Sweden hosted the first environmental development conference in 1972 and since then has been a European role model in sustainability issues (UN, 1972), following the triple bottom line: concern for the planet, people and profit (Coombs & Holladay, 2012). The present study deals with the application of micro-ethnography in sustainable communication, in the case of the municipality of Gnosjö in Sweden. Based on internal, external and strategic communication literature, the case study of Gnosjö, in which different areas of organisational communication were represented and how they affected the sustainable development of the organisation, is presented and analysed. It was investigated, which communication channels the municipality uses, how these channels look like and which aspects influence the communication and its development. The approaches of micro-ethnography were applied to collect and evaluate data. For this purpose, data were collected from participating observations with employees at Gnosjö town hall and the collection of seven interviews with informants from the fields of communication and sustainability and constantly compared.  The exploratory data analysis reveals how the employees remained powerless in performing their work routine. Politicians, as the main decision-makers, play an important role in the development of the municipality. Therefore, they should attend training programs to understand the importance of sustainable communication internally and externally.

This study is an exploration of the ways in which four Somali students use language to express their identity and assert their views. The study explores the ways in which the Somali students' home culture and the school culture influence the development of their identity. Students participated in a lunchtime focus group on a regular basis over a period of several weeks. Using a micro-ethnographic approach to analysis, the students' interactions were reviewed while considering the ways in which knowledge was affirmed and contested, examples of intertextuality and intercontextuality were identified, and ideational notations or larger world view constructs were pinpointed. In this approach, specific events and interactions were linked to the broader contexts and connections that the participants were using in their communications. The result suggests a new and deeper understanding of the way in which these Somali learners use language to express their identity and negotiate the world. As a result of the examination of their interactions, educators can take from these participants' experiences some ideas about issues to consider when working with second language learners and their families. In this study students used language to assert their own identities as well as to position others in the group. These identities were continually negotiated by students and teachers alike. Students at times pushed back against ways in which they were identified. The Somali learners spoke of changing roles in the family as a result of learning English and being relied on to translate for parents who were non-English speakers. There were occasions where students used language in meaningful and contextually appropriate ways, but without understanding the power of the terms they used. Teachers have a significant role to play in shaping learners use of language and terms and guiding them to a more nuanced understanding of language. By examining children's language, it became apparent that teachers can provide critical information to help parents of second language learners negotiate the school and district resources. Students did express their Somali language and culture as they negotiated their school experience.

In a joint dissertation project, 11 brass instrument and guitar lessons, with 4 teachers and 21 students aged 9-35 years, were videotaped, transcribed and ana­lyzed. Two were group lessons and 9 were private lessons. The object of the pro­ject was to study how music teaching and learning can be under­stood from an institutional perspective by describing, analyzing and in­terpreting musical in­strument lessons. The lessons were viewed as social encounters in which the action of participants creates and re-creates social orders at different institutional levels, by means of communication rou­tines using speech, music and gesture. Data were derived from micro-ethnographic transcriptions of speech, gesture and music of a total of five hours of videotape, supplemented by text analyses of 14 method-books. The transcripts were analyzed as text from the perspective of critical discourse analysis. At the analytical level the study applied the cognitive concepts of experiencing and learning music, as well as those of educational gen­res of speech and music use. The analyzed data were interpreted and discussed from the per­spectives of interaction-theory and institution-theory. The results show how the music during the lessons was broken down into sepa­rate notes, as read from the score. Music was not addressed as phrases, rhythms, or melodies. Expressive qualities of music performance were not ad­dressed. The characteristics of the interaction were found to be asymmetric, with the teacher being the one controlling the definition of the situation. Student at­tempts to take initiative were ignored by teachers. This asymmetric pattern of interaction had negative consequences for students’ as well as teachers’ opportu­nities to learn. The organization of the teaching situation as well as teaching methods is discussed from the perspective of institution-theory. A major conclu­sion is that the way instrument teaching is organized leaves little room for stu­dents and teachers to discuss and reflect on the teaching process.

Både från politiskt och akademiskt håll betonas betydelsen av matematiskt partikulärspråk för barnsmatematiska kunskapsutveckling. Syftet med föreliggande studie är att studera hur förskolelärare och barn konstruerar matematiska begrepp i en förskolekontext. Arbetet tar avstamp i sociokulturellt och kulturanalytisk teori. Data har konstruerat genom att jag som forskare har följt och samtala med en lärare i förskolans verksamhet. Det empiriska materialet har dokumenterats med fältanteckningar och filminspelningar, totalt omfattar filmmaterialet ca 8 timmar. Resultaten beskriver en kultur där kroppen använd likt en servo genom att förstärka kommunikationen kring matematiskt partikulärspråk. Vidare konstrueras kulturen i två skilda typer av aktiviteter, ordnade och oordnade, där den förstnämnda är olika planerade aktiviteter där lärarens vilja sätter ramarna medan den sistnämnda är aktiviteter där barns vilja styr och läraren följer. De ramar som läraren sätter upp varierar men omfattar alltid att barnen tillåts att misslyckas. Vidare konstrueras ordnade aktivitet som mer betydande än oordnade på avdelningen medan samtidigt som de konstrueras som lika betydande i förhållandet till hemmen. I kulturen konstrueras det matematiska partikulärspråket som tillhörande lärarna medan det informella matematiska språket konstrueras som tillförande barnens. Tid är en viktig del av kulturen del genom att läraren och barn använder den som ett verktyg för att få sin vilja igenom och dels för att den konstrueras som överordnad barns och lärarens viljor. Olika kulturella artefakter som är representationer av tid, som klockan, konstrueras som tillhörande lärarna och som inte tillhörande barnen. Vidare diskuteras vilka kvalitativa effekter resultaten kan få för barnens kunskapsutveckling. / Both political and academical sources emphasizes the importance of a particular language for mathematics when it comes to the mathematical knowledge of children. The purpose of the study is to study how preschool teachers and children construct mathematical concepts in a preschool context. The study takes off in sociocultural and culture analytical theory. Data have been constructed through the method of me, in the role of the researcher, talking to a preschool teacher employed at a preschool. The empirical material have been documented with field notes and movie recordings, it includes about eight hours of movie material. The result describes a culture where the body acts as a servo to strengthen the communication around the particular language of mathematics. The culture is further constructed in two separate activities, ordered and unordered, where the former is different activities where the will of the teacher sets the boundaries, whereas thelatter are activities where the will of the child leads and the teacher follows. The boundaries the teacher employs varies, but always allows the child to fail. The ordered activities are further built asof higher importance in the class, but at the same time to have equal importance at home. In the culture the particular mathematical language is built as belonging to the teachers, whereas the informal mathematical language is built as belonging to the children. Time is an important part of the culture, partly since both the teacher and the children use it as a tool to enforce their will, and partly since it's built as superior to children's and teachers wills. Different cultural artifacts as representations of time, like the clock, is built as belonging to the teachers and not belonging to the children. Further discussed is what qualitative effects the results may have for the children's knowledge

Over the past several decades, secular schools in North America have been expected to impart moral education to students. An array of approaches, strategies, methods, and philosophical and theoretical orientations for doing so are promoted in education literature. Two, in particular, have also been politically endorsed in Ontario, Canada—character education and community service. Yet, there remains discrepancy among teachers’ practices, knowledge, awareness, and intentions. Anecdotal reports indicate that relatively few teachers provide a consistent and comprehensive moral education, and those who do, act primarily on their own initiative and at their own discretion. Previous empirical evidence suggests that teachers who are moral agents conceive of, enact, and reflect on a personally developed form of moral education, which is embedded in the moral and ethical dimensions of school and classroom life, curriculum, and pedagogy. This single-case study aims to broaden and deepen the scholarship of moral agency as moral education, by exploring the question How does a teacher, who prioritizes the moral education of students, envision, enact and reflect on that moral education. Positioning myself as a conduit, within what is often considered to be a closed-door culture of teaching, I metaphorically opened one teacher’s classroom door and exposed her practices. The result is a uniquely comprehensive and genuine portrait of moral agency, which details the use of a variety of strategies and methods for imparting morality. These include intentionally modelling moral behaviours, conduct and dispositions; fostering relationships with and among students; creating a classroom community; delivering virtues lessons and messages; encouraging discussions of a moral nature; nurturing self-discipline in students; providing opportunities for community service; and assessing students’ social and moral development. The harmonious co-existence of these strategies and methods within one classroom and one teacher’s practice; the complementary and supportive way in which the teacher makes use of them; and their independence of any particular philosophical or theoretical orientation for moral education, represent the main insights of this study. These insights suggest that moral education in a secular classroom might be more comprehensively understood and promoted as moral agency.

Over the past several decades, secular schools in North America have been expected to impart moral education to students. An array of approaches, strategies, methods, and philosophical and theoretical orientations for doing so are promoted in education literature. Two, in particular, have also been politically endorsed in Ontario, Canada—character education and community service. Yet, there remains discrepancy among teachers’ practices, knowledge, awareness, and intentions. Anecdotal reports indicate that relatively few teachers provide a consistent and comprehensive moral education, and those who do, act primarily on their own initiative and at their own discretion. Previous empirical evidence suggests that teachers who are moral agents conceive of, enact, and reflect on a personally developed form of moral education, which is embedded in the moral and ethical dimensions of school and classroom life, curriculum, and pedagogy. This single-case study aims to broaden and deepen the scholarship of moral agency as moral education, by exploring the question How does a teacher, who prioritizes the moral education of students, envision, enact and reflect on that moral education. Positioning myself as a conduit, within what is often considered to be a closed-door culture of teaching, I metaphorically opened one teacher’s classroom door and exposed her practices. The result is a uniquely comprehensive and genuine portrait of moral agency, which details the use of a variety of strategies and methods for imparting morality. These include intentionally modelling moral behaviours, conduct and dispositions; fostering relationships with and among students; creating a classroom community; delivering virtues lessons and messages; encouraging discussions of a moral nature; nurturing self-discipline in students; providing opportunities for community service; and assessing students’ social and moral development. The harmonious co-existence of these strategies and methods within one classroom and one teacher’s practice; the complementary and supportive way in which the teacher makes use of them; and their independence of any particular philosophical or theoretical orientation for moral education, represent the main insights of this study. These insights suggest that moral education in a secular classroom might be more comprehensively understood and promoted as moral agency.

Barns inflytande i förskolan är ett aktuellt ämne som dessutom anses vara otroligt komplext, både att förstå begreppet och att arbeta med. Vårt syfte är att synliggöra de normer som kännetecknar en verksamhet där barn får möjlighet till inflytande och vilka konsekvenser det får för verksamheten. Arbetet tar avstamp i kulturanalytisk teori och utifrån ett normkritiskt perspektiv diskuteras sedan resultatet. Vi har utfört en mikroetnografisk studie och data har samlats in med hjälp av semistrukturerade intervjuer och observationer. Empirin har samlats in på två avdelningar på två olika förskolor. Vårt resultat synliggör såväl möjligheter som hinder för barns inflytande. Det som framkommer är att pedagogernas barnsyn ligger till grund för det förhållningssätt som de har till barns inflytande. Vidare påverkar deras barnsyn om de närmar sig ett barns perspektiv eller inte vilket är avgörande för barns möjlighet till inflytande.  Pedagogernas förhållningssätt är också avgörande för de normer som kommer till uttryck i verksamheten. Sammanfattningsvis visar resultatet att de normer som finns i förskolan skapar både möjligheter och hinder och att de samverkar med varandra. / Children’s influence in preschool is a highly debated subject and it contains much complexity, both defining the word and working with the subject. The purpose of this study is to highlight norms that signifies a preschool where children have the possibility to influence their everyday life and the consequences that arise. The study begins in the culture analytic theory and use a norm critical perspective to discuss the results. As a methodology we have used the micro-ethnographic approach, where data has been collected using semi-structured interviews and observations. The empirical material comes from two departments, from two different preschools. The result presents both possibilities for and obstacles to children’s influence. The prominent result shows that teacher’s view on children determines their approach to children’s influence. Their view on children also plays a significant part on whether or not they try to understand a child’s perspective, which is of great importance for children’s possibility to have influence. Also, the result shows that teacher approach plays a significant part in what norms become significant in preschool. As a conclusion our result shows that existing norms work both as possibilities and as obstacles to children’s influence and that these norms all coexists.