Genom reformeringen av arbetsrätten som trädde i kraft under 2022 har reglernavid uppsägning blivit mer flexibla. Samtidigt stärktes individers möjligheterför att få omställningsstöd och kompetensutveckling via parternas förnyadeomställningsavtal och omställningsorganisationer, samt genom det nya statligaomställningsstudiestödet. Omställningsorganisationerna har därmed fått ettutökat uppdrag inom arbetsmarknadspolitiken och deras roll har blivit synligareoch mer institutionaliserad. Trots det finns det knappa kunskaper om vilkaorganisatoriska förutsättningar och konkreta arbetssätt de utgår ifrån.Genom en dokumentanalys kartlägger vi hur omställningsorganisationernaär organiserade och vilka typer av privata aktörer som anlitas av dem.

This article connects rural sociology and personal life theory by considering how conceptions of love, childhood and family life are understood in Swedish rural contexts. Complex personal rural life narratives are presented from the perspective of the ‘ordinary’. Our result accounts for how imagined families and rural life arrangements are negotiated and how families that are happy with their personal lives conceptualise their choices in relation to their rural homes. Finding a partner and establishing a happy family impacts the choice of where to live and how to work. We argue that the informants’ attempts to negotiate their imagined family ideals and rural lives involve attempting to counterbalance contemporary ideas of gender equality within their rural everyday life practices. When they are unable to fulfil their imagined families successfully, they experience a ‘debt of love’ within their family.

Finding a partner and establishing a happy family together is a project intimately connected withchoosing where to live. The sense of place is often discussed in relation to belonging and to widernarratives of nation and culture (Yuval-Davis, 2011), but it is also a way to understand everydaypractices relating to personal life (Harris et.al, 2021). As May and Nordqvist (2019: 177) argue,‘personal life says something about both us as individual people, and the social context in which welive’. In our article, we explore the personal lives of individual people in the particular social context ofrural lives. In our study we have worked with connecting theoretical perspectives of rural sociology totheory of personal lives (Smart, 2007; May and Nordqvist, 2019) by considering how conceptions oflove, childhood, and family life are understood in rural contexts in Sweden. Our interview study ofpersonal lives for individuals have been explored in a rural context. Complex personal narratives onrural lives are presented from the perspective of the ‘ordinary’. Our results present accounts on howideals of family and rural life are negotiated and how families who consider themselves happy withtheir personal lives conceptualise their choices in relation their rural home. Finding a partner andestablishing a happy family together is a project intimately connected with choosing where to live. Ourfindings show how ideals of rural living and family life is negotiated by taking account of a bricolage ofnostalgic notions of the countryside, its freedom as well as more modern conceptions of gender equalfamily practices

For several decades, the Swedish school system has faced both an increasing educational attainment gap and a teacher shortage. In recent years, different policy initiatives have sought to establish alternative routes into the teaching profession. One target group is migrants with a teaching background. International research shows that this group can serve as bridge builders and as extra language and social support for school children with a migrant background. However, difficulties in terms of language acquisition and validation of previous skills can impede fast labor market entry. This chapter draws on recently conducted qualitative research on a teacher education course labeled as a fast-track for introducing Arabic-speaking newly arrived migrant teachers to the Swedish educational system. Not only did the course enable participants to reflect upon differences in teaching styles, educational systems, and negotiations of their professional teaching roles, it also allowed them to form an impression of the Swedish teaching system and find potential contacts and paths into work. Nonetheless, many participants in the course requested a faster validation process, more Swedish language support, and help finding employment. Moreover, some were disappointed to find that their previous knowledge is devalued in local schools. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023.

Flight has developed into a new research focus worldwide, but, only a few projects are concerned with newly immigrated teachers. Meanwhile, increasing importance is politically assigned to them and their linguistic resources. Despite these expectations, there are hardly any studies that address language diversity in the professional training of immigrant teachers. As a reaction to this lacuna, we have conducted a qualitative study in two countries: Sweden and Germany. These cases are particularly interesting to compare as they approach the re-professionalization of immigrant teachers in very different ways. In Sweden the introductory programs are the result of a political measure (top-down-policy making) and hold no language requirement in Swedish, whereas in Germany these programs are the result of bottom-up initiatives on behalf of universities and academics, which consequently result in a varying dealing with linguistic diversity. The difference in approach is of extreme interest with regard to top-down- and bottom-up processes of language education policy making, as the chapter will explicate with a specific focus on research review thus far. It will then present a qualitative study that focuses on multilingual practices in teacher training. To access this level, interviews were conducted with the respective actors – programme coordinators and lecturers. The results allow deep insights into the process of language policy making and their implementation on the institutional level. Finally, we will discuss the potentials of top-down- and bottom-up approaches and formulate implications for international teacher education.

We will present our project in an early stage of the research process. Our project investigates how the Natural Resource Use Programme in upper secondary school contributes to a resilient countryside. Recent societal challenges have shown that Swedish society is vulnerable in areas such as domestic food production.

Our project will study how social and economic sustainability are managed in relation to the natural resource use programme. Our study addresses individual as well as structural levels; students’ own perceptions; school curricula and education linked to these concepts; and register data of students’ participation in work and further studies. The project will use mixed methods (policy analysis, ethnography and quantitative analysis) to answer these research questions:How is the Natural Resource Use Programme constituted as socially important for skills maintenance and development in rural Sweden? How do students in the Natural Resource Use Programme consider their education, future careers, and working lives in the countryside? What educational pathways, income opportunities and career trajectories have been developed by students after attending the Natural Resource Use Programme and how have these changed over time for different ruralities?

The purpose of the project is to investigate the educational programme’s function in relation to skills maintenance and development, and to develop an understanding for the programme’s importance in relation to local rural environments as well as the everyday lives of individual students.

I denna artikel diskuterar vi hur handledare kan hjälpa doktorander hantera känslor av ensamhet, övergivenhet och karriärtvivel. I artikeln tar vi avstamp i quit-lit och stay-lit för att diskutera hur en kritisk syn på akademin kan hanteras i relationen mellan handledare och doktorand. Artikeln inleds med en bakgrundsbeskrivning av akademin i förändring. Granskningskultur, prestigekamp och en alltmer pressad akademisk arbetsmarknad är några av de aspekter som tas upp. Efter bakgrunden presenteras ett teoretiskt anslag som kombinerar sociologisk socialpsykologi med högskolepedagogik. Sedan ges exempel på quit-lit och staypieces som empiriskt material till vår analys.

National values or imagined communities are often reflected in a country's educational system. In this paper, a teaching course for migrant teachers in Sweden is used to reflect on how some of these national values and practices are presented and subsequently negotiated by course leaders and course participants. While measures that emphasise national values are often criticised as assimilationist, building partly on Goffman's work it is argued that a discussion of national values can also serve to unveil hidden rituals that are otherwise taken for granted, while also pointing both to the potential usefulness and pitfalls of civic education. For example, while course teachers try to avoid presenting the Swedish value system as superior to that of other countries, certain 'sacred' national values, such as a commitment to gender equality, are seen as non-negotiable. For participants, their previous teaching identity can be used both as a resource in navigating the course and for work practice. But for some participants, their previous teaching identity is seen as in need of adjustment in order for them to follow Swedish teaching and school 'rituals'.

Amongst the most significant labour market challenges is the integration of migrants and the opportunities for individual migrants to find employment that match their qualifications. The object of this study is to analyse the formal and informal obstacles migrant teachers face when entering the labour market. These obstacles include the formal validation of existing credentials, as well as the needs of local schools, and migrant teachers' own experiences of the new school system. We have conducted qualitative interviews with school principals, representatives at labour market organizations and authorities and migrant teachers. By analysing these different accounts we argue that the individual career adaptability of migrants also needs to be understood in relation to institutional and organizational constraints. Moreover, by adding a temporal understanding to the integration process, we find that migrants' own perception of the process and the time-scales of entering work should be accounted for more explicitly in the guidance process.