This article presents a reflection on what the qualitative interview method conducted with students can provide to (mathematics) education research in terms of in-depth knowledge and what critical methodological points should be taken into consideration. Repeated interviews with the same students in relation to research quality is considered. The…

The research field of (young people's) political socialisation faces methodological challenges in (1) handling individual agency and political culture as simultaneous and mutual, (2) handling the relation between continuity and change and (3) observing the process of meaning-making in political socialisation. The aim of the article is to…

This article details an evaluation of a research project based on participatory research methods organized by the Swedish Disability Federation from 2008 to 2011. In Sweden there has been a lack of productive dialogue with the traditional academic world and the question was raised whether proposals for future research would be different if…

In this article, educational scholars L. Janelle Dance, Rochelle Gutierrez, and Mary Hermes share insights from their lived experience as qualitative researchers trying to work in collaboration with diverse populations. They refer to these insights as "improvisations on conventional qualitative methods," reminding readers that their…

Educational arenas are important sites for understanding how diversity and democracy become operationalised since they constitute and at the same time must attend to students' different needs. This article focuses on diversity from two specific angles: how research activities allow for particular ways of understanding human differences and how…

On the basis of extensive research on university-community collaborative education projects in southern California and southern Sweden, this article proposes two roles and a research strategy and approach as elements essential to sustained collaboration. Recognition and fulfillment of the roles of "spider" and "firesoul," while…

Discusses myths regarding history and teacher education, arguing that research in educational history is important for teacher education and for professional educators. Two case studies of lessons in Swedish teacher training institutions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries show how yesterday's teaching practices and rationales influence…

The following discussion by Pat Petrie draws on a body of research conducted at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, the Institute of Education, University of London. These studies include: a survey of out-of-school services in the European Union (Meijvogel and Petrie, 1996); work on children's services in Sweden (Moss and Petrie, 2002); the changing…

Discusses record keeping and the preservation of archival materials for research purposes in Sweden. Concerns of privacy and confidentiality are addressed, the Swedish principle of access to public materials is described, the use of archival material for statistical research is discussed, and methods for balancing privacy and record keeping are…

Brief description of the focus of five areas of research into higher education conducted by the National Swedish Board of Universities and Colleges are presented. These five research or problem areas are as follows: the role of higher education in society, higher education as a system (structure and governance), the environment and working methods…

This issue examines the following topics: comparative adult education (its scientific status and development), adult education research activity in system analysis, the inner structure of the system of adult education, adult education research and recently completed planning work, and the contents of adult education research in West Germany,…

Sweden's law giving all employees the right to study leave was introduced in 1974. This article is a report of qualitative interviews carried out with 19 manual workers from five trade unions in an industrial town. Respondents had attended a wide range of academic, vocational and trade union courses in recent years. Few had experienced any…

The development of two dominant research traditions is described: students' approaches to learning (SAL) and information processing (IP). The development of the third tradition, self-regulated learning (SRL) is added. SAL is based on European research, whereas IP and SRL are more typical background ideas for North-American research. The most…

Sweden's present school curricula emphasise personal flexibility, creativity, responsibility for learning and suggest new understandings of quality in learning, where individual freedom of choice is meant to help produce creative, motivated, alert, inquiring, self-governing and flexible users and developers of knowledge. These curriculum changes…

This ongoing project, conducted in four municipalities in Sweden, is investigating the ways in which schools and teaching are affected by various local communities and the ways in which central directives are transformed into a local educational reality. A diverse range of data have been collected, including demographic data from the…