Higher education physics has long been a field with a disproportionately skewed representation in terms of gender, class, and ethnicity. Responding to this challenge, this study explores the trajectories of "unexpected" (i.e., demographically under-represented) students into higher education physics. Based on timeline-guided life-history…

In this study we examine upper secondary students' notions of contraceptive methods, as human reproduction and contraception are common content in sexuality education in Sweden and worldwide. Our data were constructed during an extensive educational sequence in natural science sexuality education and include audio recordings of 17-18-year-old…

Collaboration has the potential to strengthen both professional learning and well-being for teachers. However, it can also bring problematic aspects, such as increased workload and conflicts. The purpose of this study was to explore biology teachers' experiences of collaboration to better understand how upper secondary school organisations can…

This study examines preservice preschool teachers' university science education experience. The empirical data are from a research and intervention project conducted on teacher education programs at two Swedish universities. We analyzed one of the assignments completed by 111 students within a science course as well as their conversations about…

The purpose of this study is to discuss notions of femininity and masculinity in situations of argumentation among Swedish upper-secondary students who are studying Natural Science. The empirical material is drawn from an ethnographic inspired study, where I followed a group of students in all of their science teaching throughout a semester. This…

This article aims to explore and clarify how students' use of first and second languages in a translanguaging science classroom (TSC) may affect the continuity of learning in science. In a TSC, participants can use all available language resources, in all meaning-making situations. An ethnographic data collection and research design is used to…

Cultural historical activity theory perspectives are drawn in this paper to realize collective transformative agency and the externalization of individual student identity, with students seeking personalized assistance from their teacher while learning mathematics at a grade eight classroom in Sweden. Even as teacher-researcher collaboration and…

According to previous research, in contemporary western societies health is seen as an increasingly non-political issue. Rather than being at the centre of collective decision-making and democratic politics, health is regarded as resting on individual responsibility. In this study we focus on, and explore an important and challenging…

In this forum article, I reflect on the findings by Eva Silfver in "Gender performance in an out of school science context." Silfver has studied a class of 14-15-year-old students during a visit to a science center. The students are supposed to write a computer program that will steer a Lego car. In their activities, Silfver identifies…

This article examines how school students perform gender during a visit to a science centre where they programme Lego cars. The focus is on how students relate to each other--how they talk and what they do. Theoretically, the article draws on the 'heterosexual matrix' and a Foucauldian understanding of how power and knowledge are tightly…

There is an ongoing discussion about what content that should be taught in science education and there are different views among teachers about what represent good science content. However, teachers are not isolated individuals making their own interpretations, but are part of institutionalised systems building on patterns in the selection of…

The purpose of this paper is to develop and illustrate an analytical framework for exploring how relations between knowledge and power are constituted in science and technology classrooms. In addition, the empirical purpose of this paper is to explore how disciplinary knowledge and knowledge-making are constituted in teacher-student interactions.…

We report an exploratory talk based, whole class plenary intervention, in relation to students' understanding of everyday measures and measurement, in a grade four classroom at a grade 4-6 school in Sweden. Extended, project related, teacher-researcher collaboration forms basis for such cultural historical activity theory or CHAT based efforts. As…

The current paper draws on data generated through group interviews with students who were involved in a larger ethnographic research project performed in three science classrooms. The purpose of the study from which this data was generated, was to understand science teachers' assessment practices in an upper-secondary school in Sweden. During…

From a sociocultural perspective, I discuss data from a Swedish science classroom presented in María Gómez's article "Student Explanations of their Science Teachers' Assessments, Grading Practices, and How they learn Science". In this discussion, I focus on the need to change existing conceptions of assessment in the teaching and…