Project information
Project manager
Professor Johan Malmqvist
Other project members
Johanna Lüddeckens, Henrik Nilsson, Daniel Sundberg, Linnaeus University
Participating organizations
Linnaeus University
Financier
Linnaeus Knowledge Environment: Education in change
Timetable
2024–
Subject
Pedagogy, Department of Education, Faculty of Social Sciences
Research groups
Research in Inclusion, Democracy and Equity (RIDE), Studies in Curriculum, Teaching and Evaluation (SITE), Center for cultural sociology, Centrum för pedagogisk ledning (in Swedish only)
More about the project
Segregation and exclusion have increased dramatically in recent years, despite Sweden’s commitment to achieving the goals of Agenda 2030. Goal 4 states that by 2030 schools should “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.” The increase concerns, for example, special education teaching groups, resource schools, special schools, adapted compulsory schools, and the newly established emergency schools. At the same time, the proportion of students diagnosed with ADHD and autism spectrum conditions has risen sharply in Sweden in recent years, and these students are largely placed in segregated learning environments. Government grants have been used to expand segregated placements—a national governance approach based on political agreements rather than scientific evidence.
The project aims to examine decision-making within governance chains from the national level down to the classroom level for students of compulsory school age who have medical diagnoses such as ADHD and Autism spectrum conditions. This involves studying decisions that determine student placements, the design of school situations, and their consequences for students, all within the framework of governance chains. A staircase model, covering all main forms of teaching situations in Sweden—from inclusive teaching in regular classes to highly exclusionary contexts such as SiS schools (compulsory care) or self-exclusion (school absenteeism)—is used to understand the underlying processes, forces, and mechanisms that shape decisions about students’ schooling.
What is a seed project?
A seed project is a minor project funded by a knowledge environment or a research group at the university. The aim is to launch and promote excellent research. Depending on the financier, a seed project may be to idenfify new or deepen existing collaborations, preferably cross-disciplinary ones, to explore possible research issues in a feasibility study, to collect empirical material, or to write an application for external funding.
