Purpose: The aim of this study was to explore opportunities to develop higher-order thinking for students in social studies, with a focus on teachers' content coverage and support for engaging in social studies analysis. Design/methodology/approach: A video study using naturalistic classroom observations of 80 social studies lessons was conducted…

Background: Scholars have suggested that students' views of what is important for them to know as Physical Education (PE) teachers are a result of what is assessed in Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE). Thus, there is a risk that students will reproduce content areas such as sports and assess sport-techniques without much critical…

In the present study, we present a cross-country comparison of the status and condition of sustainable development (SD) in the Nordic physical education (PE) curricula. The aim of the study was to increase knowledge of how SD perspectives are represented and conceptualised in the Nordic PE curricula. An expert-driven research approach was used…

Purpose: This article contributes to the discussion of teaching migration in upper primary school by examining teachers' didactical choices concerning specialized knowledge and pupils' previous knowledge. Design/methodology/approach: The approach is practice-based design research, in which meetings with teachers and focus group interviews with…

Previous subject-specific education research has shown that education in social studies subjects is dominated by strong subject traditions, while current social issues are seldom addressed and the connection to academic disciplines is weak. Putting this result into context, we discuss how the debate initiated by Michael Young about 'powerful…

This study aims to examine the compulsory courses related to the game and game teaching in special education teacher training undergraduate programme in terms of number, term, credit and content. The data in descriptive study have been determined using document analysis technique. It has been stated that pre-service teachers in most of the EU…

Religion as a school subject--Religious Education (RE)--is handled differently in various national contexts. This article discusses two different systems of managing (or avoiding) RE: those used in non-denominational Swedish and Indian schools. The article focuses particularly on what is allowed in the classroom with regards to religion. Both…

This article offers a contribution to the current debate about knowledge and the curriculum, especially initiated by social realist writers. The enacted Swedish subject-based curriculum for compulsory schooling is examined and is also used as a significant case with the aim of discussing practical implications of social realist claims regarding…

According to the curricula in various countries, teachers in the subject areas of science, social science and language are often expected to collaborate on cross-curricular issues such as sustainable development (SD) in the 9-year compulsory school. This study is based in Sweden and investigates teachers' teaching traditions. The overall aim of…

In this article we examine a teacher's and multilingual students' use of multiple resources and their potential for students' meaning-making of sound and sound transmission. Students were 14-15 years old, Swedish grade 8, speaking Swedish as a second language. We examine how different strategies and multiple resources interact in creating thematic…

This article presents the findings of an innovative qualitative study involving one CLIL (content and language integrated learning) student and one student in a parallel, non-CLIL strand at high school level in Sweden. The aim of the study was to investigate differences in students' beliefs about language. The success of second (L2) and foreign…

The topic of this article is history education in upper primary school. Traditionally, the history subject has had a narrative orientation at this school level in Sweden, but it is also pattern that is discernible internationally. The recent Swedish upper primary school syllabus places more emphasis on the procedural aspects of the subject. In…

Traditional school science has been described as focused on indisputable facts where scientific processes and factors affecting these processes become obscured or left undiscussed. In this article, we report on teachers' perspectives on the teaching of sociocultural and subjective aspects of the nature of science (NOS) as a way to accomplish a…

Why do over 90% of the learners in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) never finish the course? There is a need for further studies focusing on the learners' experiences of participating in MOOCs and factors that influence the decision to complete or drop out of the course. To deepen our understanding of why learners complete or drop out of MOOCs,…

This study, on the unit measuring time, examines classroom use of different resources and their affordances for students' meaning-making. The data, comprising audio and video recordings, fieldnotes, photographs and student texts, were collected during a lesson in a multilingual Swedish grade 5 classroom (students aged 11-12). In order to analyse…