I den här avhandlingen är intresset riktat mot svensk utbildningspolitik och medborgarskap. I tider av globalisering, och med ett etablerat svenskt medlemskap i Europeiska unionen, har det nationella policyskapandet kring utbildningens medborgardanande funktion hamnat under ökat tryck. I studien undersöks hur detta hanteras i svensk utbildningspolitik under 1990-talet, en tid som utmärker sig genom betydande förändringar på utbildningsområdet i Sverige. Frågan är, mera precist, vilken riktning för skolans, enligt lag befästa, uppdrag att fostra demokratiska medborgare som utstakas i svensk utbildningspolitik vid denna tid. Genom att fästa vikt vid mål, visioner och motiv som formuleras i utbildningspolitiska 1990-talstexter klarläggs förståelser av medborgarskap som karaktäriserar svensk utbildningspolitik under denna tid. Även en bredare historisk analys görs, ur vilken historiska målsättningar med skolans medborgarfostran som föregår 1990-talets framträder. Studiens syfte är kritiskt. Förståelserna granskas utifrån vad de innesluter och vad de utesluter, vilka möjliga konsekvenser de kan tänkas få för olika individer och grupper i samhället, och om det finns öppningar för tänkbara alternativ. Studien visar på två historiska skiften vad gäller medborgarskapets innehåll och mening i det inhemska policyskapandet. Det första skiftet äger rum under 1990-talets tidiga del. Då bryts en etablerad samhällsbyggande medborgarroll upp, till förmån för andra mera marknadsorienterade medborgarroller. Under 1990-talets senare del, då marknadsorienteringen förstärks i neoliberal riktning, sker ett andra skifte; en historiskt vedertagen gemenskapstanke – nationen – bryts upp som grund för medborgerlig gemenskap. Denna tanke ersätts av en annan som är globaliseringsinriktad, vilken visar sig ha andra inne- och uteslutande mekanismer för olika individer och samhällsgrupper. Utifrån dessa forskningsrön tecknas avslutningsvis några konturer till ett alternativt sätt att tänka kring medborgarskap och gemenskap. Detta alternativ tar form i ambitionen att, i högre grad än vad som blir synligt i svensk utbildningspolitik, resonera kring möjligheter för ett medborgarskap bortom förhandstecknade indelningsgrunder för ett “vi”. Språk som politisk och samhällelig förändringskraft ges en central betydelse i avhandlingen. I analysen av texternas tal om skolans medborgarfostrande roll undersöks pågående politiska motsättningar när det gäller att vinna tal- och tolkningsföreträde till skolans fostransmål. Utgångarna av dessa motsättningar belyses genom tre områden för medborgarfostran som urskilts som centrala; ett politiskt, ett kulturellt samt ett ekonomi- och arbetslivsriktat. Genom dessa har rådande medborgarskapsdiskurser tagit form, ur vilka de utbildningspolitiska förståelserna av medborgarskap gestaltas och diskuteras. / In this thesis attention is drawn to Swedish education policy and citizenship. In times of globalization, and with Swedish membership of the European Union, national policymaking concerning the commissioned role of citizen upbringing has come under increased pressure. In this study, light is shed on how this issue is given shape in Swedish education policy in the 1990s, a period marked by significant changes in the field of education in Sweden. The core question is, more precisely, what direction is being marked out for the Swedish schools´ commission, laid down by law, to foster democratic citizens during this period. By taking an interest in how objectives, visions and motives are formulated in education policy texts from the 1990s, understandings of citizenship are mapped that characterize Swedish education policy during this period. In addition, a more extensive analysis is carried out, by means of which historical goals of the schools’ fostering of citizens prior to those of the 1990s are presented. The aim of the study is critical. The understandings are reviewed in order to revise what they include and exclude, as well as what possible consequences they may have for different individuals and groups, and whether there are conceivable alternatives. It is emphasised that two historical changes take place during the 1990s concerning the subject of the content and meaning of citizenship in Swedish education policymaking. Firstly, during the first part of the 1990s, a historically established citizen role is changed and replaced by other, more market-oriented roles. During the latter part of the 1990s, when the market orientation is reinforced in neo liberal courses, a second change emerges, the historically accepted basic idea of inclusion – the nation – as the “we”-creating reference for civic spirit is shattered. It is replaced by another – globalization – with other qualities that include and exclude different individuals and groups. Finally, on the basis of these findings, some conditions for a possible alternative are sketched. This alternative is given shape with the ambition of, to a greater extent than is made visible in Swedish Education policy, reasoning about possibilities beyond presupposed dividing properties for a “we”. The power of language for political and societal change has an important role in this dissertation. Political clashes concerning achieving preferential access to talk and interpretation about upbringing objectives are examined by analyzing the texts’ talk about the schools’ commission to foster citizens. Light is shed on the outcomes of these clashes by examining three vital areas for citizen upbringing, found to be crucial in this context: a political one, a cultural one and an economical and working-life oriented one. These citizenship discourses are elucidated and understandings of citizenship in Swedish education policy are given form and alternatives are discussed.

Tim Randberg and Filip Lindahl carried out this study under the institution for pedagogy, didactics and educational studies at Uppsala University. In relation to the lack of research regarding students’ perspectives regarding the legitimizing aspects of the school subject of social science(samhällskunskap), and in contrast to the existence of such research regarding teachers’ perspectives, this study is an attempt at contributing to the lack of previous research and note the importance of working towards a reality in which students’ and teachers’ attitudes, regarding the importance and the purpose of social studies, aligns.  This didactic study, which analyzes which attitudes are connected to a small group of students (age 18), as well as a small group of social science teachers, regarding what legitimizes studying social science, along with the key differences between these two groups, is an interview study in which a didactic theory formed by Gert Biesta was applied in relation to the results of the interview. Biesta’s theoretical framework, which is central for this study, categorized the legitimizing aspects of education into three categories: qualification, socialization and subjectification, in which every relevant analytical finding was categorized into each of Biesta’s three categories. This study concludes that both teachers and students found the internalization of democratic values as well as citizenship development to be the central legitimizing aspects of civic studies. The results regarding the teachers’ comments aligned with most previous research, except for the aspect of power, which in contrast to previous research was absent in the results for this study. Regarding the three theoretical categories, no significant differences were to be found but rather smaller differences that could be considered noteworthy. Teachers discussed the legitimizing aspects of civic studies from a qualification-related point of view more than the students did. In contrast, the students made comments that were connected to the concepts of socialization as well as subjectification in a greater sense compared to the teachers. Regarding the concept of qualification, both teachers and students related the purpose of civic studies to skills and knowledge necessary to engage politically in society, or to prosper in society. Connected to the concept of socialization, students found that it was important that people internalized democratic values and norms related to democracy, which aligns with the teachers’ responses, only that the latter as a group further discussed the legitimizing aspect of civic studies as it being a means to prevent extremism, racism as well as other anti-democratic aspects that a few students were described as gravitating towards. In relation to the concept of subjectification, students, unlike the teachers, noted the importance of becoming global citizens. Both groups argued for the importance of developing a culturally adaptive mindset as well as forming an individual political opinion. Most teachers discussed the importance of students, along with the civic studies, becoming less self-centered and more focused on their role in relation to a social, collective context. In contrast, several students made individualistic claims; that a legitimizing aspect of civic studies, regarding certain skills and abilities that comes with the subject and that was regarded as a key element in a modern, democratic social context, is that they develop a sense of what others think of them and how successfully they present themselves to other people, groups and institutions. One conclusion is that there is a reason for the didactic research-field to investigate whether there needs to be a function in Swedish education which investigates whether students and teachers share the same idea of why they are studying a subject or various content related to a subject,

Blockchain technology has gained ground as a method of independently and securely verifying transaction receipts of educational credentials so they can connect directly to individual digital wallets. Challenges in this transformation include the risk of dilution of value in existing credentials and the risk of duplicating structures. Internationally, several studies and pilots are ongoing. The EU is currently actively working to promote the development of digital micro-credentials with both initiatives and standards recommendations. Nationally in Sweden, government initiatives aim to bring the entire national digital infrastructure together to improve support for lifelong professional learning. Industrial stakeholders, academic education and vocational educational organizations are documented having partly overlapping, partly different needs and requirements. The purpose of this master’s thesis research is to describe the potential use of a blockchain-based ICT system for digital micro-credentials in vocational education, and what would be the desired characteristics of providing such a system from the perspective of stakeholder decision-makers on the governmental, commercial, and educational level. For this, interpretive qualitative research has been conducted. The data was collected through documents review of governmental and policy documents from the EU and Sweden, and individual interviews with seven participants among key stakeholder organizations (vocational institutions, commercial organizations, and government agencies representatives). The collected data was analyzed thematically. The analysis of the collected data was thematically structured into five themes and discussed in the context of the research aim and research question, using the proposed theoretical framework, including structuration theory.  Findings showed that challenges on the macro-level perspective dominated the potential uses and desired characteristics, explicitly the need for a solution that can bridge the gap between industry needs and formal education. The need for a technical solution that can create interoperability between different forms of micro-credentials and credentials was highlighted. A solution with the individual in focus would be a major shift that could improve individuals’ potential to plan careers, enable employers to improve recruitment processes, and strengthen the Swedish government actors in skills and educational planning on the national and regional level. The key to these uses would be the ability to build trust between parties and connect such a technological solution to existing structures such as the European Qualification Framework’s Swedish implementation (SeQF). The research contributes theoretically by adding to the rather limited research on blockchain use for micro-credentials in education, and practically by presenting the context and landscape of the Swedish system of vocational education and training in relation to the potential use of digital micro-credentials.

The increasing integration of technology in education has led to significant changes in the way teaching and learning is conducted. This study aims to investigate the impact of digitalization on schools and the teaching of social studies subjects. The research focuses on identifying changes in learning, teaching, the role of teachers and student engagement as a result of the implementation of digitalization in the classroom. The study also aims to explore the challenges and opportunities that have been created by the increasing use of digitalization in schools and society-oriented education. Data was collected through five interviews with teachers who use digital ways in their teaching of social science subjects, and the results were analyzed qualitatively. The findings indicate that digitalization has positively impacted student learning and engagement, but also highlighted challenges. The study concludes that while digitalization presents challenges, it also creates opportunities for improving teaching and learning and increasing student engagement. The results of this study can be used to guide teachers and schools in the effective integration of digitalization in society-oriented education.

This thesis studies the clash between the hero and the First World War in the works of Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. It explores the impact on their poetry and attitude towards the concept of the hero as it applied to them as people and poets. The study shows that over prolonged contact with the horrors of the First World War, it is evident in both literary sources and their poetry that both Sassoon and Owen changed their attitudes negatively towards both the idea of heroes and heroism, as well as the War as a just and glorious cause.  However, the myth of the hero was still a core belief of their society, and in order to not be branded cowards and discarded along with their warnings, they had to become heroes in the eyes of their society, to openly attack the concept and the war it fueled. This thesis then studies how and why First World War poetry and literature should be utilized within the subject of English in the Swedish School System, as a means to provide a multicultural and critical education.

Distance learning offered to students by Swedish universities has continued to increase, which has led to an increase in the use of learning management system (LMS). Recently, due to the pandemic, many universities have temporarily made university classes compulsory as distance through remote learning, and the importance of LMS is also emerging. However, there is a problem that the dropout rate of remote students is significantly higher than that of on-campus students. Therefore, this qualitative study aims to propose various suggestions to enhance students' learning experience by understanding their perception and experience of using Moodle, one of the popular LMS platforms, for the distance students of Information system master program of Linnaeus university. When evaluating the system as a model for this study, David (1989)'s Technology acceptance model (TAM), which has already been verified in many studies, was considered first, but this model does not take into account the feelings of system users. After that, Hassenzhal's UX model was finally adopted as a model for this study. However, this study shows that Hedonic attributes, one of the elements of Apparent product character of this UX model, does not play any role for evaluating UX in LMS platforms such as Moodle. The reason for this is that users think of Moodle as a learning information tool only for their study purpose, and their identification and social communication are significantly poor in the platform. Also, Moodle does not provide any stimulation to their feeling. As the research method, semi-structured interviews were conducted through Skype or Zoom with 7 Moodle users from 5 different nationalities who voluntarily applied for the interviews. As a result, it was found that 8 issues (Usability and design of the main page and dashboard, information distributed across multiple platforms, notification and landing issue, lack of awareness of students about some features of Moodle, presence of unnecessary features, slow website speed, low use of mobile applications, non-standardized course page design) on Moodle through their past experiences that could be detrimental to the user experience. Based on the findings, this paper will discuss various suggestions to improve Moodle's UX for distance students’ better learning experience.

As the digital age takes root, more and more students use the internet to acquire information for their studies. Common sources in Sweden are online encyclopedias like Wikipedia, SO-rummet and Nationalencyklopedin (NE). Seeing as these online encyclopedias can fill the role of teaching aids it is prudent to examine their contents to evaluate if they hold up to the standards established by the Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket). Focusing on the subject “religion” and the topic “Judaism”, this study evaluates the contents and framing used in the main articles about Judaism from both Swedish and English versions of the collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia as well as the Swedish sources NE which is state sponsored and the commercial actor SO-rummet. Additionally this paper discusses how these sources compare with the central contents of the course Religionsvetenskap 1 (Religious Studies 1) for Swedish upper secondary school. The results show that the articles from NE and Swedish Wikipedia mostly state facts without elaborating and are more likely to give the reader a homogeneous picture of Judaism. SO-rummet is the most beginner friendly source while English Wikipedia is the most nuanced but perhaps most difficult source for students to comprehend. Generally, the sources fail to portray diversity within the tradition, with the exception being English Wikipedia. The sources that compare the best with the central contents for Religionsvetenskap 1 were in the following in descending order: English Wikipedia, SO-rummet, Swedish Wikipedia and lastly NE. This is problematic because previous studies show that students have greater faith in NE than they do in Wikipedia. It is worth keeping in mind however, that students are likely to use more than one source, especially if it is a group assignment. It is up to the teacher to recommend good sources, fill in the blanks and to guide the students with their own teaching.