This study explores the culture of physics departments in Sweden in relation to physics teacher education. The commitment of physics departments to teacher education is crucial for the quality of physics teacher education and the way in which physics lecturers talk about teacher education is significant, since it can affect trainees' physics…

For young women, inbound identity trajectories into physics are generally regarded as exceptional. In this study, we investigated the experiences that young women have which may support their sustained interest and achievement in physics, and their ongoing inbound trajectories into post-secondary physics education. To understand these experiences,…

It has long been argued that nature of science (NOS) is an important part of science teaching. In the literature, many different approaches to NOS have been suggested. This article focuses on a storytelling approach, and builds on data from audio recordings from three middle-school (school year 6) classrooms. The three science classes are run by…

This article analyzes masculinity and experimental practices within three different physics communities. This work is premised on the understanding that the discipline of physics is not only dominated by men, but also is laden with masculine connotations on a symbolical level, and that this limited and limiting construction of physics has made it…

Based on the EU FP 7 project, PROFILES, this article presents our findings from a three-round Delphi study conducted in Sweden that aimed at establishing a consensus on how science education should be developed for citizens to enhance civic scientific literacy. A total of 100 stakeholders (9th graders, school teachers, scientists, and science…

This article focuses on the need for increased attention to content issues and working methods for science teaching in Early Childhood Education (ECE). Science education research emphasises the importance of not only focusing on specific phenomena, but also on the Nature of Science (NOS). NOS teaching deals with questions about what science is,…

Young people's interest in pursuing science and science-intense educations has been expressed as a concern in relation to societal, economic and democratic development by various stakeholders (governments, industry and university). From the perspective of the scientific communities, the issues at stake do not necessarily correspond to the overall…

In research on the development of a nineteenth-century "science for the people", initiatives by scientists or people well-trained in science has been emphasised, while the writings, roles and initiatives of elementary teachers are normally just mentioned in passing. In this study the development of nineteenth-century elementary science…

This paper investigates the impact of changing science policy doctrines on the development of an academic field, working life research. Working life research is an interdisciplinary field of study in which researchers and stakeholders collaborated to produce relevant knowledge. The development of the field, we argue, was both facilitated and…

Last November, more than 700 school leaders, educators, and reporters gathered in Washington, D.C., to celebrate the promise of innovative teaching and project learning to change global future. The event was the Microsoft Partners in Learning Global Forum, and its purpose was for educators worldwide to connect, learn, and collaborate on some of…

This paper examines the experiences reported by scientists and graduate students regarding the experiences that first engaged them in science. The interviews analysed for this paper come from Project Crossover, a mixed-methods study of the transition from graduate student to PhD scientist in the fields of chemistry and physics. This analysis…

This article explores the perceptions of active senior researchers from different scientific and scholarly areas about scientific and scholarly writing, specifically that associated with research. The study comprises interviews with 12 researchers in four different faculties at a Swedish university: Arts, Social Sciences, Science and Technology,…

This paper looks at eight comparative case-studies on academic entrepreneurs in life sciences conducted in Europe in 2008. The interviewees were selected from the KEINS database that lists all academic inventors from Italy, France, Sweden and the Netherlands who have one or more patent applications registered at the European Patent Office,…

The conversation between myself and Professor Lederman took place in Malmö, Sweden on August 25, 2007. The purpose of the conversation was to elaborate on the past, present and future of nature of science research and also to provide insights for beginning researchers. In this text I am providing the questions about which we talked and my…

Physicists and physics students have been studied with respect to the variation in the ways they expound on their topic of research and a physics problem, respectively. A phenomenographic approach has been employed; six fourth-year physics students and 10 teacher-researcher physicists at various stages of their careers have been interviewed. Four…