thousands of academics have lost their university positions. At the end of 2016 oppositional academics, many of whom were dismissed from their positions for having signed a peace petition, established a Street Academy as an alternative way to reach out to both students and the public in Ankara. In this study we analyse the experiences of these street academy lecturers from the perspective of Social Representation Theory. Our main aims were to explore teaching experience perceptions and representations and, in addition, also the opportunities and challenges generated by this alternative academy. Data consisted of semi-structured interviews with five female and five male street academy lecturers. The results of a qualitative thematic analysis revealed that the way participants explained their experiences could be organised into three major themes and several subordinate themes. One of the most salient results was that participating in the street Academy had become a way to defend academic freedom. More generally suggested results demonstrated that teaching in this new setting, outside of the universities and away from customised learning environments, was quite a novel experience. The possible implications of street academy lecturers? experiences are discussed.

Utilizing forest gardens as urban settings for outdoor environmental education in Sweden is a new practice. These forest gardens combine qualities of a forest, e.g., multi-layered polyculture vegetation, with those of a school garden, such as accessibility and food production. The study explores both the perceived qualities of forest gardens in comparison to other outdoor settings and forest garden educators’ ideas, purposes, and experiences of activities in a three-year forest gardening project with primary school children. The data were collected through interviews and observations and analyzed qualitatively. Four reported ideas were to give children opportunities to: feel a sense of belonging to a whole; experience self-regulation and systemic dependence; experience that they can co-create with non-human organisms; and imagine possible transformation of places. Four pedagogical forest garden features are discussed.

This study was carried out within a project to promote health and ecosystem services, ?the benefits people obtain from ecosystems?, in preschools in Sweden. The paper applies the concept ?affordance? to capture the functional meaning that children assign to different material aspects of their schoolyards before and after the installation of additional environmental features. The findings from walk-and-talks with 23 preschool children highlight what features children preferred in their yards and why. Few children showed spontaneous attention to the installed features, e.g. insect hotels. This might be more because children were not enough involved within the schoolyard development and experienced little guided exploration of environmental affordances, rather than a lack of interest per se. Given this, we suggest that development projects to upgrade schoolyards for improved ecosystem services should involve children in the design of the ecosystem services promoting features throughout the development work, and thereby, integrally, promote ecological literacy.

The text analyzes and compares the presence of the Anthropocene discourse in picture books from the northern hemisphere, both published in 2007, I skogen (In the wood) by Swedish author Eva Lindström and Winston of Churchill: One Bear’s Battle Against Global Warming by Canadian Jean Davis Okimoto. The books depict the tripartite relation between man-animal-nature as interdependent, but differently. While the Canadian book has an overt mission to enlighten the public about the effects of climate change for the artic region, in the Swedish book there is no overt message, but can be spotted and understood from an ecocritical perspective.

According to Anthropocene discourse nature is no longer a passive and static context for human actions (Crutzen 2000) and human control is an illusion (Carson 2002) [1962]. With Darwin man is defined as one species among many and after the rise of Ecology man is regarded as a species subsumed into an ecosystem. Ecologist Tormod Valaand Burkey advocates therefore for a new ethics where economy and man´s practices and values must adapt to a larger ecological context (2013).

The picture book analysis focuses on the combined pictorial and verbal narrative depiction of climate change and its threat to biodiversity. The focus is on how the representation of man as a species is depicted as well as its relation to other species of fauna and flora. The analysis will concentrate on attitudes, actions and ethical values expressed by protagonists when dealing with climate change in relation to an ecological ethics where human rights are closely knit with animal rights and biodiversity.  

Nesser’s most popular crime novel Kim Novak and its pendant Piccadilly, set in the 1960’s in Midsweden, share time, location, and the adolescence’s search for identity. In that quest the merging popular culture plays an important role. (Grossberg 1997) Nesser catches the characteristics of the time; Erik, 14 years, reads and writes comics; Mauritz, 17 years, listens to the latest pop music and constantly adds to his album collection. He also writes poetry and reads classics while listening to his rock music. The preferences of music, film and literature as well as the media practices by the protagonists convey authenticity to the setting but also serve as a narrative device to characterize the protagonists. The paper illustrates how the references to popular culture are used to depict the complexity and the dynamics of the main characters’ development.

Konstetablissemanget speglar en patriarkal värld i vilken olika spelregler gäller för kvinnor och män. Detta förhållande påkallar en undersökning för hur förutsättningarna ter sig för manligt och kvinnligt konstnärskap i bilderböcker i barnlitteraturen. Den västerländska bilderboken är ett lämpligt undersökningsobjekt eftersom den sedan modernismen har varit en konstform som uttrycker, speglar och experimenterar med bildkonst och konstnärskap. (Beckett 2012, Druker 2008). Beckett undersöker i sin översikt av crossover-bilderböcker en del av detta fenomen, nämligen bilderböcker som alluderar till bildkonst. I hennes redogörelse framkommer det att anmärkningsvärt få böcker handlar om kvinnliga konstnärer, liksom om konst skapad av kvinnor, Frida Kahlo undantagen. Om Becketts översikt är representativ bekräftar den att framställningar av kvinnligt konstnärskapande är försummat i bilderböcker. 

Syftet med mitt paper är sålunda att studera hur bildkonstnärer och konstnärlig aktivitet representeras på den svenska bilderboksmarknaden med hänsyn till genus. Till min hjälp har jag genusstudier utförda på barnlitteratur (Andrae 2001, Söderberg et al. 2013) och på bilderböcker (Österlund 2009). Min metod är att jämföra framställningar av kvinnliga och manliga konstnärliga aktiviteter ur ett genusperspektiv. Min analys kommer också att inkludera en inledande kvantitativ undersökning av bilderböcker som behandlar konstnärer och konstnärlig kreativitet på marknaden. Hur många är de? Hur många representerar kvinnors konstskapande? Min avsikt är att kvantifiera antalet böcker som behandlar kvinnliga konstnärer i förhållande till manliga, liksom att skissera typiska karakteristiska i dessa bilderböcker för konstnärskap och konstnärlighet med hänsyn till genusmönster.

Föredraget kommer att ge exempel på representationer av konstnärskap i vilken också paratexter (biografier och marknadsföring) har undersökts. Den preliminära studien är ur ett genusperspektiv betraktad en besvikelse (2014). Det finns inte en enda bilderbok som endast ägnar sig åt en svensk kvinnlig konstnär. I de fall de förekommer är de i egenskap av hustru, till exempel Karin Larsson i böcker om maken Carl.

Eftersom den kvinnliga konstnären är marginaliserad är nästa steg att finna ut om och hur kvinnligt konstnärskap kan definieras i andra termer än manligt? I så fall, hur ser villkoren ut? Eftersom materialet är så tunt med historiska karaktärer kommer jag att inkludera bilderböcker som porträtterar fiktiva karaktärers kreativa aktiviteter, till exempel Lundbergs Vita Streck, Wirséns Nallen och Höglunds Mina, vilka kan betecknas som konstnärliga, om än inte utifrån ett konventionellt synsätt. 

The aim of this paper is to investigate transmediations of the Anthropocene discourse into two picture books from the northern hemisphere, both published in 2007, I skogen (In the wood) by Eva Lindström and Winston of Churchill: One Bear’s Battle Against Global Warming by Jean Davis Okimoto.  The analysis is focused on how the combined pictorial and verbal narrative transmediate scientific media of climate change and its threat to biodiversity. The focus is on how the representation of man as a species is transmediated as well as its relation to other species of fauna and flora. In the Anthropocene discourse nature is no longer a passive and static context for human actions. (Crutzen 2002).  Rachel Carson was among the first to state that the human control of nature is an illusion born in an age “when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man”. (2002)[1962]. Since Darwin man is defined as one species among many and since the rise of Ecology man is defined as a species subsumed into an ecosystem. Ecologist Tormod Valaand Burkey sketches an ethics where economy and man´s practices and values must adapt to a larger ecological context (2013). In this paper I will direct my attention to how man is depicted in relation to other species of fauna and flora from an ecological perspective. The analysis will concentrate on attitudes, actions and ethical values shown by protagonists when dealing with climate change in relation to an Anthropocene ethics where human rights are closely knit with animal rights and biodiversity. 

Since modernism picturebook typography and its visual display in cooperation with the image have been used to produce iconotext (Druker 2008; Beckett 2012). Typographical arrangement can for example create the illusion of movement, time and space and sonorous effects (Druker 2008). It can also imitate a still image as is the case in artists’ books (Beckett 2012). The use of picturebook typography has parallels to visual poetry (Druker 2008). The connection Druker detects between visual poetry and picturebook text has, however, major focus on the influences on the plot, character and setting, and less on the influences from the poetry-genre.

During the last decades picturebooks with traits that correspond to those defining the genre of poetry have emerged. (Rhedin 2004). The poetical picturebook is characterized by Rhedin as depicting rather than narrating, but her focus is mainly on the picturebook illustration, not on the poetical traits of the text.

The aim of this paper is therefore to explore the influence of poetry in the text of poetical picturebooks and contribute with knowledge about how the use of visual devices in cooperation with the picturebook image creates a poetic iconotext. What influences from poetry in the picturebook text, and particularly from visual poetry, can be found in the material?

This study will be carried out by combining findings by Druker and Beckett with Rhedin’s about the poetical traits in picturebooks, but also by adding theories/findings concerning visual aspects of poetry (Olsson 2007; Elleström 2011) and poetry combined with images (Almgren White 2011). Elleström develops a typology for visual iconicity of poetry and distinguishes between visual and auditive material signs, that also will be tested.

The expected result is to show examples of how the figurative language of poetry about instant moments, atmospheres, emotions and mental states contributes visually to create a poetic iconotext.

In our presentation we analyse how the chapter book Seacrow Island (1964 in Swedish), the original television series of the same name and the subsequent films have been reimagined as two new picturebooks illustrated by Maria Nilsson Thore (2019, 2020). We will discuss the artistic/didactic/considerations given to at once remaining respectful to the source material and to making the story an understandable and enjoyable experience for a new generation of readers.

Astrid Lindgren’s works belong to Sweden’s cultural heritage and many of her books have been translated into multiple languages and are read around the world. It is interesting to ponder which of Lindgren’s books will live on as classics and what adaptations are required in terms of their content, language, style and form for this to happen. Here, it is also appropriate to consider what Göte Klingberg called medium-choosing adaptations, in order to give due consideration to how a story can maintain the reader’s interest in a new millennium (Klingberg 1972: 95). Likewise, to observe the artistic deliberations involved in the illustrator’s visualisations (Nikolajeva & Scott 2001: 41-60). In the context of children’s literature, classics are often adapted works that are more or less reworked versions of the source material, whether originally intended for children or adults. Many of the works we now call classics would not have survived without this reworking (Ehriander 2015: 26-27). It is also striking that the story of Seacrow Island, the archipelago and the people who live there, is now being reworked for a younger readership in much the same way as many of Lindgren’s other works, in keeping with the changing times and changes in reading habits over the half century since the first generation of children encountered the fictional world of Seacrow Island (Almgren White & Ehriander 2020).

Selected Bibliography

Astrid Lindgrens bildvärldar (ed.) Helene Ehriander & Anette Almgren White, Göteborg: Makadam 2019.

“Ett litet djur åt Pelle” – en bilderboks relationer till Vi på Saltkråkan. Anette Almgren White & Helene Ehriander, HumaNetten, 2020, p. 231-255.

“Pictures of Alma in Katthult: Emil’s Mother the Writer in an Intermedial Light”, LP Publishing Contemporary Literary Criticism series: Astrid Lindgren, to be published 2021.

This study builds on a multi-scale ethnography of policies and mundane lives of lower secondary students and teachers with a specific emphasis on recent digitalization initiatives in Swedish schools. The study aims to illuminate the discourses and processes of inclusion and exclusion within contemporary educational digitalization initiatives whose intentions relate to a one-school-for-all agenda. Sociocultural perspectives have been a key point of departure and the discourse analytical framework of Nexus Analysis has been used as a guiding analytical lens. Participant’s deployment of digital tools in educational settings have been scrutinized through interviews, classroom audio and video recordings, and other ethnographic data. In addition, the study draws on analysis of national and school policies related to digitalization initiatives and Sweden’s one-school-for-all ethos. These data come from the research project Digitalization Initiatives, and Practices (DIP, www.ju.se/ccd/dip) where a key focus is the digitalization of the Swedish school system from a perspective of inclusion and exclusion.

With a point of departure in the one-school-for-all discourse, the Swedish school system rests on values like inclusion and compensation – inclusion for all students, irrespective of background, disabilities etc., and compensation of various types of functional disabilities. Framed by the one-school-for-all discourse, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is considered both a tool for inclusion and a compensatory tool in the Swedish school. Therefore, students (and teachers) with documented special needs have had access to digital tools like laptop computers or iPads for quite some time. However, due to the high degree of independence that individual schools and teachers enjoy, access to and usage of digital tools among students without documented special needs is reported to differ considerably, sometimes within the same school. Such previous findings across previous studies led the Government of Sweden to initiate a strategy to digitalize the entire Swedish school system in 2017. This strategy has had three key focus areas:

1. Digital competence for all in the school system.
2. Equal access and usage.
3. Research and follow-up about the possibilities of digitalization.

The first two focus areas highlight the inclusive ambitions of the one-school-for-all discourse. Many secondary schools have started teaching computer knowledge, and the Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket) has included affordances and constraints of the digitalization of society in the curricula of different subjects, in particular in the curriculum of mathematics where programming became an integrated part, as a means to fulfill the first focus area of the strategy. A majority of Swedish secondary schools today provide students with digital tools, with the result that the one computer per student ratio has increased dramatically, as a response to the second focus area. However, for students who are diagnosed with a functional disability, an initiative to digitalize the entire student population in a school, creates a paradoxical scenario of exclusion. Thus, as the following examples from our analysis suggest, digital tools for inclusion appear to have turned into tools for exclusion in Swedish lower secondary schools.

1. Before the digitalization initiative, students with special needs were often the only students in the classroom with their own digital tools. This marked them as students with special needs, even thoughthe digital tools provided features which made it possible for them to study at the same pace as their non-marked peers. When all students received digital tools within the framing of the digitalization strategy, the effect was that the compensatory advantage for the students with special needs decreased and they started experiencing a lagging behind effect in educational settings.
2. An outcome of the digitalization strategy was that many schools stopped buying paper editions of textbooks in order to be able to reserve resources for the procurement of digital tools and other digital resources. Therefore, students are currently required to use digitalized textbooks. This offers the possibility to use digital features like text-to-speech, i.e. the written text is synthetically read aloud. Wearing headphones, the students listen to the texts simultaneously while they may read it on their individual screens, something that is easier for students with diagnoses like dyslexia, or those who are new to the named language Swedish. However, the combination of digital tools and headphones tempts students to engage with non-school tasks (like scrolling Spotify playlists or watching YouTube videos) instead of reading an assigned text. This results in students who best need time to study lagging behind in school tasks.

Discourses of compensation and inclusion circulate in the Swedish school system. However, for students with special needs these discourses can imply a further exclusion if this means a compensation and inclusion for mainstream students. After the digitalization strategy was implemented, digital tools have become an integrated part of the Swedish lower secondary classrooms. For students with special needs, digital tools can function as compensatory measures and facilitate learning. However, this study suggests that digital tools for everyone can become counter-productive for students who are marginalized to begin with.

Our analysis highlights and troubles the binary dichotomies of being abled and disabled, or what being a student with special needs implies as compared to those who do not have any diagnoses or special needs. When functionally disabled students or students with special needs are seen as “problems” who can be “fixed” with digital tools, the tools themselves risk becoming hindrances for the students’ educational development. To come to terms with this, students, regardless of prerequisites, need to be understood as individuals with individual needs, and whose needs call for individual solutions that are part of solutions for all students. This study also highlights how a discourse analytical framework of Nexus Analysis can be used to shed light on complex social relationships across different types of data.

This study illuminates the political, ideological, moral and ethical driving forces behind the Swedish governmental initiative to digitalize the educational system—the Swedish Digitalization Initiative (SDI). Taking a sociocultural point of departure, policy documents are considered mediational means and have agency. Nexus analysis is the analytical lens that is deployed. Policies are analyzed according to the public consultative discourse analysis scheme. Three main findings are reported in this study:

• The policy documents are chained, that is, one document is linked to one or more others.

• There are three important discourses that circulate in the policy documents: digital competence, programming and an economical discourse.

• Different policy documents have different strengths of agency, expressed rhetorically in terms of both languaging and layout.

The driving forces of SDI are politically and ideologically economical liberalism. Moral and ethical driving forces can be seen in terms of equality between women and men.

Aim/Purpose

The aim of the study is to explore students’ encounters with digital tools and how they account for their experiences of using digital tools within formal education.

Background

While computers have a long history in educational settings, research indicates that digital tools function both as affordances and constraints, and that the role of digital tools in schools continues to be debated. Taking into consideration student perspectives can broaden the understanding of knowledge formation practices.

Methodology

The study is part of a larger ethnographic project, focusing on agency at all levels with respect to digitalization in schools. The present exploratory study is built primarily on interviews with 31 secondary school students at five different schools (15 girls and 16 boys). The analytical framework was a Nexus Analysis, focusing on discourses in place.

Contribution

The paper shows how digital tools are conceptualized as being formed by and fitted into the traditions and habits of the institution, rather than acting as a transformative force to change knowledge formation practices in schools.

Findings

From the students’ narrative accounts, the following key themes emerge: (1) Action in contexts, (2) Agency in contexts, and (3) Equality in contexts. The first deals with the use of digital tools in school and the interaction order as it is accounted for in the use of digital tools in schools. The second frames human agency with regards to usage of digital tools and how agency fluctuates in interaction. The third deals with the compensating role digital tools are supposed to play for students who are identified with special needs and for students with divergent backgrounds, especially socioeconomic standards.

Recommendations for Practitioners

For teachers, the recommendation is to engage in dialogue with the stu-dents on how and when to use digital tools and the affordances and con-straints involved from a student’s point of view.For school leaders, the recommendation is to review how organizational structures, culture, and processes hinder or support the development of new practices in digitalization processes.

Recommendation for Researchers

The three key themes that emerged in this study emphasize the need to reflect upon how a panopticon view of contemporary classrooms can be challenged. Involving students in this work is recommended as a means to anchor ideas and results.

Impact on Society

This study is part of a larger project at Jönköping University, focusing on agency at all levels with respect to digitalization in schools. The overall goal is to increase our understanding of how to improve digitalization and implementation processes in schools.

Future Research

Future studies that address digital technologies in schools need to pay special attention to the interaction between students, teachers, and various kinds of tools to map the nature of the education process, with the aim of challenging the panopticon view of the classroom. Future studies need to focus upon processes themselves, rather than accounts of processes.

Swedish preschool teachers must systematically document activities in the preschool in order to evaluate the quality of these activities. Pedagogical documentation is one form of documentation that is proposed. The aim of this article is to discuss and create knowledge of structures and tools based on different communicative aspects of pedagogical documentation. The empirical data consists of statements from preschool teachers with many years of experience of using pedagogical documentation. Their statements have been analyzed based on Wartofsky's concept of primary, secondary and tertiary artifacts. The study points to the importance of various tools of organisation in providing direction and frames for documentation in order to enable structures of communication built on rhizomatic learning.

The purpose of the article is to contribute with knowledge of pedagogical documentation with a particular focus on the importance of documentation from a democracy perspective. While there are many studies of pedagogical documentation, few studies explicit examine this practice from the perspective of children and guardians. Analyses, based on focus group data of children ́s and guardian ́s conversations from memories of the children ́s time spent in preschool in relation to educational documentation work, are presented. Pedagogical documentation practice is shown to contribute to the creation of a community of practice at the preschool, which in turn enabled democratic education.

The aim of the research was to explore how 55 Swedish independent schools, directed at (or limited to) students in need of special support (SNSS), describe their organisation, work and visions. The empirical data of the research consisted of the schools' website presentations, which were processed and analysed in consecutive steps. The results showed that the students' complicated school- and life situations were often combined with disabilities mainly in the neuropsychiatric field. The majority of the schools (76%) practiced both schooling and methods for treatment and care, differentiating their role from the mainstream track. Neuropsychiatric and psychological perspectives had a significant influence, reflected in how the schools describe their daily routines, therapeutic methods of treatment and access to specific categories of staff. Small groups, individual instruction and competent staff were described as specific features. Teaching content and didactic aspects were seldom highlighted. The focus on the websites was on socialisation and subjectification while qualification, i.e. knowledge development, had a more limited role. The study points to a need for further research exploring daily pedagogical practice in more depth and calls for a greater focus on student perspectives. Consequences for learning contexts are discussed in the concluding part of the article. The specialist role, the independent schools in the present study tended to take on are most urgent issues to discuss in an educational context striving for equity and inclusive learning environments. 

Student teachers consider teacher training as an important part of teacher education. Despite this, students’ explicit descriptions of quality in mentoring have not been paid much attention in the Swedish context. This study aims to contribute with knowledge of student teachers’ expressions of quality in mentoring during the teacher training program. Two focus group interviews and seven individual interviews were conducted with student teachers specializing in teaching grades F–3 and 4–6, in teacher training schools that participated in the trial activities in Sweden. Their statements have been analysed based on the theory of social representations. The result shows that three social representations appear: Qualitative mentoring is characterized by a) student’s professional development, b) collegial cooperation, and c) trust. These social representations influence students’ expectations of mentoring and its design. Although the students want to be seen as colleagues, they expect mentors to decide when, where and how mentoring should be carried out, and to have a distinct feeling to use the right type of mentoring at the right time. The mixed professional roles, which is highlighted by the students but seem to be implicit, calls for different forms of mentoring strategies that need to be explicit for both the mentor and the student.

Birgitta Hambraeus (C) och Birgitta Dahl (S) var centrala aktörer under två avgörande decennier för svensk miljö- och energipolitik. Under perioden 1971-1991 sökte de, från olika politiska utgångspunkt, skapa en framsynt politik baserad på hänsyn till miljö och klimat. De var ibland motståndare, ibland allierade i denna kamp.

In Sweden, tutoring in the mother tongue is a special support measure primarily intended for newly arrived students to facilitate their transition into the Swedish school system. Tutoring is premised on the collaboration between the class teacher, responsible for subject-related expertise, and the tutor, who contributes with knowledge of the student’s mother tongue and previous context of studies. In this case study of class teachers’ and mother tongue tutors’ conditions for collaboration at a multi-ethnic primary school, six mother tongue tutors and six class teachers were asked about the purpose of their work, how it was organised, and what could be done to improve working conditions. Interviews with head teachers, and data on work organisation from observations, document study, and participation in meetings for a period of one and a half years supplemented the teacher interviews. The analysis focuses on whether tutors and teachers belong to the same or different Communities of Practice, based on shared concerns and opportunities for collaboration, as well as looking at the relative positioning of languages and teaching roles. Findings suggest that the degree of collaboration between tutors and teachers was not sufficient to allow tutoring to function in the way it is envisaged by national steering documents. Tutoring was instead based on the tutors’ own knowledge of the subjects they taught. Recruitment of suitable tutors was difficult. However, conditions for collaboration and more effective tutoring in the schools could be improved with relatively simple support structures at the level of the municipality.

The system of welcoming newly arrived students in Sweden has experienced numerous modifications since its inception. Additionally, because the interpretation of education laws us left to the municipalities and head teachers, the various policies have resulted in a multitude of local practices. Over the years, a very wide range of models for organising newcomer reception have therefore been tried out in Sweden. This makes it possible to draw some conclusions regarding didactic implications, and to identify the most critical aspects. Across the various experiences, it is noteworthy that the reception system remains placed at the margins of the education system as a whole, which leads to inadequacies in teacher training as well as obstacles to the collaboration required across teams, professional groups and institutions. The pedagogy is based on a general perception ofthe incapacity of the student, while the many "specialmeasures" that aim to compensate for perceived deficits do not result in teaching approaches that facilitate the transition between education systems or take into account expectations of the students and their families.

Numerous vulnerabilities have been noted in the current structures of the Gulf economies, including dependency on hydrocarbon exports, the need for fiscal reforms and alternative sources of state revenue, as well as limited incentives in the status-quo for initiative and productive activities. However, diversification, business development and transition away from hydrocarbon dependency require the capacity to make informed and strategic long-term choices, based on not only on existing strengths and competitive advantages within the current global landscape, but taking into account foreseeable needs and future developments. These include both regional or domestic developments and the likelihood of major shocks in global economic landscapes. It has been observed that major restructuring of economies was made possible historically through state intervention (Wade, 2004). States clearly have a privileged position for enabling change, since they can provide necessary infrastructure and create a stable climate that supports investment, allowing businesses to operate with a minimum of risk. Clear and credible visions for the future are a vital condition for long term investments in the domestic economies, while excessive regulations, clientelism and the fear of political upheavals can act as deterrents. In the case of the Gulf states, the question is thus how to develop wise policies and mechanisms, by identifying critical points of leverage rather than using blanket measures.To avoid defensive reactions or flight of capital and capacity, visions for domestic development need to generate confidence and trust, giving sufficient attention to mechanisms of enabling change that simultaneously permit a smooth phasing out of dysfunctional structures. Major challenges observed today include the demographic profile of the countries, expectations as well as the mismatch between existing skills of the labour force and the capacity needed for restructuring the economies. Maintaining a social contract will therefore continue to depend on measures of distribution and ensuring employment for young people in the region, while at the same time orienting the economy towards new types of production.The paper will consider possible pathways towards economic sustainability in the Gulf states drawing on systems and transition theory (Geels, 2005; Twomey & Gaziulusoy, 2014). In the context of the Gulf, it has been argued that conventional distinctions between private and public sectors can be misleading, to the extent that public actors can be stakeholders in the economy. In the analysis, emphasis will therefore be on implications of policy choices for the real economy and future capacity, rather than on public versus private ownership. The analysis will further outline the heterogeneity of the economic fabric and discuss both synergies and conflicts of interest between different sectors and industries.

The beach is the main accessible public space for the inhabitants of Gaza, and plays a central role for leisure time and recreation. However, the water is contaminated and dangerous for bathing, which reflects the major issues Gaza faces with wastewater treatment and adequate infrastructure.

The initiative at the Burj El Barajneh camp is run by a network of local associations and aims at improving living conditions, services, infrastructure and livelihoods for the inhabitants. Burj El Barajneh has a large number of active associations and many highly educated professionals. However, in this complex hyperdense context, any kind of change needs to be carefully considered; there are no simple recipes, and existing professional expertise does not necessarily match the specific conditions of the locality. By working with collective design and collaboration between the camp's inhabitants, it becomes possible to envisage larger coordinated efforts and to solve issues that remain blocked at an individual level. 

This paper aims to make a contribution to recentering practice- and practitioner-oriented issues in Roma education studies. Gaps can be observed today between conditions of educational work in practice and the ways education is understood in mainstream academic discussions, compounded by the fact that educational workers in the field have limited access to academic environments. Also, as a subject dealing with minorities, education for Roma and Roma communities tends to occupy a marginal position in academic departments of Education. Inversely, in Roma studies, focus often lies on culture or history, and education is mainly considered through the lens of identity. This means that many important experiences in Roma educational work remain silent, and significant aspects of practices are not sufficiently shared across contexts. In this paper, experiences from education projects in Albania and Sweden are presented and considered against the background of Roma education policies in these countries generally. An analysis is made of the ways these projects directly or indirectly connect to local academic structures. Finally, suggestions are made of potential strategies for developing practice- and practitioner-driven research in this area, to make relevant experiences more accessible across linguistic and national borders.

Purpose

The paper aims to provide a conceptual map of how to mediate between sustainability theory and practice in higher education and how disciplinary divides can be bridged. It further looks at issues linked to knowledge views and drivers for institutional change that affect opportunities for whole institution development promoting action preparedness.

Design/methodology/approach

Taking its point of departure in the University Educators for Sustainable Development report UE4SD (2014, 2015), the paper discusses ways that ideas and interaction can be mediated in higher education settings, to connect sustainability research with vocational programmes. Different options are considered and compared.

Findings

Although the literature stresses both action orientation and the need for holistic transdisciplinary approaches, many institutional drivers limit opportunities for more integrating approaches.

Research limitations/implications

However, while conclusions may hold for universities at an overarching level, it is likely that certain research and teaching environments have been able to transcend such barriers.

Practical implications

Conceptually mapping the different forms that dialogue, interaction and flows of ideas take within higher education institutions has relevance for whole institution development for sustainability.

Social implications

Importantly, producing sustainability science with relevance to practice in various professions is a fundamental condition to support accelerated transitions to sustainability at societal levels.

Originality/value

The paper makes a significant contribution by focusing on concrete institutional pathways for knowledge exchange and negotiation that can support education for sustainability in higher education.

The refugee crisis is also a crisis in education. While attention is frequently directed toward primary and secondary school levels, higher education is a strategic issue for refugees, both as individuals and for long term processes of post-conflict recovery and peacebuilding. Education prospects and content are drivers of onwards migration, but also affect economic structures on return.  Higher education has the potential to support sustainable socio-economic development, but impacts will depend on which strategies are adopted and which types of capacity are prioritised. The article examines the issue of access to higher education for Syrian refugees, describing the situation in Lebanon in particular. Foreign interests can fuel sectarianism as well as creating economic structural dependencies. Both existing and possible future options supported by the international community are considered here, and discussed with respect to how they might affect opportunities for democratic and autonomous societal developments. 

This article discusses both conceptualizations regarding inclusion as action and issues related to representational-didactics. Taking a point of departure in both my scientific engagement and my experiences of research and societal developmental projects related to ethnicity, gender and functionality both inside and outside Sweden, the article argues for the need to shift focus (i) from the marginalized other to the non-marked norm, and (ii) to the boundaries that are drawn in everyday actions and activities that in themselves create the Other. I illustrate how understandings about human identity and diversity, including ”an imaginary community” (Andersson 1996), plays a decisive role for how societies plan for and organize support services regarding integration, inclusion, equity, etc. I specifically discuss identity and the conceptualizations (or metaphors) regarding the dominating dichotomized positions – inclusion and segregation – we have inherited, live with and that in themselves create possibilities/restrictions for children, young-people and adults in different institutional contexts.

Using the findings of different ethnographically framed research projects and with the fields where deaf individuals are focused upon as illustration, I introduce a third-position in a conversation about human diversity. Such a position, I argue, makes possible newer conceptualizations that include representational-didactics and inverted-inclusion. This has relevance for the organization of education, culture, and other services for everyone. In other words, by taking the case of research and the organization of language issues in the domain of deaf monolingual and bilingual education as specific instances of a dominating dichotomy, the aim of this article is to illustrate how a third-position makes visible languaging i.e. the doing of language, and identity-positionings i.e. the doing of identity, thereby allowing for newer ways of understanding functional dis/abilities, participation and inclusion. Such a position builds upon a critical humanistic thinking where theoretical sociocultural and decolonial framings are central. This position allows for, I argue, new ways to conceptualize a one-education-for-all and a-society-for-all.