To Örebro University

Arguments concerning declining reading and writing skills among school children are currently a focal point in Swedish educational policy change. These students are considered to be in need of support for their learning and with support measures being governed by national documents. Access to teaching content is then a key aspect to improve learning progress. Furthermore, a lack of access to high-quality Teaching and Learning Materials (TLM) - such as textbooks, digital resources and other educational media - has been identified as a key reason to the students’ dropping capabilities in recent reports and government investigations. This has resulted in a policy debate, and have resulted in an ongoing policy change, where the meaning and intended practice of TLMs is undergoing rather drastic transformations in the educational landscape.The decisions following from the governmental investigations and propositions on TLM is in its final stages and will likely be ratified during the summer of 2024. Consequently, this will lead to new preconditions for teachers work and children’s learning, since TLM is at the heart of teaching and learning in the classrooms. To provide access to high- quality TLMs is an obligation to fulfill by both headmasters, teachers and school agencies in Sweden. Knowledge on how this responsibility works out, and will work out is however uncertain, as research about TLM in Sweden is commonly focused on content and design, rather than on a user-oriented perspective (Graeske 2021).Responding to this, the aim of the study at hand is firstly to explore how quality and access is constituted in current TLM policy development, and secondly how this relates to how quality and access is constituted in schools governing documents on inclusive education. The study thus investigates how thoughts and ideas about TLMs are articulated in documents concerning the policy change and how these articulations relate to governing documents on inclusive education in Sweden, two important governing areas which both are supposed to enhance quality in and access to teaching materials.

Drawing on the Anthropological Theory of Didactics (ATD), we understand the knowledge production within policy change as taking place within an ecology (Chevallard, 2006). We thereby pay attention to the logos part of the praxeology on TLMs, which means a focus on scholarly knowledge and the knowledge to be taught (Bosch & Gascón, 2006). The two parts of the ecology we focus on are the area of teaching materials and the area of inclusive education. Our stance on policy research is in line with what Diem et.al. (2019) describe as Critical Policy Analysis (CPA). We thus aim to analyze multiple levels including the constitution and change of the TLM policy as well as the distribution of power it results in (cf. Ball 1994). The analyzed materials consist of TLM policy documents, such as government investigations, referrals, referral responses and curricula, and school governing documents on inclusive education.

In sum, the current study displays the development of educational policy of TLM, and how that relates to inclusive education in Sweden. The results give insight into dominant knowledge constructs on TLMs and for whom they are intended. Preliminary findings reveal that there is a strong incentive to strengthening access to TLM. We conclude that there is ambivalence between parts in the ecology as there is agreement regarding the need to secure access, at the same time as structural and excluding aspects are prevalent. Implications are that inclusion risks being challenged, Intercultural aspects foreseen, and School segregation possibly enhanced.

This study focuses on ethical dilemmas that arise in moments of inclusion and equity in mathematics teaching and how they might be tackled through teachers’ professional judgment. Skovsmose’s inclusive landscapes of investigation approach was used to design the study and to collect teachers’ joint reflections on moments of inclusion and equity in their teaching. Ethical dilemmas and professional judgment were the analytical foci for a qualitative thematic content analysis. Three explorative workshops were held with two teams of teachers from two schools in Sweden. The analysis identified three themes of ethical dilemma, and ways in which these were responded to by teachers’ professional judgment: (1) dilemmas of diversity and acting justly; (2) dilemmas of resources and allocating them fairly; (3) dilemmas of values and recognising diversity. We conclude that mathematics teachers’ professional judgments involve showing bravery, going outside of the norm, negotiating values and duties, listening to the students, and throughout this, engaging in collegial learning in the best interests of the learner.

In Sweden, the Compulsory School for Students with Intellectual Disabilites (CSSID) is currently experiencing political change, as this type of school is being renamed and is undergoing organisational changes. The inclusion of children with intellectual disabilities (ID) in schooling, and in general society, has been challenged and debated for decades; such debates are at the heart of some of these changes. In this study, we have systematically investigated the policy work (e.g. government reports and statements) preceding and governing the changes. Hence, the purpose of the study is to contribute knowledge on how policy documents inscribe meaning to the inclusion of children with ID. Results show that discourses on inclusion are connected to neoliberal values and practices, such as assessment, global comparison, and accountability. It has been suggested that this may have a profound and long-term effect on how children with ID are fabricated and hence, how the child with ID and their education can be understood in terms of being included in the idea of ‘all students’ in policy, and in addition, in practice.

Mathematics-specific learning difficulties and disabilities (MLD) have received increasing attention in scholarly research. In this study, we place MLD research in its wider context of risk societies by discussing the manufacturing of MLD as a risk. This framing of MLD builds on a certain idea of hope in how research could provide the means to better understand and support learners with MLD. We conduct a Foucault-informed analysis to understand how scholarly knowledge about MLD has been produced through discourses of risk and hope. Our material consists of 30 influential journal articles published in the three fields of MLD research: cognitive sciences, special education and mathematics education. Our study indicates that MLD has been predominantly conceptualised through a technico-scientific risk discourse that frames MLD as harmful for learners and societies alike; such risk discourse relies on a discourse of hope in scientific methods. We also analyse a social risk discourse that identifies risks in social exclusion and marginalisation of students with MLD, finding hope in inclusive learning environments. Based on our analysis, we propose that the mere conceptualisation of MLD has thoroughly revolved around discourses of current liminalities (risk) and enunciations of better futures (hope). However, what has been unexplored is the politics of such risk and hope discourses themselves. We propose a socio-politically oriented discourse of risk/hope as a way to reframe scientific knowledge production about MLD. This discourse identifies risks not in MLD itself but in how research manufactures MLD as a threat to both economic growth and student identities. Instead of asking research communities to mitigate the risk of MLD, we call for them to embrace it.

The combination of language policies, the global testing industry, and the role of STEM subjects in school systems have been shown to undermine the inclusion of all pupils, especially with regard to language backgrounds. This lack of inclusion shows signs of developing into a point of systematic exclusion for those students. In this article we will consider the language policies in two national contexts, the Swedish and the Luxembourgish ones, and specifically examine issues of in(ex)clusion in relation to multilingualism in STEM teaching. This study analyzes policy documents on (1) inclusion, (2) language use, and (3) STEM teaching at school in the two national contexts, using a methodology that builds on Popkewitzís (2013; 2014) approach to politics of schooling. Our results show, first, that different policies on language and multilingualism become visible in policy documents for primary school teaching in Sweden and Luxembourg. Secondly, this article discusses what impacts these policies may have on matters of inclusion, exclusion, or abjection in STEM teaching contexts at primary schools.

In Sweden, teaching and learning materials were nationally regulated and reviewed during the 20th century. As for today, the teaching and learning materials available in schools relies on by the school’s budget, the producers marketing skills and the teacher’s competence. Hence, the access to and quality of teaching materials varies from school to school. This is worrying as it likely leads to a more unequal education (Graeske, 2021). To study the consequences of this situation the Swedish government instigated an investigation, which final report currently is under review by stock-takers (SOU 2021:70). At the same time, there is increased school stress in children and young people, reduced goal fulfillment and a failing equivalence (Högberg, et al., 2020; Nygren, 2021). This can be related to segregation tendencies and is a societal challenge that needs to be dealt with in every school and by the education sector. Lack of equality affects and is affected by teachers' opportunities to support students' learning (Skolverket, 2012, 2017), and teaching materials are central in this respect. 

We claim that it is of great importance to critically review the foundations on which policies are created to show how they can condition the opportunities for all students learning. In relation to students in need of support for their learning, digital teaching and learning materials often work as adaptions of teaching and as personal aids, at the same time, these students specific learning needs and inclusion is in the core of the proposal. There is a lack of availability to adapted materials, and there is ambivalence regarding digital materials and adapted or alternative materials (Bagger, Ålander & Karlsson, accepted abstract). Hence, the teaching materials investigation's proposal (SOU 2020:70) has a potential to influence how and if students are offered an equivalent education, or not, especially for students in need of support for their learning. Furthermore, we derive from an understanding that learning materials sometimes function as an institutional barrier for inclusive education, unless critical perspectives are taken into consideration when selecting education material (Leask, 2015). Following from this, the purpose of the following proposal is to display and explore (dis)connections between the schools governing documents on students in need of support for their learning, and how these students and their learning is depicted in the proposal and the responding bodies answers. 

This presentation is connected to the Swedish part of an EU-project on digital inclusive teaching materials DigiLLM. Also, it resembles a part study in the project Teaching materials and their quality – as aspects of inclusion. This has also been presented at NERA but then out from research question 1 in the project, which concerns “…how the policy proposal (and the responding bodies) condition aspects of inclusion and to consider how the issue of quality and access relates to all students' learning” (Bagger, Ålander & Karlsson, accepted abstract). In the study at hand, we have instead put our focus on the projects research question 2; “How does this (the policy documents conditioning of inclusion and teaching materials) relate to the school's mission to support all students' learning and the school's support efforts?” This mean that we have correlated governing documents on students in need of support and the newly implemented curricula LGR22 – to the proposal and especially regarding digital aspects of teaching and learning materials. In prolongation, the project contributes to systematizing knowledge about how the availability and quality of learning materials is conditioned, how it conditions the learning opportunities through institutional barriers and how the availability and quality in teaching and learning materials for all students can be secured.

Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe materials analysed are the investigations proposal on teaching and learning materials (SOU 2021:70), but also governing documents that concern all children’s rights to learn and be given support for their learning in school:  The new curricula LGR22, the School act (SFS 2010:800), The Act on the Rights of the Child (SFS, 2018: 1197) and the National Agency for Educations advice on providing support for learning. Segments of texts that could concern students in need of support for their learning and teaching/learning materials at the same time, was initially selected. In determining this, we derive from a broad understanding of the concept of the learner in need of support. Hence all passages that mentions support for the learning in some way, was considered to apply. Also, by teaching/learning materials we also derive from a broad understanding. Hence, it could mean all kinds of medias and materials for learning that was mentioned. We did so by posing some basic questions to the texts: 1) who is the student in need of support? 2) what is the material mentioned? and 3) what obstacles and opportunities for learning is depicted? We analyzed these statements via a qualitative and thematic content analysis (see for example Creswell, 2007).  After selecting segments of texts that corresponded to these three questions, we searched after connections between the three sampled selections. We then systematically explored the intersection between teaching/learning materials and students in need of support for their learning. Themes found were adaptions of materials, students’ accessibility and teachers and principals knowledge and responsibility as being core. The intersection of students in need of support and teaching materials was not found in the already existing governing documents of the school, except on a very general level. One or the other was rather mentioned.Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings

Statements on teaching materials for students in need of support in the governing documents is scarce. The School Act (SFS 2010:800) mentions school libraries being granted for all students and access to relevant books and tools for learning. In the children’s rights act (SFS 2018:1197) it is specifically stated that children are to be granted access to education and children’s books is to be promoted. In governing documents on special support (Skolverket, 2022) special teaching materials or tools is labeled as extra adaptions. The curricula (LGR22) stated that it is the principal’s responsibility that students: “get access and the ability to use high quality learning materials and other tools for learning in an up-to-date education, including school libraries and digital tools”, this includes children in need of support for their learning. Considering the absence of more concrete statements of the intersection of students in need of support for their learning and teaching materials, development of this area is highly needed. Moreover, we claim that the schools governing documents need to explain what is meant by adaptions, access, and high quality – beyond general and overarching statements. These are hard to claim as a right, use as guidance or to search for proof of. The investigation (SOU 2021:70) highlights access and availability of teaching materials for students with disabilities. Furthermore, key is then teachers and principals’ responsibilities, knowledge, and skills in arranging with this, including digital resources. We finally conclude that the investigation communicates an intention to support all students learning and to promote inclusiveness of materials. This does not by far mean that students access to teaching/learning materials with high quality is secured. The proposal made is of potentially big importance for all student’s equal access to high quality and equal materials, but not in sync with the current governing documents.

We conduct a critical review to explore how research on mathematics classroom assessment has positioned students (127 studies, 2015–2020). Our analysis shows how research has positioned students as passive recipients of assessment by portraying assessment through discourses of measurement and cognition. Conversely, students are positioned as active agents in their own learning through discourses of empowerment and monitoring. Finally, a discourse of performativity portrays classroom assessment as a way to promote results in large-scale assessments. These five discourses summarize how research produces knowledge about mathematics assessment and, in doing so, positions students as social agents with certain roles and responsibilities. Our review challenges assessment research communities to rethink how students are positioned in mathematics assessment.