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International studies indicate that preservice teachers are inadequately prepared to conduct effective family–school partnerships (FSP), and first-year preschool teachers may find working with families especially challenging. This issue calls for more attention in teacher-training programs toward preparing teachers with sufficient competence for FSP. This study is intended to provide knowledge about Swedish preschool student teachers’ perceptions and experiences working with FSP to inform development areas within teacher education. Data were collected using an online survey of 153 preschool student teachers. The results show that most participants have a positive view of FSP based on their knowledge and previous experience. Communication is regarded as the most important prerequisite but also one of the top challenges. However, they estimate their preparedness to work with parents at varying levels and recognize that competence is created and developed through experience and a reflective approach. It calls for more practical training in combination with theoretical knowledge in teacher education to prepare future preschool teachers to work with families effectively.

This chapter aims to describe, illustrate, and discuss the rationale behind Swedish educational policy and the changing school management practices related to digital education. Based on a review of selected Swedish digital education policy documents and research literature, this chapter presents the transformation of digitalization that has taken place in Swedish schools during recent decades, the target formulations in policies, and the characteristics of school governance related to the international trends of adopting comparison of student performance on standard tests such as the PISA, as well as using big data for policy legitimation.

The relationship between sign systems and the meaning potentials and affordances of multimodal technologies has received increasing attention in research on digital technology use in education. Students constantly adhere to and engage with semiotic shifts in sign systems when they work with digital technologies for learning purposes. This study explores students’ use of digital technologies in Swedish schools. We trace the way semiotic activity systems and cognitive processes are transformed and realized when students engage with shifts in sign systems into various meaning-making strategies. Methodologically, the study is based on a data set of video recordings, interviews, and observations of classroom practice in three primary schools. An analysis that draws on quantitative ethnography was applied to process and analyse the data. The main findings revealed that sign systems prompted by the technologies and the social space compete to some extent for students’ attention, and that technology design is monotonously rendering lower levels of mediation. These findings show that various sign system prompts need to be balanced and streamlined to support students in their meaning-making. This article conveys the importance of understanding sign systems, as they are the most common resources for technology-assisted learning, and change the prerequisites for meaning-making.

In Sweden, along with the changing governing model in terms of centralization, decentralization, marketization, and privatization of education, as well as the performative turn in education (Lindblad, 2018), the overarching values of the Nordic model, such as social justice, equality, equal opportunities, integration, and democratic participation for all students irrespective of social and cultural background and abilities (Imsen, Blossing, & Moos, 2017; Lundahl, 2016), have been challenged. These challenges have also affected the relationship between home and school, and parents’ position in education. The aim of this presentation is to describe, analyze, and discuss how Swedish parents’ position in education has been constructed in educational policy and practices over time. This presentation addresses parents’ position regarding (a) how their role and responsibilities in education have been defined and argued for in the policy documents and (b) what their real position in education has been. The analysis is based on a review of selected central educational policy documents such as Education acts, the Government Official Reports series (SOU), national curricula from various periods since the 1960s, and relevant research literature in the Swedish education context. Preliminary analysis revealed that the rationales behind the policies are linked to the various phases of Swedish educational reforms. Since the decentralization, marketization, and privatization reforms, more demands have been placed on parents’ responsibility and ability to engage in education by themselves. Ideas about parents’ involvement have shifted more focus to parents’ supporting role in children’s learning outcomes and academic performance regarding the curriculum goals. There is a gap between the rhetoric of school–home partnership and collaboration and the reality of parental involvement and influence. The issues of segregation between different parent groups and parent exclusion due to different socioeconomic and cultural/linguistic conditions have increased.

Technology use in school settings tends to look at various technologies solely as a mediator for production and work, rather than to relate them to the patterns of thinking and learning. Some technologies and representations are more overrepresented than others that signals a more monotonous use (Schnaider et al., 2020). However, recent research indicates that meaning-making in connection with technology use is characterized by a higher level of variety and multiplicity across technologies, their properties, and the users (Djonov & van Leeuwen, 2018; Schnaider, Gu & Rantatalo, 2020; Vigild Poulsen, 2018; Vigild Poulsen & Kvåle, 2018). There is a need to explore and gain insights into how multimodal technology use can be understood and supported from a more comprehensive perspective. From a multimodal layer approach (Schnaider et al., 2020), this study aims to examine technologies’ use (hardware and software in combination) in students’ sign-making activities in Swedish schools. The research questions are: What functions and semiotic properties of the technologies are prompted and drawn upon in use, and how are transitions made between technologies, properties, and users? What representations are made by individuals in connection to the prompted sign-systems?

The multimodal layer framework was used as a vehicle for data gathering and analysis from its five components: technologies, technologies’ functional properties, technologies’ semiotic properties, modes of representation, and activities. Empirical data consisted of 8 hours of classroom video recordings and observations on students’ use of technologies in their learning activities, and 6 hours of interviews with the students have been observed. All data were transcribed into texts, for instance, by using word-processing software and the video annotation software Transana, for subsequent quantitative content analysis (Bell, 2011). The layers were used as the first coding categories in processing the transcriptions and as variables in the analysis. The second step of coding was based on keywords (the values – subcategories to the layers) by using software nCoder. Finally, program Epistemic Network Analysis (ENA) was used to visualize the connections between the layers (Eagan, Brohinsky, Wang & Shaffer, 2020; Shaffer, 2017).

The ENA result indicates that some functional properties were more frequently used at specific mediating levels when using certain combinations of technologies and had stronger connections to modes of representation and activities than others. Moreover, some functional properties tended to remain at the same mediating level between technologies, while others were entirely altered or even eliminated. The investigations also showed that some categories of technologies and properties were more frequently drawn upon, reflected in the users’ modes of representations. In some activities and combinations of technologies, the transitions in the various functions to the semiotic properties were more complicated and had little influence on individuals’ meaning-making, shown in weak ENA connections. These findings have implications for technology design and implementation by clarifying how technologies benefit particular sign-making activities.

Current research indicates that teachers’ and students’ use of technology influence each other, especially relating to the ideas of learning-design and co-construction (here co-design) of classroom practice (Bezemer & Kress, 2016; Lim, 2021). However, previous research on teachers’ use has overtly emphasized different pedagogical aspects of technology use in teaching (Lai & Bower, 2019). There is a lack of studying teachers' meaning-making (actions and sign-making, Kress, 2010; Wartofsky, 1979) through technology use that is essential for understanding the reciprocal relationship between prompters in shared design of classroom practice between teacher and student (Bezemer et al., 2016). This paper aims to explore how teachers make meanings in technology use from a multimodal layer (ML) approach (Schnaider, Gu & Rantatalo, 2020) by focusing on questions: How do teachers use configurations of hardware and software? What are the outcomes of technology use in the framing of different learning-design activities? 

Data was collected and analysed based on the five ML components i.e., technologies (hardware/software), functional properties, semiotic properties, modes of representation, and activities (ibid.). The data consisted of video recordings, interviews, and observation notes. All data were transcribed or annotated into texts and segmented into sentences (lines/stanzas) based on how they framed MLs’ categories (Shaffer, 2017). Quantitative content analysis (Bell, 2011) was conducted first by using nCoder to strengthen interrater-reliability and validity in the MLs’ categories (the codes), and then by using the Epistemic Network Analysis program (Shaffer, 2014) to visualize the connections between the different categories in graphs for interpretation of variations and overlaps.

The findings show that teachers’ technology use is often undertaken with emphasis on some of the MLs. For instance, in activities, teachers tend to use technologies mainly for distribution purposes, which have little or no connection to learning-design or co-design. Moreover, teachers’ meaningmaking through technology use is often linked to levels of mediation in actions such as work in handling functional properties in modes of representation speech and gestures, and therefore, limitedly related to sign-making by using the technologies’ semiotic properties. On the other hand, design for collaboration was undertaken between actors in the use of smartphones and projectors in brainstorming and reviewing new subject areas, where functional and semiotic properties were used to arrange and superimpose content in verbal communication and writing activities.

This study provides some insights for an overall understanding of how technologies are used in the classroom by teachers. When the MLs are recognized and realized, it enables successful learningdesign and informs co-design that benefit students’ use of technologies in learning. Moreover, a shared use by teachers and students contributes to greater insights into how their meaning-making is undertaken separately and overlap. If teachers and students jointly design the learning environment 60through knowledge of ML, a variety of different technologies will be implemented more naturally and effectively.

This chapter describes and analyzes Swedish educational policy related to technology and digital education over the past decades with a focus on how the relation between learning and information technology, as well as digitalization and its impact on other aspects of school development and management have been argued for and how it has been proposed to influence school practice. The analysis is based on a review of eight selected educational policy documents that relate to the framework of phases of Swedish educational reforms suggested by Sundberg. The result reveals that although there are some overlaps and recurring themes in the politics over time, connections between the rationale behind the political arguments and the reform timeframes are obvious. During its early years, digital education adopted a clear centralized and top-down strategy with extensive government investments without taking into account the local needs and conditions. Later, in line with decentralization and marketization of education, the performance turn, and the adoption of accountability as a governing model, more demands have been placed on local responsibility and self-regulating regarding digitalization in school. At the same time, research-based evidence and international comparison have been used as a basis to justify further development of digital education.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the use of digital technologies by teachers and students in teaching and learning from a multimodal layer perspective.

Design/methodology/approach: The article reviews 64 studies on technology use. A content analysis based on the theoretical concepts of "multimodal layers" was used to synthesise previous research.

Findings: The findings indicate that the use of technology in classroom practices by teachers and students is multifaceted and that transitions exist between technologies and sign-systems and are differently related to sign-making activities and thus constitute different uses. Between layers, traces can be made that connect the use of technology to differences in sign-making activities.

Practical implications: A multimodal layer perspective on technology use is fruitful to understand what happens at the intersection of technology and human activities in school practices. Moreover, more attention to multimodal layers can inform future effective technology usage and design.

Originality/value: The review offers comprehensive insights on how previous research has studied technology using multimodal layers as an analytical lens.

This paper describes and discusses the transformation of school governance in the era of digitalization in education. It focuses on how the production and use of big data at different levels affect policymaking and how big data-based policies have the consequences in education practices within the European education contexts and from the Swedish experiences. The datafication of education through digital technology gives rise to the digital governance of education that increasingly influences the organisation and management of the national education system, which is resulted in the structure shifts in education governance. On the one hand, big data derived from testing and surveys facilitates the comparison and creation of global benchmarks that impacts the governance of education systems to be more centralised at international and national level. And on the other hand, when data and information become more available at the local level, it enables organisational-level decision-making to break down hierarchical structures and become more distributed. Data based steering at different levels then puts considerable pressure on schools through the organised school inspection system, the strategy of self-monitoring, self-evaluation and self-formation that are closely related to managerial accountability or answerability of school governance.

The purpose of this paper is to explore teachers’ (N=454) experiences and perceptions with regard to the use of a new web-based learning management system (LS) in home-school communication in Swedish schools. The results indicated a great dissatisfaction with its functional features among the teachers, which negatively impacted the attitudes and beliefs towards the usefulness and ease of use of LS for communication. This in turn prevented teachers’ and parents’ use of the LS and caused a general decrease in home-school communication in daily pr actices, especially for those disadvantaged parent.