Globala utfodringar i en nordisk kontekst – utvikling av studentcentrert pedagogikk i SPICA-nettverket En bærebjølke i SPICA-nettverket er utviklingen og gjennomføringen av et fellesnordisk kurs (5ECTS) med studenter og forelesere fra Grønland, Island, Færøyene, Norge, Sverige, Danmark og Finland. Kurset brukar innovative metoder basert på flipped classroom, place-based learning og challenge-based learning. Kurset består av envirtuell del med bruk av flipped classroom og nettkonferenser, et intensivkurs på en uge og etterarbeid i form av en individuell reflekterande texst. I mars 2016 er intensivkurset i Island. Under NU-konferensen ønskar vi å presentere og diskutera det pedagogiske utviklingsarbeidet i SPICA nettverket. Hovedmålsettingen med intensivkurset er å styrke lærerstudenternes kompetense i det profesjonsrettede arbeidet med dialog, tolerence, handlingskompetense og aktivt medborgerskap i skolen for slik å legge til rette for et bærekraftig og fredelig samfunn i tråd med skolens samfunnsmandat. Nettverket fokuserer på følles nordiske løsninger på lokale, regionale og globale ineressekonflikter og utfodringer, og nyanser mellom ulike problemløsningsstrategier. Nettverkets pedagogikk skal bygge et stilas for studentenes læring og samtidig gi kompetense i bruk av pedagogiske metoder. I forkant av intensivkurset spiller lærerne i nettverket inn korte filmer tilpasset kurset som studentene ser asynkront før synkrone nettdisusjoner i grupper på 4-5 studenter gjennomføres. Dette er i tråd med metoden flippes classroom. Filmene er knyttet opp mot utfordringer og muligheter i en islandsk kontext sett i sammanheng med overordnete tematiske og teoretiske perspektiver for kurset. Dette er i tråd med metoden place-basedlearning. Arbeidet er samtidigt relevante både i en lokal, regional og global kontext. I nettdiskusjoner med bakgrunn i filmene og egen forkunnskap arbeider studentgrupper med deltakere fra ulike land og institusjoner, seg fram mot en utfordring de vill jobbe med under intensivkurset. Det vi væra en islandk student i hvar gruppe. Utfordringen gruppen velger skal være knyttet opp mot målsetninger for kurset og sees i sammenheng med undervisning i skolen. Dette er slik i tråd med challenge-based learning. Studenten blir også bevisstgjort egne meninger og holdninger i møte aktuelle utfodringer. Studentene lærer å anvende vitenskapelig teori, terminologi og forklaringstyper i en nordisk arbeidsgruppe. SPICA-nettverket finansieras av Nordiska ministerråd og involverar følgende institusjoner: Grønlands Universitet (Illinniarfissuaq), Háskóli Islands, Fróöskaparsetur, Føroya, Malmö högskola, Oulun yliopisto, University College Lillebælt og Høgskolen i Størtøst Norge.

Vi som har skrivit denna artikel är alla verksamma inom forskningsmiljön Svenska med didaktisk inriktning (SMDI) vid Malmö högskola. Frågor om språkutveckling i bred bemärkelse står här i centrum. För närvarande är vi engagerade i projektet ”SMDI och lärande i medielandskapet 2.0”. Vår teoretiska plattform kan beskrivas som medieekologisk, vilket kortfattat uttryckt innebär att vi är intresserade av de mångfaldiga och komplexa relationerna mellan medier och kommunikativa kompetenser (Elmfeldt & Erixon 2007; Erixon 2012; Hayles 2002). Dessa relationer förstås därför inte, som så ofta annars i skolsammanhang, i termer av enkelriktad påverkan eller effekter (exempelvis datorns och internets negativa inverkan på skriftspråket). Vår huvudpoäng i denna artikel är att medie- och informationskunnighet, MIK, handlar om, borde handla om, framför allt två saker: språkutveckling och demokrati.

In this article, the authors propose a set of multi-level questions as a guide for de- veloping an ethical attitude in researcher–participant and researcher–researcher relations during the research writing process. Drawing on the sociopolitical turn in mathematics education, the authors view these relations in terms of power and po- sitionings, in the dialectic between the micro-level of research writing and the wid- er, macro-level context of mathematics education. The authors illustrate the use of the proposed questions through a back-and-forth dialogue. The dialogue draws on experiences from a writing collaboration in which the authors—“the research- ers”—wrote up for publication research conducted in their respective contexts of the Political North and Political South. Both research projects focused on how mathematics students—“the participants”—narrate and hence position themselves and are narrated and positioned by mathematics education and sociopolitical dis- courses in research publications.

Indigenous children were taken from their families and placed in residential schools since the 1870s and until 1996 in Canada with the aim to “kill the Indian in the child.” A Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was formed in 2008 to provide victims of these schools the opportunity to recount their experiences in a safe and culturally appropriate manner. After five years of gathering these experiences, the TRC report summarizes what was heard, and identifies 94 calls to action. We will show how numbers are used and not used in two TRC documents. We identify the value of such analysis for school and university mathematics teachers as an example of a culturally situated use of number for rhetorical purposes, which relates to the ideas of culturally responsive teaching and critical mathematics education. Not only does this kind of learning address calls for democratic and critical citizenship, it belongs in Canada’s new age of responsiveness to Indigenous experiences of colonialism.

We start with the stance that it is important for educators to understand students’ language repertoires in relation to characteristically mathematical conceptualizations and processes. The data in our study of grade 3 to 11 students’ language repertoires for conjecture led our attention to competing discourses in the classroom and the consideration that the mathematical language repertoires are also repertoires for friendship, competition, etc. In this paper we use a framework for identifying authority structures in mathematics classrooms to focus on formative communication acts, and then we consider how each act might serve a purpose for positioning the students involved in terms of each discourse that we identify as in play.

In this paper we show the ways love and bullying appear in mathematical communications. We developed an analytic frame that distinguished between responsiveness and dismissiveness, and that identified whether communication acts opened dialogue or closed off the voices of others. The frame helped us identify what authority was used to close dialogue, and how dialogue was opened up as well. The findings allowed us to illustrate how responsiveness and opening up dialogue are central to love and mathematically productive, but also to problematize this argument.

Indigenous children were taken from their families and placed in residential schools since the 1870s and until 1996 in Canada with the aim to “kill the Indian in the child.” A Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was formed in 2008 to provide victims of these schools the opportunity to recount their experiences in a safe and culturally appropriate manner. After five years of gathering these experiences, the TRC report summarizes what was heard, and identifies 94 calls to action. We will show how numbers are used and not used in two TRC documents. We identify the value of such analysis for school and university mathematics teachers as an example of a culturally situated use of number for rhetorical purposes, which relates to the ideas of culturally responsive teaching and critical mathematics education. Not only does this kind of learning address calls for democratic and critical citizenship, it belongs in Canada’s new age of responsiveness to Indigenous experiences of colonialism.

Many Western societies have a tendency to talk about how schools are failing in the science subjects. School science is often discussed as outdated, not interesting enough for young people and non-effective for the students’ learning. This discourse opens up for external actors such as industrial actors and NGOs to engage in the teaching of science. One example of this is when these actors provide teaching materials. Thus, ‘statework’, in terms of educational governance, becomes distributed within public and private networks. Examples analysed in this chapter are web-based calculators from the environmental organisation, WWF, and the energy company, E.ON; both are used for calculating ecological footprints. The aim is to analyse what political rationalities are invited into classrooms through these ecological footprint calculators and by what means. Our analysis targets how a specific kind of citizen is ‘made up’ through a ‘centre of calculations’, and what political ideology influences the making of a sustainable citizen. This is achieved through looking into how the desirable citizen is governed through the technologies of accounting, debt and ethics. Through the accuracy of numbers and the bookkeeping of debt, the calculators produce a specific ethical approach. As a result, they suggest that becoming a responsible person is achieved through individual consumption choices rather than taking the issues to the political level. This distributed statework opens up for neoliberal economic and ideological interests to enter the classroom. We claim that it is of the utmost importance that teachers and educational policy-makers be made aware of the governing elements behind the teaching materials provided by external actors.

I den här boken ges konkreta förslag på hur man kan arbeta med naturvetenskap i årskurserna F-6. Läraren ska kunna erbjuda lärandesituationer där eleverna kan skapa sig grundläggande förståelse för energi, materia, ekologi, människokroppen, krafter och vårt solsystem.

Introduction: Theoretically, ESD is variously construed as inter- or transdiscipline. Despite divergences (Barth & Michelsen 2013; Lundholm 2011; Shallcross & Robinson 2007), a consensus exists in acknowledging fundamental complexities (Gough 2012), engagement and action-oriented learning (Sterling 2011; Wiek, Withycombe & Redman 2011). Objectives: The study looks at teacher education, considering the ways ESD-oriented knowledge, competencies and approaches are situated within pathways and curricula. The organization of teacher education (Rauch & Steiner 2013; UNESCO 2005; Wals 2014) is crucial, since it ultimately affects the potential for transdisciplinary development in schools. It is argued that the meaning of ESD in higher education is shaped by specific institutional structures, and the vocational contexts and practices the courses are oriented towards. With respect to teacher training, the meaning of ESD is additionally shaped by policy and steering documents regulating the profession. Methods: Policy documents and course descriptions relating to teacher education from two Swedish universities and four Danish institutions are investigated. Aspects focused here are: sustainability awareness, democratic deliberation, transdisciplinarity, working with complexity, problem-solving, boundary-crossing cooperation, action preparedness. Attention is also given to how the teacher training environments relate institutionally to wider academic contexts, and to how ESD oriented teacher competencies are formally described in terms of learning outcomes, requirements and qualifications Results: At a macro-level, a fairly positive picture of the position of HESD in northern Europe emerges (see ue4sd outcomes). Looking more specifically at teacher training, however, our study suggests that sustainability concerns are still marginal. Focus lies on subject-specific knowledge, and sustainability mainly appears as an isolated aspect of natural science education. Knowledge is constructed through assessment practices that tend to standardise, simplify and fragment understanding of complex interrelationships. Academic writing skills are emphasised to the detriment of transdisciplinarity and action-oriented capabilities. Conclusion: At an institutional level, economic steering and criteria for operationalising academic excellence tend to drive towards increased compartimentalisation. Importantly, the way learning is operationalised through modularisation of teaching provisions, constructive alignment of curricula and highly formalised assessment practices appears to limit transformative potentials for greening HESD curricula. Although the wider academic environments contain sophisticated research groups in the area of sustainability studies, there are very few institutional points of contact with teacher training programmes. Finally, the separation between academic and vocational tracks in Denmark further increases the institutional distance between teacher training and sustainability-oriented academic research.

Purpose: The paper aims to provide a conceptual map of how to mediate between sustainability theory and practice in higher education and how disciplinary divides can be bridged. It further looks at issues linked to knowledge views and drivers for institutional change that affect opportunities for whole institution development promoting action preparedness. Method: Taking its point of departure in the University Educators for Sustainable Development report UE4SD (2014, 2015), the paper discusses ways that ideas and interaction can be mediated in higher education settings, to connect sustainability research with vocational programmes. Different options are considered and compared. Findings: Although the literature stresses both action orientation and the need for holistic transdisciplinary approaches, many institutional drivers limit opportunities for more integrating approaches. Limitations: However, while conclusions may hold for universities at an overarching level, it is likely that certain research and teaching environments have been able to transcend such barriers. Practical implications: Conceptually mapping the different forms that dialogue, interaction and flows of ideas take within higher education institutions has relevance for whole institution development for sustainability. Societal implications: Importantly, producing sustainability science with relevance to practice in various professions is a fundamental condition to support accelerated transitions to sustainability at societal levels. Value: The paper makes a significant contribution by focusing on concrete institutional pathways for knowledge exchange and negotiation that can support education for sustainability in higher education.

The aim of this study was to introduce a formative-assessment practice in a mathematics classroom, by implementing the five strategies of the formative-assessment framework proposed by Wiliam and Thompson (2007), in order to investigate: (a) if this change in assessment practices had a positive influence on students’ mathematical learning and, if this was the case, (b) which these changes were, and (c) how the teacher and students perceived these changes in relation to the new teaching-learning environment. The study was conducted in a mathematics classroom during the students’ first year in upper-secondary school. A quasiexperimental design was chosen for the study, involving pre- and post-tests, as well as an intervention group and control group. The intervention was characterized by: 1) making goals and criteria explicit by a systematic use of a scoring rubric; 2) making students’ learning visible by a use of problem-solving tasks and working in small groups; 3) providing students with nuanced information about their performance, including ways to move forward in their learning; 4) activating students as resources for each other through peer-assessment and peer-feedback activities; and 5) creating a forum for communication about assessment, involving both the students and the teacher. The findings indicate an improvement in problem-solving performance for the students in the intervention group, for instance regarding how well they are able to interpret a problem and use appropriate mathematical methods to solve it. The students also show improvements in how to reason about mathematical solu12 tions, how to present a solution in a clear and accessible manner, and how to appropriately use mathematical symbols, terminology, and conventions. The findings also indicate a change in students’ mathematical-related beliefs during the intervention, towards beliefs more productive for supporting learning in mathematics. The changes in students’ beliefs include mathematical understanding, mathematical work, and the usefulness of mathematical knowledge. During interviews, the students expressed how they perceived the new teaching-learning environment. Students’ responses indicate that they recognized and appreciated the different components of the formative-assessment practice as resources for their learning. Responses from both students and the teacher also indicate that the components of the formative-assessment practice were linked in complex ways, often supporting and reinforcing each other. Furthermore, most components had other effects as well, besides supporting the formative strategies they were intended to. The findings from this study deepens our understanding of how the components of a formative-assessment practice may influence students and their learning in mathematics, but also how these components co-exist in an authentic classroom situation and influence each other.

A current focus of ecosystem services (ES) implementation is on the municipal level of government where international and national legislation and policies have to be translated into practice. Given this focus, an understanding of perceptions within municipalities of the ES concept is crucial to support the implementation process. Against this background, this paper examines the perceptions of Swedish municipal stakeholders for the ES concept. A 2013 Swedish federal mandate that states that the values of ecosystem services should be considered in relevant decision-making processes, provides a timely context. Current perceptions, preconditions and awareness are explored via interviews and analyses. The results show that the views on the ecosystem services concept and its usefulness are generally very positive. Conceptual knowledge use is perceived as important as is the recognition of monetary valuation of ES. However, clarification of the distinction between implicit and explicit use of the concept by stakeholders is needed. Finally, results indicate that a deeper understanding of monetary valuation of ecosystem services by municipal staff members is connected with a more critical view on monetary valuation. It is concluded that detailed and clear definitions and guidelines are needed in order to support the process of implementing ES in municipalities.

‘Relevance’ is one of the most commonly used terms when it comes to reforms in science education. The term is used in manifold ways. It can be understood – among other things – as meeting an interest, fulfilling needs or contributing to intellectual development. Many components of relevant science education go beyond single contents and concepts; many challenges are tied to cross-curricular goals. Specifically, when it comes to the societal and vocational relevance of science education, many demands can only be met when we develop corresponding skills across disciplines and grade levels. This chapter focuses on a set of such cross-curricular goals from a chemistry education perspective, namely, education for sustainability, critical media literacy, innovation competence, vocational orientation and employability. It relates them to the idea of relevant chemistry and science education. Directions for research and curriculum development will be suggested that emerge from taking into account cross-curricular goals on the science curriculum more thoroughly.

This contribution provides an historical overview of reforms in relation to how competencies have been embraced in Swedish education. This will be discussed mainly as a response to broader societal demands to create and offer supplementary education courses with an eye to critique technocratic and instrumental policies devoid of ethical and political considerations.

Introduction: The main purpose of the symposium is to showcase some recent research findings produced by PhD students accepted by or affiliated with the Swedish Graduate School in Education for Sustainable development (GRESD). Objectives: GRESD started as a state sponsored one-time research capacity development project that accepted 9 post-graduate student and included additional 9 post-graduate students all focusing on ESD in their PhD projects. With the project coming to an end and having produced a number of dissertations targeting an international research audience, it is the intention to showcase some of the central contributions made and to receive feedback on from practitioners and researchers on how existent research projects can tie into and contribute to existent demands in environmental education (EE) practice and practice. The presentations of research results are aimed to cover a wide range of issues, including topics such as evaluation of classroom practices, students qualifications, globalization and teachers’ ethical reflections the role of place-specific artifacts in learning. As GRESD is a collaboration between eight universities with their specific traditions and approaches to educational research, approaches show a creative variety of theoretical backgrounds. This variation is also reflected in the presentations that are putting into play Lacanian psychoanalysis, discourse theory, pragmatist theory and phenomenography in order to shed new light on critical areas of environmental education. Methods: The symposium will consist of an introduction (10 minutes) brief presentations (10-15 minutes each) of central research findings in the context of their overarching research projects, followed by a synthesis and suggestions by a selected commentator (20 minutes) and general discussions with the audience (20 minutes). The dialogue following the presentations is intended to outline possible future research projects as well as emerging areas topics in the portrayed GRESD research that could feed into existing demands in EE practice and research.

Denna boken är skriven av en grupp erfarna norska och svenska lärarutbildare i matematik. Boken bygger på utprövad erfarenhet - såväl egen som andras - och på aktuell, relevant forskning i matematikdidaktik. Texten väver samman matematik och matematikdidaktik, det vill säga ämnet som det undervisas i och frågor om hur ämnet kan läras och undervisas. Boken innehåller det som är absolut viktigast att få med sig i den grundläggande lärarutbildningen i matmatik.

There are only a few studies about how primary school students engage in socio-scientific discussions. This study aims to add to this field of research by focusing on how 9–10-year-olds in Sweden and England handle climate change as a complex environmental socio-scientific issue (SSI), within the context of their own lives and in relation to society at large. It focuses on how different interpretative repertoires were used by the students in discussions to legitimise or question their everyday lifestyles. They discussed four possible options that a government might consider to help reduce carbon dioxide production. Six main repertoires were identified: Everyday life, Self-Interest, Environment, Science and Technology, Society and Justice. The Everyday life repertoire was used when students related their discussion to their everyday lifestyles. Science and technology-related solutions were offered to maintain or improve things, but these were sometimes rather unrealistic. Arguments related to environment and health frequently appeared to have a superior status compared to the others. Findings also highlighted how conflicts between the students were actually productive by bringing in several perspectives to negotiate the solutions. These primary school students were, therefore, able to discuss and negotiate a complex real-world SSI. Students positioned themselves as active contributors to society, using their life experiences and limited knowledge to understand the problems that affected their everyday lives. Honing these skills within a school science community of practice could facilitate primary students’ engagement with SSIs and empower them as citizens.

The article describes early school leaving in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland, using examples to show a complex representation of early school leaving and its consequences for young people´s susequent access to the labour market. We show how measures taken by governments and school authorities in the respective countries have resulted in improvements for students transition from school to work. However, we also show that an educational system per se can create problems for both individuals and groups. Early school leaving increases the risk of unemployment, and if when permenent, about two years are spent out of school unemployment between the ages 16-20 this, increases the risk of the young people being marginalised and having health and social problems later in life.

This paper presents the overall goals and preliminary results of an on-going research project that aims at: understanding the intricacies and complexities of introducing mobile technologies into schools’ curriculum and accepted teaching practices; analyzing actual transformations that the use of mobile technologies in schools brings to contemporary forms of learning. The results of the project will contribute to a better understanding of new media literacies and their implications for curriculum design and everyday educational practices.

United Nations declared 2011 to be the International Year of Chemistry. The Swedish Chemical Society chose twelve themes, one for each month, to highlight the connection of chemistry with everyday life. Examples of themes were fashion, climate change, love, sports, communication, health issues, and food. From the themes various context-based educational materials were produced. One such educational resource, connecting to students' interests, was the Chemistry Calendar. It mainly contains short videos available on YouTube (also in English). The target group for the videos was secondary school. The videos have been analysed using a research-based analysis model consisting of four fields (pure chemistry; applied chemistry; socio-chemistry; nature of chemistry). The video analysis focuses on content and discourses. For example the images of chemistry and the chemist were examined. The analysis shows that the videos have a number of clear messages that are in line with “chemical literacy”, such as chemistry is all around you, chemistry researchers look different, chemical experiments can be of very different nature, chemistry is important for society, and chemistry has historically had some downsides. The Chemistry Calendar videos are unique and could be very useful in context-based chemistry education. However, their weakness regarding critical and reflective aspects must be compensated for in chemistry teaching, for example by highlighting “excluded environmental aspects” and by placing the videos in the contexts of critical citizenship and global sustainability.

Could mathematics teacher education courses be part of assemblages that grasp and circulate affective, sensorial, mnemonic and political temporalities going beyond a mechanistic reincarnation of thinking that deprives mathematics from the drama of life? By means of the project ‘street mathematics’, a hybrid of assembling mathlife chronotopes, the present paper attempts to explore the above question and its political significance for student-teachers in a teacher education program at times of crisis. It is argued, that through specific urban interventions in the cityscape student-teachers can experience such assemblages as events of epistemic/ontic knowledge discourses circulation through the public space of teacher education institutions and/or the streets in the city.

Mathematics education as a matter of identity’ is an emergent field where selfhood and the mathematical subject are being theorized as the effect of lived experiences in institutions such as family, school, media or youth cultures. Identity and its associated term subjectivity are embryonic in varied theoretical and activist arenas ranging from sociocultural psychology, psychoanalysis, cultural-studies, post-structuralism, post-colonialism, new-materialisms or arts-based-research. Emphasis on the ‘question of the subject’ facilitates the problematizing of a ‘knowing self’ as the effect of politics of difference, diversity, language, discourse, body, power, authority, agency, justice and emancipation, or as the product of affective politics connected to consumption habits and entertainment desires. Up until today, ‘identity’ persists the status of a ubiquitous concept in social sciences, resists clear-cut definitions and subjects itself to critique. Despite being unsettled as a robust concept, mathematics education researchers embrace identity and/or subjectivity towards analyzing, discussing or interrogating how selfhood becomes inscribed through mathematical practices, how certain subject positions are constructed as normative, deficient or marginal and how a reconfiguration of mathematical subjectivity is potentially possible as part of cultural, discursive, material, corporeal, or affective renewals. Moreover, ‘mathematics education as a matter of identity’ is key towards understanding the reciprocal relation amongst a bourgeoning free-market economy, neoliberal governing, increased socioeconomic crisis, vulnerable environmental sustainability, loss of security and safety, forced migration and a risky process of fabricating (by means of mathematics) the rational, reasonable and yet fragile, fragmented or indebted subject.

Based on an ethnographic study, we explore the potential of experimenting with multiple languages for number words as part of young children's mathematical activity. Data from a preschool classroom activity on number words in 'other' languages exemplify a complex process of discursive identity-work and dialogism amongst children, parents, teachers and researchers. The focus is on the case of little Mariah, a Pakistani immigrant girl in greece, who experiences participation by sharing number knowledge in her mother tongue Urdu, and highlights how gendered, racial or language-related discourses weave her learner identity in a multilingual preschool classroom.

What else could geometry may mean besides a detailed and systematic metric encounter with earth (i.e. γεωμετρία = μέτρηση γης), as the etymology of the word suggests? Could notions of ‘geometry’ become supportive towards opening up how, today, we may reconfigure our relation with space and place at a time of crisis? And for whom? Could geometry enable us to reconfigure this relation as entailing a variety of topologies, figurations and meanings? Could we, with our student-teachers, children and locals endure a confrontation with the ‘echo’ of geometry in the urban scape as a continuum amongst the dis/appearance of its particularities, features, values, valorisations or, even, violations? A confrontation that involves a subtle interrogation of geometry’s echo today.

In this paper, we attempt to move beyond current understandings of what it means to mathematise in relation to varied social thematic contexts in mathematics education. By way of theoretical intervention, we offer the beginnings of a feminist de/postcolonial commentary in response to such social, cultural and political programmes of work, recognising nevertheless the important contributions they have made to advancing complex political approaches to mathematics education as praxis in relation to society, and the way in which they have promoted alternative ways of envisioning mathematical activity. Our critique is as much a celebration of these programmes of work that have offered diverse conversations about what it means to de/mathematise, as it is a way of moving these conversations forward in newer, alternative politico-epistemological directions. We argue that feminist de/postcoloniality offers opportunities to centralise ethical, democratic and (geo)political considerations in de/mathematisation activities and events, while bringing concerns about social and economic development, culture, gender, and global (in)justices to bear on mathematics education arguments. We suggest that feminist de/postcoloniality provides theoretical concepts by which we can speak of ontological and epistemic considerations politically in mathematics education.

In the poster, I describe how different agents (curriculum makers, national test makers and teachers as test makers) make use of the different kinds of problems (pure/applied) in relation to the goal of producing problem solving citizens. I also report on a pilot study in which students were interviewed on their perceptions about problems and problem solving. My initial analysis shows that discussions of problem solving, as well as descriptions of the kinds of problems that are or should be used in policy documents are ambiguous. Applied problems seem more commonly used for teaching and assessing problem solving. The pilot study suggests that students can see the difference between pure and applied problems and recognise that this difference is important in regard to their future as problem-solving citizens.

Similar to other curricula, the Swedish mathematics curriculum emphasises problem solving both as an end in itself and as a means to becoming a competent citizen. Thus, a goal for mathematics is the creation of a problem-solving citizen. In this paper, I explore how critical discourse analysis, and parts of social activity theory can be used to operationalise Bernstein’s pedagogic device in relation to the construction of the problem-solving citizen. It is proposed that critical discourse analysis can be used for a linguistic analysis of official documents, like the curriculum whilst social activity theory’s different domains, mainly public and esoteric, can be used to analyse the national tests. These tests assess students’ problem solving both as a means and an end in two different senior secondary programmes, an academic orientated one and a vocational one. In this exploration, two examples are given to show how these methodological tools can be used.  

In this article, Bernstein’s vertical and horizontal discourses are used to identify tensions that arise from recontextualising global policyspeak about problem solving into the mathematics curriculum for upper secondary schools in Sweden. The new curriculum in Sweden, launched in 2011, is used as an exemplar of a wider global trend within mathematics education which emphasises competences and especially problem-solving competence. An interdiscursive analysis of the curriculum is carried out together with an analysis of the national tests where problem-solving tasks are categorised as pure or applied tasks originating from the vertical and horizontal discourses, respectively. It is argued that an equal distribution of and access to the vertical discourse is crucial for the goals of schooling to be achieved, but the present curriculum is likely to contribute to students from low socioeconomic background having fewer opportunities to gain entry into this discourse. Therefore, there is a risk that class difference and social inequality are reinforced, and reproduced via mathematics education, despite proclamations of contrary intentions. 

The present thesis is made up by three articles and in all of these the mathematics curriculum for upper secondary school in Sweden is analysed. The main focus is the citizen and citizenship and the point of departure is problem solving as a competence. Besides an investigation of the connection between citizenship and the curricu- lum or the role the citizen have in the curriculum, questions about what tensions appear when problem solving is recontextualised in- to the curriculum are posed. Following an international trend in (mathematics) education, the mathematics curriculum in Sweden stresses demands made on the students and citizens instead of rights that the students or citizens have. Demands that everyone must become problem-solving citizens. By the use of Bernstein’s theories about the pedagogic device and his division of different knowledge forms into a vertical and a horizontal discourse, I inves- tigate possible effects of these demands. Despite intentions that all should be included, I show that there is a risk for exclusion instead. Bernstein suggested that school reproduces social inequity. In this thesis I discuss how this is done in the curriculum. My conclusion points at a risk of segregation and exclusion of lower socio- economic groups from influence, power and control. Furthermore, the reproduction of social inequity is build more solidly into the system with the new curriculum as although it is unclear whether the purpose of the changes to the curriculum was really to divide groups and exclude some from power.

The point of departure in this paper is my previous research in which I analysed how the idea of problem solving is recontextualised into the mathematics curriculum for upper secondary school in Sweden and how this increases the risk for excluding lower SES students from future power. I discuss how this research could be followed up through a suggestion of how problem solving could be viewed in three different ways: as an ideology, a competence and an activity. Bernstein's pedagogic device and dichotomy of vertical and horizontal discourses are crucial in this suggestion. By seeing problem solving as an activity, and connect this to what Bernstein labels the evaluative field, I thereby tie the whole pedagogic device together by taking an overall view of problem solving as global policy-speak.

In this article, the mathematics needed for citizenship is discussed in relation to the Swedish curriculum. The article considers two approaches for discussing mathematics as demanded by, or developed within, a society: mathematical literacy and ethnomathematics. These approaches provide an alternative un-derstanding for school mathematics in relation to citizenship. In reconsidering the expectations upon the future citizen produced from implementing the cur-riculum, an argument is made for the curriculum to include elements from critical and socially responsible mathematics education, which include ele-ments of ethnomathematics and mathematical literacy. Such reconsideration is necessary because the transfer of mathematics from school to the outside world is not a straightforward matter. Therefore, it is essential that more focus is directed at citizens in the curriculum, and the transitions they undertake during their trajectories in life, to and from school.

Many studies within educational research seek to investigate students’ dialogues for studying learning situations. One difficulty is however to approach students’ discussions in action. In this paper we discuss the possibilities of using spy glasses in order to capture both students’ talk and their actions in the science classroom. This methodological approach makes it possible to come close to all students’ actions when working in small groups or doing laboratory work. This means that the spy glasses register their discussions with each other but also what they are doing with the laboratory equipment, what they write or what they focus on in a written text. This methodological approach provides a very rich data material and many hours of recordings for one single lesson. In order to approach the comprehensive data material we suggest clear analytic foci and iterated analytic phases. The preliminary results show that spy glasses can be an important analytic tool for capturing student dialogues and studying learning situations in the classroom.

In the field of research and development related to science and technology centres (STCs) and museums, there has, for a long time, been a pronounced interest in increasing the understanding of what experiences visitors gain, how they consider exhibitions and what they have learnt during visits. Research studies within the field have therefore often focused on visitors’ learning outcomes and the number of studies adopting pre- and post-methodologies is quite extensive1.This approach and research focus can also be understood from a desire to create and enhance the institutions’ legitimacy and their capacity to finance further activities.

Sweden experiences an evident downward trend regarding Swedish students’ performances on large-scale science tests during the last 15 years. This article aims to analyze this trend using percentiles, analyze the trend of in-between school variance but also to compare the Swedish results to other Nordic countries as well as to some countries that have experienced a significant upward or downward trend during this period. The analyses reveal that the downward trend could be ascribed to the descending results of low- and mid-performers. Furthermore it shows an increasing in-between school variance in Sweden as well as in other countries experiencing downward performances. It is possible to conclude that weaker results from low-performers are closely related to an increased in-between school variance and thereby decreased equity.

The focus of this study is to examine to what extent and in what ways science teachers practice assessment during classroom interactions in everyday activities in an upper-secondary school in Sweden. We are science teachers working now with a larger research project on assessment in science education that seeks to examine teachers’ assessment practices in the upper-secondary school. Framing questions include: are teachers performing an integrated assessment of students’ skills as the national curriculum mandates? If so, what do the instructional discourses look like in those situations and what are students’ experiences regarding their agency on learning and assessment? We emphasize the social, cultural and historic character of assessment and sustain a situated character of learning instead of the notion that learning is “stored inside the head”. Teacher led lessons in three science classrooms were video-recorded and analyzed by combining ethnographic and discourse methods of analysis. Both methods are appropriate to the theoretical foundation of our approach on learning and can give some answers to questions about how individuals interact socially, how their experience is passed on to next generations through language and how language use may reveal cultural changes in the studied context. Making the study of action in a classroom the focal point of sociocultural analysis supports the examination of assessment processes and identification of the social roles in which teachers and students are immersed. Such an approach requires observations of how teachers act in authentic teaching situations when they interact with their students in classroom making possible to observe negotiation processes, agencies when both teachers and students are involved in every-day activities. Our study showed that teachers mostly ignored students’ questions and that students solved their own problems by helping each other. Teachers did not provide opportunities for students to discuss or argue scientific issues as the national science curriculum stipulates. We found that traditional assessment methods, such as tests, examinations and assignments were the most common methods used to assess and grade students’ learning. Different aspects of knowledge stipulated in the national Swedish curriculum, such as lifelong learning, stimulation to students’ creativity, curiosity as well as their wish to explore and convert new ideas into action, and find solutions to problems, were restricted by teachers’ discourses. The observed teachers’ learning and assessment practices constrain students’ agency leading to students’ silence consequently hindering students’ development.

This study examines science teachers assessment and grading practices as well as student participation in the assessment process in the upper secondary school. The teachers were asked about how and when they assess students and what was crucial when grading students. We asked when they considered students to have developed the following knowledge criteria: aptitude for critical thinking, analytical and practical skills and how they assessed students regarding these skills. We report overall evidence-based assessment practices from the teachers’ comments in face-to-face interviews. Teachers’ comments are closely aligned and associated with long-established beliefs. The assessment and grading practices were found to be at odds with modern perspectives of assessment as well as its role in learning.

Mathematics education in Swedish preschool can be considered as a discourse produced through educational public policies, classroom practice, curriculum, research, teacher’s education, and literatures. This different spheres interact with one another in the production of a “truth” according to Valero and Knijnik (2015). Using Foucault’s concept of governmentality, and Popkevitz concept of construction, I focus in this article on what kind of “truth” are produced when preschool teachers talk about mathematics. This article is a part of a doctoral thesis.

The aim of this article is to illustrate how Systemic functional linguistics (SFL) can be used as methodological tool for analysing the meaning of texts from two different studies. An analysis using SFL provides insights into how different concepts of mathematical literacy operate in the text. SFL considers language to be a resource used for expressing meaning in specific contexts that accomplishes specific communication purposes. Therefore, SFL contains opportunities for highlighting different aspects of mathematics education which are of interest to researchers. In Sweden, the SFL approach has been used in other research areas but references to it in mathematics education research have been limited.

This chapter elaborates on three commonly suggested concepts used in the rhetoric for educational reform in science education. One suggestion is to raise the relevance of science education. Up until now, the word 'relevance' in the science education literature has often been used with high degrees of uncertainty and ambiguity. Thus as the first concept, this paper presents a model for a comprehensive understanding of the meaning and dimensions of relevance in science education. Secondly, we will revisit the concept of the two visions of scientific literacy and suggest that there is a further, third vision needed for relevant chemistry education. A third input is the adoption of the philosophy of Education for Sustainable Development into science education. Some very recent ideas will also be presented for this area. The chapter elaborates on the connections of the three concepts when it comes to providing guidance for chemistry curriculum reform. Two illustrative cases from Germany and Israel will show how chemistry teaching can come up with the elaborated stages of all the three concepts to make chemistry learning relevant education for sustainability.

There is no doubt that chemistry is in the heart of the economy of every developed or emerging country. Chemistry is necessary to make the world a better place in terms of prosperity and welfare. It is the ground for modern agriculture, pharmacy, and provides the basic materials for any other producing industries. However, not all developments in which chemistry was involved in the past were of benefit to the world in terms human health, raw materials consumption, and the environment. Green chemistry is suggested to provide a more responsible alternative of doing chemistry in research and industry – today and for the future. This article supports the view that the way towards more sustainability in this field needs a change in doing chemistry, but in the same time it argues that the responsibility of the chemists for sustainability goes much further. The stewardship of the chemists also covers responsibility to contribute to societal decisions and discourse about chemistry and, at the same time, to help developing a different, more balanced and contemporary view on chemistry in both society and chemistry education.

Contemporary changes in higher education in Sweden are characterised by two educational discourses: marketisation and academisation. Demands to meet market requirements, as well as to make education more scientific, have created tensions between and within institutional cultures. Using interviews with 16 heads of departments, the authors investigate how tensions between marketisation and academisation were handled in discipline-oriented and professional-oriented departments. The heads of discipline-oriented departments experienced marketisation as a threat to the university trademark, because it was seen to challenge academic autonomy. On the other hand, heads of professional-oriented departments felt that academisation was the main issue to be dealt with, as it shifted focus from practical skills towards academic meritocracy. Consequently, it is not possible to discuss these changes without considering that conditions differ substantially across the university. Responses to these changes can be countered by culturally sensitive strategies, rather than by adopting a ‘one size fits all’ approach.