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Aim. Early intervention and detecting early signs are often cited as a goal by professionals working with children, butdetecting and describing early signs is not well explored. Thus, the study’s aim was to explore professionals’ experiences and challenges in the early identifcation of psychosocial concerns in children aged 0–16. Materials and Methods. Data were collected from semistructured interviews with 26 professionals (e.g., nurses, psychologists, social workers, teachers, principals, and managers) working with children. The participants engaged in a pilot cooperation model between preschools, schools, social services, and healthcare to reach out early to children in need of support. The interviews were analyzed using thematic network analysis. Results. Four organizing themes were created as follows: “The idea of promoting and preventing is the key to success,” “Identifying the children who need support and intervention,” “Identifying observable early signs,” and “Occupied with children needing immediate support.” The organizing themes were interpreted into one global theme as follows: “All want an early intervention but putting it into practice is challenging.” Conclusion. The study shows that it is difcult to identify children in need of psychosocial support at an early stage because the early signs are difficult to detect. Thus, our results suggest that both preventive interventions targeting all children and specifc interventions for those in need of support are needed to promote health and wellbeing.

Challenges faced by national educational authorities when implementing school development: A qualitative case study about an attempt to create accessible teaching environments in a Swedish municipality’s pre-schools and schools.

1. Research topic/aim

National school authorities regularly introduce new concepts for school development to be implemented “at a grassroots level”. This paper addresses one such school development concept implemented in a Swedish municipality. Its goal was to increase children’s’ and students’ access to learning environments in schools and pre-schools. Implementation of this pedagogical concept was to proceed over a longer period of time and be linked to systematic quality work carried out in the municipality. The purpose of this paper is to describe and discuss how the implementation process was perceived by the school administration, teachers and other personal during the time the concept was introduced and thereafter.

2. Theoretical framework

The point of departure for this study is how the implementation process is related to what in Sweden is referred to as chain of governance. The chain of governance is the main principal for the organizational framework that creates structure for top-down management and as such is central to describing and understanding the implementation process within this framework. Implementing educational concepts is often considered relatively unproblematic by school authorities, however there are indications that there are a number of difficulties to overcome.

3. Methodological design

The study is based on a qualitative case study that is limited to one preschool, one school and the project's steering group. The research design can be characterized as an ongoing evaluation project, a term that has been used more and more in recent years related to different types of development projects in order to achieve a number of advantages pertaining to evaluation, research and organizational development. A central idea of ongoing evaluation research is to increase the effectiveness of development work by providing ongoing feedback to project management, but also by contributing to systematic learning, generating new research-based knowledge as well as demonstrating alternative ways of solving problems.

Collecting data from several sources allowed for data triangulation. The compilation and analysis of data is based on a hermeneutic interpretation related to the theoretical basis of the study. The results are based on both the managements’ and the staffs’ perspectives both of which are compared and contrasted to each other. Interest is directed at the processes that were initiated and what took place in those processes.

4. Expected conclusions/findings

The study is expected to show how the project's steering group acted to implement the evaluation tool, how they tried to transform the project concept into practical activities, how they informed and communicated with the staff concerned, how they organized the work and how they addressed the problems that arose along the way. This description is contrasted with how school management and staff describe what happened when the concept was applied in their organizations.

5. Relevance to Nordic educational research

There is a general interest in showing how centrally formulated concepts are implemented at the local level, because in many countries similar initiatives are being carried out, albeit in other areas. An increased understanding of this can contribute to increased general knowledge of implementation processes, but also in this specific case to problematize the concept of accessibility.

This article presents a study carried out on two levels in a school organization – the decision-making level and the realization level – within a municipality. The purpose was to study the implementation of an educational self-assessment tool for accessible education. This article contributes to an increase in general knowledge about implementation processes, while also providing a basis for in-depth dialogues that critically review such processes. A qualitative research strategy has been used, and data was collected by way of observations, interviews and focus-group discussions. The analysis followed the procedure for a qualitative analysis process. The results show that the implementation of a new concept, aimed at achieving change in education, is a complex, unpredictable process. In this case, the implementation process appears to have been hindered as a result of the discord in the process in which the two levels found themselves. The levels involved in an implementation process need to be understood as being interconnected where events at different levels affect each other. Creating dialogues between and within the levels, in terms of both ahead of the implementation and during the time it is in progress, appears, therefore, to be essential for sustainable change.

This article contributes to furthering our knowledge of how collaborative consultation, based on communicative theory, can make teachers’ learning from, and with, each other an inclusive process, and thus promote an inclusive school culture. The aim is to study special education professionals’ experiences of, and reflections on, leading collaborative consultations. The data consists of critical reflection (collaborative meta-consultation) in groups of special education professionals (consultants) and one researcher. The focus of the collaborative meta-consultations was on the consultations that the consultants held with groups of teachers. The data has been analysed using qualitative content analysis. Besides identifying some basic conditions, certain strategies and approaches have also been identified to make collaborative consultation an inclusive process. Collaborative consultation can promote an inclusive school culture if the concept of inclusion embraces how professionals collaboratively examine their practice, strategies, and values.

In this paper the focus is on the question of how collaborative professional learning, based on theories of communication, can promote an inclusive school culture. The aim is to discuss conditions and strategies that relate collaborative professional learning to the idea of evidence based practice and to the concept of an inclusive school culture. A research project was created based on different approaches, and in some sense contradictive, perspectives; one expert driven, top-down approach, one participant driven, bottom-up approach, and one interactive, deliberative approach. The data consists of recurrent critical reflecting and analyzing (collaborative meta-consultation) in groups of special education professionals (consultants) and a researcher whose focus was on collaborative consultation, consultants recurrently held with groups of teachers. The collaborative meta-consultations were based on Habermas’ theory of communication as well as Freire’s pedagogy of liberation. An approach of qualitative content analysis has been used to analyze the data. The result shows that it is possible to unite different perspectives when professionals in schools are given the opportunity to discuss, scrutinize and critically examine theories linked to their own practice. The result also shows that if the concept of collaborative consultation has guidelines such as communication, openness, respect, sincerity, participation and acceptance, the possibilities to create an inclusive school culture increase. This means that the concept of inclusion has to embrace how professionals collaboratively and deliberatively examine their practice, strategies and values.   

Key words: Evidence based practice, collaborative professional learning, inclusive school culture, theory of communication, qualitative content analysis.

The paper compares the conditions and implementation of special education professionals’ consulting task in Sweden and Finland. The article first describes the background of the consulting teacher role and special education in Sweden and in Finland. Two different perspectives in the continuum on consultation are presented, followed by a description of how the consulting task is implemented and described in educational policy papers, and in research in the two countries. The analysis shows that while there are differences between the implementation of the consulting task in Sweden and Finland, there are also several similarities regarding the challenges faced. Differences can be understood according to traditions, education, and educational policy papers. The similarities shows that the consulting task must be clearly defined in policy documents, highlighted in education, and understood as a complex activity where both advice and reflection strategies are used. The consulting task can be more successful if the consultation is characterized by collaborative dialogues where the classroom teachers’ knowledge and the context are also taken in account.