The aim of the article is to shed light on the social dynamic that characterizes communicative breakdowns. As a first stage, this has been explored through individual and group interviews with 34 healthcare professionals about situations where they claim there has been a communication breakdown. Based on the professionals’ testimonies, the research question was: how do professionals illustrate their experiences of communicative breakdowns? In terms of theory, the study draws upon an integrated approach to language and social interaction dynamics – for example how actors mediate positions and roles, but also present, negotiate and determine the course of action in patient cases. Findings show: (1) different degrees of severity in communicative breakdowns, and (2) that the professionals have developed and use both explicit and implicit strategies to handle ”delicate relationships” in this kind of interactions.

The launching and establishment of a social problem: An analysis of the debate on Swedish national level gymnastics in Dagens Nyheter 2012-2013

In 2012 Sweden’s largest daily newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, published a number of articles on the state of affairs in Swedish national level gymnastics. In these articles, ex-gymnasts, coaches, parents and physicians stepped forward and testified about recurrent wrongdoings and abuse against young (particularly) female gymnasts. In response to the criticism, the accused coaches and representatives of the Swedish Gymnastics Federation downsized or dismissed the criticism as inaccurate. This being said, and using discursive psychology and a qualitative design, this article sheds light upon this debate – by viewing it as a struggle between a hegemonic discourse of ”the goodness” of sports, on the one hand, a number of unfavorable and negative testimonies of the state of affairs in Swedish national level gymnastics on the other. More concretely, this struggle has been analyzed with regard to the discursive and rhetoric resources the involved parties’ used to pursue their claims about the state of affairs in Swedish national level gymnastics and the impact these resources had for their credibility and legitimacy. Questions were: Who is entitled ”to spell out” their view on the state of affairs within Swedish national level gymnastics? What is mediated and how? How are descriptions and accounts about reality constructed as credible and factual? It is concluded that social problems are launched via co-production; in this process, the gymnastics community, the research community, single individuals, and the media – were co-actors. 

The aim of this study was to analyze how line and middle managers experience and describe barriers and enablers in the implementation of a health-promoting leadership program in municipal organizations. A qualitative case study design was applied to examine the leadership program in a case involving implementation of an organizational health intervention. Data were mainly collected using semi-structured interviews with line and middle managers participating in the leadership program. Interviews with senior managers, notes from meetings/workshops, and written action plans were used as complementary data. The interview data were analyzed using a thematic analysis, and the complementary data using a summative content analysis. The findings show that the interviewed line and middle managers experienced this leadership program as a new approach in leadership training because it is based primarily on employee participation. Involvement and commitment of the employees was considered a crucial enabler in the implementation of the leadership program. Other enablers identified include action plans with specific goals, earlier experiences of organizational change, and integration of the program content into regular routines and structures. The line and middle managers described several barriers in the implementation process, and they described various organizational conditions, such as high workload, lack of senior management support, politically initiated projects, and organizational change, as challenges that limited the opportunities to be drivers of change. Taken together, these barriers interfered with the leadership program and its implementation. The study contributes to the understanding of how organizational-level health interventions are implemented in public sector workplaces.

The aim of the paper is to present and discuss a Report from a Comenius 2.1 project, aimed at developing teachers’ interpersonal, intercultural, social and civic competence. The study presented in the report was a multiple case study, and the methods for collecting data were focus group dialogues (with 34 teacher students), one video recording in each country and a document analysis of a European overview of citizenship education in Europe. Five countries participated in the study (the Netherlands, Portugal, Poland, the UK and Sweden) and the study focused on 12 year‐old pupils. One conclusion was that teacher education needs to focus more on horizontal classroom dialogue if goals for citizenship education are to be reached.

The aim of the article is to present and discuss a study in which Finnish, English and Swedish teachers and student teachers described the implications of being a teacher. It is cross-national and consists of multiple case studies. Data were collected through twenty-four focus group dialogues, and 110 teachers/student teachers participated in the study. According to the study, we have found that teachers and student teachers in all three countries promoted pupils’ development of critical thinking, which is another way of saying that they focused on ‘the attitudes and values’ aspect of citizenship education; however, this was most evident in the Finnish and the Swedish focus groups. In England there is a subject emphasis to the professional role, the three countries ranked the topics (the pupils; the subject; the organization; the society; teacher identity; parents) equally, in Finland the teacher role did not appear to be as post modern as in the two other countries. Key words: attitudes and values; citizenship education; cross-national case studies; teachers’ voices 

The aim of the article is to present and discuss a study in which Finnish, Englishand Swedish pupils’ understanding of citizenship education with regard to: (a)political literacy; and (b) attitudes and values was explored. The study was a crossnational,multiple case study and data were collected through 18 focus groupdialogues with 15-year-old pupils. Results showed that English pupils were muchmore well-informed about rights and responsibilities than their Nordiccounterparts and also more skilled rhetorically, but appeared less accustomed toopen and confident relationships with adults than the Swedish pupils. Finnishpupils did not seem to be encouraged to talk; instead they kept their thoughts andfeelings to themselves. One conclusion, among others, was that the studyilluminates conditions for the development of a so-called key competence – i.e.,‘interpersonal, intercultural, social and civic competence’.

In Sweden, gender pedagogics has been on the political agenda the last decade. Consequently, gender matters have been given much attention in Swedish preschools, and specialized pedagogues have also been trained to counteract socially constructed gender distinctions. Therefore, we have explored the enactment of gender pedagogics. We asked 17 preschool teachers to describe the situations revolving around gender issues that they have experienced, using the critical incident method. In all, 34 critical incidents were described and subsequently discussed in groups of 6-10 individuals. Afterward, the data were analyzed qualitatively, with the objective to explore the preschool teachers' understanding of gender approaches. The analysis led us to single out four "ideal type approaches," that is, "instrumental," "co-productive," "facilitative," "proactive," and "agitative" gender approach. The gender approaches were made up by the different ways of interacting with the children as regards gender described by the preschool teachers and by the different ways of reflecting over the described situations. We argue that the four different types of gender interaction emanate from corresponding underlying conceptions of gender, and that they may exercise influence on the children's identity process.

The past 15 years have seen a fresh approach to management training. One of the areas that has generated the most interest around Europe is how to improve project creation and co-creation, based, among other things, on 4H innovation models (quadruple helix comprising academia, government, industry and civil society) has become firmly established as one of the most important tools. Below is a description of three current cases that illustrate how different 4H actors are tackling the challenge of providing management training for co-creation in context.

Drawing from micro-sociology and the psychology and sociology of sport, and using a qualitative interview design, this study explores career retirement, role exit and related identity issues among eight Swedish ex-professional tennis players. Several questions are addressed. What were the characteristics of the professional tennis player role and of the retirement process? How did the ex-players cope with role-exit and what does their life look like today? What implications have the professional tennis player role and the retirement process had for their construction of identity? Results indicate that a 'role restricted' socialization, intense media exposure, an overemphasis on performance and competition, in conjunction with how people confuse the interviewees' role with their identity, brought about what can be referred to as 'role-identity fusion'. By analysing career termination along four, overlapping, phases it is clear that each phase urged the interviewees to make career and life choices, with a variety of identity implications. It is concluded that career retirement was a gradual, transitional process of psychological and social adaptation and quest for self-identity. As such it was challenging for the players, but not as dramatic as much scientific literature suggests.