Teaching in culturally heterogeneous classrooms presents both opportunities and pedagogical challenges, particularly when addressing sensitive issues such as racism, gender, religion, and normative assumptions. This booklet, developed within the Erasmus project BAGSKOL with support from EUniWell, explores strategies for handling these complexities in teacher education. Drawing on contributions from students, researchers, and educators across five European universities, it provides resources to foster culturally responsive and reflective practices. The aim is to inspire dialogue, deepen understanding, and strengthen inclusive and democratic values within higher education and teacher training.

In various respects, policy has been enhanced to support lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals in Sweden, with improvements extending to the school environment and the circumstances faced by LGBT teachers. Nonetheless, research emphasises that legislative measures and policy documents serve as an initial step, necessitating supplementary comprehensive efforts to address negative attitudes and implement proactive measures within educational institutions. Research suggests that intensified initiatives focusing on norms and anti-oppressive education could improve the situation of LGBT teachers. This article delves into the educational endeavour to promote diversity by analysing written narratives provided by LGBT educators. The aim is to elucidate their contributions, using a second order perspective, to challenge heteronormativity and advancing educational objectives across three distinct functions of education. The LGBT teachers’ contributions move education forward by facilitating their colleagues’ learning about LGBT identities and thereby enhancing their colleagues’ acquisition of knowledge. Moreover, these educators pointed to facilitating students’ autonomy regarding LGBT identity by demonstrating the possibility for students to define independently and be acknowledged accordingly. To conclude, by analysing the LGBT teachers’ accounts of the heterosexual norm in the educational setting, it has been possible to discern empowering dynamics in otherwise overlooked situations.

Research has shown how rural schools contribute to rural life and how rural communities provide support to their local schools. This knowledge is crucial to sustain good-quality rural education and facilitate informed decisions to develop rural schools on their own terms. A common starting point in the current research is these schools’ risk of closure as well as other shortcomings, with economy being one of the most important. Broadening the outlook requires hearing various voices and considering other starting points. This project sets out to examine teachers’ and students’ understanding at their rural schools in Sweden by studying how their narratives shape rurality. Two rural schools were studied using an embedded single-case design to search for accounts of needs that were analyzed to identify corresponding educational approaches. The narratives suggest that rural schools describe an agile way of handling issues based on internal and external collaboration and that these measures seem to provide resilience for them.

The point of departure for this project is the importance of a sense of belonging to the contexts in which one is assigned to work, which in this case mainly refers to teachers’ sense of belonging to both their colleagues and their identity as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender or queer (LGBTQ). By analysing seven narratives, the text aims to contribute knowledge on how LGBTQ teachers experience breaking the hetero norm by focusing on how belonging is created. Two situations in the data stand out with respect to how belonging is reconstructed for the teachers. These are characterised by institutional alliance building to create clarity about belonging and inclusion. The data raises the question of whether a success factor for creating belonging is schools’ efforts to develop their institutional support regarding inclusion and LGBTQ awareness.

 In many ways, Sweden can be considered as an open community with respect to LGBT people. This notion includes the school setting and LGBT teachers’ situation, although research points out that their everyday situations yet not seem to fully reflect legislation and policy documents. However, the knowledge on trans people’s situation is limited in comparison to what we know about homo- and bisexual teachers’ situation. This text focuses on a narrative from a transgender, non-binary teacher named Kim. The research explores how heteronormative elements in the educational environment impact LGBT teachers and their professional interactions. Utilizing Yuval-Davis' framework on belonging, the analysis highlights the emotional attachments and political efforts that influence Kim’s experience. Kim's narrative reveals both challenges and positive interventions, illustrating the dynamics of belonging and exclusion within the school context. The principal's proactive measures to foster inclusivity are significant, demonstrating how leadership can mitigate negative heteronormative impacts and enhance a sense of belonging for LGBT staff. This study underscores the importance of inclusive practices in schools to support both teachers and students, aligning with Swedish educational policies that emphasize equality and non-discrimination. The findings suggest that promoting a supportive social environment is crucial for the credibility and effectiveness of education on sexuality, consent, and relationships.

When #MeToo was the most intensive, many girls, women and non-binary people’s voices were heard about being exposed. Knowledge on boys’ perspectives is important as they need to be involved to provide change. In research, boys’ and men’s voices are missing unless accounted for in settings associated with violence or harassment. This project contributes knowledge about schoolboys’ positionings with respect to masculine hegemony and sexual harassment. The analysis of pair interviews with 22 participating boys, aged 14–16, suggests three ways in which they relate to the topic. With respect to the discursive patterns labelled equal boy and let-go boy, gender issues are competently expressed and these two patterns convey knowledge about the power that the gender culture exercises. These two discursive patterns also suggest a proficient way of taking the gender order into account to fit in with the peer group. Nevertheless, the third pattern, labelled the dominant boy, suggests settings when a traditional masculinity culture exercises power. We conclude that discussions on situations where different discursive patterns are overt would facilitate a shift towards gender equal discourses with less risk of sexual harassment.

 This project sets out to examine how schools identify their assignment to make school to a place of equality. The research questions address how efforts to counteract discrimination regarding sexual orientation, gender and ethnicity are expressed as well as what power structures that can be identified in this respect. In total, 134 documents from compulsory school in municipalities in southern, mid and northern Sweden are collected. The documents are analyzed using Kumashiro´s (2002) four perspectives to conceptualize and work against oppression. The analysis shows different ways that schools address this assignment. Differences regarding what is identified as problems seems to build different approaches in how the work against oppression becomes visible. Double strategies are described in order to both strengthen and challenge the power structure that is prevalent between the norm carrying group and the group the schools identify as marginalized.