Reflektionstexten utgår från ett undervisningsexempel där studenter engageras i undervisningen och kursens tematik via minnen och därmed övas i att utveckla ett professionellt omdöme. Det är ett undervisningsexempel hämtad från den egna undervisningspraktiken vid lärarutbildningen där värderingsövningar används som ett verktyg för att reflektera kring kursers tematik, närma sig litteraturen för kursen och fördjupa ett professionsomdöme. Även om reflektionen tar sin utgångspunkt i ett konkret undervisningsexempel hämtat från en specifik undervisningskontext, en kurs som ges inom lärarutbildningens utbildningsvetenskapliga kärna, kan övningen med stor sannolikhet och en smula fantasi anpassas för att kunna användas inom ett flertal andra professionsprogram vilket även diskuteras i textens avslutande del.

STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) education is currently gaining ground in many parts of the world, particularly in higher stages of the educational system. Foreseeing a development of STEAM policy and research also in the early years, this colloquium seeks to bring questions of gendering processes to the table. The authors aspire to prevent the development of a gender-blind STEAM discourse for early childhood education. Instead, they encourage practitioners and researchers to make use of STEAM education to recognise and transcend gendered norms connected to children’s being and learning in the arts, STEM and STEAM.

This chapter seeks to respond to the following question: What pedagogical form can make it possible to acknowledge religious content matter schools and preschools without compromising the non-confessional demands of the curriculum? To respond to this question, the chapter introduces two theoretical tools. The first is the idea of migrating meanings and its implications for understanding the character and function of religious traditions and rituals more generally, an idea inspired by political theorist William Cavanaugh’s idea of religious change. The second is the gesture of pedagogical profanation as it has been articulated by philosophers of education Jan Masschelein and Maarten Simons. With the help of these two theoretical tools, the argument is made that (a) there are no neutral nor unchanging traditions but both their form and content change and “migrate” over time (Cavanaugh) and that (b) religious traditions can be passed on to the next generation in schools and preschools through the gesture of profanation and in the specific form of study (Masschelein and Simons). The overall purpose is to seek out an approach through which teachers and educators can respond educationally to acknowledging religious content matter in schools and preschools beyond the religious/secular divide.

This paper is a response to Jan Masschelein’s keynote lecture. Taking its point of departure in a befriended support of his argument, the paper begins in the mood of affirmation as a form of critique. Thereafter it engages, first, with what it reads as a slightly retrotopian approach to digitalization in the paper. Second, it brings to attention that the gesture of rejuvenation and regeneration, which Masschelein suggests, always involves a moment of return or repetition. The question is asked what form the gesture of retrieving inherited pedagogical forms from the past takes in Masschelein’s proposal, and it is suggested that such retrieving is a work of constant translation. Third, a comment is made about the advocating of orature, issuing the reminder that on-campus education usually comes without noise reduction, that is, it requires reflection also on the discord that is calibrated in and through our voices. 

The paper offers a pedagogical response to the complexity of sustainability challenges that takes the existential and emotional dimensions of climate change seriously. To this end, the paper unfolds in two parts. The first part makes a distinction between 'public pedagogy' as an area of educational scholarship and 'pedagogical publics' as a theoretical lens for identifying certain qualities within educational environments, exploring what potential this distinction has for rethinking public pedagogy for sustainable development. Turning to Bonnie Honig (2015) and her call for creating 'holding environments' in the public sphere as a response to the democratic need of our time, the second part translates her political notion into an educational notion asking what fostering pedagogical publics as holding environments might involve. In relation to sustainability challenges, it is suggested that an environment that 'holds' people together as a pedagogical public has three main qualities: a) it makes room for new rituals for sustainable living to be developed in order to offer a sense of permanence; b) it invites narratives that can frame sustainability challenges in more positive registers; and c) it reinstates an intergenerational difference that serves to give back hopes and dreams to adults and children in troubling times.

Finns det något i en skolas kultur som förklarar varför elever trivs och presterar väl, trots att de yttre omständigheterna inte alltid är de bästa?

Antologin Synliggjord skolkultur diskuterar skolkulturens betydelse för elevers trivsel och prestationer i socialt och ekonomiskt utsatta områden. Med skolkultur avses här vardagliga interna faktorer som, vid sidan av skolans yttre ramar och styrdokument, bidrar till en tryggare skolvardag för alla elever oavsett bakgrund. I en tid då kunskapsmätningar tar stor plats i det offentliga samtalet kan vardagslivet i skolan lätt hamna i skymundan. Samtidigt är det just sådana interna delar av en skolas kultur som ofta lyfts fram som betydelsefulla av de som befinner sig där. 

Författarna synliggör olika delar av det som här kallas skolkultur utifrån skilda studier och med hjälp av en rad olika exempel. Förhoppningen är att antologin ska bidra med kunskap om skolors inre liv och på så sätt inspirera till ett mer nyanserat samtal, både inom och utanför akademin, om den svenska skolans framtid och utveckling. 

I denna essä resonerar författaren kring det normkritiska perspektivets etablering och utveckling i Sverige utifrån sina erfarenheter av att som pedagog, författare och akademiker ingående ha arbetat med perspektivet. I texten presenteras varför och hur perspektivet uppstod, på vilka sätt det i många olika sammanhang fick ett stort genomslag och hur det togs emot både med öppna armar och med ifrågasättanden. Författaren tydliggör att det normkritiska perspektivet handlar om gemensamt lärande genom pedagogiska kriser, inte om individuellt rättänkande. Essän tar avstamp i ett samtal som spårade ur och vindlar vidare via en beskrivning av de arenor och publikationer där begreppet utvecklades, det föreslås att denna utveckling kan förstås som rhizomatisk. Den stundtals agiterade mediala debatten kring begreppet presenteras översiktligt och resonemang förs kring hur den kan tänkas ha påverkat arbetet med begreppet i praktiken. Vidare diskuteras hur suffixet kritik har fått kritik och hur detta kan förstås och i sin tur kritiseras. Avslutningsvis argumenteras för vikten och behovet av vidare forskning kring begreppet som sådant och kring dess tillämpning.

De normer som förmedlas i förskola, fritidshem och skola har stor betydelse för barns uppväxtmiljö samt för deras identitets- och kunskapsutveckling. Utgångspunkten i denna bok är att de som arbetar i pedagogisk verksamhet behöver kunskap och färdigheter för att granska och förändra normer som på olika sätt begränsar och exkluderar. Ett normkritiskt perspektiv på och i pedagogiskt arbete kan bidra till en kontinuerlig reflektion som gör medvetenhet och förändring möjlig.

Boken tar sig an teoretiska perspektiv på kön, klass, hudfärg, funktionsvariation och sexualitet, erbjuder reflektion kring profession och förhållningssätt samt fördjupar sig i didaktiska utmaningar och möjligheter. Kapitlen ger rikligt med exempel på normkritiskt pedagogiskt arbete och belyser bland annat estetisk verksamhet i skolan, demokratiarbete med skolbiblioteket, representation i förskolan, fritidshemmets didaktiska mellanrum, barns lek och kommunikation mellan kollegor.

Boken vänder sig till blivande och verksamma förskollärare och lärare, skolledare och alla som har ett intresse för frågor som berör normer, makt och likvärdiga villkor i barns liv.

I denna avhandling undersöks den transformativa potentialen av begreppet w/o/a/ndering, anarkism och storytelling inom early childhood education. Genom autoetnografins glasögon sammanflätar författaren personliga erfarenheter med teoretiska reflektioner och visar därmed på komplexiteten i dagens pedagogiska landskap. Med inspiration från olika filosofiska traditioner, bland andra anarkism och existentialism, omformuleras pedagogiska praktiker inom ett sociopolitiskt ramverk. Centralt för undersökningen är begreppet w/o/a/ndering – ett flytande samspel mellan förundran och vandring, som symboliserar ett öppet sökande efter kunskap och mening. Utgående från arbeten av filosofer som Luigina Mortari och María Zambrano erbjuder w/o/a/ndering en väg att tänka nytt kring pedagogiska möten bortom traditionella pedagogiska paradigm. Avhandlingen belyser hur storytelling framstår som ett kraftfullt pedagogiskt verktyg inom detta ramverk, som överskrider sin konventionella roll för att bli ett utrymme för möte, lek och filosofisk undersökning. Genom att placera storytelling som en plats för anarkistisk och pedagogisk praxis belyses dess potential att främja äkta kontakter mellan pedagoger och barn. Vidare undersöks anarkismens historiska utveckling och samtida relevans i den pedagogiska diskursen. Med hjälp av teoretiker som Colin Ward utforskas anarkism som en levd erfarenhet, som utmanar förankrad maktdynamik och förespråkar motstånd på gräsrotsnivå inom utbildningsväsendet. I de följande kapitlen tar avhandlingen upp bidrag från pedagoger som Paulo Freire, Simón Rodríguez, Walter Kohan och Janusz Korczak, och betonar vikten av en kritisk pedagogik för att skapa inkluderande lärmiljöer. I slutändan syftar den här avhandlingen till att väcka kritisk reflektion kring pedagogernas roll i utformningen av dagens förskoleverksamhet. Genom att varva teoretiska insikter med praktiska exempel ger avhandlingen en nyanserad förståelse av pedagogisk praxis, och uppmanar pedagoger att återta sitt handlingsutrymme och skapa meningsfulla relationer i strävan efter att uppnå holistiska pedagogiska mål.

Artikeln gör en jämförande undersökning av ramvillkoren i finska, norska och svenska nationella läroplaner för barns existentiella och religiösa funderingar i förskolan. De tre länderna hanterar religionens nya roll och relationen mellan kulturell mångfald, kulturarv och värdegrund olika. Den avgörande punkten är i hur hög grad ett sekulärt ideal förskjuter religiösa teman från förskolans pedagogiska verksamhet till en privat sfär och i vilken utsträckning kristendomens tidigare roll att forma medborgare fortfarande anses legitimt, men nu utvidgat till att inkludera också andra religioners identitetsbildning. Värden, principer och idéer i läroplanerna både begränsar och möjliggör barnets rätt till undran över livsfrågor, vilket leder till ett dynamiskt spänningsfält som inkorporeras i sociala institutioner. Detta gäller såväl i en nationell kontext som i pedagogiska situationer på förskolan. Utrymmet för undran över religiösa och existentiella frågor blir dock paradoxalt för både barnet och pedagogen när olika värden och principer motverkar varandra.

Sweden has been recognised as one of the most generous countries in terms of the governance of migration and asylum. The 2015 “refugee crisis” placed the Swedish migration and asylum system under extreme pressure when more than 163,000 refugees arrived in 2015. Like other EU members, Swedish migration policies have become gradually more restrictive, legitimised by the discourse of securitisation, whereby migration is addressed as a threat. By taking “securitisation” as a conceptual point of departure, the aim of this chapter is to analyse the official statements and non-official motives behind the securitisation turn of Sweden’s post-2015 migration policy and relate them to the vulnerable situation unaccompanied immigrants experienced when they came to Sweden in 2015 as refugees and asylum seekers. However, even if some of the interviewees had experienced racism and other negative attitudes and felt ill at ease waiting for their residency permit, unaccompanied immigrants are not necessarily vulnerable victims without the capacity and will to learn a new language, educate themselves and find a job.

Denna rapport är resultat av ett samverkansprojekt mellan forskare från Mälardalens universitet och samordningsförbudnet RAR Sörmland. Projektet KLARA (https://rarsormland.se/insats/klara/) siktar på att öka utrikesföddas kvinnors integration på arbetsmarknaden och i övriga samhället.

Det finns ett stort behov av att utveckla förskolan så att varje barn som deltar i den erbjuds rolig, trygg och lärorik utbildning och undervisning.

En likvärdig och hållbar förskola beskriver dilemman som uppstår när det saknas förutsättningar för utbildning och undervisning av hög kvalitet. I boken presenteras teoretiska perspektiv tillsammans med förslag för att leda och bedriva en målstyrd undervisning, som bygger på barns rätt till delaktighet och inflytande. Boken tar avstamp i vår tids viktigaste fråga – omställningen till ett hållbart samhälle.

Läroplanen (Lpfö 18) införde begrepp som måluppfyllelse och resultat, och de diskuteras med förslag på hur arbetet kan läggas upp. Här skildras de viktiga vuxna, med fokus på rektors, förskollärares och arbetslags ansvarsomr.den, och hur barnens tid i förskolan kan organiseras. Boken avslutas med en diskussion om vad som krävs för att förskolan ska vara den viktiga plats som den behöver vara, för varje barn. Den vänder sig till blivande och verksamma förskollärare, rektorer, övrig förskolepersonal, ledningspersonal och lärarutbildare.

Christian Eidevald är gästprofessor i pedagogik med inriktning mot förskola vid Södertörns högskola. Ingrid Engdahl är senior förskoleforskare och forskar inom barns rättigheter och hållbar utveckling. Charlotte Geijer är legitimerad förskollärare och verksamhetsutvecklare i Göteborg. Alla tre har stor erfarenhet av ledning, undervisning och kompetensutveckling inom förskolan och anlitas ofta som föreläsare.

To advance the efficiency and effectiveness of inter-disciplinary research, and to obtainvalid strategies for inter-disciplinary projects, there is a need to define inter-disciplinary researchapproaches explicitly. The current study aims generally to further the understanding of inter-disciplinary ways of conducting research, and specifically to describe and explore the challenges andopportunities that characterize research projects which move across borders of different researchareas as well as the various disciplinary homes of the collaborating researchers in a recentlyperformed project focusing on Bildung and streamed art. Written reflections from the six participantsin the project, representing the disciplines of music education, musicology, education, Englishliterature, sound engineering as well as media and technology science was analyzed and interpreted inrelation to Alfred Schütz’ theory of phenomenological sociology. The results are presented through sixthemes, which together fulfill the aim of the study; (i) Crossed borders, perspectives, and contexts, (ii)Common concepts, definitions, and reconstructions, (iii) Status of theory and explorative freedom, (iv)State of the art and innovative potential, (v) Scientific identity and positioning work (vi) Place, activity,and performance.

This paper discusses a study of playworlds, arguing that this study provides an example of the study of emotion in educational settings that does not segregate emotion and cognition. Playworlds are created from a relatively new form of play that combines adult forms of creative imagination (art, science, etc.), which require extensive experience, and children’s forms of creative imagination (play), which require the embodiment of ideas and emotions in the material world. In playworlds, adults and children enter into a common fantasy that is designed to support the development of both adults and children. Our research group understands playworlds and the study of playworlds holistically, as ways of being; and thus, our research is in line with participatory approaches, which study education through long-term researcher-practitioner collaboration. In the study discussed in this paper, the segregation of emotion and cognition was avoided by the researchers appreciating that playworlds are, in part, art, and designing their methods accordingly. 

Gunilla Lindqvist (1995), a foundational scholar of Vygotsky’s theories of play, art and development, designed playworlds to identify and study the “common denominator” of play and aesthetic forms. Lindqvist (1995) calls this denominator “the aesthetics of play” and we have described playworlds as “an art of development” (Marjanovic-Shane et al., 2011). It is difficult for scientists who are working alone, without artists, to adequately describe art or subjects that are art-adjacent. The researchers in the study under discussion, thus, followed insights from an artist’s study of art – a study which avoided the segregating of emotion from cognition – and so collected observations of playworlds that the responts “fell in love with” from playworld reasearchers and practitioners (including teachers, artists, children and imaginary characters); generating an unusual corpus of insights for analysis. 

Playworlds are a form of participatory design research based in Vygotksy’s theories of play, art, imagination, and creativity.  Playworlds are designed to support all participants’ development. Our playworld research group considers playworlds to be an ‘art of development’ and a ‘way of being’: multivocal, researcher-participant, collaborative acts of creation that, we find, are very difficult to represent for study using traditional methods.  This session experiments with new ways to discuss playworlds, ways that themselves exemplify playworlds.  It will include the voices of, and photographs and performances by, playworld researchers, artists, teachers, children, administrators, and imaginary characters. The session will be grounded in a discussion of six themes concerning playworlds as care practices: truth, time, human magic, infinite possibilities, fun, and the enriching and intensifying of the real. Examples from playworlds internationally (Japan, Finland, Sweden, Serbia, US) and in various settings (preschool, school, after-school, foster care, senior center) will be included.

Taking experiences from a contemporary multi-arts dance project as a starting point, this article explores how such a project can offer opportunities for being and becoming among older amateur dancers. The article takes a phenomenological approach, in which holistic experience and sharing of experiences are central. The phenomenon of the investigation is self-conceptualisation. The artistic process and context constitute an adult educational situation. To come close to the lived experiences of the dancers, the rehearsals and performance were observed and documented. Six of the participants were also interviewed. The material was analysed in a hermeneutical phenomenological manner, and Simone de Beauvoir’s thinking regarding ageing was used as a theoretical lens. The results show how the self-images of the participants change during the course of the project. The dance activities seem to give the older participants opportunities to remain themselves, even as they allow themselves to change. They learn to know themselves, each other, and the world.

This article describes and analyzes assessment approaches in three conservatories and thus contributes to the study of how values are distributed and negotiated within higher education specialized in classical music in the Baltic Sea region and Central Europe. The relation between assess-ment and learning could be viewed from different perspec-tives. Assessment of learning can be seen as a checkpoint regarding whether specific knowledge has been internalized, assessment for learning implies that the chosen assessment method encourages the learning process, while assessment as learning can be seen as intertwined with and dominating the learning process. In this article we clarify possibilities for transformative assessment, as well as the risk for assess-ment as learning. What counts as important knowledge varies between and within the perspectives. To generate material to enable analysis of assessment approaches in the Baltic Sea region and Central Europe, 23 students and 22 professors/leaders within three conservatories were interviewed. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed through content analysis by the two researchers individually and collaboratively. The results show three different approaches, namely the competition approach, the portfolio approach, and the response-based approach. 

While “access models” represented by subscription services such as Spotify make vast libraries of music practically accessible to teachers, digital streaming programs also introduce new complexities to classroom settings. Therefore, the concept of digitalization in relation to listening requires the attention of researchers in education and didactics. This article examines the ways in which Swedish teachers use Spotify, including how usage influences teachers’ didactic choices and approaches to planning for music teaching and learning. Research participants included eight music educators with experiences in streaming music services in music classrooms. Findings show that digital literacy and the listening, teaching, and learning of music are inextricably intertwined; and that placing the application of music streaming in the context of a music classroom creates complications in practice. Implications highlight the importance of identifying and discussing complex issues occurring as a result of the use of streaming services in music classroom, gaining music streaming didactic literacy which is both a didactic competency that teachers use in planning for teaching, as well as a content for students to learn.

Having the possibility to experience meaning in artistic settings is a human right. However, several studies show that structures and norms may prevent human beings from participating in artistic and cultural activities. Moreover, it is not given that all forms of participation offer meaningful experiences, something which puts a great responsibility upon organizers of artistic events. The current study is based in a project where elderly people were given the chance to participate in processes of development and performance of collaborative contemporary dance. The specific aim of the study was to describe and analyse the phenomenon of the meaningful body based on a phenomenological approach. To get access to the dancers’ lived experiences, six participants were interviewed. The transcribed interviews were analysed in a phenomenological manner. The analysis resulted in three themes, which together describe the phenomenon of the lived body, namely: the intertwined body, the border-crossing body, and the body feeling at home. The themes are related to phenomenological philosophy regarding aging, awareness, existence, and aesthetic experience, as well as to art education situations and societal norms.

Music educational researchers in the Nordic countries have pointed out how municipal arts schools are organised based on, and tend to reproduce, anthropocentric values and approaches, and that such unequal norms and structures are to be challenged. Taking a border-crossing musical comedy project as a starting point, the specific aim of the current study is to illuminate how, and on what levels, organisational norms and traditional structures can be challenged, and what possibilities and new challenges that occur in a project taking place beyond the Anthropocene. To be able to grasp the aspects of becoming within the project and how that is related to aspects of organisation, we created a research entanglement based on post-human theory. Hence, situations seen as webs of relations were created, including the actors: humans with intellectual disabilities, musical performance students, educators, artists, researchers, and varied digital communication tools. Observations, video recordings, collaborative writing, qualitative surveys, and interviews produced material for analysis. Actor-network theory was applied aiming to describe how the constantly performed intra-active networks were constituted, as well as how the actors influenced each other. The results identify significant actors and trajectories in Sammankonst, that in turn challenge anthropocentric organisational structures of municipal arts schools.

Earlier research has stated the need for conservatory education to prepare aspiring musicians more thoroughly for a dynamic and changing society. A project that challenges the conservatory tradition is Sammankonst (TogetherArt) where students at a musical theatre program at folk high school level collaborate with intellectually disabled adults. Based on a phenomenological way of thinking, this article aims to describe and analyze the education of aspiring musicians for professional participation in society based on an analysis of experiences among conservatory students, music theater students and their teachers. Interviews were made with six conservatory students, 15 musical theatre students, and two teachers. The results show ambiguities when it comes to what voice students should be prepared for and how the choice of preparations influence the view of singing and musicians’ quality competence.

This article explores the concept of lived time as an aspect of aesthetic pedagogy based on a phenomenological way of thinking. Starting off from the philosophies of Bollnow and van Manen, where time is seen as an existential phenomena, intertwined with other existentials, we used experiences from an ongoing project as examples to make understanding of the phenomenon possible. Lived time concerns reconsidering and revision of thinking, a process that includes personal, relational and emotional qual­ities. The specific aim of the philosophical study is to describe the phenomenon of lived time in aesthetic pedagogy from a pedagogue perspective. We embrace a holistic view of relations between arts and education, where education in arts, education through arts, education as art, and art as education function as different perspectives of aesthetic pedagogical situations. To get acces to pedagogues’ lived experiences of time in aesthetic pedagogy, a group interview was conducted. Six pedagogues engaged in the Alla har rätt-project, with educational as well as artistic backgrounds, were interviewed together via the communication tool Zoom. Intentions, experiences, the changing situation, as well as visions about the future constituted themes for the group conversation. The philosophical analysis, where the experiences of the interviewees were used as examples, resulted in a description of the phenomenon of lived time in arts-based education constituted by four themes:  Lived time in meaningful arts education, Lived time as diminishing or disappearing in aesthetic pedagogy, Lived time and artworks in aesthetic pedagogy, and Lived time as didactic frame in aesthetic pedagogy.

Här uppmärksammas fenomenet delaktighet i estetisk verksamhet, något som är aktuellt i lärarutbildningar, såväl allmänna som med inriktning på estetiska ämnen, och i utbildningar som riktar sig mot kulturskola och annan fri verksamhet.

Författarna har fungerat som följeforskare i två Arvsfondsfinansierade konstpedagogiska projekt, Alla har rätt och Sammankonst drivna av Kulturverket. Baserat på forskningen tydliggörs vad delaktighet i estetisk verksamhet kan vara, och vilka krav det ställer på organisation, kollegium och förhållningssätt i sammanhang där konstuttryck och pedagogik möts.

Specifikt belyser författarna delatighetsaspekterna tid, rum och mellanrum liksom det dialogiska förhållningssätt som drivit Kulturverkets arbete.

Cecilia Ferm Almqvist är professor i pedagogik och musikpedagogik vid Södertörns högskola respektive Stockholms musikpedagogiska institut. Linn Hentschel är lektor i pedagogiskt arbete med inriktning mot musik vid Umeå universitet.

When the need of transforming and remixing music education is illuminated, fields of tensions in relation to the traditional master–apprentice model of teaching often appear. Binaries have been constructed and critiqued in research to describe tensions at various music educational levels. Some studies have also asked for a holistic, “both/and” holding. In higher music education (HME), the need for new approaches in research to understand how teaching and learning is developing are asked for. As a contribution, the overall aim of the article is to illuminate to what extent traditional culture norms and structures are maintained and challenged at three European conservatories. The specific aim is to map possible fields of tension surrounding approaches to teaching and related learning. The analysis in this article partly builds on understandings of culture and institutions, and partly on theories of relational pedagogy. To get access to how leaders, teachers, and students experience participating in the teaching and learning of conservatory cultures, an interview study was planned. The transcriptions were treated by a thematic analysis model. The analysis explored three themes that represent fields of tension: teaching in relation to established cultural structures, to creating or not creating new learning trajectories, and collaboration or competition—the educational culture. The fields of tension found through the analysis concern relations between the traditional conserved conservatory teaching and new open and diverse thoughts about and actions within in HME teaching. It becomes obvious that creating new learning trajectories should be a common issue, involving students and teachers, as well as leaders of conservatories, and that competition should be supported by collaboration. A consequence of such a pedagogical approach would be that differences between programs for diverse instruments could be balanced, and that all involved could learn from each other, which demands flexibility between individual and collaborative learning activities.

Research topic/aim

High-quality Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) services play a pivotal role in fostering resilient societies, particularly in alignment with the Nordic ECEC values and traditions. As municipalities in the Nordic countries grapple with the challenge of governing and evaluating ECEC services effectively, a recent study underscores the need for more extensive evaluations of ECEC practices (Urban et al., 2023). In Sweden, the ECEC profession attests to the challenges in fulfilling the mission as specified in the national curriculum (Skolverket, 2018) and underscores the necessity for clarity in systematic quality assessment methods that promote the well-being, learning, and development of all children within the 1-5 years age group. The national curriculum sets the guidelines for these services, and each municipality or independent organizer, following the principles of decentralized governance, is entrusted with the responsibility of interpreting and implementing the 33 curriculum goals and 51 guidelines. This study seeks to enhance our understanding of how comprehensive evaluations of the mission of Swedish ECEC can be conducted by scrutinizing the logic inherent in the curriculum.

Theoretical framework

A program theory approach based on a dynamic relational systems perspective (Fisher et al., 2020) is employed, encompassing inputs in terms of resources, activities, outputs concerning mechanisms for change and process quality, outcomes in terms of development and learning, and long-term impacts.

Methodological design

To illustrate the opportunities and challenges of this program logic, the curriculumn text was coded and categorized accordning to content analysis. Three specific examples were analysed indepth: language development, integrity, and sustainable development.

Expected conclusions/findings

The analysis underscores how the large number of curriculum goals and the complexity of their formulations contribute to interpretive difficulties, challenges in prioritization, and evaluation, particularly in the context of available resources. These findings emphasize the critical need for a more structured and accessible approach to comprehensively evaluate the Swedish ECEC system, aligning with its core mission of fostering child well-being, learning, and development.

Relevance to Nordic educational research

By dissecting the curriculum logic, this study aims to provide insights for policymakers, educators, and stakeholders in enhancing the Swedish ECEC system. The study presents a contribution to the ongoing discourse on ECEC services, highlighting the imperative of comprehensive evaluations in meeting the educational and developmental needs of young children. The curriculum analysis offers valuable guidance for navigating the complex landscape of ECEC governance and argues for the need of further research on how preschool policy can be formulated and applied in order to support high quality education and lay the foundation for learning adventures for all.

Fisher, P. A., Barker, T. V., & Blaisdell, K. N. (2020). A Glass Half Full and Half Empty: The State of the Science in Early Childhood Prevention and Intervention Research. Annual Review of Developmental Psychology, 2(1), 269–294. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-devpsych-121318-084958

Skolverket [The Swedish National Agency for Education]. 2018. Curriculum for the Preschool Lpfö 2018. The Swedish National Agency for Education. Stockholm: Skolverket

Urban, M., Reikerås, E., Eidsvåg, G. M., Guevara, J., Saebø, J., & Semmoloni, C. (2023). Nordic approaches to evaluation and assessment in early childhood education and care. Global Studies of Childhood.

Den här uppsatsen undersöker den danspedagogiska metoden Dansa en bok tillsammans med en barngrupp i fyra till femårsåldern i förskolan. Syftet är att undersöka och synliggöra barns uttryck när dans och ord möts utifrån barns aktörskap i rhizomsikt lärande. Metodologiskt tar denna studie avstamp från a/r/tografi som är en praxisnära och estetik-baserad forskningsmetod där forskaren genom sin kropp och sitt egna deltagande kan hålla sig nära det som undersöktes. Som analysmetod användes sekventiell analys vilket innebar att analysen skedde direkt i forskningsstunden där forskarens instruktioner i växelspel med barnen ledde arbetet framåt. Övrig dokumentation skedde via loggboksanteckningar. Forskningsresultatet är analyserat med inspiration från några begrepp av Gilles Deleuze och Felix Guattaris immanensfilosofi. Även barns aktörskap var ett begrepp som genomgående var närvarande i studien. Resultatet visar att när barnen får möjlighet att vara kreativa i den danspedagogiska metoden Dansa en bok uttrycker sig barnen med variation både verbalt och kroppsligt. Genom improvisation och eget skapande synliggjordes inte bara barns utveckling i dans utan även barns tillägnande av språket och förståelse av boken.  Den kreativa stunden ledde även till ett lustfyllt lärande. Ett ytterligare kunskapsbidrag i denna studie är att visa hur ett förändrat tänkande utifrån immanensfilosofi kan producera nya sätt för görande och lärande i danspraktiken.

Denna studie syftar till att undersöka hur lärare-elev-relationer förstås i fem avhandlingar samt hur dessa relationer kan påverka elevers lärande. Avhandlingarna är hämtade från olika databaser men samtliga avhandlingar ämnar undersöka lärare-elev-relationer i grundskolan eller gymnasiet. Studiens insamlade data har analyserats utifrån en tematisk analys. Den teoretiska utgångspunkten utgår från professorn Jonas Aspelins tolkning av en relationsteori som handlar om relationell pedagogik. Resultatet visar på vikten av en lärare-elev-relation i skolan samt betydelsen av dessa relationer för elevers lärande och utveckling. Resultatet visar även att lärarens relationskompetens är viktig för att skapa förtroendefulla relationer mellan lärare och elever. Läraren behöver därmed ha vissa egenskaper som att vara lyhörd, att vara en god lyssnare samt att inneha en socioemotionell kompetens för att skapa förtroendefulla relationer. Det framgår i studien att goda relationer har en positiv påverkan på elevers lärande och utveckling och att dåliga relationer i stället utgör ett hinder för elevers lärande.  

This roundtable brings together researchers who work closely with teachers and carers to develop their work to change some of the problems in the current educational practices to an anti-deficit lens. In situations where there is a need for doing otherwise, educational/care interventions often look to the future with the idea of moving beyond the (unsatisfying, unpleasant) present. However, this hurrying onwards, the need to resolve instead of staying with and tolerating (the impossibility) of the present may also miss opportunities for change, opportunities which trying to stay with and sustain current dilemmas may already entail. The question we examine together is the potential of this ‘(im)possibility’ of the present as a source of change. The studies in this roundtable all focus on circumstances in which the participants develop novel practices in their work while at the same conceive the present as difficult if not ’impossible’ to change.

Musikerstudenter inom klassisk västerländsk musik utbildas i ett europeiskt perspektiv vid musikhögskolor, sprungna ur den konservatorietradition som uppstod under 1800-talet inom vilken hantverksmässiga färdigheter betonades. I och med Bologna-anpassningen av musikerutbildningarna fick reflektion ökad betydelse vilket har aktualiserat relationen och spänningen mellan praktik och teori i undervisningen. Dock har vare sig vilka aspekter av musikerprofessionen som dylik reflektion omfattar eller hur utbildningarna förbereder studenter för att kunna agera med gott omdöme i sin yrkespraktik hitintills beforskats i någon högre grad. Vår avsikt är att i denna resonerande artikel söka skissera och problematisera ett förslag på vad ett professionellt omdöme skulle kunna innebära för klassiska musiker och hur det kan kultiveras inom högre musikutbildning. Med utgångspunkt i ett exempel från en av författarnas konstnärliga praktik, Hannah Arendts omdömesfilosofi, samt författarnas tidigare och pågående forskning inom området resonerar vi om vad undervisning och lärande av ett professionellt omdöme bland klassiska musikerstudenter kan och skulle kunna innebära i en konstnärlig akademisk professionsutbildning.

This article is a philosophical investigation of the example's function as a didactic practice. In teaching, it is common to use examples to concretize, clarify and give students a knowability of the taught content, but this knowability also implies something. But this knowability also means something specific. The article specifically discusses religious education and religious diversity in a Swedish school context. In the article I argue, drawing on Giorgio Agamben's understanding of the example, how the example stands for itself, but which also, in its specificity and singularity, moves towards what is visible next to it. The example and its knowledge have a movement between two singularities – and not as a movement between a part and the whole, i.e., not between the particular and the general. It creates something, Agamben writes, which not only involves methodology (and subject didactic questions) but also ontology. The article argues that the use of examples in teaching has the potential to function as a didactic strategy, which also can have implications for students' subjectivity. Overall, the article is a theoretical contribution which show how the use of examples in teaching has the potential to function as a vital didactic strategy within teaching.

Previous research has examined how mismatched dispositions within a divided or ?cleft? habitus are subjectively experienced but has not adequately explored nor theorized the variety of ways in which the dispositional disjunctures that progressively give rise to a cleft habitus are initially generated. Combining recent sociological work on ontological ruptures with an affective reading of Bourdieu?s social theory, we use an empirical case to illustrate how subtle processes of social influence set in motion by affective ties can come to sever the ontological bond between the habitus and the social space that initially shaped it, setting an affectively driven and reflexively negotiated process of habitus change in motion. By shedding light upon some of the sufficient conditions underpinning the development of dispositional disjunctures and the psychosocial forces that mediate this process, we extend the literature on habitus change and conflict in several ways.

This article discusses the pedagogical role of the imagination and forms of life in Sámi early childhood education. Following Nergård’s development of Wittgenstein’s notion “form of life” as an imaginative, pedagogical, and anthropological concept, the article will explore how Sámi children both use and transform forms of life in Sámi early childhood centers. The article explores scenes from a day spent outdoors with early childhood educators and children. The aim is to show how young Sámi children philosophize and articulate their world, and how listening to the children can be a decolonizing practice that challenges colonial assumptions in pedagogy, philosophy and society. The empirical data was collected through a pilot project and the subsequent project Sámi Children as Thought Herders. The data material contains photos, short films, sound records, and notes collected through ethnographic fieldwork conceived as Critical Utopian Action Research, which takes into account the social learning of all participants, here specifically the children, the educators and the researchers. Thus, these are spaces for a joint critique that resists colonially structured practices. The main findings are that, during outdoor activities, educators and children imaginatively perform, play and encounter outdoor spaces and aspects of Sámi forms of life. This is explored on the basis of scenes where young children imaginatively engaged with the forest environment. The educators’ storytelling and the storytelling tradition continued into the children’s own storytelling. The children created stories about a Stállo who lives in a rusty oil barrel they found in the forest, making traditional stories and forms of life come alive and transforming them. In reflecting upon these scenes, we argue for the pedagogical, performative, and philosophical importance of engaging with the ways that children’s imaginative play interacts with place.

In Sápmi, there are many stories and traditions tied to skábma, or the dark time of midwinter. Skábma is considered a sacred time and space. Some of the stories and traditions, which stem from Sámi Indigenous religion and are related to various invisible beings, are still passed on through oral traditions and storytelling. This article explores what it can mean for children, educators and researchers to creatively engage with lesser-known Indigenous religious traditions, stories told by older generations and current traditions, in ways that give further life to them. The research aim is twofold: the article studies both how co-research within an Indigenous context is conducted, and how educators and children in a Sámi Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) centre managed activities and searched for and created new stories based on skábma traditions. The research question is: In what ways can strengthening storytelling in the ECEC setting function as a contribution to Sámi decolonisation processes? The research materials were collected through ethnographic fieldwork. The fieldwork was methodologically framed as critical utopian action research that considers the social learning of the children, educators and researchers that participated in the activities. Accordingly, this article shows how educators and children at an ECEC centre in Sápmi conducted activities to search for and create new skábma stories based on Indigenous traditions. The researchers were invited to learn about stories and traditions in which their attentiveness to the present was connected to valuing the past and taking responsibility for a sustainable future. The latter was achieved via storytelling by the educators, a duodji (Sámi craft) activity and children’s playtime. The article concludes by discussing how the search for and creation of traditions, such as sharing food with ancestors, involve decolonising processes.

In the popular book The Monk and the Philosopher (1998), Jean-François Revel and his son Matthieu Ricard engage in a friendly but critical dialogue between Western science and philosophy and Buddhism. The very form of the book, the critical dialogue, shows a commonality between Western philosophy and Buddhism. Both share a tradition of searching for insight and understanding through investigative conversation. Nevertheless, when Revel and Ricard encounter issues where they are not in, or do not come to, agreement Ricard struggles to communicate to his father what he means. It is not only that he can’t find words to explain his insights but also that language itself seems insufficient. Ricard returns to various metaphors, often to Revel’s frustration, in order to point to something that he has come to see through years of Buddhist practice. Certainly someone more familiar with Buddhist practices, thought, and life would more easily understand such metaphors, and even the less metaphorical explanations.

This article follows a story played out by children at a Sami early childhood centre in north Sweden. It does so by reflecting on the children's story as a form of Critical Indigenous Philosophy. In particular it explores what it could mean for a child to be a philosopher in a Sami context by developing the concept of jurddavazzi, or thought herder, in conversation with Wittgenstein's method of 'leading', and Cavell's of 'shepherding', 'words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use'. The children's play story - involving themes of death, struggles with natural surroundings, and interconnectivity through seeing life in nature - is read in relation to questions about traditional stories raised in the poetry of the Sami poet, artist and philosopher, Nils-Aslak Valkeapaa, or aillohas. The article ends by discussing how the children's invitation to follow their story can be seen as a decolonizing pedagogical gesture of the child that requires a particular kind of philosophical listening by the teacher or adult. The article is in its style an attempt to demonstrate a form of philosophical storytelling the children are engaged in.

Literature and fiction, in various forms, both textual and oral, have an undeniable place in human growth and education: they are a constitutive part of our reality. This raises the question: how and what do we learn from fiction? Even when fiction does not mirror reality directly, can it still, explore, express, and teach us about the world? If so, how? In this special issue education becomes something of a link between the fictional and the real. Approaching fiction to learn from it, or learn with it, enables us to examine our experiences and to transform them in our everyday lives. The special issue, if perhaps for the most part indirectly, testifies to the various ways love of literature often expresses love of truth. Not because all the articles describe or use the notions of "truth," "fiction," "literature," and "learning" in the same way, but because they offer an extension of these concepts.

This essay concentrates on philosophizing that happens outside and in addition to planned philosophical discussions, philosophizing that comes alive in practice, that is intensified in childrens encounters with the world, with others, with language, in play. It contemplates how adults, educators and parents encounter children and are affected by childrens philosophical explorations. What is the role of the adult in childrens philosophical questioning? How can we respond to childrens philosophizing? What does it mean to do so? The essay explores philosophical exercises for early childhood educators in a range of examples from literature - memoirs, autobiographies, fiction and works that play in between those. By thinking through these literary examples, it investigates how educators can prepare for philosophical encounters with children through exercises of reading and thinking. In doing so the essay experiments with a form of writing that itself becomes a philosophical exercise. Through the examples and exercises the essay suggests how early childhood educators can train for a pedagogical immediacy that involves listening to the philosophical and existential questioning in childrens play, tantrums, and silences. The investigations and readings of the examples are not meant to lead to conclusions that can be directly applied in pedagogical practices; neither do they work as arguments for listening or listening in a particular way to children. What we get, and what I am looking for, is rather the experience of working and thinking through these examples.