This paper presents a subproject that aims to examine inclusion and democratization in Nordic basic schools by adopting a life history approach. The focus is on the students of the 70’s and their narratives about school experiences as they talk about their memories and experiences from the standpoint of the present. We ask how the basic school spaces provided opportunities for pupils to engage in social relations with peers with diverse social backgrounds, and what the perceived long-term implications are of the relations established in school.

The theoretical framework of this study is grounded on the concepts of space, place and time, seeking analytical connections between physical objects, narrated experiences, bodies and places. Informed by Doreen Massey’s (2005) notion of throwntogetherness, we aim to describe the plurality of individual trajectories that come together in the construction of the school as a social and physical space. This enables us to explore how the different social backgrounds of pupils have merged in the construction of schools as meeting places in the past and how these encounters have further influenced the lives of the previous pupils.

Methodologically, this study sets out from interviews of informants who attended the partner schools of this project in the 70’s. The interviews include elements of walk-along interviews where informants are encouraged to interact with objects and photos that can set into play storytelling that informs the analysis of social relations, interactions, and material, cultural and historical constructions in which the life story is embedded. The interviews will be conducted in and near the school buildings and in the informants’ present homes or other places of their preference. 8-12 informants will be recruited and interviewed 2-3 times each. First interviews are carried out in Sweden and Finland in the fall 2022 and the spring 2023. The interviews will be analyzed in a framework of narrative analysis with a life history approach.

The life history approach will give access to the narrated memories and experiences of the school as a meeting place, the opportunities it provided to the informants and the difficulties they encountered. It also contributes with knowledge of what these lived experiences of the social relations established in the local school as a meeting place with its specific architectural divisions and spatial arrangements have meant for the students of the 70’s across the lifespan, providing socio-historical insight into the development of the Nordic basic school as a political and a educational project.

The aim is to analyse how policy decisions about assessment practices influence what it means to be a student in a performative system. We examine an occasion where a previously mandatory national test became optional, and how students took the opportunity to try to change the school's decision about this. The study is based on student group interviews in year 6, and uses Conversation Analysis to examine how they use discursive resources to co-construct fabrications of the ideal student. The findings show how neoliberal rhetoric has worked its way into the students' everyday lives, and how they display a deep knowledge about how to use arguments that work inside the system. We argue that there is a need for more knowledge about contemporary education policies from a student perspective.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore what conversation analysis has to offer when analysing a series of life story interviews aiming to capture how reading and texts are used in a rural working-class man’s identity construction.

Design/methodology/approach

The conversation analysis methodology with its explicit focus on embodied social action, activity and conduct in interaction is integrated with a life story approach when analysing and describing the identity constructing processes that take place in life story interview settings.

Findings

Through a close and detailed analysis of the interaction between interviewer and interviewee, and by focusing and highlighting the phenomena and identities that are oriented to in the face-to-face interaction here and now (and in relation to there and then), descriptions of the complex and dynamic identity constructing processes that are set into play in the life story interview are possible.

Research limitations/implications

It is argued that the approach has a lot to offer when approaching life story data, and thus is a method that can increase the transparency in life story interview research.

Originality/value

The paper explores the intersection of what is often seen as diametrically opposed forms of analysis: conversation analysis and narrative inquiry.

This article revolves around the educational policy introduced in Swedish schools that has extended national testing to younger pupils. The policy is intended to support equal assessment and grading. With the exception of short-term preparations for the tests focused on here, the testing routines are regulated by the state. The paper aims to examine how the policy of national testing in grade six is enacted in different school contexts from a pupil’s point of view, and how this affects equivalence in school. A narrative analysis was conducted of pupils’ (n = 150) stories about preparing for national tests in 11 schools. Three forms of enactments were distinguished according to how responsibility for test preparations was allocated in each school. In some schools, teachers invited the pupils systematically to the translation process. In other schools, pupils were given most of the responsibility for preparation and were left alone as actors vis-a-vis the policy. Finally, in schools that applied ad hoc preparations, the pupils’ position as actors became less secure and more multifaceted. This variety regarding the pupils’ test preparations in school stress that the different enactments of this policy of national testing have implications for the interpretation of equivalence in school.

In the majority of the research on boys’ and young men’s relation to reading, it is argued that boys and young men read too little, read poorly and in all the wrong ways. However, few studies focus on how boys and young men read the texts they do encounter. In particular, there is a lack of research on young men of workingclass background, whose relationship to reading is stressed as particularly problematic in many studies. In this article, we approach the reader histories of three young working-class men from a life story perspective, on the basis of a broad definition of text and reading, to capture how reading and texts are used in their identity construction. Our analysis shows that the young men engage in reading in different ways, from listening to audio books and reading aloud to watching films. We argue that our approach makes it possible to re-envision working-class men as readers who, among other things, use reading to construct softer masculinities, thus challenging the dominant narrative of workingclass masculinity and working-class men’s relationship to reading and texts.