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

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.

In this article, we explore the theme of choice in relation to education and work by discussing the notion of “compromise” within career guidance. In particular, we analyse compromises related to career choice in regard to groups and individuals who are restricted — or belong — to a particular geographical place and how this spatial limitation is managed and discussed by career guidance counsellors who work with unem- ployed individuals. The article is based on the following questions: How are compro- mises and restricted choices considered in relation to place and belonging? How do career guidance counsellors and other professionals discuss compromises of choice? The qualitative interviews have been conducted with career counsellors working with unemployed individuals in rural Sweden. Four themes emerge: location as a given/non-issue, location as opposed to interest, location as personal life and location as an obstacle. We argue that belonging can be seen as more available to certain groups. For example, career counsellors view the claims of belonging by young people as less valid than for individuals who can present caring and family obligations as reasons for not being mobile.

Choosing a career can be seen as determining one’s professional life and as a decision reflecting or rejecting a certain (rural) identity and personal life (Smart 2007). The imperative of choice accompanies the area of career guidance, but researchers have noticed the lack of real choice (e.g. Roberts 2009). The imperative of “choosing” carries a strong societal expectation of choosing an employment for financial reasons of self-sufficiency as well as to express a certain interest or use certain skills that suit the individual. However, we show how individuals’ career choices are also framed by constraints and motivations of staying, both in relation to personal limitations and vulnerabilities and more positively in relation to preserving family and friendship ties. We explore the theme of choice by discussing the notion of “compromise” in relation to career guidance in rural coastal areas of Sweden. We discuss compromises related to career choice for groups and individuals with ties to a geographical place, and how this spatial limitation is managed and discussed by career guidance counsellors and other professionals who work with unemployed individuals.

Our study is based on 13 qualitative interviews with career counsellors and local labour market case workers who work with unemployed individuals. Our results indicate that the mobility imperative is challenged by strong ties to place when it comes to young unemployed people in need of career counselling. Rural place is spoken of as a resource for clients and counsellors when it comes to protecting societal embeddedness. We analyse the material within frames of belonging and as actions serving to avoid increased vulnerability by resisting policies of mobility.

Året är 2015. Det börjar bli kväll efter en ruggig senhöstdag. Jag, min sambo och våra två småbarn på fem och tre år, har middagsgäster. Middagen är nästan uppäten. En av våra vänner har en bebis i magen. Vi talar om bilden på Alan Kurdi – fast hans namn var vid denna tid ännu okänt för oss – den treåring vars kropp spolats iland och fotograferats av en journalist. Tanken på alla som dör på Medelhavet skickar rysningar genom våra kroppar, så vi blir tysta en stund med vilande blickar på våra egna välmående växande familjer. Alla mätta och med tak över huvudet. Då ringer det på dörren.

Låt oss ta er med in i ett ögonblick. Någon har sagt något, som fått någon annan att säga något echaufferat, kinder hettar, hår smiter ur frisyrer, röster höjs. Rummet präglas av stigande intensitet. Någon ifrågasätter. Någon vill instämma. Någon ytterligare vill ställa till rätta. Så fortsätter det ett tag. En sorts intellektuell storm. Det kan vara i seminarierummet, föreläsningssalen, kafferummet. Och så, liksom mitt i, begär Anders Persson ordet. Hans röst är låg, så låg att den kräver att folk slutar skrapa med stolsben eller viska med grannen, den är infernalisk, den skär rakt in i och igenom det som just avhandlats och den ställer det på huvudet, eller riktar strålkastarljuset mot det från ett helt annat håll. Det han säger gör mycket lite för att inordna sig, likt den beskäftiga och irriterande främling sociologin kan vara (Bauman & May 2004, s. 22).

• At an elite school in Sweden, social science education contradicts the ideals of democratic education.
• Micro-power actions change when students outperform their teacher’s subject knowledge.
• Micro-interactional power is expressed by recognition and misrecognition in the classroom.
• As an observer in the elite school, one simultaneously becomes loud and invisible.
• Further ethnographic “studies up from below” are needed in social science education.

Purpose: This paper offers insights into the dynamic of misrecognition in an elite school. It presents new findings on micro-interactional power relations in the classroom and argues for additional ethnographies of social science education in elite schools.

Methodology: This paper uses anethnographic method. Its research employs the observational position of a “belonging stranger” is put forward in contrast to the idea of “going native”. The focus is on the power of micro-interaction.

Findings: A key empirical finding is the change in power relations that occurs when students outrank their social science teacher in subject knowledge.

Skoldebatten fokuserar ofta på socioekonomiskt utsatta elever som inte klarar kunskapskraven. Janna Lundberg menar att diskussionerna om skolan också behöver täcka in de elitskolor som det svenska marknadsutsatta skolsystemet skapat (red.).

Vi människor möts alltid i ett sammanhang. Och för att förstå dem vi möter måste vi samtidigt förstå samman­hanget. Och bli överens om det. Den här boken handlar om sådana situationer, ögonblick, där människor möts. Det kan vara för att lära sig cykla, för att övertyga en rättsinstans om den egna förträffligheten som förälder eller för att hålla sams med en granne. Det kan också, bland mycket mer, vara för att begripa varför man just stämde in i ett hånskratt riktat mot sig själv eller den yttersta innebörden av att säga Jag älskar dig.

Vi som skrivit den här boken har alla i olika sammanhang mött bokens mottagare: professor Anders Persson, Lunds universitet. Och vi har alla, med honom, ställt den där frågan: Vad pågår här?

Det är affärslogiken som styr när statistik om skolor och betyg nu ska sekretessbeläggas. Samtidigt visar detta hemlighetsmakeri tydligt att friskolan blivit norm och att andra värden felaktigt får stå tillbaka, skriver forskare.

This thesis is built around an observational study of a class at an elite school. The study follows the class through their upper secondary school education (ages 16-19), focusing on social science lessons. I have used ethnographic methodology to describe and problematize how social science and value-based ambitions of equality conflict with the student role of superiority cultivated at this school. This study of an elite uses a fly-on-the-wall distanced position of an included stranger. In the perspective of research on elite schools, the school is characterized as performing in the shadow of a more classic elite school tradition. The more traditional national boarding and cathedral schools use characterizations of age and tradition to legitimize their elite status. This is a characterization that the studied free school (approx. charter school) is trying to mimic despite its recent establishment.A concept of alienation including superiority frames the performed excellence noted during the observations. A concept of alienation without powerlessness is developed theoretically in this dissertation and used to analyse the material from the observations. A contemporary kind of stoicism is investigated within the concept of alienation. Stoicism within alienation describes the students’ ways of distancing themselves from what they learn, not giving any expression of whether what they learn influences what choices they make as they shape their lives and values. The social science subject at the elite school is characterized by a “dialectical didactics of turning away”, or of abandonment.In several ways the dissertation relates to power: a social hierarchy where supremacy and subordination becomes less black and white. The dissertation concludes by discussing the limited freedom of students who must negotiate egalitarian contra elite values in their social sciences education. In understanding egalitarian values in the perspective of power, Simone de Beauvoir’s (2018 [1947]) concept of freedom is useful: one’s own freedom is not freedom when others are unfree.Research on the democracy-promoting mission of the social science education subject, as well as the recommendations and directions of the school authorities, argues for a pluralistic classroom where different views and experiences meet. A deliberative democracy is also promoted. At the Distinct Grammar School, observations have been made of a classroom without pluralism and without deliberation. This has consequences for the teaching of social science in the school: the social science teacher’s authoritarian leadership style is motivated, in a contradictory way, with ambitions of promoting democracy and a democratic distribution of power. A complex dynamic of power between the teacher and the students plays out during the observations. The ethnography in the intersection of elite school research and social science didactic research has exposed a didactical dialectics of the exile, or exclusion. The turning away is inspired by Hannah Arendt’s (1998 [1958], 2006 [1961]) concept of World Alienation, a concept elaborated for understanding loss of love for the world as a threat to the promise of the political. This is framed as a social science didactics for alienated elite.

Sveriges segregerande skolsystem riskerar att bli än mer segregerat när skolornas marknadsföring blir den enda tillgängliga informationen för dem som ska välja skola. Det skriver Janna Lundberg, doktor i utbildningsvetenskap och forskare vid Malmö universitet.

Denna text för samman erfarenheter av undervisning med idéer om lärande och utbildning. Texten hanterar frågor om hur lärarens arbete kan analyseras och bli en del av ett livslångt lärande. En analys görs med återblickar till erfarenheter av undervisning vid gymnasiet och lärarutbildningen. Existensfilosofiska, pedagogiska och utbildningssociologiska teorier bildar vinklar som undervisning vid lärarprogrammet förstås utifrån. Utifrån dessa vinklar ställs frågor om det inte går det att tänka, vara och handla samtidigt: Är distans ett nödvändigt villkor för ett tänkande med mål att förstå? Befinner sig lärare i ett rum för framträdande till den grad att tänkandet drabbas? Texten föreslår slutligen former för lärares arbete som är ödmjuka men ändå anspråksfulla, krävande men samtidigt generöst tillåtande med förväntningar om det oanade. Ämneslärarundervisningen ska erbjuda rum för både pedagogiska avbrott och för ”disjunction”, möjligheter att jaga efter en flyende horisont parallellt med att skapa plats för ömsom handling ömsom tanke.