Capturing Nordic Identifications Through Participatory Photography

This study explores how participatory photography can be used in researching upper secondary students’ identifications with what it means to live in one of four Nordic countries. The study draws on students' constructions and interpretations of photographs. For this article the data analyzed consisted of 571 photographs taken during spring 2018 by a total of 104 students in the metropolitan areas in Helsinki, Stockholm, Oslo and Copenhagen. The analysis of the photographs and their captions show that students associated themselves mostly in a positive way with the Nordic region, though also some critical attitudes were identified. Visual ethnography in education as a method enhanced the upper secondary students’ way of giving meaning to what living in the Nordic countries means to them. Moreover, the method enables the students to become co-researchers together with the research team in both an aesthetic and narrative way. The study offers insights into how participatory photography can be as a useful and activating method in both local and cross-national research.Peer reviewe

Att göra skillnad. En studie av ungdomar som politiska aktörer i skolans vardag

Forskningsrådet för Arbetsliv och Socialvetenska

Gender and equality in education. Key themes, changes and the contemporary focus on achievement

ABSTRACT - The field of gender and education historically and currently addresses a range of issues of equality in education. Key themes include power relations, curriculum and school practices, achievement patterns, and femininities and masculinities produced with/in education. This article briefly reviews key themes and changes in the field of gender of education, and then explores the prominent contemporary issues concerning gender and achievement, many of which focus on boys’ said underachivement. It draws on Nordic and international research, and especially a recent Swedish research project on achievement and gender. This project, and others before it, showed a dissociation between dominant youth masculinities and study patterns, but also a widespread celebration of talent that has significant implications for the understanding of everyone’s achievements. The presentation also highlights the problems of homogenising gender groups and the need to explore variation between social groups and contexts. Keywords: Gender research, debate, achievement, celebration of talen

The community function of schools in rural areas: normalising dominant cultural relations through the curriculum silencing local knowledge

Schools in rural places in European societies generally teach the same content and perform as well as other national schools do on national tests and international comparison assessments such as PISA. However, by doing this they may also marginalise local rural knowledge and expose rural populations to a (for them) culturally insensitive curriculum. Using a meta-ethnographic analysis this article identifies how rural educational ethnographic researchers working in Sweden have depicted this situation and the social and cultural interests in which it operates. It identifies how research articles often describe rural schools as fulfiling a local community function, but it also questions exactly what kind of function this is and whether we can really talk about rural schools operating in local community interests generally or even at all. Instead, it is rather more the case that schools in rural places contribute to some individual educational interests and possibilities along with a general cultural domination and marginalisation of rural consciousness and interests

Introduction

A key motivation for the research presented in this book is that urban studies dominate contemporary educational research, as highlighted for example by Hargreaves, Kvalsund & Galton (2009). Consequently,  knowledge of young people's marginalisation and participation in education and the wider society is based on observations of life in limited geographical/social contexts. The predominant metrocentricity leads to the neglect of needs that are not present, or readily apparent, in cities (Farrugia, 2014, p. 293) and underestimation of problems faced by rural youth. This is despite findings that it is mainly young people from outside metropolitan regions who express a lack of involvement in Swedish society and a dearth of confidence in both government and parliament (e.g. Swedish National Board for Youth Affairs, 2010). Thus, to obtain a more representative picture of young people’s situations and education we need to explore rural youths and their schooling more broadly and deeply...

Young People’s Life and Schooling in Rural Areas

Roberts and Green’s understanding of the need to broaden the social justice agenda in education research to include rural areas and more plural forms of capital in them than the purely economic form has been of value in the production of this book and has encouraged an extended and deepened focus on space, place, and social justice in our investigations. The first chapter sets the scene for this by presenting the research field, and some core questions for the research project relating to the dominance of urban studies in education (and social sciences more generally) and the silence on rural conditions and problems. The chapter also presents the research project and its theory, methodology and data production to provide a coherent background and frame for the thematic chapters so they can focus on their findings and discussions.  The following empirical chapters then focus on prominent themes emerging from the fieldwork and address both rural schooling and youth’s rural lives more generally. This is in line with the chosen theoretical understanding of place as central, requiring that education, as other institutions, is analysed in its socio-spatial context.     Chapter 2 focuses on place and draws especially on youth’s presentations of the researched places. It includes sub-themes concerned with the various images of places and of strategies to maintain place relations. In this respect there are similiarities, but also differences between the different ruralities. Chapter 3  moves the analyses to the different schools and their relations to the surrounding communities. Central to this, is the presentation of the places and their relations (conflicts, values, silences) found in teaching and their relations to other places. The analyses point to some differences between ruralities in this respect, with schools in the sparsely populated areas more likely to explicitly position themselves in the rural local context, and valorise the rural positively in education exchanges, content and interaction compared to the schools in small (de)industrialised communities, with positive effects on young people’s understandings. Chapter 4 focuses on young people’s views of their future options and their dreams of further education and work in relation to the local material conditions of the rural places, such as the labour markets. Gendered and classed characteristics are found to be of particular importance in the process of shaping the young people’s ideas of future careers, both limiting and broadening their views. Chapter 5 emanates from the chosen theoretical framework of the project that emphasises place as constantly in process and reshaped. In this respect, migration poses as a special challenge and an option for sparsely populated and de-populated areas. In the researched sites, we note an influx in recent years of refugees – particularly apparent with the unforeseen inflow of refugees from Syria during the fieldwork - but also of labour migrant from Northern Europe. Taking this as a starting point, this chapter analyses issues concerned with various groups’ understandings of place and its relations.     Chapter 6 continues with a focused analysis. It  addresses themes of gender and class. It presents previous research on gender and class in relation to rural youth and education and from this, moves to present some of the main findings from our research. These indicate less stereotyped gender relations than in much previous research, but still an overall trend towards masculine activities and values.  Chapter 7 focuses on relations between rural and urban areas, their respective conditions, problems and challenges. This is a central question for the book and this chapter aims to present a synthesising discussion. It draws on previous research of urban and rural youth and their schooling, and explores the under-researched rural dimension by use of our data to discuss rural understandings and responses to socio-spatial issues. The final chapter (chapter 8) draws together central themes from the previous chapters. These are concerned with various aspects of social structures, social relations, their implications for social inclusion, and how these are addressed in school and teaching. It also returns to the initial questions posed in the first chapters about rural – urban relations, metrocentricity and marginalisation...

Introduction

A key motivation for the research presented in this book is that urban studies dominate contemporary educational research, as highlighted for example by Hargreaves, Kvalsund & Galton (2009). Consequently,  knowledge of young people's marginalisation and participation in education and the wider society is based on observations of life in limited geographical/social contexts. The predominant metrocentricity leads to the neglect of needs that are not present, or readily apparent, in cities (Farrugia, 2014, p. 293) and underestimation of problems faced by rural youth. This is despite findings that it is mainly young people from outside metropolitan regions who express a lack of involvement in Swedish society and a dearth of confidence in both government and parliament (e.g. Swedish National Board for Youth Affairs, 2010). Thus, to obtain a more representative picture of young people’s situations and education we need to explore rural youths and their schooling more broadly and deeply...

Young People’s Life and Schooling in Rural Areas

Roberts and Green’s understanding of the need to broaden the social justice agenda in education research to include rural areas and more plural forms of capital in them than the purely economic form has been of value in the production of this book and has encouraged an extended and deepened focus on space, place, and social justice in our investigations. The first chapter sets the scene for this by presenting the research field, and some core questions for the research project relating to the dominance of urban studies in education (and social sciences more generally) and the silence on rural conditions and problems. The chapter also presents the research project and its theory, methodology and data production to provide a coherent background and frame for the thematic chapters so they can focus on their findings and discussions.  The following empirical chapters then focus on prominent themes emerging from the fieldwork and address both rural schooling and youth’s rural lives more generally. This is in line with the chosen theoretical understanding of place as central, requiring that education, as other institutions, is analysed in its socio-spatial context.     Chapter 2 focuses on place and draws especially on youth’s presentations of the researched places. It includes sub-themes concerned with the various images of places and of strategies to maintain place relations. In this respect there are similiarities, but also differences between the different ruralities. Chapter 3  moves the analyses to the different schools and their relations to the surrounding communities. Central to this, is the presentation of the places and their relations (conflicts, values, silences) found in teaching and their relations to other places. The analyses point to some differences between ruralities in this respect, with schools in the sparsely populated areas more likely to explicitly position themselves in the rural local context, and valorise the rural positively in education exchanges, content and interaction compared to the schools in small (de)industrialised communities, with positive effects on young people’s understandings. Chapter 4 focuses on young people’s views of their future options and their dreams of further education and work in relation to the local material conditions of the rural places, such as the labour markets. Gendered and classed characteristics are found to be of particular importance in the process of shaping the young people’s ideas of future careers, both limiting and broadening their views. Chapter 5 emanates from the chosen theoretical framework of the project that emphasises place as constantly in process and reshaped. In this respect, migration poses as a special challenge and an option for sparsely populated and de-populated areas. In the researched sites, we note an influx in recent years of refugees – particularly apparent with the unforeseen inflow of refugees from Syria during the fieldwork - but also of labour migrant from Northern Europe. Taking this as a starting point, this chapter analyses issues concerned with various groups’ understandings of place and its relations.     Chapter 6 continues with a focused analysis. It  addresses themes of gender and class. It presents previous research on gender and class in relation to rural youth and education and from this, moves to present some of the main findings from our research. These indicate less stereotyped gender relations than in much previous research, but still an overall trend towards masculine activities and values.  Chapter 7 focuses on relations between rural and urban areas, their respective conditions, problems and challenges. This is a central question for the book and this chapter aims to present a synthesising discussion. It draws on previous research of urban and rural youth and their schooling, and explores the under-researched rural dimension by use of our data to discuss rural understandings and responses to socio-spatial issues. The final chapter (chapter 8) draws together central themes from the previous chapters. These are concerned with various aspects of social structures, social relations, their implications for social inclusion, and how these are addressed in school and teaching. It also returns to the initial questions posed in the first chapters about rural – urban relations, metrocentricity and marginalisation...