To Örebro University

This article focuses on teachers’ responsiveness to changes in assessment policy and how new guidelines affect assessment and grading practices in school physical education (PE). The previous national curriculum in Sweden directed many teachers towards an atomistic approach to assessment.The reformed guidelines, in contrast, mandate that teachers should strive for holistic assessment.Thus, the purpose of this study was to generate an understanding of how teachers interpret and translate the policy for holistic PE assessment and discuss potential consequences of their policyenactments. Data were generated through six focus group interviews with 22 PE teachers working at different secondary and upper secondary schools. The theoretical framework usedin the analysis is based on Ball et al.’s (2012a) work on policy enactment. The findings show that teachers view the policy for holistic assessment in PE positively. They claim that it enables them to concentrate on the bigger picture, weigh factors in terms of significance during assessment, and connect to students’ lives outside of PE. We discuss the potential consequences ofthe teachers’ policy enactments in terms of the backwash of the reform. On the one hand, the reform results in reduced transparency and a risk that certain areas of knowledge may be marginalised. On the other hand, the study suggests that teachers’ autonomy with respect to assessment increases. This autonomy, which ideally leads to valid holistic assessments and fair grades, is tailored to the students’ conditions and what they see as meaningful knowledge in life outside ofschool.

The overall interest of this thesis is to contribute with knowledge about meaning making processes in educational encounters with nature in different educational practices. The exploration consists of four studies based on a pragmatic perspective on meaning making inspired by the works of John Dewey and Ludwig Wittgenstein. A discourse analytical approach is also used in the first study to analyse the curriculum documents. The result confirms that encounters with nature have a clear position in the curriculum documents, and friluftsliv is a prioritised content in PETE. It is further confirmed that the field of outdoor education is a field of conflicting meanings that pose significant educational challenges. Indeterminate situations occur and may influence students’ possibilities to transform the educational content in PETE to a school context. Another conclusion from the results is that instrumental meanings and a sportification of friluftsliv often get precedence over more emotional based meanings connected to nature. The results also show empirical examples where encounters with nature enable participants to create moral relations towards nature. This potential is highlighted in previous research as one of the most important in order to (re)connect our relation towards nature and in extension better conditions to deal with environmental questions.

The aim with this article is to contribute knowledge about the meanings of friluftsliv in educational practice. This is done by investigating what friluftsliv becomes in the ongoing practices of PETE in Sweden and how these meanings are established in the studied activities. The empirical material consists of different kinds of material from friluftsliv activities in PETE programmes: study guides, field trip plans, students' vlogs from overnight stays outdoors, video recordings from two longer field trips, audio recordings from evening seminars during the field trips and students' written reflections after them. In order to identify meanings of friluftsliv and how these are established we used a transactional analysis based on Dewey. Five different ways of what friluftsliv becomes in PETE practice were identified in this study. The different meanings reflect the complex picture of contradictions and lack of common ground for the content and motives identified in the outdoor education field. Our study also confirms how the meaning of friluftsliv as skills is established by putting up tents, lighting fires, building wind shelters and so on, and how this contributes to a focus on the instrumental values in PETE. On the other hand, our study shows that other meanings of friluftsliv are established in the ongoing practice, where more intrinsic values are at stake even if they are often overshadowed in PETE practice. In conclusion the results also point to the potential of fritluftsliv in terms of a suggested move away from an activity-based personal and social development discourse in favour of experiences of educating for environmentally sustainable human-nature relations. The challenge is how to make these experiences educational in PETE and how to guide students in transforming experiences in more exclusive friluftsliv into pedagogical competence as future teachers using friluftsliv for different purposes in school PE.

The overall aim of this article is to contribute to a critical discussion about aims and goals of outdoor education in schools. The study examines motives for outdoor education in the national curricula in Sweden from the end of 19th century until today. The study relies on a discourse analysis methodology. Aspects of continuity and change connected to the identified motives are also included in the analyses. The results show that a scientific perspective on encounters with nature has dominated during the last hundred years. In recent years, more instrumental motives are expressed in the curricula, while students' personal experiences and feelings are less focused. © 2022 University of Oslo, Norwegian Centre for Science Education. All rights reserved.

The general public´s everyday encounters with nature have radically changed during the 20th century in industrial countries. Our relation towards nature in relation to environmental challenges is an important educational question, and this thesis investigates encounters with nature in educational practice. More specifically the aims are to investigate (i) how encounters with nature has been legitimated in the national curricula of Swedish school, and (ii) meaning making processes within pedagogical encounters with nature.  

In relation to the first aim a discourse analytical reading of the national curricula in Sweden is conducted. The results show that a scientific perspective of encounters with nature has been dominating during the last hundred years in the national curricula. In recent years, it is also more instrumental encounters that are expressed in the curricula, while students’ personal experiences and feelings are not focused in current curricula.  Paper II and III examine moral meaning making in three different educational practices – Outdoor Education Centres, All-Weather Outdoor Schools and the Radical Outdoor movement. A multidisciplinary method is used in paper II, LEDmodel (Landscape, Ethical and Didactical). Paper III is based on the ethical tendency and language-game analyses. The results from these studies show that the educational purpose have an impact on moral processes in relation to nature. When the purpose is related to scientific knowledge there is often an instrumental relation towards nature in contrast to encounters that are more open. Open encounters instead seem to create relations that are built on a sense of responsibility and empathy. The results show that relations are created in different ways where some are more personal and built on emotion when other emotions are more based on stated rules or norms.  

The overall aim of this article is to develop in-depth knowledge about the connection between outdoor experiences and moral attitudes towards nature. The study focuses on processes in which moral relations are at stake in encounters between students and nature. The purpose is to identify such events, describe their specific circumstances and clarify how moral relations are established in these events. The empirical material consists of video-recordings of activities in three different outdoor education practices. In order to identify and categorise moral situations, an analytical tool called the ethical tendency is used. This tool is based on Wittgenstein’s language game method. The findings show that in the investigated outdoor education practices, moral relations towards nature are established in several different ways. The article concludes with four educational implications: responsibility when dealing with moral reactions; bring- ing ethical questions to the fore; different educational conditions create different encounters with nature; and the consequences of different language games.