The aim with the present study was to investigate bystander actions in bullying situations as well as reasons behind these actions as they are articulated by Swedish students from fourth to seventh grade. Forty-three semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with students. Qualitative analysis of data was performed by methods from grounded theory. The analysis of the student voices of being a bystander in bullying reveals a complexity in which different definition-of-situation processes are evoked (a) relations (friends and social hierarchy), (b) defining seriousness, (c) victim's contribution to the situation, (d) social roles and intervention responsibilities, and (e) distressing emotions. There are often conflicted motives in how to act as a bystander, which could evoke moral distress among the students.Our analysis is unique in that it introduces the concept of moral distress as a process that has to be considered in order to better understand bystander actions among children The findings also indicate bystander reactions that could be associated with moral disengagement, such as not perceiving a moral obligation to intervene if the victim is defined as a non-friend ('none of my business'), protecting the friendship with the bully, and blaming the victim.

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This study examined the extent to which students fully embrace sloyd activities. Sloyd is a form of adventurous education in Sweden where school students take more control of the content and methods of learning as part of their weekly education. Hands on activities are often part of the adventure and it sometimes takes place outdoors. The study focused on two sloyd groups, one led by their school teacher in school time and one group who volunteered for sloyd out of school hours. Students in the school context were expected to follow the sloyd teacher's instructions and they were supposed to choose between an individual task or a group assignment at the beginning of the semester. The youngsters in the sloyd club context were expected to manage the sloyd activities themselves as and when they attended the voluntary sessions. That children and young people embrace sloyd is more or less taken for granted, whether it is part of students' school activities or youngsters' spare time activities. However, we found there was a variation in the extent to which students embraced sloyd from both the class based and voluntary groups. The class-based students' willingness to embrace sloyd depended on whether their activity assigned to them by the teacher was interesting to them. Although the out of school students voluntarily chose their activity, some of them still declined to embrace fully the sloyd approach due to a general lack of interest in the activities. Our conclusion is that sloyd leaders or facilitators need to consider individual differences to ensure sloyd is fully embraced.

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Gender and Education549 are likely to be crucial factors affecting the different routes that men and women take in care work including the rewards they seek and the compensation they receive. They insist that pathways into management need to become less gendered through the increased provision of professional training leading to positions that are appropriately financially rewarded and open to women at all stages in their life-course.The book offers an important critique of popular notions about 'work-life balance', a concept that implies that acquiring some balance between work and family life is manageable and that the responsibility and power to do so is vested in the individual worker. Driving home the point that work and family are rarely mutually exclusive domains, particularly for women, the findings offered here suggest that the conditions of work are likely the most important factors affecting the ways that people manage the work-family interface. Although the study finds some evidence of family-friendly provisions, interviews with managers highlight how multiple constraints and pressures often block their efforts to implement policies to support the family lives of front-line workers. A worrisome picture emerges as workers describe the particularly demanding and stressful nature of childcare work along with their futile attempts at leaving responsibilities and feelings behind at the end of a working day. Indeed for some, especially foster carers, the work day never ends. The authors conclude that the nature of childcare work demands more from policies and practices than merely the rhetoric of work-life balance. They call for greater recognition of this reality along with investments in necessary supports for workers.The overriding message to be taken from Coming to Care is that the child care workforce is largely made up of people who are strongly committed to working with vulnerable children and to helping improve their lives. Accounts of workers reveal high levels of enjoyment and satisfaction from the nature of the work, but also, more often than not, a level of dissatisfaction with at least some of the conditions under which the work is carried out. The results of the study outlined in this book underline how workforce reform in children's services must encompass expanded gender-sensitive training and supports along with appropriate financial rewards and improved working conditions in order to ensure a more stable workforce in the future. Fit to teach: same-sex desire, gender, and school work in the twentieth century, by Jackie M. Blount, New York, State University of New York Press, 2005, ix +229 pp., $22.95 (hardback), ISBN 0-7914-6267-6This book landed on my desk at a time when results from a large Swedish research project called Beneath the Surface were about to fade away from the public mind. At the same time new study material, directed to help homosexual, bisexual and transsexual pupils and teachers, distributed from the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education, was presented and discussed...

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Background: Learning to manage a classroom is a difficult but important part of teacher education. Earlier research on simulations for learning classroom management has highlighted the difficulty of supporting reflection. Purpose: This case study explores and evaluates the design of a simulation for student teachers' reflection on classroom management. Design: The design process resulted in the scenario-based SIMPROV simulation, which was made in the form of a hypermedia radio theatre that students go through in pairs or triads. Authoritarian, authoritative, democratic, and compliant leadership styles were built into the choices student teachers made. Evaluation: The simulation was evaluated in two courses where the participants' level of reflection and perceived knowledge improvement was measured using a questionnaire. Forty-three first-year student teachers, 48 third-year student teachers, and 38 of the student teachers' mentors participated in the evaluation. Results: The results indicate that participants engaged in reflection and understanding to a high degree, and only to a low degree in critical reflection or habitual action. Conclusions: The conclusions are that the scenario-based simulation designed as a hypermedia radio theatre supported knowledge improvement, understanding, and reflection and that social interaction during and after simulation sessions was an important feature.

Linköpings universitet har deltagit i ULF, en nationell försöksverksamhet om praktiknära skolforskning. ULF står för utveckling, lärande och forskning och inleddes med en nationell försöksperiod från 2017 till 2021. Under försöksperioden har landets 25 deltagande lärosäten varit indelade i fyra noder. De olika noderna har letts av Karlstad, Göteborg. Umeå och Malmö universitet. Linköpings universitet (LiU) har, tillsammans med Högskolan i Halmstad, Högskolan väst och Karlstad universitet (KaU), ingått i Karlstad-noden. De två första åren (2017-2018) fördelades inte ULF-medlen ut till de ingående universiteten i noden, utan enbart Karlstad utprovade då olika modeller för praktiknära forskning. Från och med 2019 har medlen fördelats till alla lärosäten i noden. Det innebär att arbetet med ULF vid Linköpings universitet har på gått mellan 2019 och 2021, det vill säga i tre år. Mellan 2022 och 2024 kommer en ny försöksperiod att genomföras. Den kommer att ha samma organisatoriska uppdelning i noder som tidigare. Därefter genomförs förändringar avseende nodindelningen och även avseende andra aspekter av ULF. Dessa baseras på de erfarenheter som görs under de båda försöksperioderna. I denna rapport redovisas samlade erfarenheter av den första försöksperioden. Dessutom ges projektspecifika beskrivningar av de praktiknära forskningsprojekt som har genomförts eller håller på att genomföras inom ramen för ULF under åren 2019-2021. Rapporten är skriven av projektledare Anja Thorsten.