Speaking with an artificial counterpart in simulated environments has been shown beneficial for foreign language learning. Still, few studies have explored how it is experienced by younger students. We report on a study of Swedish students (N = 22) speaking English with embodied conversational agents (ECAs) in everyday-life scenarios. Data were…

While individual and family factors behind students' school absenteeism are well-researched, fewer studies have addressed school climate factors. This study investigated the association between school climate in Swedish schools and students' absenteeism. A multi-informant survey of school climate was conducted in 101 schools and analysed in…

In Sweden, as in many other countries, programming has been added to the curriculum in recent years. This paper explores how and under what conditions programming is transformed into teaching in technology education. Teachers in grade 7-9 were interviewed about what and how they teach about programming in the context of technology education, and…

Purpose: Over the last couple of decades, health has become a central part of the subject content in physical education (PE) curricula in many countries. As a result, issues of health have been foregrounded much more clearly in the teaching of PE. The aim of this study was to explore how Swedish PE teachers make sense of health in relation to…

Formative assessment has been shown to have the power to positively affect student achievement, but professional-development initiatives for teachers to substantially develop their formative assessment practices have been frequently unsuccessful. In this study, a random selection of Year-7 teachers participated in a professional-development…

Purpose: This study explores to what extent health promotion policy in practice and leadership engagement is reflected in school actors' experiences of health dialogues (HDs) and their ideas about promoting health and learning in schools. Design/methodology/approach: The 93 participants consisted of 44 school nurses, 37 students in grades 4, 7 or…

This study analyses 10 Swedish music teachers' descriptions of how a new music syllabus and a new credit scale have influenced their practice. In the new curriculum, grading is introduced in year 6 and not, as previously, in year 8. We have therefore focused on the effects of this change on school years 5-7. The new syllabus is much more precise…

This article focuses on the leadership used by the principal in a collaborative ICT project. The case study chosen was a school project conducted within the NCCE project (Nordic Cross Country Education). The EU funded project ran for three years in grades 5-9 in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. The goal of the project was to develop cross-border…

In the present online survey, 158 teachers in regular and special education teaching in grades six to nine were asked to rate the importance of probable reasons for problematic school absenteeism. On average, the teachers estimated that among their students, 19 students had presented with problematic school absenteeism over the last five years.…

This article presents results from an empirical study of how student engagement is visible during introductory algebra. Previously, the notion of engagement in mathematics has been studied from students' and researchers' perspectives. This study is instead focused on teachers' perspectives on student engagement. Eight teachers in grade 6-7 have…

The overall aim of this study is to deepen our knowledge about the attitudes of teachers at the upper level of the Finland-Swedish comprehensive school towards the treatment of culture in English foreign language (EFL) teaching. More specifically, the questions are how teachers interpret the concept "culture" in English foreign language…

This study presents policy and theory as they apply to diversity, equality and equity in Swedish social and educational policy. All education in Sweden should, according to the curriculum (Lpo 94, 1994, p. 5) be of equivalent value, irrespective of where in the country it is provided and education should be adapted to each pupil's circumstances…