This article adds to the growing body of research on educational governance in times of crisis by examining primary and lower secondary teachers’ post-pandemic reflections across the five Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden). Unlike previous studies that focus on individual national responses or limited cross-country comparisons, this study offers an exploration of Nordic teachers’ experiences, emphasizing their reflections on trust, support, and uncertainty in relation to diverse government strategies and educational practices during the Covid-19 pandemic (2020–2022). Drawing on both survey data and qualitative insights, the article sheds light on teachers’ experiences of educational continuity and institutional support. The analysis is framed by the Nordic countries’ varied responses to the ‘wicked problem’ posed by children who, while typically exhibiting mild symptoms, represented a potential transmission risk due to high-density classroom environments. By highlighting how teachers in culturally and politically similar nations navigated a common crisis in distinct ways, the study offers a nuanced perspective that may inform future crisis-management strategies in education.

This study investigates how different narrative interview methods capture young people’s aspirations. Based on a theoretical conceptualization of aspirations, we argue that methods need to capture the young people’s future and present selves, their moral meanings or normative significance of these selves, their lived experiences and social contexts, as well as the multidimensionality and dynamic aspects of their aspirations. The study is based on 75 individual interviews with 25 young people from Finland, Norway, Iceland, Sweden, and Denmark, conducted over three rounds. The findings reveal that young people shared varied aspects of their aspirations when using different interview approaches. While some methods (timeline interviews and future script interviews) were particularly useful for capturing the young people’s present selves, lived experiences, and social contexts, other methods (inquiry-based interviews) succeeded in addressing students’ future selves and their moral meanings and the normative significance of these selves, and finally, repeated motivational quantifications captured the multidimensionality and dynamic aspects of their aspirations. The study underscores the benefits of a multi-method approach and longitudinal design in capturing young people’s aspirations and highlights how research collaboration is useful when striving towards consistency in cross-national studies and for continuously refining methods and approaches to optimize comprehensions.

Swedish schools offer two parallel subjects for the national majority language: Swedish (SWE) and Swedish as a second language (SSL). Several reports have shown disparities across schools in the country concerning the organisation of Swedish instruction for students with first languages other than Swedish. As headteachers are responsible for the organisation and quality of the instruction, this article aims to study headteachers' descriptions of providing Swedish instruction to second-language students in anticipation of the introduction of new compulsory school curricula (Lgr22) with revised syllabi. By applying theories of policy enactment, the study examines factors enabling or hindering the enactment and headteachers' interpretation of the new syllabi for SWE and SSL. Interviews were conducted with nine compulsory headteachers during the preparations for the new curriculum. The preparation for these curricula highlighted a range of problems within the school subject of SSL and headteachers had already taken measures to address certain shortcomings during the preparatory work. These measures may potentially contribute to increased quality and equity for students. The results of the study provide insights into the challenges and opportunities that headteachers experience in relation to the enactment of the syllabi, as well as shed light on the challenges associated with SSL.

The aim of this study is to investigate multilingual students’ identity constructions in their participation in different digital literacy practices. Theoretically, we depart from a translanguaging perspective and a social understanding of literacy from the field of New Literacy Studies. The data was constructed through qualitative interviews with eleven multilingual students in Sweden, and analysed through positioning analysis. The results show that the students use their multilingual repertoires in a variety of digital contexts for entertainment, learning, and socialising purposes. From the positioning analysis, three recurring themes emerged: positionings in relation to i. their heritage, ii. notions of ‘Swedishness”, and iii. transcultural identities. However, there is a range of variations in students’ approaches to their linguistic repertoires, which is further discussed in terms of identity constructions, as well as what teachers in monolingual schools settings can learn from the students’ everyday digital literacy practices and identity processes.

This study addresses normative orientations to smartphone use in Swedish upper-secondary classrooms. We present a Nexus Analysis from a policy enactment perspective of a material comprising ethnographic interviews, classroom video observations, and smartphone screen capture, investigating how a cultural conception of the smartphone as a source of disturbance is negotiated in discursive and embodied social action. Three groups of policy actors – head teachers, teachers, and students – balance competing agendas such as digitalization strategies, popular media narratives, and student autonomy and peer relationship maintenance. There is a tension between orientations to the smartphone as a legitimate resource for socialization and learning in the digitalized classroom, but also as an exception to desired digitalization – a potential threat to the social and disciplinary order of the classroom. Notably, the students display considerable awareness of such tensions, in reflective comments made in interviews and in displayed strategies for managing their smartphones in class.

Det saknas forskning och nationell reglering om hur nybörjarsvenska ska bedrivas i svensk grundskola. Kursplanen i skolämnet svenska som andraspråk (sva) som finns idag riktas alltså inte mot grundläggande sva. I den här artikeln undersöks hur lärare i svenska som andraspråk legitimerar/delegitimerar sin skolas organisering av grundläggande sva. Studiens data består av tio transkriberade intervjuer som har analyserats med hjälp av van Leeuwens (2008) legitimeringsbegrepp. Resultaten bekräftar att organiseringen av grundläggande sva är decentraliserad. Lärarna legitimerar sin skolas organisation (eller brist på organisation) genom moralisk värdering med hänvisning till elevernas behov. Eftersom lärarna uttrycker sig som experter på vad nyanlända behöver, och hur deras behov kan tillgodoses, klassificeras denna legitimering också som personlig auktorisation. De lärare som arbetar i skolor som har en organiserad undervisning i grundläggande sva uttrycker i högre grad att nyanlända behöver systematiskt stöd i sin grundläggande andraspråksutveckling (diskursen separering med fokus på grundläggande andraspråksutveckling). De lärare som arbetar på skolor som saknar en organiserad undervisning i grundläggande sva framhåller istället att nyanlända elever generellt gynnas av att inkluderas i ordinarie sva/sve-undervisning men att lärarna kan behöva göra vissa anpassningar (diskursen inkludering med vissa anpassningar). Resultatet visar också att grundläggande sva legitimeras/delegitimeras genom rationalisering och företrädesvis uttrycks av de lärare som saknar en organiserad undervisning i grundläggande sva. Lärarna hänvisar i de fallen till bristande resurser (den ekonomiska diskursen). Överlag framkommer att de intervjuade sva-lärarna ser sig själva som centrala aktörer som tar ansvar för organiseringen av nyanländas utbildning.