This paper examines a pilot project in a major Swedish municipality, "Ourtown," where the testing of a crime-preventive model that works according to early interventions, and by collaboration, resulted in challenges for the organizations involved. The crime preventive model is inspired by GIRFEC and aimed at children and youth aged 0-15. Participating organizations were preschool, primary school, social services and child psychiatry. Based on ethnographic material, the paper explores how collaboration is constructed through meeting interactions involving project documents. The significance of boundary work, conflicts, and the role of documents is highlighted asboth sacred and boundary objects in fostering or hindering collaboration. Findings reveal that while organizational agreements and formal meetings provide a framework, successful collaboration is dynamically built through everyday interactions, including discursive exchanges and joint efforts. This underscores the importance of understanding cultural differences in participating organizations and the impact of cocreation processes on collaboration.

The purpose of this study is to gain new knowledge about practical work with children and young people (aged 0-15) who are at risk of social exclusion and criminality. The study explores how professional actors within preventive work practice and negotiatetheir scope for action when confronted with complex social situations. The particular focus is on how gut feeling (“magkänsla” in Swedish) influences assessments and how certain children and young people become visible or invisible in these situations. The empirical material for the study was collected in connection with a pilot project in a big Swedish city (“Ourtown”) through participant observations at 15 project meetings, qualitative interviews with seven staff members, and documents produced within the project. The study’s analysis and interpretation of the collected material show that professionals’ “gut feeling” is central to identifying and supporting children and young people at risk. However, subjective assessments and organisational constraints simultaneously render some children and young people invisible. Gut feeling functions as a tool for managing uncertainty and prioritising interventions, while policy andeveryday practice sometimes diverge. For practice, this implies that organisational structures, coordination, and shared assessment frameworks need to support professionals’ judgement-based assessments to reduce the risk of children and young people becoming invisible. The study also demonstrates that ethnographic methods are particularly useful for making visible the everyday assessments that shape children’s and young people’s access to support, thereby opening possibilities for further research on inclusive and effective preventive strategies.

This study explores how everyday interactions in institutional care settings shape identity formation and social inclusion among marginalised youth. Based on ethnographic data, including interviews, observations, and institutional documents from Swedish special youth homes, the analysis combines social pedagogical, interactionist, ethnomethodological, and intersectional perspectives. Narratives from unaccompanied refugees and young people with drug- and crime-related challenges reveal how experiences of trauma, stigmatisation, and contested professional roles intersect to influence self-representation and integration. While some institutional actors offer crucial support, others contribute to exclusion through power-laden practices. A multi-level analysis highlights how explicit conflicts and underlying dynamics shape professional roles and future outcomes. These findings underscore the need for empathetic, inclusive collaboration and contribute to a research-oriented social pedagogy that accounts for identity, power, and cultural context.

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.