This paper uses a specific phenomenon of early-modern education in Sweden, the school jail, as a point of departure for a broader analysis of educational policy in the areas of discipline and moral instruction. The paper demonstrates how the jail evolved as a part of a wider network of objects, pedagogical technologies and social routines in this…

This study examined 307 elementary school children's judgements and reasoning about bullying and other repeated transgressions when school rules regulating these transgressions have been removed in hypothetical school situations. As expected, children judged bullying (repeated moral transgressions) as wrong independently of rules and as more wrong…

The study presented in this paper examines and compares how issues of children's rights in education are constructed in policy in two nations: Sweden and New Zealand. Claims for human rights for children originate from international human rights agreements, but have to be incorporated into national policy. The central interest of the analysis is…

This article highlights the parent-teacher conferences in the Swedish preschool and the talk about children's inappropriate and undesirable behaviour in a preschool setting. The focus of the article concerns how teachers talk about children's resistance to the social order in preschool and especially how children show resistance to teachers. The…

School rules are usually associated with classroom management and school discipline. However, rules also define ways of thinking about oneself and the world. Rules are guidelines for actions and for the evaluation of actions in terms of good and bad, or right and wrong, and therefore a part of moral or values education in school. This study is a…

The aim of this study is to investigate and explain inconsistencies within the social constructions of school rules as they take shape in everyday interactions between teachers and students, and to explore how students interpret these inconsistencies. An ethnographic study is conducted in two primary schools in Sweden. According to the findings,…

Socialisation theories have traditionally focused on how children are socialised in a rather unidirectional manner, according to a transmission model. However, more recent research and theories show that children are not just passive recipients, but active agents in their socialisation process. At the same time, children are subordinated to adult…

Classroom management is a topic of enduring concern for teachers, administrators, and the public. It consistently ranks as the first or second most serious educational problem in the eyes of the general public, and beginning teachers consistently rank it as their most pressing concern during their early teaching years. Management problems continue…