This paper explores how school community collaboration is given meaning by municipally employed coordinators whose task is to organise collaboration between schools and other actors in urban areas in Sweden. Inspired by Carol Bacchi's theorisation of the constitutive aspect of discerning problems, it examines how coordinators give meaning to the…

The present paper delves into how symbolic boundaries in a school that is undergoing a desegregation process come to shape social boundaries of 'we-ness' and 'otherness'. The theoretical framework of the study starts from an interest in analysing whether symbolic and social boundaries emerge in new encounters during a desegregation process and…

In November 2015, the Swedish Government claimed that the Swedish reception of refugees needed to change. The government presented among other things a time-limited law, TLUSE. An ethnographic study was conducted with a group of unaccompanied youth and the staff they encountered within a language introductory programme in a Swedish upper secondary…

The objective of this article is to explore differentiation of education through juridification. We examine changes in school governing, including trends towards globalization and marketization, as well as increased regulatory intervention in addressing complex social problems. Drawing on Luhmann's theory of functional differentiation and…

School grades are among the most common measurements used to analyze equality of outcome in education. Large or increasing 'gaps' in school grades between boys and girls and between students with different migration background are considered strong indicators of inequality. Based on students' school grades, several studies have shown that equality…

Swedish compulsory schools are committed to work for equality and social cohesion. Increasing school segregation, however, challenges this commitment. Based on survey data from Swedish municipalities, this article maps and analyses local initiatives that counteract school segregation. We identify three main types of initiatives--reinforcement,…

Objective: Previous research indicates that head teachers in Sweden frequently fail to see school lunch as part of the educational activities of a school. This study contributes to an understanding of how head teachers in Sweden perceive and experience current national policy intentions related to school lunch. Design: Qualitative inquiry.…

The mission of all primary schools includes offering all pupils educational quality and equality. Municipalities struggle with the negative consequences of school segregation, and some local councils decide to implement extensive changes in their school organization to offer all pupils equal opportunities. This study analyzes the experiences of…

In this article, we examine how policymakers from three Nordic countries, Finland, Iceland and Sweden, reflect on the future at 2 different points in time: just before the first PISA study (1998-1999) and more than 15 years later (2015-2017). The empirical data consist of interviews (N = 37) with national policymakers, collected in two comparative…

This study focuses on ethical dilemmas that arise in moments of inclusion and equity in mathematics teaching and how they might be tackled through teachers' professional judgment. Skovsmose's inclusive landscapes of investigation approach was used to design the study and to collect teachers' joint reflections on moments of inclusion and equity in…

The interplay of digital technologies and inequalities are increasingly discussed in contemporary research, mostly focusing on different forms of digital divides and often addressed as a "problem" that societies should face. Hence, digital education and its governance becomes a major arena for addressing inequalities. In this paper, we…

Consensus is often a prerequisite for communities to develop initiatives to improve practice and create a future together. We investigated the consensus around the perceived educational inclusion of autistic and other neurodivergent students, their caregivers, and their teachers. Seventeen triads of informants plus two single students from…

In recent years, Sweden has been struggling with issues of educational inequity as the influence of students' socioeconomic status on their academic achievements has amplified. Nonetheless, academically resilient students who demonstrate high achievement despite socioeconomic disadvantages offer hope for a more equitable future. Previous research…

E-science, or networked, collaborative and multidisciplinary scientific research on a shared e-infrastructure using computational tools, methods and applications, has also brought about new networked organizational forms in the transition of higher education towards the entrepreneurial academy. While the under-representation of women in ICTs is…

In the study presented in this article, the aim is to further the understanding regarding the differences between pupils (aged 15-16) from schools with low or high socio-economic status (SES), regarding the amount and diversity of content knowledge in history that they have acquired by the end of compulsory schooling. Following a definition of…