The Anthropocene is a geo-stratigraphic unit of the upper Earth's layers, impacted by human disturbances, but also humankind's historical record, and children's place to live on. It is an unfinished narrative. This study explores how garden and soil-related activities with kindergarten children, guided by well-informed teachers, may have the…

Using references to the world outside the classroom is an intrinsic part of teaching content. Cultural references, however, might present a challenge for minority students. This paper investigates how teaching can contribute to the empowerment of all students through a qualitative observational case study of two Norwegian primary and secondary…

Background: Civic participation is a fundamental element of democracy; therefore, upholding and supporting civic participation, especially among the upcoming generation, is important. Political efficacy -- an individual's understanding of their capacity to participate in civic life -- has been found to exert an important influence on the expected…

We focus on how democratic practices occur during the modeling activity "The Candy Bag of Dreams." With democratic practices, we refer to approaches supporting inclusivity and active participation aimed at empowering students. We investigated one group of preservice teachers implementing an optimizing modeling activity during practicum…

In this study, we explore teachers' professional space as an alternative to, and/or expansion of earlier conceptualizations of teacher autonomy. Professional space is here understood both as an objective space with e.g., physical, juridical, economic features, and as the teachers' subjective negotiation of this objective space, where teachers are…

The main contribution of this paper is to highlight the pedagogical orientations of reception teachers in Norwegian schools. I explore reception teachers' approaches and their understanding of their own approaches when interacting with newly arrived minority language pupils (NAMLPs). The theoretical basis of the paper is L.S. Vygotsky's work,…

As of mid-April 2020, 1.5 billion learners were affected by school closures across 191 countries due to the COVID-19 pandemic (UNESCO, 2020). During the weeks of school closures, teachers were expected to become online teachers overnight. As teacher educators, we were curious about teachers' readiness for online practice. In the Teachers'…

This study reflects the voice of school leaders (principals) in a Norwegian school development project focusing on assessment for learning (AfL). The central role of the principal in school improvement is well documented, however, less is written about how the principals themselves see their roles. The voices presented belong to two experienced…