The objective to teach Christianity is stated in the Swedish national syllabus since the very beginning of compulsory school. Initially, teaching proceeded from the Lutheran catechesis; a mission successively replaced by biblical studies and later developed into (Lutheran) Christianity as being part of non-confessional “Religious Studies” (Religionskunskap). However, the mission to pay certain weight to Christianity has survived, although in a new and secularized Swedish context. The privilege of Christianity is today instead motivated by its cultural position rather than from a religious rationale, and the ambition to conduct a cultural legacy. We will approach how Christianity is depicted in compulsory school by analysing currently used teaching books. This will be done within the frame of educational research, more specifically subject didactics. The purpose of our paper is to describe and problematize the depiction of Christianity in Swedish textbooks for Swedish compulsory Religious Studies.

Nine national and prominent textbooks for the lower secondary school has been selected. Using discourse analysis (Fairclough 2003; von der Lippe 2011), dominating patterns will be revealed and related to broader discourses in society, within and outside Sweden. Our preliminary analysis shows that Christian doctrines are highlighted without relating them to religious practice, resembling a teaching tradition of presenting doctrines as demarcated facts; Christianity is further presented foremost in terms of church history which relate to an idea of religions as old entities carried by traditions from the past; the teaching books also tends to connect the teaching of Jesus with modern, protestant liberal theology.

In the light of current tendencies for stable democratic states to be challenged by authoritarian forms of governance, issues of democracy and its status in teacher education institutions need to be problematised. This chapter focuses on democracy as an ideological form of governance in Swedish teacher education and discusses the implications that the various views of democracy have on teachers’ professionalism. Teachers’ responsibilities are fleshed out based on the current political guidelines for teacher education and discussed in relation to the tensions between free speech and the importance of taking a stand against oppression. Accordingly, students enrolled in Swedish teacher education institutions are expected to actively create conditions in everyday life that promote equal opportunities for children and students. Whereas some student teachers tend to regard free speech as the cornerstone of democracy, the data gathered from the ICCS study of teachers’ ways of understanding their democratic obligations indicates a more nuanced approach to obligations linked to democracy. The majority of these teachers stress that they actively intervene in discussions when students’ free speech risks violating ethnic groups.

The purpose of the paper is to contribute to research on themedia’s role in naming and framing the debate about teachereducation using Sweden as a case study. This is done by analysinghow articles published in four major Swedish newspapers from2016–2017 define: a) the challenges/strengths of current teachereducation and b) the kind of teacher professionalism that thedescriptions give rise to. Using content analysis, the study showsthat the media mainly emphasises the negative aspects of teachereducation and, in particular, scepticism of the scientific basiswhere postmodernism is regarded as problematic and needingto be replaced by cognitive science due to the insufficient knowledgeof teachers and student teachers, the shortage of teachers inthe country as a whole and disciplinary problems in the classroom.The debate is primarily fuelled by those outside the field ofeducational research, who argue that psychology and neurosciencescholars should have the power to define the contentof education, which indicates a view of professionalism as insideout-professionalism. There are more nuanced approaches to teachereducation as well, but these are marginalised.

The education system is still important for establishing and maintaining democracy in society. In relation to this, it is reasonable to suggest that teachers’ different interpretations of their mission to teach for democracy will influence their teaching practices. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on student teachers’ task perceptions as a dimension of their professional role to teach for democracy in school. An analysis of Swedish student teachers’ course texts written as an assignment during a course focusing on democracy is conducted using critical discourse analysis as an analytical tool. The task perceptions are described according to two main discourses: as narrow and broad approaches to teaching for democracy. These two approaches are further analyzed in terms of two corresponding strategies for teacher professionalism: outside-in professionalism and inside-out professionalism. The result partly confirms earlier studies of student teachers, where narrow approaches to democracy have been found to be most common.

This article focuses on Swedish primary teacher education and the conditions for student teachers’ development of digital competence. Previous research has pointed to the importance of preparing teachers to use digital technology to support pupils’ learning. The aim of this study is to examine the development of course content to enhancing student teachers’ critical awareness of information and communications technology in primary teacher education. Data was collected from groups of primary student teachers consisting of anonymised course materials, a survey and course assignments. The results show that primary student teachers experience that digital technology facilitates the planning and organising of their teaching, digital technology can support the children’s learning and critical pedagogical reasoning is important when using digital technology in the teaching situation. The results have relevance internationally for teacher educators and highlight the importance of promoting a critical awareness of the pedagogical use of digital technology in the classroom.

Documentation of pedagogical practise has become a vibrant issue through its relationship with educational policy- and government in many national contexts. Documentation is also regularly used as a tool for local, collegial development, not necessarily driven by the external demands for accounting educational outcomes. Against this background, the practise of documentation could be related to different modes of teacher professionalism; outside-in-professionalism, characterized by teachers as responding to external and standardized demands, and inside-out-professionalism characterized by teachers  as responding to complexity and change, through qualified judgment.   

Although documentation is regularly employed as a tool for local, collegial development, the responsibility for documentation commissioned by educational authorities remains an assignment, coming with consequences for how to relate this self-initiated local documentation to the demands of the educational authorities. The purpose of this presentation is to investigate the tension, between documentation based in inside-out-professionalism and outside-in-professionalism, by means of a case study from the Swedish preschool.  Our research questions reads: how do external demands of documentation impact on the collegial conditions of documenting practise? How do professional conditions of documenting impact on the external demands of documentation?

Our analytical point of departure proceeds from the assumption that documentation is shaped from certain positions, interests and perspectives (Vallberg Roth 2012), including the crossing between different interests and logics within educational institutions.  A qualitative case study of one preschool setting in which a long term documentation has been performed, using CoRe (pedagogical content representation) has been adapted as an approach for teaching science, in a practice based research collaboration project, will be related to intentions from the municipality. The gathering of data includes participant observations in preschool and interviews with participating preschool teachers, at municipal briefings, interviews with responsible parties representing the local preschool as educational agency, and by collection of documents. 

The expected outcomes of our study indicate that preschool teachers are acting between norms of designing documentation from their professional and local interests and that of adapting to the interests of the educational agencies. The first norm is based in their collegial self-defined needs (in collaboration with the researchers) for teaching science in preschool, mainly by teaching science and technology themes, paying attention to preschool children’s responses to science and technology content.  The second norm is characterised by accounting for national goals in the national syllabus, in ways corresponding with the national school system.  The preschool teachers respond to this latter assignment through (professional) deliberations, aiming to deliver material from their everyday work to the agency, while simultaneously keeping the integrity of their own work as separated from the assignment of the agency. These local deliberations and decisions will further be analysed in terms of the dynamic between the two modes of professionalism mentioned above, in light of the local policy context.      

Our project shed light on conditions shared with several European countries regarding possibilities for sustainable teacher development within broader contexts of demands for accountability impacting on teachers professional work.   

This chapter addresses a Swedish case with a focus on conditions for innovative preschool teachers so called educational development leaders (EDL), with a special assignment to contribute to innovation and development of preschool practice. Reforms put preschool teachers and preschool leaders in a position to rethink former practices. Expectations for preschool teachers involves being innovative and to take a leading role to develop practice in a changing context. Our question reads: What conditions are required for educational development leaders (EDL) in Swedish preschools to act as innovative preschool teachers in a distributed leadership? This distributed role includes the other preschool teacher’s leadership and innovative work. The contribution of the study emphasises a strong relationship between the conditional and personal level of the conceptual model in chapter 1. By taking a holistically view, this chapter contributes to knowledge about innovative preschool teachers in their role as EDL.

The case study draws attention to systematic quality work in preschools, in the municipality of Sandviken during the time period June 2018 to April 2024. During this period a software was initiated by the administration with the aim of supporting the systematic quality work of principals and preschool teachers. The collected material is mainly based on interviews with a focus on two principal areas in the municipality. A compilation of relevant research compares with results from the case study. Since the municipality's systematic quality work covers several organizational levels, challenges emerge for these organizations - the report focuses on administration, principals, deputy principals, quality coordinators and responsible preschool teachers – in coordinating their different perspectives on quality. Introduction of a publicly procured software introduced in 2018 has been given special attention in the report. Based on the research review, the authors highlight challenges that mirrors hierarchical communication patterns. There are signs that the municipality has noticed such challenges and started to deal with these.

This paper reports on an ongoing practice-based research project in which preschool teachers and researchers collaborate on the content in physics. The aim is to contribute to a deeper knowledge of preschool teachers’ design for teaching physics (friction) and how children create meaning of the content. The research questions are: How do the preschool teachers design learning opportunities so that the children can create meaning about friction? How do young children create meaning from the teaching aids that are offered to them? A number of studies have reported on preschool children’s (aged 5-6 years) and older children’s misconceptions in their reasoning about natural phenomena and how this differs from accepted scientific ideas. Previous research has also shown that there is a gap in preschool teachers’ knowledge of natural science and physics. Most of the research in this field has focused on the effect of preschool teachers’ teaching of natural phenomena rather than children´s meaning-making and learning processes. Research on young children´s (aged 3-7) learning often highlights their individual knowledge and emphasises cognitive understanding and conceptual development. The most common methods used are interviews, pre- and post-tests that aim to show cognitive understanding and scientific conceptual development as an effect of the teaching intervention. When it comes to preschool education and young children’s learning, children´s experiences of natural phenomena are seldom verbal, but are instead physical and practical. In this respect, there is a need to use different methods to investigate preschool activities in order to acquire more knowledge about preschool teachers’ teaching and young children’s meaning-making of natural phenomena. In order to deal with these challenges, this study adopts a multimodal design-oriented qualitative approach and makes use of the concepts of representation and transformation. Here, the focus is on preschool teachers’ and children’s creation of symbols as a social activity. The use of symbols combines content and form in order to carry meaning and create and express conditions for meaning-making. The data consists of audiotaped video self-reflection seminars (focusing on children’s verbal, physical and practical actions) and semi-structured interviews with nine preschool teachers. The findings indicate that preschool teachers’ teaching of physics is closely linked with their vision of how the subject will stimulate the children’s learning. They also show how friction is represented in connection with play, outdoor activities and experimental activities. The results of the children’s meaning-making show that they become familiar with friction as a notion in relation to everyday experiences and are in that way introduced to what friction means in scientific terms. Further, the children relate their experiences of play to their own bodies and preferences, for example, by learning that icy slopes are slippery (low friction), that surfaces are slippery or rough (have different friction) and friction has force (over-under effect). These findings address the relevance and implications for science education and research by moving from the idea of focusing on children’s verbal communication and their conceptual understanding of natural phenomena towards an approach that includes their learning processes and physical experien

As in many other European countries early childhood education, including preschool, includes teaching in the area of subject knowledge. In Sweden this is related to a changed policy in order to connect preschool with the school system. Since 2011, “teaching” has been established as a new aspect of the preschool’s mandate and, since 2010, subjects like maths, science have been added to the national syllabus. Earlier, subjects has also been part of a preschool tradition already present in Fröbel’s kindergarten. In this earlier approach the intention was not to prepare for the forthcoming school and its subject content. Today, the national preschool syllabus has subject goals that overlaps with those of the school, often stated in a rather detailed, academic form. In addition, the Swedish school inspectorate has also included the preschools in its evaluations. According to the Swedish education act, practice should be based on scientific knowledge and proven experience. These changed directives comes with increasing expectations and demands on the preschool teacher profession for implementing this assignment. In light of this background we aim to support the preschool teachers to develop a professional and inside-out based (Stanley & Stronach 2013) knowledge for acting as professionals in this changed context. In this contribution we will direct our interest on the subject area of science and technology.

Previous research has identified possibilities or lack of possibilities for science and technology learning in early childhood environments, with a tendency to a ‘diagnostic’ approach to preschool teacher knowledge. However, this research does not go far enough in investigating programs for developing preschool teachers´ science content knowledge (e.g. Nilsson, 2014; Fleer, 2009; Nilsson & Elm, 2017). Against the background of the need for including preschool teachers experiences and knowledge in a fair way (cf. Berry et al. 2008), while simultaneously recognize the need of further development in subject content, in the institutional frame of the preschool, we will address preschool teachers pedagogic content knowledge (PCK). The latter (PCK) refers to teachers´ understanding of the content and experiences and attitudes towards science. Our research question reads: In what ways can collaboration between preschool teachers´ and researchers contribute to preschool teachers’ professional learning and preschool development with special regard to preschool teachers’ pedagogic content knowledge?

Our methodological approach is guided by Participatory Action Research (PAR) highlighting the need of a democratic process, developing of practical knowledge related to issues that are of great concern for the participants (Reason & Bradbury 2001). Furthermore, PAR recognizes our partners’ knowledge and experiences as a vital element to be brought into the research process (Brydon-Miller, Greenwood & Maguire, 2003). Thus, an important factor is the interaction between the researcher and the interests within the educational field, in order to promote both researchers and the practitioners work and goals. From this starting point there is initially an explicitly stated drive to meet on equal terms and to support each other to develop.

The other leg, pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) includes teachers’ understanding of how children learn, or fail to learn; in relation to this specific subject matter has been found to be an important matter. That is, a perspective on professional development that focus on preschool teachers´ understanding of the content, pedagogical content knowledge and attitudes towards science (cf. Schulman, 1987; Van Driel & Berry, 2012). Representation of teacher content knowledge (CoRe) by means of a commonly developed table, is systematically used as a tool to trigger preschool teachers´ ideas of both science and technology content as a tool for development and cooperation.

Methodology or Methods/ Research Instruments or Sources Used

9 preschool teachers during 1,5 year (currently ongoing) participates in the research project which includes both indoors- and outdoors activities focusing on technology and science content, paying attention to children’s perspectives. The teachers are meeting in reflective group sessions once a month. For this paper data was collected through a qualitative approach consisting of 23 + 29 hours recorded semi structured interviews with the participating preschool teachers from one preschool unit. The interviews were conducted after the first and third semester of participation. Data was then analysed out from thematic content analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006).

As Braun and Clarke (2006) argue, it is a method that requires researchers to be clear about what they do, why they do it and how the analysis is conducted. The analyses of the data in this study were part of an inductive process from a) transcription → b) identifying emergent initial codes → c) searching for themes → d) reviewing and revising themes → e) defining and naming themes → f) formulating the result (with the starting point in identified and named themes). First, the interviews were transcribed verbatim. Some of the statements made in the interviews that did not correspond to the subject were not transcribed. Second, the data was read, and assigned initial codes.

The third step involved searching for overall themes, based on the initial codes. In this step, the researchers sorted the data under each theme separately. In the fourth step themes were compared, data were reviewed the themes revised. In this process, similarities were identified in the themes that had emerged in the analysis of the interviews. Related examples of the participants’ learning were examined and refined until consensus was reached. Fifth, to establish the validity of the coding and identified themes, the authors worked to finally define and name the themes. The main data was then compared with the themes and provided a critical overview in terms of aspects being overemphasised, under represented, too vague or biased. The final step in the analysis, with a starting point in the themes, was to formulate the results.

Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings

Our results from the interview data shows that the use of CoRe:s contribute to focus on the specific content in a more systematic way. Some of the preschool teachers expressed how the use of the CoRe:s and the formulation of ‘Big Ideas’ supported them to establish the fundamental ideas of the topic they were teaching. With documentation in CoRe preschool teachers have been able to make visible aspects of their own practice and to see the educational value of a current situation. In their collegial work, the documentation of CoRe contributes to the preschool teachers distancing themselves from their daily practices and makes them evaluate their actions and activities. Further, the use of CoRE seems to provide a different point for innovative change in the preschool development. In this way, the collective knowledge of a team becomes qualitatively different to that of a single individual. In addition, other themes also comprises: improved knowledge of processes for planning; visibility of different aspects in the daily practice and in children's learning processes; a broader view connected to international and national development in preschool and society, and a practice on scientific basis.

 Our research contributes with how “teachers and other professionals on the field of education learn and develop throughout their professional career” in the developing field of early childhood education and its rising expectation of subject knowledge. We also attempt to show how teacher development and the research process is dependent on their reciprocal development in order to be accomplished. In a time characterized by rapid policy changes in the educational systems in Europe, the need for practitioner-researcher collaborations supporting professionalism based on conscious professional agency is of great concern.

References

Berry, A., Loughran, J. & van Driel, J.H. (2008) Revisiting the Roots of Pedagogical Content Knowledge. International Journal of Science Education, 30:10, 1271-1279.

Braun, V. & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, vol. 3. (2). p. 77-101.

Brydon-Miller, M., Greenwood, D. & Maguire, P. (2003). Why action research? Action Research, vol. 1. (1). p. 9-28.

Fleer, M. (2009). Supporting scientific conceptual consciousness or learning in ‘a Roundabout Way’ in play-based contexts. International Journal of Science Education, 31(8), p. 1069–1089.

Nilsson, P. (2014). When Teaching Makes a Difference: Developing science teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge through learning study. International Journal of Science Education, 36(11), 1794-1814.

Nilsson, P. & Elm, A. (2016). Capturing and developing early childhood teachers´ science Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) through CoRes. International Journal of Science Education, 28 (5), 406-424.

Reason, P & Bradbury, H (2001). Introduction: Inquiry and participation in search of a world worthy of human aspiration. Peter Reason & Hilary Bradbury (eds.) Handbook of Action Research. London: SAGE.

Skolverket (2011). Curriculum for the preschool Lpfö98. www.skolverket.se

Shulman, L. S. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform. Harvard Educational Review, 57, 1-22.

Stanley, E. and, & Stronach, I. (2013) Raising and doubling ‘standards' in professional discourse: a critical bid. Journal of Educational Policy, 28(3), pp. 291-305.

van Driel, J. H., & Berry, A. K. (2012). Teacher professional development focusing on pedagogical content knowledge. Educational Researcher, 41(1), 26 - 28.

In the Swedish pre-school, documentation of children’s activity is mandated in the national syllabus, Lpfö -98 (Skolverket, 2010). There are different documentations, both concerning material, e.g. photos, drawings, videos and for different purposes. One kind of documentation which is prominent for different kinds of actors in the pre-school, is the documentation panels of children’s activities posted on the walls (Helm, Beneke & Steinheimer1998; Kline 2008). Such “publications” can be seen as a case for how the pedagogues are interpreting the task of documenting the activity of the children in relation to their educational goals. However, documentation of children is always a social construction, focusing on certain things while excluding (possible) others. The documentation is not only a presentation of what is going on in the daily practice of the pre-school, but a discursive practice in which children are being constructed in different ways (Lenz Taguchi 2010). Our purpose is to explore how constructions of the child are performed in documentation panels in Swedish pre-schools.  The theoretical framework is taken from post-structural theory and from visual methodology (Rose 2007). The material consists of photographs from documentations from which a selection of documentations has been made. Some preliminary categories are discerned and will be presented in our paper. 

Our preliminary findings show that the child is constructed mostly (but not only) in relation to educational goals which are attached to photographs with an accompanying text, constructing the child as e.g. someone who is learning and as someone being socialized as a “good pal”. The documentation panels focus mainly on good examples, i.e. of successful development and with a claim of capturing such a process in the public documentations. Our project is exploring both the local preconditions as well as the local consequences of the increasing accountability in the pre-school sector, and can be regarded as relevant for educational research in Scandinavia.

Policy for the Swedish preschool has successively adapted its goals in order to prepare for the school system. Åsén & Roth (2012) finds support for a change in Swedish preschool policy and practice towards the culture of school. Support for this change is also found in studies about Swedish preschool teachers increasingly highlighting learning as a basic activity in their work (e.g. Alatalo et al 2016; Alvestad & Berge 2009; Westman & Bergmark 2013; Löfdahl & Perez 2009). Such transformations of early childhood education is not unique for Sweden; tensions between child centered- and subject focused goals, has for a long time been a characteristic in early childhood curricula in Europe. This contribution intends to shed light on this curricular relationship through scrutinizing the professional talk of preschool teachers.

Since 2011 “Teaching” has been established as a new mission in the preschool and since 2010 subjects like math, science and Swedish language has been added to the national syllabus. By adding these goals, Swedish preschool now shares some general goals with the preschool class – the latter in which most of six year old children participate – and the comprehensive school. However, the Swedish preschool still has to conduct the tradition of being child- and play centered, according to its national syllabus; thus being kept within boundaries as more or less distinct from the school system. Simultaneously, the current approaching to the school system has become more accentuated ever since the national syllabus was introduced 1998 (Folke Fichtelius 2008). Swedish preschool teachers attempts to include children’s interests while paying attention to the national goals is studied by Thörner (2016) focusing (mainly) on recorded everyday situations. An important issue is how these policy changes are approached by the professionals by highlighting on their professional reasoning, regarding the purpose of the preschool in their everyday work.

In this paper, professional reasoning is approached from the perspective of teachers as social actors in everyday life, shaped by but also re-shaping, the policy context(s) of the preschool. An important dimension of the curriculum is constituted by teachers as curriculum makers (cf. Cuban 1992), in that every curriculum is dependent on how teachers interpret policy in relation to their everyday work. The purpose of this paper is to investigate preschool teachers’ professional talk focusing on the relationship between child- and subject orientation. Discourse analysis will be used an analytic tool focusing on how everyday discourse people borrows from cultural repertoires stemming from a culture’s common-sense way of talking (Potter & Wetherell 1987). The reasoning of the preschool teachers will further analyzed in relation to the policy context foremost formulated on state- and municipal level during the conversation with the preschool teachers. 

Method

In order to address complexities of professional reasoning, qualitative interviews performed in the environment of the preschools was done (Potter & Wetherell 1987). 10 preschool teachers participated addressing their specific socio-geographic environment (approximately 50 minutes each). The volume of this sample has been judged as sufficient for the analytic purpose of discerning patterns of complex dilemmatic reasoning across both within individual interviews, and through comparison (of dilemmatic reasoning) between the teacher interviews.  In order to approach teachers’ everyday reasoning the interviews were designed as semi-structured conversations between the preschool teachers and me as a teacher educator, explicitly asking for access with the professional field. An interview guide was sent beforehand and read by all (except for one) preschool teachers before the interview was performed. The preschool teachers were informed about the project including their rights regarding participation, anonymization and proper storing of the data. Data was collected in a variety of social-cultural environments such as middle class areas with high amount cultural and economic capital (n=4/10); multi-ethnical areas with low(er) amount cultural and economic capital (n=5/10) and one mixed area regarding amount cultural and economic capital (n=1/10). 7 preschools was visited, whereof 3 preschools including 1 teacher responsible for educational development and 1 teacher without such a responsibility. However, no typical features characterized the preschool teachers with responsibility for educational development. The interviews were all transcribed verbatim. The interview guide addressed the preschool as preparing for school vs representing a tradition within its own right; experiences of the children vs focus on subject goals; how the preschool teacher was working with the school-like goals and how goals were documented; the latter addressing teacher everyday work (Sheridan et al 2011).  The interview transcript was read systematically, paying notice to relations regarding child, subject- and teacher orientations, i.e. themes where the teachers were focusing on basic values for preschool education. In the preliminary analysis of each interview, dilemmas on the (i) global level, i.e. through the whole transcript, and on (ii) local level within utterance and/or interaction sequence level, was focused.  In line with Potter & Wetherell (1987), discernment of characteristic linguistic repertoires recognizable from established pedagogical traditions has also been highlighted. Examples of linking the two dimensions were also noted.

Expected Outcomes

Regarding the purpose of the preschool, when the “child” and comparisons with school was topicalized, the preschool teacher´s draws on child-centered repertoires. Boundaries of child- respective subject centeredness are manifested when comparing preschool with school.  However, when school-like ”goals” in the syllabus is focused, teacher-centered repertoires were instead prominent, in which boundaries distinguishing preschool from school was dissolved. These opposing themes (cf. Wetherell et al. 2001) are mostly located in different contexts (within the individual interview) appearing as two different and parallel logics, rather than as one coherent logic. Thus, to address relations between preschool and school implied boundary talk, while addressing subject knowledge in the syllabus – sometimes related to future participation in school – did not. Dilemmatic tensions are also manifested locally i.e. within many sequences and utterances. Talk addressing the general purposes of preschool could be interpreted as local answers to top-down state policy due to its proper affirmations of different directives in the policy texts (cf. Biesta et al 2017).  However, connections between children’s experiences and school-like subjects were also formulated in the language of everyday work, such as listening for children’s initiatives and developing themes, more or less corresponding to content knowledge in the syllabus with interests within the group of children. This professional talk is expressed in temporal modes, like “first… and then” and focused on both children and the goals in the syllabus. Thus, the child- and subject foci do not appear only as separated but also as co-present and related to teacher judgement (Author 2014) when everyday professional work is addressed; i.e. themes of content knowledge and being continually sensitive to interests of the children. Such professional reasoning could be interpreted as creative ways of handling tensions implicitly present in the national syllabus, regarding the general purpose(s) of the preschool.

References

Alatalo, T, Meier, J & Frank, E (2016) Transition between preschool and preschool class: A question about interweaving care and Knowledge. Early Childhood Educational Journal, 44: 155.

Alvestad, M & Berge, A (2009) Svenske førskolelærere om læring i planlegging og praksis relatert til den nasjonale læreplanen. [Swedish preschool teachers on planning and praxis in relation to the national syllabus]. Nordisk barnehageforskning [Nordic early childhood education research] (2), 57–68.

Author (2014) ---------------

Biesta, G, Priestley, M & Robinson, S (2017) Talking about education: exploring the significance of teacher´s talk for teacher agency. Journal of Curriculum Studies. 49:1, 38-54.

Cuban, L (1992) Curriculum stability and change. In Jackson, Philip (ed.) Handbook of Research on Curriculum. American Educational Research Association, 216-247.

Folke-Fichtelius, M (2008). Förskolans formande: statlig reglering 1944-2008. [The shaping of preschool. State regulation 1944-2008] Diss. Uppsala: Uppsala universitet.

Löfdahl, A & Pérez, H (2009) Between control and resistance: planning and evaluation texts in the Swedish preschool. Journal of Education Policy, 24, 4, 393-408.

Potter, J & Wetherell, M (1987) Discourse and social psychology: Beyond attitudes and behaviour. London: Sage.

Sheridan, S, Williams, P Sandberg, A & Vourinen (2011) Preschool teaching in Sweden – a profession in change. Educational Research, 53: 4, 415-437.

Thörner, A (2016) ”Vi kan inte bara utgå från barnens intresse”. Pedagogers guidning av barns intresse i förhållande till förskolans målstyrning. [”We cannot only base it on the children's interest” - Educators guidance of children's interest in relation to goals and guidelines.] Högskolan i Borås.

Westman, S & Bergmark, U (2014) A stengthened teaching mission in preschool: teachers´experiences, beliefs and strategies. International journal of early years education. Vol. 22, No. 1, 73-88. 

Wetherell, M,Taylor, S & Yates,S (2001) Discourse as Data: A Guide for Analysis. London, UK: Sage.

Åsén, Gunnar & Vallberg Roth, Ann-Christine (2012) Utvärdering i förskolan: en forskningsöversikt. [Evaluation in preschool: reveiw of research ] Stockholm: Vetenskapsrådet.

Attention to students cognitive states is an important issue in educational research. Educational research as well as testing practises generally is however dependent on communicative work in order to achive a credible picture of how the student perceive the teaching subject. The purpose in this paper is to study sequences of interaction produced in research interwievs with 14 year math students, designed to capture students thinking on school maths. The interwievs are designed as post-lesson interwievs after the lesson. The analysis of these research interwievs shows that talk on student thinking math is not a neutral medium and that the interaction has obvious similarities with teachers student interaction (IRE). This study also has implications for general educational questions concering teachers possibilities to validiate the knowledge of students in the classroom interaction.

The purpose of this paper is to problematize evidence based approaches for understanding mundane teacher-student interaction by showing how education for democracy involves teachers’ handling of dilemmas between goals for promoting students’ personal engagement in controversial issues and to teach for critical thinking; further, I will argue that such knowledge is important for educating teachers to promote students development into a critical democratic participation. A case is taken from a Swedish religious studies classroom chosen from a larger classroom study about teacher student interaction in discussions about controversial issues. The case makes visible the dilemmatic praxis in which the teacher has to use her own judgment in order to promote a qualified democratic participation of the students, which also could be seen as an important part of teacher education. The visibility of such judgments however seems to be excluded in the discourse of evidence based teaching.   

In Sweden, religious education (RE) has successively developed into a school subject that aims to foster democratic citizenship that is characterised by social cohesion and tolerance of religious and life stance differences. This can be interpreted in different ways by teachers in the RE curriculum. The article presents 4 different approaches to how RE teachers in Sweden teach democratic citizenship in RE. Each approach has its own dilemmas and conflicting positions. Shedding light on teachers’ reasoning about these approaches and the resulting dilemmas contributes to the understanding of education for democratic citizenship in Swedish RE.

Student centered philosophies of teaching as pedagogical paradox.The idea of student centered teaching is complex. In this study I approachthis subject by the notion of student activity and student discovery. Through these concepts the idea of having the student as point of departure becomes most distinct in the sense that the teachers knowledge is put more or less in the background in order to support the knowledge of the student. This idea may, however, be problemized by investigating the social interaction in the classroom. Through an empirical and theoretical investigation of typical situations in the classroom I develop three main conclusions: the student is always a subject in a web of social interactions with other participants, and

not a private discoverer; the active and discovering student is more or less dependent on the teachers professionally recognized knowledge, and, finally; some students are better prepared for doing active discoveries than other students, which makes their dependence on the teacher even more visible. It is argued that the notion of activity and discovery has to be reformulated to include the social interaction with the teacher in order to be a practical possibility in the everyday life of the classroom.

The case study examines how teachers for early ages have experienced a ten-year invest-ment with 1 computer per student, abbreviated 1-1. The method used is focus-group interviews, where everyone has been asked to express himself for each interview question; the recorded material has then been analysed focussing on the individual teachers in the group interview. Based on thematic analysis, the study shows both positive and negative experiences of various kinds. The different themes have also been measured based on the numeral impact in terms of answers. Two conclusions are drawn: the positive and negative experiences appear as benefits with accompanying associated "costs" for these benefits. The second conclusion is that the teachers' voices are important to consider when the municipal 1-1 investment is to be evaluated. Based on teachers’ experiences, the 1-1 initiative appears to be ambiguous in the above sense (benefits with associated costs) rather than in accordance with the municipality's original and more unambiguous goals.

I kapitlet visas hur förskollärare har utvecklat professionell kunskap om undervisning i förskolan. Kapitlet fokuserar hur spänningen mellan ämnescentrering och barncentrering i läroplanen hanteras av förskollärare i deras praktiska arbete. Med grund i en intervjustudie kunde deras tillvägagångssätt sammanfattas i fyra didaktiska kategorier som åsyftar ett medvetet arrangemang för barns lärande. Jag hävdar i kapitlet att förskollärare kan förstås som särskild grupp lärare som undervisar i förskolans sammanhang. 

The aim of the dissertation is to study whole class discussions in the Swedish upper secondary school, concerning issues subjected to controversy in the public debate. The empirical study is related to a wider question: the possibilities for the school to educate democratic citizens.

By using discourse analysis,14 videotaped lessons from social- and religious studies where analysed, with the ambition to investigate recurrent patterns of participation and meaning making. Five teachers and six classes participated in the study.

The analysis shows that the teachers have two concurrent goals: to focus on the students’ contributions on issues in the public debate, and introduce the students to different questions in the public debate. A consequence of these goals is that the role of the teacher often becomes complex. By acting on the basis of having responsibility for the students’ development of knowledge, and sometimes also calling attention to certain values, the teacher attempts to guide the students as not yet ready for the public debate. Features from other kinds of teacher-centred education are thereby present in the discussions. However, students can also act as more autonomous participants in relation to the teacher. When they are not answering the teacher’s questions in an expected way, and in particular, in situations in which they are interacting with each other, the students may discuss the public issues without being teacher-guided to the same extent as in other situations.

The last chapter concludes that the authority of the teacher is partly given by the official steering-documents. It is still possible to ask if the guiding role of the teacher itself could be subjected to discussion. This suggestion is made from the point that teacher authority is considered as more or less limited for developing a critical attitude among the students. One may also ask if the students’ could be offered possibilities to choose the topic for discussion themselves. This latter point is made against the background that classroom-discussion presupposes student’s viewpoints in order to be accomplished.

I läroplanens första avsnitt, Grundläggande värden, står att skolan ska utgå från värden som överensstämmer med kristen tradition och västerländsk humanism. Redan i därefter följande mening sägs att undervisningen ska vara icke-konfessionell. Skrivningen pekar på hur sammansatt läroplanstexten är i fråga om kristendomens roll i skolan. Syftet med detta kapitel är att redovisa ett antal tolkningar av uppdraget att utgå från kristen tradition, samt vilka följder dessa tolkningar får för lärarens yrkesutövande.

There is a tension in Swedish preschool policy when it comes to a subject curriculum and a child-centred curriculum. This article examines how Swedish preschool teachers have dealt with this relationship by focusing on the purpose of the preschool and how preschool teachers become part of enacted preschool policy. The purpose of the study is to investigate Swedish preschool teachers’ policy talk pertaining to the preschool’s assignment to depart from children’s own interests and school-like subjects. The analysis of interviews with ten preschool teachers shows how local policy talk is positioned in favour of a child-centred discourse, how tensions can gradually appear in the same sequence and how different actualisations in the national curriculum change the interviewees’ messages. The interviews highlight how enacted preschool policy appears as multi-layered and messy, thereby actualising a discussion about the basic purpose of the Swedish preschool and its relation to school.

In this case study of an interreligious youth project social capital is understood as an individual disposition, i.e. the participants in the study rely on their former and parallel experiences of capital as a social resource. In order to maintain the project as a sustainable network, norms and sanctions that are adapted to particular situations by means of relations work supporting social trust, are necessary. The study has shown that social capital is a vulnerable category that needs to be maintained by conducted bridging capital. Bonding capital contributes to bridging capital, but also seems to create a complex relationship between them. This is due to the fact that bonding operates through another selective logic than bridging capital, namely the bolstering of the (more) narrow social self. Norms and sanctions are the basic components for achieving bridging capital, although bonding also operates within partly excluding bonding mechanisms. 

Keywords: youth project; individual disposition; conducted capital; norms; sanctions; excluding bonding 

A current trend in educational research on innovative learning environments is to focus on student-centred learning, rather than a teacher-focused classroom. This turn to learning environments comes with theoretical and conceptual challenges concerning the dynamics of the classroom context and the interactions that take place within it. The aim of this review is to map the conceptions of teaching and learning in studies focusing on innovative learning environments and how they are applied in relation to the collected data. The review shows that several studies do not relate their empirical data to theoretical concepts in a systematic way. It is also suggested that the complexity of a learning environment requires an operationalised, conceptual comprehension in order to gain a full understanding of its conditions for teaching and learning.  

The purpose of this session is to explore empirically and to discuss theoretically religious studies teachers understanding of religious diversity. In my study of 9 religious study teachers (4 female; 5 male) in the Swedish secondary compulsory school I have found two main approaches to understand religious diversity. One is that different religious traditions are expressions of something common for all humans; e.g. a common human need or a universal ethic manifested as a core in all world religions. The other approach is that different religions are developed in different socio-cultural contexts and responding to different cultural needs. In the second part, the religious studies teachers’ approaches to religious diversity are analyzed in relation to different consequences for acting as citizens in a plural society. In the last part I will outline some possibilities concerning religious pluralism from the perspective of citizenship education.    

The purpose of this paper is to empirically explore and theoretically discuss Swedish religious studies (RE) teachers’ understanding of religions as similar and different. In Sweden, RE is a mandatory subject and presents all the world’s major religions to students. Teachers of RE therefore need to relate to the various relations between the religions. A qualitative interview study with Swedish RE teachers (n  = 7) in Swedish secondary schools was performed to determine how they conceptualise religion and present ‘religion’ to their students. The teachers (m = 3; f = 4) were chosen from schools with a variety of ethnically homogenous and heterogeneous compositions of students. The teachers’ conceptions of ‘religion’ can be described according to two main categories: as something universal or as something dependent on the cultural context. These two main orientations are described more closely in this paper. The teachers’ conceptions are also discussed from the perspective of possible consequences for educating citizens in the Swedish school system. It is suggested that RE teachers’ conceptions of religions as similar and different facilitate and constrain identification and encounters with others as religious subjects.

In Sweden RS (Religious studies) is a mandatory nonconfessional school subject, with the purpose to teach about religions and secular views of life. Such curricular design is connected to the development of Swedish society as one of the most secularized countries in the world with an increasing cultural and religious pluralism. Since school subjects aiming at citizenship education are more or less dependent on students’ engagement, this paper investigates whether such an engagement in RS is dependent on students’ religious vis-a-vis a secular orientation to life. The purpose of this paper is to investigate engagement for Swedish RS among religiously and non-religiously engaged groups of students in the Swedish secondary school. Eight items from the REDCO II questionnaire were used in this study. The result partly supported former studies on this subject. In the concluding section some didactic issues are discussed on the experience of religiously engaged students.

This chapter investigates interreligious discussion groups where participants in interreligious projects or activities can meet to talk face-to-face, i.e. listen to each other and address issues that directly or indirectly concern religious pluralism, religion and different life stances. Discussions are not just about talking but are strongly related to relations and networking by relying on rules and norms for the conversations. Another finding was a general observation in our data that religious differences are used as a means for learning about other religions, as compared with community and side-by-side activities which instead were characterised by the emphasis on the commonalities. When differences were highlighted in discussion groups the asymmetry in knowledge between those belonging to a religion and those not belonging to that religion was established. We also found that truth claims were regularly downplayed and that religion instead was presented through personal stories. Another feature was the sharing of common experiences such as being a religious minority in a secularised society.  

Keywords: face-to-face; rules and norms; asymmetries of knowledge; truth claims; stories; common experiences  

This chapter analyses interreligious community consultations, an activity in which people of different religious or non-religious identities are brought together to consult with each other on community issues or negotiate specific community projects. Religious thinking in the context of community consultations is often related to secular actors although the internal motivations may be religious. The former is due the fact that interreligious groups are situated in western secular society and as a consequence of this rely on a secular discourse. It is clear that a secular language impacts on theology and the possibilities for adopting religious thinking. However, this is not the case for all consultations. Our results point to the hybridity rather than the homogeneity of talking and thinking in public. The necessity of community consultation is thus clearly related to the mundane situatedness of interreligious dialogue rather than to a transcendent reality. In such an environment, theology implies different ways of relating religious motives to the mundane situatedness of interreligious work.                     

Keywords: community projects; secular discourse; internal motivation; hybridity; secular language; mundane situatedness  

This conclusion summarises and develops seven cases studies aiming to shed light on the spatial condition for urban interreligious projects. The characteristic of cooperation may (partly) be contrasted to religious pluralism characterised by competition, conflict and violence. As physical spaces for meeting, rooted in the histories of areas and of communities, the places in question are the sites where visions and perceptions meet material and social realities. We attempt to show that the aim of cooperation is intertwined in relationships originated in both perceptions and visions of places and through interactions in the embodiments related to physical constructions. Linked to vision and embodiment are the negotiations and contestations that are often found to be present when examples of cooperation are analysed regarding how place is enacted and interpreted by the groups and individuals involved. The interreligious activities highlighted in these cases illuminate dilemmatic situations when actors representing and belonging to different religious communities encounter each other with the main purpose to cooperate. 

Keywords: visions; perceptions; physical construction; embodiment; negotiations; dilemmatic 

This case study highlights the interplay between different levels of smaller and larger spatial scales in an interreligious neighbourhood project in Stockholm, Sweden. The interreligious project is aiming to integrate a mosque with the current church building, operating with different materials and media in its public representations. On a small micro level, artefacts enact the project as a means for its public realisation, using micro model representations in front of the visiting public the image of a house-in-the-making and as an example of peaceful living in Sweden. By hosting the building project, the urban district also becomes an ideal city model for integration in a multicultural (liberal) Sweden in public media. The church area as a place for peacebuilding is symbolically locating the church area on Swedish national territory as a promising example of peace and a model directed outside the neighbourhood. 

Keywords: neighbourhood; scales; urban district; church area; national territory; ideal city

This case study focuses on a large building hosting an interreligious youth project. Fryshuset as a neutral and secular building is recognized in the political dimension of Together for Sweden, where human rights, multiculturalism and adaptation to a new situation characterised by immigration, stands out. A more or less individualised way of being religious (or nonreligious) becomes intertwined with the purpose of the house and the ideas of its founder. Fryshuset is described by Together for Sweden members as an open place for developing something new; an interreligious ‘we’ through initiatives of religious youth. Due to the general purpose of Fryshuset, the interreligious work is characterised as being part of a multi-cultural and multi-religious society. Simultaneously, when young religious people enter Fryshuset, it is also employed and partly transformed for religious purposes.   

Keywords: youth project; secular building; neutral; interreligious ‘we’; human rights; individualised