Body talk: students’ identity construction while discussing a socioscientific issue

Vision II school science is often stated to be a democratic and inclusive form of science education. But what characterizes the subject who fits into the Vision II school science? Who is the desirable student and who is constructed as ill-fitting? This article explores discourses that structure the Vision II science classroom, and how different students construct their identities inside these discourses. In the article we consider school science as an order of discourses which restricts and enables what is possible to think and say and what subject-positions those are available and non-available. The results show that students’ talk about a SSI about body and health is constituted by several discourses. We have analyzed how school science discourse, body discourse and general school discourse are structuring the discussions. But these discourses are used in different ways depending on how the students construct their identities in relation to available subject positions, which are dependent on how students at the same time are “doing” gender and social class. As an example, middle class girls show resistance against SSI-work since the practice is threatening their identity as “successful students”. This article uses a sociopolitical perspective in its discussions on inclusion and exclusion in the practice of Vision II. It raises critical issues about the inherited complexity of SSI with meetings and/or collisions between discourses. Even if the empirical results from this qualitative study are situated in specific cultural contexts, they contribute with new questions to ask concerning SSI and Vision II school science.     

Governing ‘eco-certified children’ through pastoral power: critical perspectives on education for sustainable development

This article analyses how ‘eco-certified children’ are constructed as desirable subjects in teaching materials addressing education for sustainable development. We are interested in how discourses structure this cherished practice and how this practice has become ‘natural’ and obvious for us. A discourse analysis is carried out by looking at the material through the lens of Foucault’s notion of pastoral power. The analysis departs from teaching material addressing issues on sustainable development: (1) textbooks for primary and secondary school; (2) games targeted at preschool and school children; and (3) children’s books about sustainable development. The results show that the discourse of education for sustainable development is characterized by scientific and mathematical objectivity and faith in technological development. It emphasizes the right of the individual and the obligation to make free, however ‘correct’, choices. In the teaching materials, the eco-certified child therefore emerges as knowing, conscious, rational, sacrificing and active. This child is constructed through knitting together personal guilt with global threats, detailed individual activities with rescuing the flock and the planet. In a concluding discussion, we discuss how ESD is framed in a neoliberal ideology. With the help of ESD, an economic discourse becomes dressed in an almost poetic language.     

Co-action, situation definitions and sociocultural experience. An empirical study of problem-solving in mother-child interaction

The article reports a study in which three groups of dyads—mothers and their six-year-old children—interacted in a problem solving task. The dyads had to solve a task that was simultaneously intellectual and manual in the sense that they were to tie a knot (a clove hitch) using a picture as a resource. The mothers differed in terms of their professional and educational background; in one group the mothers were industrial workers, in the second group they were nurses and in the third group they were teachers. The interactions were videorecorded and analysed with respect to who was responsible for performing the necessary steps in the attempts to tie the knot and what responsibilities the child was invited to take on. The results indicate considerable similarities between groups on many variables (such as time used on the task, number of words uttered, etc.), but they also show that the teacher mothers were more inclined to involve the child as a performer and to organize the cooperation in such a way that the child had to engage in the semiotic activity of relating the picture to the tying of the rope. It is argued that the differences observed reflect varying conceptions of what it means to learn in a situation of this kind and what the child should do in order to learn. However, it is obvious that these differences between the dyads do not represent anything that we can conceive of as stable traits or competences. Rather, they seem to a large extent to be produced through differing interpretations on the parts of the dyads of how to interpret the very situation in which they were acting.     

The Appeal of Media Populism: The Media Preferences of Citizens with Populist Attitudes

Although a growing body of literature points to the particular media diet of populist voters, we know too little about what specific media preferences characterize citizens with populist attitudes. This article investigates to what extent citizens with antiestablishment and exclusionist populist attitudes are attracted to attitudinal-congruent media content. We collected survey data using a nationally representative sample (N = 809) and found that citizens’ preferences for media content are in sync with their populist attitudes. Beyond having a tabloidized and entertainment-based media diet, populist voters self-select media content that actively articulates the divide between the “innocent” people and “culprit” others. These findings provide new insights into the appeal of different types of media populism among citizens with populist attitudes on different dimensions.     

Young Children’s Representations of Spatial and Functional Relations Between Objects

Three experiments investigated changes from 15 to 30 months of age in children’s (N = 114) mastery of relations between an object and an aperture, supporting surface, or form. When choosing between objects to insert into an aperture, older children selected objects of an appropriate size and shape, but younger children showed little selectivity. Further experiments probed the sources of younger children’s difficulty by comparing children’s performance placing a target object in a hole, on a 2‐dimensional form, or atop another solid object. Together, the findings suggest that some factors limiting adults’ object representations, including the difficulty of comparing the shapes of positive and negative spaces and of representing shapes in 3 dimensions, contribute to young children’s errors in manipulating objects.     

Recognition and difference: a collective biography

This paper opens the space of post-qualitative research through an exploration of how acts of recognition and non-recognition work on and through the bodies of individual subjects. Using stories generated in a collective biography workshop and drawing on concepts from Foucault and Butler, and also, in contrast, Barad and Deleuze, the paper explores the way these different epistemologies intra-act with ways of seeing/reading/being recognizable subjects.     

News in Special Education

The purpose of the reported interview study from Sweden is to contribute to our understanding of how head teachers can promote inclusive practices. Five head teachers were selected from a larger sample of head teachers working in compulsory schools (6–16) according to specific criteria in order to obtain head teachers who work effectively and express inclusive values relative to a relational perspective. The interviews were semi-structured, and a thematic analysis was performed. Head teachers’ strategies were in focus. The theoretical point of departure is critical pragmatism. Overall the five head teachers reported similar strategies. The head teachers describe the importance of educational leadership through observation and participation in activities in the classrooms. They advocate flexibility in the solutions provided for students in need of special support preferring solutions carried out in the regular classroom by the class/subject teacher. Head teachers see special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs) as important partners in their work towards more inclusive practices. Head teachers express the importance of consensus among their staff. They seem to welcome government’s increasing demands and steering concerning how head teachers should manage their schools. Finally, it is discussed whether the head teachers can be said to work ‘inclusively’ and, more generally, the methodological challenges researchers must confront in studies concerning ‘inclusive’ education.     

Inclusive education in Sweden? A critical analysis

When it comes to pupils in need of special support and pupils with disabilities, Sweden’s compulsory school system is sometimes considered a one‐track system. This article analyses and critically discusses current policy and practices at various levels of Sweden’s compulsory school system for these pupils. The analysis traces three themes at the national and municipal levels: (1) values and goals; (2) organisation and placement of pupils; and (3) importance of categories in obtaining support. A rather complex picture emerges from this analysis. Several conclusions are made: (1) state policies leave a lot of room for interpretation at the municipal and school levels, and this results in an extensive variation; (2) Swedish state policy is not as inclusive as is often stated; (3) celebration of difference seems to be hard to achieve; (4) learning goals can be a double‐edged sword with regard to inclusion; and (5) most pupils appear to enjoy participation in school, and in an international perspective, Swedish classrooms seem to be largely democratic.     

News With an Attitude: Assessing the Mechanisms Underlying the Effects of Opinionated News

Opinionated news targets communities of likeminded viewers, relies on dramaturgical storytelling techniques, and shares characteristics with political satire. Accordingly, opinionated news should be understood as a specific form of political entertainment. We have investigated the mechanisms underlying the effects of opinionated news on political attitudes using an experimental design that employed manipulated television news items. Findings confirm that opinionated news positively affects policy attitudes via its presumed influence on others and subsequent perceptions of the opinion climate. However, opinionated news also negatively affects attitudes via hostile media perceptions and evoked anger, especially for people with incongruent political preferences. Due to these opposing processes, we found no total effect of opinionated news on policy attitudes. Conditions are discussed under which either the positive or the negative indirect effect is likely to dominate.     

Varying access to professional,special educational support: a total population comparison of special educators in Swedish independent and municipal schools

Independent schools are securely established in the Swedish education system. Prior research shows they generally have fewer pupils in need of support and lower proportions of special educators. Here, results are presented from a total population study of Swedish special educators (n = 4252) examined after 2001. The aim was to explore and compare the occupational situations of special educators working in Swedish municipal and independent schools. This is done by studying their occupational situations and the values they express regarding identification of – and work with – special support. The results show that while the respondents are demographically similar and express similar values, they have very different occupational situations. Those employed in independent schools have fewer years’ experience as special educators, are more often employed part‐time than full‐time and are more likely to hold other positions in schools (such as head teacher) than those employed in municipal schools. The results further illustrate different organisational approaches towards special educational support. Apparent is that independent schools offer professional special educational resources to a lower degree and utilise them differently. This is likely to influence the situation of pupils in need of support, and has consequences for the image of the Swedish education system.