Paper Short Abstract:

The paper discusses the cultural models of education in correspondent letters of late 19th and early 20th century Finnish working-class press. It demonstrates how (unwritten) agrarian models were used in categorizations of an ideal member of working-class and critique of education models.

Paper Abstract:

Since the early 2000s, scholars of ethnology, folklore, religion and literary studies have offered new perspectives for the history of Finnish education. Using various archive and literary materials, researchers have brought voices of resistance from below, which were largely ignored from previous (education) history. These studies show that rural people and industrial workers were not merely passive recipients of late 19th civilization and education models but were able to discuss and criticise them in the public sphere through correspondent letters.

In my presentation I will discuss the reception and creation of education models in the late 19th and early 20th century working-class Finnish press. Using cognitive cultural studies as theoretical framework, I analyse how correspondents received, criticized and reshaped cultural models of education for the needs of working-class. On the ideological surface, writings advocate socialist worldview, class struggle and class consciousness, which included critique of ‘bourgeois’ values and models of education. However, careful ethnological gaze can also reveal hidden (unwritten) agrarian mental models beneath the surface, which were crucial in the construction of new models for the working-class. Categorizations of a ‘good’ member of working-class included attributes, values and norms, which were inherited from estate society. Cultural models of rural people and peasants were adapted and transformed into new values of an ideal member of a working class, which also included labour movement´s models for a civilized and educated worker.

Paper Short Abstract:

In rewriting The Cultural Schoolbag, I question the cultural-political narrative about the perceived awesomeness of the programme. Included is rewriting the weight placed on Sami topics in the Norwegian school system, despite a curriculum requiring that pupils learn about the history, culture, social life and rights of the Indigenous Sami people.

Paper Abstract:

The Cultural Schoolbag, TCS, is a national cultural program offering cultural and cultural heritage productions to pupils aged 6 to 19 in the Norwegian school system. Since 2018, there has been increased national focus on the Sami arts and cultural offer included in the programme. In official documents from both the culture and education sectors’ authorities, there are clear requirements that Sami perspectives are to be included.

In TCS, this means on the one hand an opportunity for Indigenous Sami artists to show their projects to pupils, developing their communication skills, and evolving their artistic career. On the other hand, this might mean that the artists experience challenging and difficult encounters with pupils and teachers.

In rewriting TCS, I question the cultural-political narrative about the awesomeness of the programme, characterized by the conviction of its high quality and importance for everyone involved. Included in the rewriting is the questioning of the weight placed on Sami topics in the Norwegian school system, despite a curriculum reform in 2020 requiring that pupils learn about the history, culture, social life and rights of the Indigenous Sami people.

For the Indigenous Sami artist touring the schools with TCS, there might be a cost associated with this artistic-pedagogic endeavour. There are certainly positive encounters, but also challenging ones, in which audience behaviour might span from indifference, to restless and noisy, or bordering on racism.

Paper Short Abstract:

This paper examines the concept of everyday nationhood within the school setting, focusing on how material objects, rituals, and interactions shape students' national identification and sense of belonging. Drawing on ethnography in Lithuanian schools, it highlights how national ideologies are performed, reimagined, and contested daily.

Paper Abstract:

The role of schooling in the (re)production of nation-states and nationalism has been a widely discussed topic in the literature. Universal and centralized education, particularly through mandatory schooling, has been shown to promote shared narratives, and symbols that are essential to imagining the national community. Extensive research has demonstrated how structural aspects of education—such as state and school policies, curricula, and textbooks—contribute to the construction and reproduction of national narratives and identity. However, significantly less attention has been devoted to examining how nationalism is shaped and reproduced through everyday practices and interactions, the material school environment, and emotional responses.

This paper investigates the concept of everyday nationhood within the school setting, with a specific focus on the role of materiality in shaping national identification and affective attachments. Drawing on early findings from an ongoing multi-sited ethnography in Lithuanian schools, it explores how material objects—such as flags, maps, uniforms, and other national symbols—alongside school rituals and practices, influence students’ sense of (non-)belonging and national identification.

The paper argues that ethnographic research into everyday school life provides a means to “unwrite” conventional narratives that frame schools as mere instruments for reproducing national ideologies as intended by the state and elites. Such an approach reveals the multiplicity of interpretations, negotiations, and resistances to national discourse that occur within everyday interactions. Furthermore, it examines the tensions that arise when national symbols intersect with diverse student identities, demonstrating how schools function as microcosms in which the nation is simultaneously performed, reimagined, and contested.

Paper Short Abstract:

This presentation considers how dominant narratives emerging after school shootings in the United States unwrite, overwrite, and erase other narratives about survivor and community experiences of gun violence; the educational implications of these erasures; and how campus community members use vernacular modes of expression to respond to them.

Paper Abstract:

A unique factor of the American educational system is the omnipresent threat of gun violence in school settings, which reflects the larger culture of gun violence in the United States. A typical performance follows each school shooting: a community outpouring of disbelief and grief, political messages that share “thoughts and prayers” for the victims and survivors, followed by political gridlock forestalling meaningful legislative change to prevent future shootings. Eventually, students, faculty, and staff return to the scene of violence and attempt to resume the work of education. Bolstered by recognizable generic forms of expressive culture that have emerged in the wake of these shootings, this return to school is marked by the collective performance of a unifying narrative foregrounding community strength, recovery, and healing in the face of gun violence. Such dominant narratives about gun violence “unwrite” the ongoing trauma and violence experienced by individuals and communities. This “unwriting” serves to restrict survivors from sharing their stories and also limits public discourse surrounding the costs of gun violence.

This presentation considers how these dominant narratives after school shootings unwrite, overwrite, and erase other narratives about survivor and community experiences with gun violence, and the educational implications of these erasures. Attending to the generic forms of expressive culture that support these narratives, we also examine how vernacular artifacts such as informal memorials, zines, and hallway art produced in the wake of one university mass shooting directly respond to the “unwriting” of survivors’ experiences and confront dominant narratives about gun violence.

Paper Short Abstract:

This contribution focuses on the infrastructural processes of academic knowledge in higher education courses that take place before the actual event. This builds on approaches from Scientific and Technical Studies, Material Culture Studies and Sensory Ethnography which can provide impulses for cultural perspectives on learning and education.Using a praxeographic approach, this article analyzes the processes of teaching input at the university and the emerging «love» for the «Plato» input mask.

Paper Abstract:

Cultural perspectives on teaching and learning in Higher Education focus not only on the content presented in seminars and lectures, the performances in situ of the classroom or on how students and lecturers act together, but also on the long process chains that pre-produce, organize, and infrastruct this knowledge. There are aspects of knowledge infrastructuring within the classroom, but this paper focuses on the fact that there are also practices and dispositifs that organize and shape the «content» beforehand.

As a concrete field, I use a praxeographic approach to examine the process of teaching input of Empirical Cultural Studies at a Swiss University and how I as both, a practicioner and researcher at the same time become familiar with Plato – the input mask — or one might almost say: enter into a Platonic Love. Dealing with technologies always has a multisensory and sensual side.

This reflection may show sides of such knowledge processes in academic teaching and learning, that often are administred in a less self-reflected way. The (technical) things are part of this co-creation as well.

This paper wants to dicuss how far a researcher must go to analyse such infrastructuring processes that formate the finaly presented knowledge. Further it aims to reflect how Science and Technology Studies, Material Cultural Studies and Sensory Ethnography may provides impulses for contouring Cultural Perspectives on Learning and Education.

Paper Short Abstract:

This paper examines how contemporary Icelandic reading promotion initiatives shape societal perceptions of "readers" and "non-readers", where readers are portrayed as responsible contributors to society and non-readers are depicted as threats to societal values and economic prosperity.

Paper Abstract:

Declining performance in reading comprehension on PISA assessments has become a central topic in public debates about Icelandic education. Policies and practices are increasingly being shaped to encourage children to read more. However, reading is not merely the act of decoding letters into words and letting them make sense; it is a culturally embedded activity imbued with values and meanings. This cultural dimension has been largely overlooked in Icelandic literacy studies, which tend to view the promotion of reading merely as a tool to improve performance without acknowledging its broader socio-cultural implications.

Drawing on public discourse and semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 15 parents of primary school children, this paper examines how contemporary reading promotion initiatives shape societal perceptions of "readers" and "non-readers". The study forms part of an ongoing doctoral research project in ethnology at the University of Iceland.

The findings show a dichotomy: readers are portrayed as responsible contributors to society, while non-readers are depicted as threats to societal values and economic prosperity. This discursive construction of the non-reader as "the other" not only marginalizes individuals but also normalizes their marginalization, thereby reinforcing social divides.

Paper Short Abstract:

This presentation examines the efforts of Syrian refugee mothers in Lebanon to enable their children’s education as a form of care. It broadens the concept of parental involvement by highlighting its affective dimensions in a cultural context where care is commonly expressed through practical actions and sacrifices.

Paper Abstract:

This presentation explores the efforts of displaced Syrian mothers living in Beirut to enable their children’s education as a form of care. While research on refugee education often focuses on assessing parental involvement—or the lack thereof—through practices like helping with homework or engaging with school personnel, this presentation broadens the definition of parental involvement. It illustrates how Syrian mothers not only actively support their children’s education but also make significant sacrifices to ensure access to learning under challenging conditions.

When the ethnographic data was collected in early 2023, Lebanon was already in the midst of a devastating economic crisis. Infrastructure had largely collapsed, making access to electricity, water, and fuel unreliable. Hyperinflation had severely eroded the purchasing power of salaries, making it difficult to cover basic living expenses. Lebanon’s primary education system depends heavily on the costly private sector, and even access to public schools has been precarious for Syrian refugees.

Despite these dire circumstances, Syrian mothers go to great lengths to enable their children’s education, including self-educating to better support their children, enduring racism when dealing with school personnel, and homeschooling. Many families even tolerate unbearable living conditions and cut back on food expenses to save money for private school fees. Using the idiom “enabling education as care,” this presentation expands the concept of parental involvement in education by highlighting its affective dimensions within a cultural context where loving care is commonly expressed through practical actions and sacrifices.

Paper Short Abstract:

How to reduce the usage of smartphones by students is debated in many educational systems. But at the same time schools are eager to digitalize. Teachers, thus, are asked to balance conflicting roles. Analyzing my interviews with mothers who are also educators and users of smartphones, I try to understand how speaking with ‘plural voices’ affects my interviewees reflections on smartphones in educational settings.

Paper Abstract:

‘Students get easily distracted and their attention span is getting lower by the day – because they are addicted to their smartphones’ – this is a common complaint in media criticism. Media criticism has always focused on youth and education (Maase ‘Schmutz und Schund’ 1997), not only regarding the media content (Schönberger: ‘Medienkritik’ 2021), but also regarding media usage (Bareither: ‘Alltäglichkeit’ ZEKW 2019). How to reduce the usage of smartphones (Kanz: 'A matter of pace' forthc.) is prominently debated in many education systems. But at the same time schools are eager to digitalize and to prepare students for using digital technologies. Thus, teachers are being asked to balance conflicting roles. They are expected to limit the smartphone usage of their students, but they also need to incorporate modern technology into their teaching. Also, teachers have different experiences with the usage of smartphones, drawing from their personal media usage as well as from their experiences as parents. Thus, this paper focusses on the shifts in perspectives taken by people interviewed as teachers, as parents, and as experts of their everyday lives.

Based on interviews I conducted since 2023 on the restricted use of smartphones among mothers who are also educators/teachers, I try to understand how speaking with ‘plural voices’ affects my interviewees reflections on the usage of smartphones.

This study is part of my postdoctoral project on a longing for “authenticity” in a digitalized and economized society.

Paper Short Abstract:

In this paper we will present our ongoing research project on how parents to children with school absenteeism experience the unwritten and sometimes hidden everyday practicalities and challenges connected to prolonged school absence, as well as their dialogue with schools and other authorities.

Paper Abstract:

School absenteeism has been described and perceived as a complex and growing problem, both in Sweden and internationally and research indicates that prolonged school absence often entails negative consequences for the individual as well as for the school and society at large (e.g. Ekstrand 2015, Gubbels et al 2019). It also has consequences for parents/guardians and everyday family life (e.g. Havik et al 2014, Myhill 2017), although these aspects have been less researched.

This paper starts from an ongoing research study on parental experiences of school absenteeism, based on qualitative interviews with parents of children with prolonged school absence. The presentation will focus on the unwritten and sometimes hidden everyday practicalities and challenges connected to school absenteeism, and the parents’ dialogue with schools and other authorities. The theoretical framework includes social citizenship and emotion theoretical perspectives (Lister 2007, Wetherell 2012).

Ekstrand, B. (2015). What it takes to keep children in school: A research review. Educational Review, 67(4), 459–482.

Gubbels, J., van der Put, C. & Assink, M. (2019). Risk factors for school absenteeism and dropout: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 48(9), 1637–1667.

Havik, T., Bru, E. & Ertesvåg, S. (2014). Parental perspectives of the role of school factors in school refusal. Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 19(2), 131–153.

Lister, R. (2007) Inclusive Citizenship: realizing the potential, Citizenship Studies, vol. 11.

Myhill, A. (2017). Parents’ views of their involvement during extended school non-attendance. Cardiff.

Wetherell, Margaret. 2012. Affect and Emotion. A New Social Science Understanding. London.

Paper Short Abstract:

With the pupil in focus and the combination of methods and material types, this study contributes with a holistic perspective and detailed knowledge of how conceptions, practices and conditions interact and shape the pupils school situation, which relates to issues concerning social justice.

Paper Abstract:

Since the late 1980s, Swedish schools have undergone several reforms and a system change. There is a need for research how this has affected the schooling of pupils’ with congenital mobility impairments. The overall question for this research project is: What does the social and educational school situation in different contexts look like for these pupils? The specific purpose is twofold: 1) to investigate the experiences and perceptions of pupils’ about their school situation, and 2) to identify the perceptions, conditions and practices around the school that promote and counteract opportunities for equal education and development. The project is a three-year project, and involves collaboration between me/researcher, The National Association for Disabled Children and Young People and a national agency.

The study has an ethnographic design, based on cultural analysis, political discourse theory, intersectional and norm critical perspectives, ableism and critical disability studies, an explorative and holistic approach and qualitative fieldwork methods. The study combines observations, conversations, semi-structured interviews and document and internet analysis.

During the fieldwork, I mainly follow 12 pupils in grade 1-9 individually in five days in their everyday school life, followed up with an interview with the parents. With the pupil in focus and the combination of methods and material types, this study contributes with a holistic perspective and detailed knowledge of how conceptions, practices and conditions interact and shape the pupils school situation. The main fieldwork and data collection of the study will be done in 2024 and 2025.