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This article explores preschool teachers’ experiences of conducting analysis of their own and each other’s spontaneously arising teaching situations. Grounded in an ecological perspective on teachers’ agency, the study addresses two central questions: (1) What prerequisites appear to be essential for enabling preschool teachers to conduct analysis of teaching in spontaneous situations? (2) What insights do preschool teachers gain through such analyses, and how do these contribute to developing their teaching? The study draws on a one-year Swedish research and development project involving three researchers and 50 preschool teachers. Data were collected through notes documented by both researchers and preschool teachers. Key prerequisites identified include access to continuing professional development, opportunities for collaborative reflection work, and dedicated time for analysis. The use of an analysis tool aligned with teachers’ perceptions of core preschool values and practices also proved beneficial. Through their analysis, teachers gained awareness of their own interactions with the children and the children’s interests. However, connecting spontaneous situations to specific curriculum goals emerged as more of a challenging aspect of the process.

There are high hopes that young refugees will help to counter population decline in Sweden’s rural areas. However, there is a need to better understand the factors and processes that facilitate or hinder their persistent integration and continued presence (including further education and work preparation). This article therefore explores the prevailing refugee reception practices and their consequences during and after the major refugee wave in Sweden that started in 2015. This wave, caused by wars in Syria and Afghanistan, had a huge impact in Sweden’s rural areas. The analysis is based on interviews with local officials, school heads, teachers, and career guidance counsellors in various municipalities. The findings illuminate these groups’ understandings of requirements for effective, fruitful reception of young refugees, and how their reception can be organised to improve their preparation for further education and work. The results also reveal notable differences between rural areas (e.g. between smaller and larger rural municipalities), and suggest that young refugees’ prospects and likelihood of remaining in such areas can be enhanced by measures including incorporating multicultural and intercultural perspectives in staff training, and organisational adjustments to enhance local career learning and interculturalism.

In this article we explore how children's opportunities for subject-related learning in Nordic early childhood education and care (ECEC) depend on intra-actions between the physical environment, gender norms, and the relevant learning content. We apply a socio-material perspective and draw on three Swedish ECEC studies, in which the learning content was related to physics, dance, and environmental sustainability, respectively. The analyses illustrate how socio-material intra-actions encouraged or impeded certain bodily encounters, thereby encouraging or impeding certain kinds of subject-related learning.

The article addresses school-to-work transitions among young women in a strongly male dominated professional sphere – the transport industry. Drawing on interviews with two girls over the time span 2015–2022 and visits to their upper secondary school 2016–2019, the study focuses on how power structures related to gender play out in the positioning that takes place in school and workplaces: How the girls were positioned socially and in relation to professional qualification, and how they positioned themselves in these respects. The findings indicate significant changes in discourse and practice when the girls transitioned from students to employees, changes which in the article are discussed in the framework of ‘inequality regimes’ and through the lens of the ‘glass funnel’ metaphor. Linking the funnel metaphor to the framework of inequality regimes broadens the picture to consider how young people are exposed to generally increasing inequalities in labour markets where institutions and organisations are affected by neoliberal economic policies, weakened collective protection of workers and wider wage gaps. With individualisation and insecurity, young people like the two girls in focus in this article, are increasingly left to fend for themselves in a harsh labour market.

This article delves into conceptualizations of spontaneous teaching within Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). Despite its frequent occurrence in ECEC settings, where educators engage in teaching activities for significant portions of the day, spontaneous teaching has not been extensively researched, nor is it often documented or assessed in practice. Empirically, this study draws on data from a one-year project in which Swedish preschool teachers documented and analyzed spontaneous teaching in their daily practice. Records of group discussions during the project and complementary interviews are used to examine how the teachers discussed and conceptualized spontaneous teaching, and identifies the characteristics of spontaneous teaching in terms of teacher–child interactions. The findings highlight the relational nature of preschool teaching in general, and spontaneous teaching particularly, emphasizing the responsiveness required to balance predetermined curricular goals with children's interests and self-initiated play. In response to previous studies highlighting the difficulty of achieving such balance, the findings indicate a seemingly seamless integration of educators’ and children's intentions and interests.

In this chapter, we highlight the transition to upper secondary school among young people in nine Nordic rural regions. Like other young people in today’s Western world, they grew up with expectations of rapidly achieving successful careers which will benefit them individually and as a society. However, living in rural areas with relatively fewer educational opportunities or being at the margin of the educational system (as was the case for the study conducted in Denmark), they found themselves in the cross-pressure of different and somewhat contradictory expectations. The aim of this chapter is to explore the challenges and dilemmas associated with transitioning to upper secondary school in particular as we follow this process over time. The research question is, what typical reflections, negotiations, and concerns arose early in the process of deciding which upper secondary programme to choose when the deadline came closer, and what typical struggles emerged after the decision was made?

This study explores the integration of migrants in education and the labour market from the perspectives of professionals working with young migrants in Swedish rural municipalities. It compares interview data referring to the situation during the refugee crisis in 2015 with data referring to the period 2019–2022. It addresses the organisation of teaching, how professionals talked about integration in relation to the local labour market and how integration-related practices and discourses developed from 2015 to 2022. The findings indicate a major change over time in the educational integration strategies and practices. Migrant children were mainly taught in separate preparatory classes in 2015, but by 2019–2022 there was a general aim to integrate them rapidly in regular classes. In terms of labour market integration there was also a discursive change. In 2015 the main hope was that the migrants’ reception would create short- and long-term jobs for the local population and contribute to the survival of local services and life. In contrast, in 2019–2022 the main expressed hope was that migrants would stay permanently and contribute productively to their new societies’ labour forces.

During the initial phase of the refugee wave in 2015 rural municipalities in Sweden were obliged for the first time to receive refugees. Some rural officials welcomed refugees in hopes that it would counter population declines and future staffing problems. Some officials also referred to rural areas as idylls for reception, well equipped for reception arguing that small places are better for integration. This raised placement issues, which varied widely among three identified categories of municipalities (tourist towns and/or sparsely populated areas, de/industrialised towns, and small villages). We explored these issues by interviewing respondents in 21 municipalities. We selected three municipalities to represent the three categories and analysed responses of our informants within them to obtain insights into their views of the refugees' reception and associated issues. For this we applied a Masseyian ‘sense of place’ and ‘power geometry’ theoretical framework. Wide variations among municipalities were reported. However, common themes included: a lack of relevant training initially; rapid establishment of organisational arrangements and competences; segregation in some municipalities due to placement in segregated housing (which raised informants' awareness of social class-based divisions); and changes in status or requirements for migrants to relocate (with very little warning) that severely impacted the refugees' transitions. The results clearly indicate needs for more long-term and robust policies to avoid problems associated with refugees' ‘liminal citizenship’ and weak power, with consequent impacts on their educational transitions and subsequent prospects.

This chapter investigates what constitutes Nordic young people’s sense of belonging—or not belonging—in their rural communities. Belonging is approached as a concept referring to a sense of connection, membership, and security, here infused with individual and collective histories and shaped by everyday practices. Despite the recent interest in the concept of belonging in youth studies (cf. Harris et al., 2021), longitudinal research on rural youth belonging is rare, and we know little about what shapes belonging over time. Drawing on extensive and comparable qualitative longitudinal data from Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Denmark (n = 196), the chapter investigates what constitutes young people’s sense of belonging in rural regions, along with how belonging changes over time. Drawing on both the ongoing theoretical discussion and Nordic data, the chapter distinguishes between three central dimensions of youth belonging—the social, spatial, and cultural—while identifying three common trajectories of belonging: (1) In strengthening belonging, all three dimensions of belonging are balanced in supporting transition to adulthood in rural areas with ease: strong connectedness to local communities, place attachment, but also appreciation of values, traditions, and lifestyles characteristic of their region. (2) In weakening belonging, different dimensions of unbelonging work together to weaken belonging over time. This may be resolved by moving, but this is not always possible. (3) In conflicting belonging, some dimensions of belonging are in conflict with each other. Young people may express a strong belonging to nature but experience social unbelonging, which results in trajectories where easy solutions are not available. Longitudinal data allow for a reflection on the dynamics between different dimensions of belonging: Earlier bonds of belonging may loosen, while others are reinforced over time in different phases of life. The chapter contributes to the ongoing discussion of youth belonging by showing that the way different dimensions of belonging intertwine and change have consequences for the life trajectories of rural young people. Belonging is often partial, involves negotiation and struggle, and is a result of the continuous recreation and repetition of performative practices.