The aim of this article is to enrich the care ethics framework by uncovering the relationship between care and loyalty, offering insights into the complexities of children's experiences of care in school. Through twelve interviews with pupils in sixth grade, I analyse the intersection of loyalty and care. The findings reveal two dimensions,…

Critical thinking as a concept, has a rich history and is central to much of the debate within international educational research and increasingly within environmental and sustainability education (ESE). Currently, it is gaining a foothold in the curriculum and in practice in Nordic countries. However, to date, there has been no proper account of…

In many parts of the world, researchers and policymakers alike report possible threats to democracy and its institutions. Accounts in the media of hatred and threats aimed at people taking part in public discourse, and of a polarized political debate, raise general questions about the current state and future of democratic dialogue and processes.…

Physical education (PE), and specifically the teaching area of dance, has been identified as an important pedagogical setting within which young people develop creativity. Creativity is thus an important aspect of schooling. Several studies have suggested however, that dance is seldom taught in PE in ways that acknowledge creative aspects of…

This article concerns how the normative matter of body hair is playfully encountered within a theatre practice for teenage girls. By working with Deleuzian-inspired theories, playfulness is understood as embodied doings, interwoven with the local context. The article explores how playfulness is enacted in relation to the everyday, in particular…

The main purpose of this paper is to examine perspectives of successful and effective leadership as well as successful and effective schools in an effort to uncover the governance interventions which produce one or the other characterization. This examination is undertaken through the utilization of two guiding frameworks: the…

The purpose of this keynote address is to discuss how curriculum theory can make a specific contribution to research on transnational education policy; in particular, curriculum theory has implications for national policy due to the interest in exploring educational phenomena at different levels of the school system. From a Swedish perspective on…

Classroom teaching and field trips are both conventional ways of teaching geography in higher education. But where the former can be highly theoretical and abstract, the latter is rather practical, empirical, and concrete. In this paper, I argue there is a need to better incorporate theory into field trips. I seek to explore relations between…

Since the Salamanca Statement was published in 1994 a massive amount of research has addressed the issue of inclusive education. Yet, there is a sense of lack of progress which seems to necessitate a critical look at the field while not neglecting advancements made. Such advancements concern the development of theory, a concept which is given a…

Constructive Alignment (CA) is neither the panacea, nor the unalloyed evil depicted in the majority of higher education discourses. But rather, the theory is a heuristic and accessible representation of commonly agreed upon aspects of modern curriculum and educational theory, designed explicitly to support learning and teaching. However, when…

In 2020, a global pandemic changed the educational landscape overnight and caused an abrupt transition to virtual classrooms. This study aims to gain increased knowledge of teachers' experiences of facing such radical digitalization through ideal types. The data include a teacher survey with 1109 respondents from 15 high schools in Sweden,…

This article furthers pedagogical knowledge on educating children about their human rights, specifically in school contexts, with the aim of elucidating the features and the collateral learning of educative situations through which children are supported to grow as rights-holders. The data, obtained from fieldwork in three Year 1 classes in…

Teachers' implementation of and attitudes to school reforms and overriding pedagogical ideals have long been a topic of debate and research. In this article, we centre on teachers' descriptions of how progressive teaching was conducted as well as on the teachers' reasons for implementing such teaching in the 1940s. This study is based on written…

Literary education exposes students to unpredictable critical moments in their encounters with a text. Drawing on Dewey's transactional realism and actor-network theory, this theoretical and conceptual study explores the performativity of things and materials as they shape reading and teaching bodies. This transactional performativity extends…

'Quality' in education has become a global phenomenon, and is frequently discussed in transnational and national policy. In such discussions, 'quality' seems to be both worthwhile and demanded, but at the same time, the concept has also been criticised in previous research as it seems to have attained a 'common sense' status. In this context, the…