Motivated by earlier research highlighting Swedish teachers' beliefs that the setting of homework compromises deep-seated principles of educational equity, this paper presents an exploratory study of Swedish parents' perspectives on homework in their year-one children's learning. Twenty-five parents, drawn from three demographically different…

This article reports on a study in which, for five weeks, the English lessons of two classes of 11--12 year olds in Sweden were based on Roald Dahl's "Fantastic Mr Fox." To promote the learners' engagement with the text, support understanding, and facilitate incidental vocabulary acquisition, a range of language-focused tasks were…

The importance of reading competence has been increasingly acknowledged in the Swedish educational system, not least through the demands for higher standards in reading in all subjects stated in the national curriculum. Still, in the school year 2018/19, approximately 7% of all Swedish pupils did not achieve the learning goals related to reading…

Given young children's frequent use of the internet and the expectations formulated in policy documents such as the Swedish national curriculum, teachers need to promote critical awareness about information found online, even in the earliest years of schooling. Responding to the need for more information about how first-graders understand the…

Feedback does not always engage students. To better understand why this happens, the present study analysed Grade 2 (7- to 8-year-old) students' experiences of formative feedback in mathematics to identify aspects with potential importance for student engagement. The researcher processed the students' experiences with the help of stimulated recall…

This study identifies the various functions of open questions in whole-class teaching in language arts classrooms in primary school, and it explores how these questions may work as a mediating tool. Open questions are considered a valuable tool in classroom discourse, enhancing dialogue and students' learning by giving the students an opportunity…

The Moving Maths study was conducted to increase third grade pupils' physical activity and support their learning in Finland. Altogether 397 children (mean age 9.3 years) and 22 teachers took part in an intervention with two types of physically active maths lessons for five months. One group carried out lessons in which PA was integrated into…

The aim is to contribute knowledge about the ways in which Swedish pupils with a migrant background speak about school performances and their first experiences of being graded. The results describe pupils and parents as positioned as being lower down in a top-down relationship vis-à-vis school. The separation between home and school is best…

This paper analyses the associations between computer use in schools and at home and test scores by using TIMSS data covering over 900,000 children in fourth grade. When controlling for school fixed effects, pupils who use computers at school, especially those who use them frequently are found to achieve less than students who never use computers.…

The aim of this article is to generate knowledge about an MTT classroom in a Swedish elementary school and how MTT is positioned as a safe space for translanguaging. By studying a school context as a potential translanguaging space, our focus is mainly on two dimensions of space: the physical, including the material space of MTT, and the social,…

Current curriculum guidelines emphasise the importance of both nutrition education and the development of practical cooking skills in the school subject Food and Health (FH). This study aimed to explore teachers' and students' perspectives and experiences of current classroom practices in FH. Focus group discussions (FGDs) with teachers and…

Drawing on a cross-cultural, qualitative study in Finnish and Korean comprehensive schools, we explore how teacher control and student agency are manifested and exercised in the teaching and learning practices of the "official school" and in the student-teacher interactions of the "informal school". We also elaborate on how…

This study examines teachers' instructional practices during seatwork in primary Norwegian Language arts classrooms. Although seatwork is a common activity in classrooms, our knowledge about what teachers actually do during this activity is limited. In this qualitative study, six teachers in third grade primary school were videotaped while pupils…

In this article, researchers from the perspectives of post-humanism and new materialism investigate the methodological possibilities and challenges offered by multisensory interviews with Norwegian Art and Crafts teachers regarding their practice theories connected to woodwork with primary school children. Author 1 has visited eight different…

This article reports on an educational design research study exploring the potential of combining entrepreneurship and mathematics -- two of the key competencies stressed as important in a society of lifelong learning. The aim of the study was to explore what happens when entrepreneurship is integrated into mathematics lessons. Eight Swedish…