The aim of this collaborative project with Swedish school-age educare (SAEC) teachers was to understand and develop teaching, focusing on games, physical activities, and outdoor excursions. Children's insufficient physical activity is a societal problem, and because most Swedish students age 6 to 9 are enrolled in SAEC, this can be a critical educational arena. The concept of powerful knowledge is used to emphasize knowledge that can help students handle contemporary and future challenges, operationalized here by using a typology of roles students are invited to enter by doing activities. The findings show that some roles are more frequent than others, often connected to voluntariness, free time, and teachers' relational approach. The findings also show that in the transformation of teaching, the how question seem more of a dilemma to the SAEC teachers than the what and why questions. We argue that SAEC teaching offers great possibilities to combine different student roles in a way that is more likely to connect knowledge about games, physical activities, and outdoor excursions to their own or others' lives and society. At the same time, teachers experience great challenges in how to teach in a way that meets the specific goals of SAEC education.

Målsättningen med Innebandy Flex är att sänka trösklarna och öka tillgängligheten för att skapa ett livslångt intresse för innebandy. Syftet med rapporten var att undersöka om Innebandy Flex med förenklade regler och mer flexibla träningsformer kan bidra till en inkluderande och tillgänglig idrottsaktivitet. Rapporten presenterar resultat från en studie som undersökt Innebandy Flex inom skola och förening.

Deltagarna som ingick i undersökningen var indelade i två urvalsgrupper. Den ena urvalsgruppen var låg- och mellanstadieelever och lärare på en grundskola i Värmland. Den andra urvalsgruppen var spelare och ledare som var aktiva i en innebandyförening i Värmland där de spelar Innebandy Flex. För att förstå relationen mellan deltagarnas upplevelser och spelets faktiska situationer användes fokusgruppsintervjuer och videoobservationer. Därutöver gjordes en individuell intervju med en lärare och en gemensam intervju med föreningens sportchef och Innebandy Flex-ansvarig.

Innebandy Flex gav spelarna mer tid med bollen, vilket underlättade bollkontroll och delaktighet, särskilt för nybörjare. Men krävde samtidigt spelförståelse för att utnyttjas fullt ut. Spelet präglades av lägre tempo och mindre fysisk kontakt än traditionell innebandy. Det skapade ett mer strukturerat och organiserat spel men kunde bidra till minskad rörelse och intensitet.

Innebandy Flex i föreningen framstod som en lågtröskelverksamhet som möjliggjorde deltagande oavsett ålder, erfarenhet eller fysisk nivå. Den kravlösa strukturen, där spelare kunde komma och gå utan närvarokrav eller ekonomiska krav, ökade tillgängligheten för att spela innebandy.  Resultatet visade att implementeringen av Innebandy Flex i föreningen krävde att föreningens ledning såg värdet av verksamheten och hade en vilja att det skulle vara en del av den ordinarie verksamheten. Det krävde att föreningen var tydlig med och hade uthållighet i grundkonceptet om flexibilitet, låga trösklar och ett inkluderande förhållningssätt så att personer med varierande erfarenhet av innebandy kunde delta.

Resultatet visade att Innebandy Flex kan vara en inkluderande och anpassad idrottsaktivitet i skolan. När elever ges ökat tidsutrymme och under spelet, förbättras deras upplevelse av kontroll och kompetens, vilket i sin tur kan främja både engagemang och upplevd kompetens. För att eleverna ska förstå och kunna tillämpa Innebandy Flex bör det sker vid flera tillfällen. Genom att organisera undervisningen i en serie lektioner kan eleverna lära sig och skapa ett intresse för att spela innebandy. För att Innebandy Flex ska fungera är det viktigt att tänka på elevernas erfarenhet av innebandy. Därför är det viktigt att justera spelets svårighetsgrad baserat på gruppens behov och förmåga.

Vad rapporten visar är att när olika aktörer inom idrotten delar en gemensam vision är alternativa och nya former av idrott möjlig. Det är inte spelarna som behöver förändras utan spelet och organisationen förändras för att tillgängliggöra idrotten för fler. Det är en strategi som kan nå fler än att erbjuda mer av samma för att locka de som redan valt bort eller valts bort i idrotten. Med flexibla regler och flexibel organisation kan innebandy göras tillgänglig för fler genom Innebandy Flex.

Drawing from a practice-oriented research project, this article explores and evaluates alternative methods for incorporating physical activity in schools, particularly within Swedish SAECs. By presenting various teaching examples, the article demonstrates how movement and physical activity can be woven into the school setting, emphasising that movement is not solely about promoting positive health effects through its intensity, duration, and frequency. The data in this study consist of focus group interviews with pupils involved in a practice-oriented research project in SAECs, which integrates movement and stimulates pupils to develop and invest in abilities related to the local community. The pupils' shared narrative described meaningful movement experiences that created opportunities to explore, collaborate, and solve various challenges. In this study, physical activity became understandable when pupils used their bodies to climb to the top of the church tower or cycle to the local heritage centre. This sense of engagement deepened as manageability was facilitated by allowing pupils to personally explore the characteristics and possibilities of the environments they encountered, as well as their own bodies, through movement. Through the integration of movement, the meaningfulness of the activities was not dependent on pupils' preferences for sports. The meaningfulness of the movements was instead linked to the exploration of the places that they visited. What emerges are the opportunities available through integrating physical activity into the school environment. The activities facilitated movement and provided pupils with experiences that they did not get in the classroom or traditional sports settings. Movement integration in after-school programmes and schools thus has the potential to fundamentally change and develop pupils in a broader sense than just losing weight or improving fitness, instead focusing on the body's importance in creating context, meaning, and learning.

Societal changes during the last few decades have given rise to the expansion of extended systems in nations across the world. Despite differences regarding age groups and relations to compulsory school, the task of extended education is primarily to provide participants with possibilities to learn general or specific content and foster their' socioemotional and academic development and learning. In Sweden, the great majority of the younger pupils attend extended education in terms of the school-age educare centres (SAEC), where they meet teaching connected to four different central content defined in the curricula, of which one relates to games, physical activities and outdoor excursions. This study aims to explore and understand how outdoor excursions in school-age educare can be understood in terms of human practising. Based on observations and the philosophy of human practising four themes are discussed: meaningful challenges, content to learn, standards of excellence and time.

Anthropogenic climate change has profound effects globally. If the Anthropocene signifies the decline of nature as we once knew it, how might this transformation affect sporting activities conducted in natural environments? This scenario necessitates a renegotiation not only of the future of sports but also of humanity's shared history and the individual emotions and identities associated with sports. Ultimately, changes in nature due to climate change shape sports culture and redefine the understanding of the role sports mean to us. Drawing on a sociological and cultural-geographical perspective on place and belonging, this paper explores how an approach centred on the relationship between the physical environment, symbolic representation, and human emotions can offer new insights into sports in the Anthropocene.

Background

The development of youths physical activity practices occurs through a complex interplay of social, cultural, and geographical factors. Previous research highlights the dual role of sport in rural communities, where it fosters social belonging and identity but also reinforces exclusion and traditional ideals.AimThis study examines how embodied socialization occurs among youth in a depopulation-affected rural environment in Sweden. Research questions were: What type of sporting body is shaped by growing up in a rural environment? Which activities contribute to the creation of this body?

Method:

This study draws on Elders socialization theory, where a places physical and sociocultural traits, along with parents, institutions, and socio-historical events, shape life trajectories. Embodied socialization was, thus, examined in relation to the areas social environment as well as rural culture, traditions, and economic decline.A qualitative approach was used, employing retrospective biographical interviews with six young individuals (girls=3). Each participant was interviewed individually on two occasions to allow for in-depth analysis. Data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis.

Results

Three themes were produced from the analysis: ‘Physical activities run in the family’ highlights how generationally transmitted activities shape young peoples understanding of desirable physical activity and bodies. The theme “Traditions in social institutions” illustrates how schools and local community organizations reproduce preferences for nature-based activities such as hunting, fishing, cross-country skiing, biathlon, alpine skiing, and running. The third theme, “New sports – same ideals”, reveals how modern fitness activities, such as gym training, becoming more popular, align with traditional ideals of a healthy, strong, and resilient body, making them accepted within the local community.

Discussion

The results illustrate how family and community institutions reinforce traditional bodily ideals, with the rural environment and nature playing a central role. This particular rural area is oriented towards forestry, hunting, and fishing rather than farming, which is reflected in the types of bodily ideals that emerge in the narratives of young people. Nostalgia is also evident in the older generation’s efforts to encourage youth to continue with traditional sports such as biathlon, ski jumping, and cross-country skiing. This nostalgia, which sustains traditional values in the shaping of bodies, can be understood as a response to societal restructuring and the decline of rural communities. A potential consequence is the limitation of opportunities for youth to explore new movement identities beyond traditionally valued physical activities.

In this chapter, we discuss masculinity in relation to Swedish sports for children with refugee backgrounds. Specifically, we explore how the structure of sports shapes the distinct conditions for their athletic endeavours, including the traits associated with masculinity, which are perceived favourably in sports because they align with the physical and mental norms of male athletes, thereby reinforcing hegemonic masculinity. Moreover, we aim to show that perspectives valorising masculinity can frame children with refugee backgrounds as passive athletes who lack agency. Thus, we discuss two refinements of inclusivity in sports for children with refugee backgrounds in terms of (a) stereotyped notions of gender and refugees and (b) substantial links between desired masculinity and expectations of a perfect match with the Swedish sports system.