The Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet, VR), has funded the National Graduate School in Visual Arts and Sloyd Education, FoBoS) (Sw. Nationella forskarskolan i bildpedagogik och slöjdpedagogik). This graduate school is a collaboration between Gothenburg University, Stockholm University and Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design. The work with the Graduate school began in 2019 and the first PhD students for Degree of Licentiate started in January 2020. FoBoS have contributed to practice-based research and quality in higher education in the subjects Visual Art and Sloyd Education and in this way contributed to establishing the subjects on postgraduate level by producing new researchers.

There is an urgent need to do more research in Sloyd and Visual Arts Education in Sweden. The current situation in these minor school subjects is limited. Lack of research programs as well as doctoral positions means that these studies seldom can build an autonomous research environment with advisors which can support the subject’s specific inquiries, theories and methods. There is also a lack of educators in Swedish universities in subject didactics in general (The Research Council, 2023).

FoBoS has been part of the strategic investment in graduate schools that has been important for “the supply of skills and to further strengthen the field of educational science as well as the scientific basis of teacher education and the school” (The Research Council, 2023 p. 6). Secure resources for career paths for new researchers and building excellent research environments as a result of the national research schools, subject didactic research, research on learning processes, on professions and professional training. Collaborative doctoral students are important as there is still a "weak connection between research on teaching and the teachers' everyday school life, as well as insufficient conditions to use knowledge from research and proven experience in the activities" (The Research Council, 2023 p. 14).

In this Roundtable discussion we in the steering group of FoBoS share our experiences of our work with the graduate school, in particular challenges in supporting the development of research in this area. Some of these challenges relate to structural conditions and how support for research and graduate schools is organized. Other challenges are how to create possibilities for continued trajectories from licentiate studies to doctoral studies, as well as onwards towards post-doctoral positions. What does the future look like for postgraduate education in the subjects and in higher education? What are the conditions for producing more researchers, career opportunities and postdocs? Despite an increased number of PhD:s in educational science, there is a great shortage of researchers for teacher training, even in the aesthetic subjects "to meet the societal challenges that characterize schools and higher education today" (The Research Council, 2023 p. 6). We in the steering group for FoBoS are interested in discussing how to create new opportunities for more research and researchers in Sloyd and Visual Arts. We invite you in our Roundtable discussion.

References

The Research Council [Vetenskapsrådet] (2023). Forskningsöversikt 2023. Utbildningsvetenskap. Stockholm.

Artikeln bidrar med dels en orientering kring forskning om barn och ekonomi, dels empirisk förståelse av hur barn i åldrarna 8–9 år förstår pengar och ekonomi. Den teoretiska inramningen visar på begrepp och tidigare forskning inom fältet, men också att barns eget perspektiv sällan har uppmärksammats. Den tematiska analysen bygger på intervjuer med 20 barn och visar tre huvudsakliga teman som svar på forskningsfrågan om hur barn förstår ekonomi: konsumtion och sparande, trygghet och möjlighet samt artefakt och system.

The article contributes with an orientation to research on children and finances, as well as an empirical understanding of how children aged 8–9 years understand money and finances. The theoretical framework shows concepts and previous research in the field, but also that children’s own perspective has rarely been noticed. The thematic analysis is based on interviews with 20 children and shows three main themes in response to the research question how children understand finances: consumption and saving, security and opportunity, as well as artefact and system.

Using data from focus group interviews, this study aims to analyze the perceived opportunities and challenges encountered by groups of secondary school teachers regarding the assessment of multimodal texts. Previous research has shown that digital technologies introduce new kinds of texts in the classroom. The possibility of combining verbal text with image, sound, and movement has an impact on students’ text production. However, the changing role of writing on the screen has left teachers uncertain of how to assess these new forms of texts. Apart from attending to digital competence, assessing multimodal texts may involve following writing conventions and organizing text using different resources and components. Quality in multimodal texts may concern using multimodal components to communicate complex ideas effectively, which may or may not be noticed by teachers. The data is based on group interviews with 11 secondary school teachers at two different schools. The study conducted a thematic content analysis using the analytical concepts of transformation, recognition, design, and form and meaning. Findings show that teachers find it challenging to acknowledge certain qualities in students’ multimodal texts without support from the steering documents. On the other hand, they notice opportunities to follow students’ learning processes. In addition, they stress an increased opportunity and need for shared assessment across school subjects. The article concludes with a discussion of tensions regarding opportunities and challenges when assessing students’ multimodal texts in relation to the different subject syllabuses.

Purpose - This study aims to explore how and why employees perceive technology-mediated interruptions differently and the role of sociocultural factors in this process using sociomaterial analysis.

Design/methodology/approach - Data were gathered from 34 Sri Lankan knowledge workers using a series of workshop-based activities. The concept of sociomateriality is employed to understand how sociocultural elements are entangled with technology in work-life boundary experiences.

Findings - The findings of the thematic analyses suggest how culture is intertwined in the way employees perceive technology-mediated interruptions and how they manage information communication technologies (ICTs) to balance their work and nonwork demands. Participants have been unable to avoid technology-mediated boundary interruptions from work, as organisations have created norms to keep employees connected to organisations using information communication technologies. Traditional gender roles are specifically found to be entangled in employees' boundary management practices, disadvantaging women more.

Practical implications - The findings highlight how national culture and gender norms create challenging work-life experiences for female employees than males. This could create a disadvantageous position for female employees in their career progression. It is crucial to consider factors such as boundary preferences and family concerns when deciding on family-friendly work policies. Also, organisations have to consider the development of explicit guidelines on after-hours communication expectations.

Originality/value - Using the lens of sociomateriality, researchers can understand the contextual entanglement of ICTs with national culture and gender norms in creating different work-life boundary experiences. It seems ICTs are creating a disadvantage for female employees when managing work-nonwork boundaries, especially in power distant and collectivist cultures where traditional gender norms are highly valued and largely upheld. This study also contributes to the current discourse on work-life boundaries by providing insights from non-western perspectives.

In March 2020, all Swedish university education went online practically overnight due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This study focuses on how university students experienced emergency remote education in the fall of 2020. This article is framed by a sociocultural perspective of learning and the tools present in such learning contexts. This article provides a thematic meta-analysis of 53 student group reports based on 247 interviews with third-year university students. The findings suggest three themes of particular interest, regarding what areas the students themselves found important or challenging: awareness of what it means to be a student, technology reframing communication, and need for explicit guidance. The findings are discussed in relation to norms, appropriation, self-regulation and tutoring presence as important factors to consider in emergency remote teaching.

A methodological review was performed on work-life boundary-related studies published from the year 2010 to 2018. This review systematically selected 59 journal articles on the work boundary phenomenon. The selection criteria for this review closely followed three previous systematic methodological reviews performed on work-life research. Where possible, comparisons were made to integrate the findings of the current study with these previous systematic reviews. Articles were reviewed based on methodological choices such as research design, sampling strategy, data collection, data analysis, reliability, and validity measures. Findings of the review revealed that researchers had utilised a variety of methodological stances to conduct their studies. The majority of the studies in the field followed a quantitative approach, and most studies relating to work boundary management were field studies with a cross-sectional design. Qualitative studies in the area were primarily based on grounded theory. Significant methodological gaps were identified that could be bridged by future studies. Further, notable suggestions were proposed relating to reliability and validity measures taken by the researchers.

Workplaces today are more technologically pervasive than ever before, and communication devices such as smartphones have blurred traditional boundaries between work and non-work spheres of people. In fact, employers need to be mindful about this phenomenon when they have technology-based work expectations from their employees. Within this backdrop, this study attempts to reveal how the technological intensity at workplaces affects work–life conflict of employees who have different boundary preferences. The analysis based on 225 respondents shows that technological intensity is a significant mediator between work–life boundary preferences and work–life conflict of employees. Further, this study validates the findings of prior research based on Western samples on non-Western countries, followed by a discussion on the implications to practice and avenues for future research.

Ämnet hem- och konsumentkunskap (HKK) bär ansvaret för undervisning i privatekonomi. Detta till trots saknas kunskap om hur elever förstår grundläggande privatekonomiska principer. Med utgångspunkt i en serie om tre workshoppar på tre skolor med totalt 191 elever har tematisk analys använts för att besvara frågeställningen ”Hur förstår elever, i årskurserna 4 till 6, privatekonomi?”. Artikeln visar att elevers förståelse av ekonomi generellt och villkoren för undervisning om ekonomi specifikt är sparsamt beforskat. Genom att relatera den empiriska studien till HKK-ämnet konstateras att det finns goda förutsättningar att utveckla och förstärka såväl undervisningen i som elevers förståelse av ekonomi. Analysen visar att resurs, värde och tid är de centrala principer eleverna använder för att förstå privatekonomi. Artikeln avslutas med en dikussion om hur elevers förståelse av ekonomi kan bidra till en utveckling av undervisning i privatekonomi inom ramen för ämnet hem- och konsumentkunskap.

The subject of home and consumer studies (hem- och konsumentkunskap: HKK) holds the responsibility to teach personal finance. Even so, there is a lack knowledge on how children understand basic principles of personal finance. Based on a series of three workshops in three schools with a total of 191 students, thematic analysis has been used to answer the question “How do children, in grades 4 to 6, understand personal finance?” The article shows that research on children’s understanding of personal finances in general and the conditions for education on personal finances are sparsely studied. By relating the empirical study to the HKK subject, it is noted that there are good conditions for developing and strengthening both the education as well as children’s understanding of personal finances. The analysis shows that resource, value and time are the key principles that the children use to understand personal finance. The article concludes with a discussion on how children’s understanding of personal finances can contribute to the development of personal finance education in the field of home and consumer studies.

Denna rapport är den andra av två delrapporter från ett forskningsprojekt finansierat av Stiftelsen Sparbankernas Företagsinstitut. Stiftelsen förvaltas av SparbanksAkademin (fd Sparbanksföreningen) och denna ideella sammanslutning av intressenter inom sparbankssfären – Swedbank, Sparbanker och Sparbanksaktiebolag samt Sparbanksstiftelser – har ett gemensamt intresse inom området Ung Ekonomi.

Projektet Barn och digital ekonomi studerar hur barn lär om privatekonomi i det digitala sammanhang där de själva är en del. Den första rapporten (Hernwall, Hullgren& Söderberg, 2017) fokuserade primärt på att beskriva kunskapsområdet, projektets upplägg och några tentativa resultat. Denna rapport fördjupar beskrivningen av hur vi har arbetat, berör utvecklingen av en prototyp för att stödja lärares undervisning om privatekonomi och diskuterar framför allt hur barn i åldrarna 10 till 12 år (årskurserna 4 till 6) förstår (privat)ekonomi i ett digitalt samhälle.

As digitalisation spreads in education, it is vital to understand its relation to student engagement. We used student diaries and observation data to approach student engagement and explore the use of learning technologies on a lesson-to-lesson basis. Results show that a less thought-through use of technologies might lead to unconsidered effects. Positive indicators of the facilitation of student engagement included making the learning process accessible and visible to teachers.