Justice in and through education? Students’ participation in decision-making

Drawing on one year of ethnographic work in three Swedish lower secondary schools, this article problematizes students’ participation in decision-making in everyday school life in the perspective of social justice. In order to extend the traditional liberal understanding of justice and include also relational, procedurial, social and cultural aspects of justice, the analysis focuses on the range, depth and breadth of the participation. The analysis highlights how students’ participation in decision-making was curtailed and restricted in ways that referred to both the range and the depth of the participation. There were also deficiencies as regards the breadth.  The analysis indicates inconveniences as regards students’ participation in decision-making in the perspective of social justice. At the same time it raises questions about social justice in educational contexts – to what extent is it possible to reach a social just school and classroom culture? Based on this analysis, it is argued that school actors need to be more explicit about the institutional frameworks and boundaries that regulate and frame students’ participation in decision-making in school. Such an approach might facilitate for students and staff to negotiate within these frameworks to a greater extent than was the case in these three schools. It is also argued that more students need to be involved in decision-making

Skolgården som socialt rum

Based on interview data with primary school students, this article explores how the schoolyard is produced as social space. Drawing on French philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre, the schoolyard is analyzed as perceived, conceived and lived space. The analysis shows how spatial dimensions interact and form a spatial practice which produces and reproduces the schoolyard as social space. There are tensions between the three dimensions. However, the overall pattern is that the three dimensions harmonize, and that social relations related to the lived dimension largely effect perceived and conceived space. In the discussion, some theoretical and methodological issues are highlighted.Alternative title: "The schoolyard as social space"Receu

'I Love this Place, but I Won’t Stay' : Identification with Place and Imagined Spatial Futures Among Youth Living in Rural Areas in Sweden

This study contributes to a body of literature that addresses relationships between space, place and identity, and their effects on young people’s ‘spatial horizons’. Drawing on ethnographic data from Sweden, it analyses youths’ identification with home place and how it relates to their imagined spatial futures in terms of staying ‘local’ or migrating. The findings indicate that locality strongly influenced the identity-processing of youths, but there was no straightforward relationship between identification with home place and willingness to stay in that place. Rather the home place’s perceived and narrated relation to other places, as well as its material conditions, social relationships and practices, contributed to the youths’ articulated views of their spatial futures

Demokrati och deltagande : Elevinflytande i grundskolans årskurs 7-9 ur ett könsperspektiv.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the fostering of democracy in the form of pupils’ influence and participation in decision processes.  The main focus is on pupils’ formal influence in lower secondary education, forms 7-9, in particular class councils and pupil councils, although informal influence is also studied. The study is ethnographic and based on observations, informal conversations and formal interviews with pupils and school staff in three Swedish schools during one school year (2007/2008). The analysis draws on theories focusing on democracy and gender (Pateman, 1970; Young, 1990, 1997, 2000a,b, 2005), and institutional aspects of education (Bernstein, 2000). The results show that the activity among the participating pupils is low, and that the councils deal with what the pupils mostly judge as unimportant and uninteresting issues. Issues related to teaching are generally seldom dealt with in the councils. A clear majority of the pupils also state that they cannot exert influence to the extent they would like, and that they find the representative systems both coercive and excluding. Still, pupils’ formal influence shows to be important as a means for democracy fostering. In particular positive participation effects are expressed in councils/groups characterised by pupil autonomy and collective community, a result that emphasises the importance of supporting pupil-governed councils and providing collective influence forms. But, the fact that a great deal of the pupils’ criticism against pupils’ influence in practice and the organization of pupils’ influence is connected to representation,  indicates that alternative collective forms to a greater extent than the representative systems can promote interest and active participation among the pupils. The results also show that only a minor proportion of the pupils take active part in influence processes, both formally and informally, and that a predominant majority of the participating pupils are girls. In sum, the results lend support to the idea that active participation in some contexts and in some conditions yields certain positive participation effects. But the fact that a large group of pupils, a majority of them boys, do not participate, proves lacking achievement and inequality when it comes to democracy fostering in the form of pupils’ influence. In view of the results more groups of pupils need to be strengthened as regards influence and participation in decision processes.

Girls’ school-to-work transitions into male dominated workplaces

The article addresses school-to-work transitions among young women in a strongly male dominated professional sphere – the transport industry. Drawing on interviews with two girls over the time span 2015–2022 and visits to their upper secondary school 2016–2019, the study focuses on how power structures related to gender play out in the positioning that takes place in school and workplaces: How the girls were positioned socially and in relation to professional qualification, and how they positioned themselves in these respects. The findings indicate significant changes in discourse and practice when the girls transitioned from students to employees, changes which in the article are discussed in the framework of ‘inequality regimes’ and through the lens of the ‘glass funnel’ metaphor. Linking the funnel metaphor to the framework of inequality regimes broadens the picture to consider how young people are exposed to generally increasing inequalities in labour markets where institutions and organisations are affected by neoliberal economic policies, weakened collective protection of workers and wider wage gaps. With individualisation and insecurity, young people like the two girls in focus in this article, are increasingly left to fend for themselves in a harsh labour market

School-to-work transitions in rural North Sweden : staying on in a reviving local labor market

This article addresses young people’s school-to-work transitions.The analysis draws on data from a Swedish ongoing qualitativelongitudinal project spanning over 10 years. In this article, wefocus on eight young people who grew up and still live in a smallrural inland town in North Sweden where the regional labormarket is going through a process of rapid reindustrializationafter decades of industrial decline and welfare stateretrenchment. The aim of the study is to explore the young rural‘stayers’ transitions in a region characterized by strong economicgrowth, yet with long-standing challenges in terms of socialreproduction, focusing on what kind of work they end up withand their speed of establishment on the labor market. At thetime of the latest interview all but one of the 8 participants inthis study had employment in local or regional industries,however, how fast they had managed to establish themselves onthe labor market varied between them. Further, their staying onlocally depended largely on regional mobility. We discuss theirtransitions in relation to the ongoing re-industrialization processin North Sweden but also what implications young stayers’school-to-work transitions might have in relation to the widersocial reproduction in the region

The spatial practice of the schoolyard : A comparison between Swedish and French teachers' and principals' perceptions of educational outdoor spaces

In this study French and Swedish teachers' and principals' opinions and everyday uses of the schoolyard is in focus: What do they perceive as desirable and undesirable in the schoolyard, what similarities and differences exist between the two groups of pedagogues, and how can these be understood? The study employs a cross-cultural design and is based on interviews with 10 pedagogues. The analysis highlights similarities and differences concerning what shall take place in the schoolyard and how this is to be achieved. Based on a theoretical framework from Lefebvre and Bernstein, the findings are discussed in relation to explicit ideas found in the school curricula and to nation-specific educational contexts and their cultural and organizational distinctiveness

Control and agency in student–teacher relations : a cross–cultural perspective on Finnish and Korean comprehensive schools

Drawing on a cross-cultural, qualitative study in Finnish and Korean comprehensive schools, we explore how teacher control and student agency are manifested and exercised in the teaching and learning practices of the “official school” and in the student–teacher interactions of the “informal school”. We also elaborate on how students reflect on control and agency. Bernstein’s concepts of framing and classification are employed as a theoretical lens with which to examine control, agency and hierarchy. Data consists of school observations and interviews with students aged 12 to 14 and their teachers, conducted in six schools. The findings indicate that student agency is intensively constrained in their participation in teaching-learning practices. The analysis also reveals a paradox where students do not welcome increasing their agency through student-oriented lessons. Moreover, the controlling and caring roles of teachers and the exertion and limitation of student agency appear differently in the Finnish and Korean schools studied. Students seem to desire a refined balance between control and agency while revealing conforming and self-critical attitudes towards the school system and teacher control. Finally, our analyses of control, agency and hierarchy among school members leads this article into a discussion of democratic school culture from a cross-cultural perspective