School has been identified as a suitable arena for health promotion and teachers are highlighted as crucial for student health. In Sweden, where the study is set, teachers are tasked with school health promotion in national legislative and policy documents. However, research shows that student health can be perceived as situated outside the teacher professional identity and Swedish teachers are traditionally not educated in health. This paper presents findings from a qualitative study conducted in two Swedish high schools. The aim is to examine the students’ perspective of the role of the teacher in working with student health. Interviews with 34 students aged 16–19 years were carried out. Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis with theoretical underpinnings from pragmatism and symbolic interactionism. This approach identified four dominating roles for teachers: 1) a creator of joyful learning, 2) a creator of a sense of control, 3) a spreader of happiness, and 4) a creator of feeling valued. This study shows that the role of the teacher in working with student health is in acting, not in being, and that this role is constantly (re)created through interaction. The student perspective of the role of the teacher in working with student health has close similarities to the role of the teacher in inclusive teaching, merging relational competence with didactic skill. In conclusion, we argue that developing teachers’ didactic as well as relational competency, along with understanding competence within a pragmatic and symbolic interactionist theoretical framework, could improve student health practices. 

Background: Access to higher education in rural areas has been a recurring theme of debates and government inquiries in many countries in recent decades. Previous research is relatively unequivocal regarding the importance of higher education for regional or national development, identifying the local presence of highly educated individuals in a municipality as crucial for its prosperity and development.

Purpose: This study aims to contribute to the development of scientific knowledge regarding linguistic discursive representations by rurally located prospective university students in Sweden, of the conditions for further study at university level.

Method: A total of 23 qualitative interviews and/or discussion groups were held with 34 prospective university students in three rural municipalities in Sweden. Data were collected and analysed to answer the research question: How do prospective university students in rural areas describe the conditions for further study at the university level

Findings: Prospective university students created and reproduced a series of linguistic representations in two discursive categories: (1) proximity/distance to study; and (2) education offerings. In the first category, narratives related to the physical distance to study; commuting by public transport or private car; and moving to the home city of a higher education institution. In the second category, narratives focused around the importance of location; remote learning; and doubts about pursuing higher education and/or making the right choice.

Conclusion: Linguistic representations in both categories were tense, balancing depictions of conflict and consensus. This balancing act represents a linguistic means of creating and re-creating cohesion, involvement, integration, participation, unity, and normality in the discourse and can be interpreted as a form of social pedagogical recognition that is important for the individual’s success in the context that the narratives reflect.

I den här studien undersöks det emotionella lönearbete som gymnasiepersonal i Sverige upplever i sitt arbete med elever som använder alkohol eller droger. Studien utgår från 36 intervjuer med personal från gymnasieskolor om hur de upplever motstridiga krav gällande arbetsuppgifterna och emotionellt engagemang: å ena sidan förväntas de ge emotionellt stöd till elever och säkerställa en god utbildningsmiljö, och å andra sidan förväntas de agera informella poliser eller vårdare för elever som brukar droger eller alkohol. Studien visar att personalens arbetsuppgifter överstiger kraven som är förknippade med en traditionell skolmiljö och att deras roll är en del av en samhällelig social kontroll som utövas utanför rättssystemet. Personalens brottspreventiva roll undersöks i samband med rollkonflikt, rollambivalens, omsorg, samt hög arbetsbelastning och emotionellt utmanande situationer.

This article aimed to provide new knowledge about ethical issues in doctoral supervision by analysing conflicts and roles that are assumed and acted out in supervision practice. This analysis was based on a literature review of various studies from the field of educational sciences, social pedagogy, doctoral supervision in theory and practice, and theories and practice of teaching and learning. The literature review identified several ethical issues relevant to doctoral supervision. These issues mostly arose from disappointed expectations, for instance, in the supervisor’s or doctoral student’s knowledge/competence, cultural viewpoint, roles, participation, language proficiency, and criticism/feedback. This analysis found that conflicts and the roles adopted and acted out during a supervision situation were not static – multiple roles could be assumed simultaneously, and the roles frequently changed. These changes provided opportunities to prevent or remedy ethical issues and conflicts in supervision. Changes could also lead to the creation and replication of a stable relationship between the doctoral student and supervisor. To prevent ethical issues and conflicts, the relationship between a doctoral student and a supervisor should be characterised by mutual respect, responsibility, integrity, and recognition. These components were needed to: (1) create the conditions for successful knowledge development in supervision, (2) complete a third-cycle education programme, (3) qualify the doctoral student to hold a doctoral degree, and (4) prevent ethical issues and conflicts connected with doctoral student supervision, through the constructive alignment of various elements in the third-cycle programme. 

The aim is to contribute to the development of scientific knowledge regarding linguistic discursive representations by future university students of conditions for further study at the university level. Qualitative interviews were collected and analysed to answer the research question, How do future university students in rural areas describe the conditions for further studies at the university level? Their descriptions create and reproduce a series of significant linguistic representations in two discursive categories: proximity/distance to studies and education offerings. Proximity and distance involved analysed narratives regarding physical distance to studies, commuting by public transport or private car, and moving to the home city of a higher education institution. The category of education offerings involved narratives around the importance of location in education, remote learning, and doubts about pursuing higher education/higher education choices. Linguistic representations in both categories were performed as tense and linguistically balanced between depicted conflict and consensus. This balancing act represents a linguistic means of creating and re-creating cohesion, involvement, integration, participation, unity, and normality in the discourse and can be interpreted as a form of social pedagogical recognition that is important for the actor’s success in the context that the narratives reflect.

The aim is to contribute to the development of scientific knowledge regarding discursive representations by future university students of conditions for further study at the university level. Qualitative interviews were collected and analysed to answer the research question, How do future university students in rural areas describe the conditions for further studies at the university level? Their descriptions create and reproduce a series of significant representations in two discursive categories: proximity/distance to studies and education offerings. Proximity and distance involved analysed narratives regarding physical distance to studies, commuting by public transport or private car, and moving to the home city of a higher education institution. The category of education offerings involved narratives around the importance of location in education, remote learning, and doubts about pursuing higher education/higher education choices. Representations in both categories were performed as tense and balanced between depicted conflict and consensus. This balancing act represents a means of creating and re-creating cohesion, involvement, integration, participation, unity, and normality in the discourse and can be interpreted as a form of social pedagogical recognition that is important for the actor’s success in the context that the narratives reflect.

Previous research is unequivocal regarding higher education’s importance for regional or national development, and the local presence of highly educated individuals in a municipality is crucial for its prosperity and development. The study aim is to increase understanding of representational perceptions of future university students in rural areas regarding university studies. Qualitative interviews create and reproduce meaningful representational perceptions, rendering a private dimension in stories about family and friends and an academic dimension in stories about the academic environment and research. Representational perceptions in both dimensions are dramatized as an ethno-methodological balance between verbal conflicting interests and downplaying these interests, producing and reproducing involvement, community, fusion, consensus, and participation in the narrative, rather than a verbal split. This balance reflects social pedagogical recognition relevant to their interest and success in university studies.

The aim is to increase understanding of representational perceptions of future university students in rural areas regarding university studies. Qualitative interviews create and reproduce meaningful representational perceptions, rendering a private dimension in stories about family and friends and anacademic dimension in stories about the academic environment and research. Representational perceptions in both dimensions are dramatized as an ethno-methodological balance between verbal conflicting interests and downplaying these interests, producing and reproducing involvement ,community, fusion, consensus, and participation in the narrative, rather than a verbal split. This balance reflects social pedagogical recognition relevant to their interest in university studies.

The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992–1995) is the historic background of this paper, as produced in the documents presented during international and national trials concerning war crimes committed during this period. A literature review forms the analytical basis and contains various empirical and theoretical studies from the fields of philosophy, war sociology, and social epistemology. The aim of this paper is to analyse the normative orientations and social values that affect (1) the feelings of moral and social understanding (or non-understanding) after the genocide and the joint criminal enterprise in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the context of legitimizing transitional capitalism, (2) the actions of individuals, organizations, and states as well as the entire social community in the post-war society, and (3) the process of reconciliation and trust in post-war society. The analysis makes evident the usual tendency in a post-war society to deify one’s own ethnic (religious) group, while the consequence of such false self-infatuation with “our” collective is that the “other” that is not ours becomes undesirable. It must be, as evidence of patriotism and unconditional emotional loyalty to “our holy issue”, wiped out for good. Ethnic cleansings, joint criminal enterprises, and genocides thus become a normal means of ethnopolitical—i.e. biopolitical—“management of differences”. At the same time, ethnocorruption and ethnobanditry can erroneously be qualified as the least transparent and, for social and criminological research, the most difficult phenomena (or manifestations) of social pathology. The difficulty lies in the fact that ethnocorruption and ethnobanditry are in many respects related and intertwined with the simultaneous institutional and organizational processes of regulating (or not regulating) the economic and political globalization and transfer of ownership during the transition from socialist self-management to a new type of economy.

This article aims to contribute a social pedagogical perspective of high school teachers’ descriptions of working with student health in their teaching practice in Sweden. Ten high school teachers were interviewed. The teachers considered their student health work as consisting of two main aspects: creating a good relationship and helping the students to succeed. These aspects are implicitly and explicitly described as comprising the recognition of the actors’ social and pedagogical identities. This study shows that social pedagogical recognition is significant for common success in school practice in relation to student health work. Clarifying the teachers’ responsibility and competence in student health work and strengthening teachers in their identity as health promoters could improve student health practice.