Practical activities are at the core of learning in both engineering and science education programs. Hence, such activities are included as importan tpractical learning experiences in each of these fields. During such learning experiences students are confronted by many different entities, from simple equipment to advanced instrumentation, all of which requires knowledge ofhow, when, why and for what they can and should be used. Emotional outcomes accompany learning through practical activities and can range from feelings of success and satisfaction, to disappointment and worries. Such emotions can playa critical role in a student’s decision to start or continue their studies in any science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM) education field.This project explores how practical activities intra-act with emotions and thereby shape learning processes. Three methods of data production were employed: video-recorded observations, fieldnotes, and micro-interviews. These data were collected in two different undergraduate civil engineering courses (genetic engineering and nuclear physics), each with their own unique experimental setups for engaging students in practical laboratory activities. In total, 81 students were filmed for 80 hours in one genetic engineering and one nuclear physics course. By using Barad’s theory of agential realism (Barad, 2007) and Ahmed’s ‘Cultural Politics of Emotion’ (Ahmed, 2014) in the analysis, we found that practical lab activities require many different abilities of the students to be able to navigate in laboratories crammed with artefacts – tools, equipment, machines, instruments, etcetera. During any given practical lab activity students must distinguish what artefacts they should use or not. Much of the learning that takes place is bodily and non-verbal, where the teacher's instructions are also bodily and intertwined with the students, materials, and emotions. Findings indicate that when a practical moment is repeated, the emotions are transformed or even fade away. The study demonstrates the importance of instructor awareness of the active role of both human and non-human entities when designing instruction for the unique educational settings students will encounter in science and engineering, also relevant to technology and design education preparation programs.

Background: Understanding technological systems is essential for students to participate in and critically engage with a technology-rich society. Prior research indicates that pupils often find it challenging to grasp the structure, function and dynamics of such systems. Purpose: This study investigates how Year 6 pupils (aged 10–12) describe, explain and analyse a technological system–specifically the wastewater system–and what their self-drawn models reveal about their systems thinking. The aim is to contribute knowledge on how pupils conceptualise complex systems and how this can be pedagogically supported. Sample: Seven pupils from different schools in Sweden participated in individual interviews. All had received instruction about the wastewater system, including a study visit to a treatment plant. Design and methods: Data was collected through semi-structured interviews. Pupils were asked to explain the wastewater system and draw a model of it on paper. Thematic analysis was conducted inductively to identify patterns in the pupils’ verbal and visual descriptions. In the discussion, the Freiburg model of systems thinking was used as a conceptual framework to interpret the findings. Results: Pupils often began their reasoning from system-related problems, such as blockages. Most described the system as consisting of subsystems and components, although some expressed a more linear or circular view. Their self-drawn models supported verbal explanations but also revealed misconceptions about flow mechanisms–especially the role of gravity, which was often overlooked or replaced by flushing or pumps. Conclusion: The study shows that pupils’ drawings help structure their reasoning and support systems thinking. However, simplifications in the models may lead to misunderstandings. Teachers should guide pupils through technological systems ‘from source to end’, clarify key concepts and scaffold the model-building process to enhance accuracy and holistic understanding.

Values of interdisciplinary education is increasingly supported by didactical and pedagogical research. While we are encouraged to teach interdisciplinarily, there are only few examples of how to shape such teaching practices pedagogically. We here provide examples and structures of ways to teach inclusively, interactively and in teams to develop an interdisciplinary dialogue, transgressing monodisciplinary teaching. Our examples derive from an independent basic undergraduate course where gender studies and biology embrace each other as disciplines, and where students develop new perspectives through inclusive discussions in safe teaching settings. We reflect over practices that are useful in a diversity of educational contexts, where discussions and dialogues form the basis for inclusion and interdisciplinary learning.

In this study, we provide insights about secondary school students’ conversation about products’ life cycles in relation to three dimensions of sustainable development: economic, social, and ecological sustainable development but also what traces of view that appear in these conversations. Production and consumption are part of complex technological systems that affect nature and life on earth, and knowledge about these systems are required to achieve sustainable development. In technology education, students can have the opportunity to talk about products and their life cycles. Hence, this study aims to explore what emerges in students’ conversations about products’ life cycles in relation to sustainable development. Data collection was conducted in Sweden through seven semi-structured interviews, with in total 21 students participating in groups. All student responses have been analysed using thematic analysis to explore dimensions and views of sustainability. Results show that the students discuss with regard to all three dimensions of sustainable development. However, the phases of a product’s life cycle occur to varying extent within the different sustainability dimensions. Additionally, the students also connect dimensions with both harmonious and contrasting perspectives but also talk about the dimensions isolated. When participating students discuss, traces of mainly anthropocentric and technocentric view emerge. This has implications for technology education, where for example deliberative conversations can be used for engaging students in sustainable development.

In this study, we provide insights about secondary school students’ conversation about products’ life cycles in relation to three dimensions of sustainable development: economic, social, and ecological sustainable development but also what traces of view that appear in these conversations. Production and consumption are part of complex technological systems that affect nature and life on earth, and knowledge about these systems are required to achieve sustainable development. In technology education, students can have the opportunity to talk about products and their life cycles. Hence, this study aims to explore what emerges in students’ conversations about products’ life cycles in relation to sustainable development. Data collection was conducted in Sweden through seven semi-structured interviews, with in total 21 students participating in groups. All student responses have been analysed using thematic analysis to explore dimensions and views of sustainability. Results show that the students discuss with regard to all three dimensions of sustainable development. However, the phases of a product’s life cycle occur to varying extent within the different sustainability dimensions. Additionally, the students also connect dimensions with both harmonious and contrasting perspectives but also talk about the dimensions isolated. When participating students discuss, traces of mainly anthropocentric and technocentric view emerge. This has implications for technology education, where for example deliberative conversations can be used for engaging students in sustainable development.

Learning to reason in the design process is enclosed in the process of learning to design. Hence, in this study, we explore teacher-student interactions with the aim of describing teachers’ support strategies in relation to enacted reasoning in the design process in secondary school technology education in Sweden. The study deploys social cultural theory as a lens, with a focus on scaffolding means and intentions of the teacher. Relevant reasoning in the design process is theoretically framed as means-end reasoning and cause-effect reasoning. Empirical data was collected through three classroom observations with three different Swedish secondary school technology teachers, with subsequent interviews with the teachers using stimulated recall. During the observations the students were engage in different design processes. The data was analysed using thematic analysis, where themes as strategies were constructed for each reasoning type from patterns of meaning in teachers’ scaffolding means and intentions. For each reasoning type, teachers employed strategies of decreasing control and increasing control. However, the enactment of these strategies differed in scaffolding intentions and means in relation to what reasoning was verbally enacted. Our findings indicate that teacher-student interactions within the design process in technology education classrooms hold significant meaning and value. This has implications for both teaching and learning in the field.

Higher education biology is often imagined, perceived, and described as having reached gender equality in terms of who gets to participate in disciplinary practices. However, like any other natural science discipline, higher education biology is a world whose landscapes are shaped by (re)productions of historical, cultural, and social norms. We explore these norms through the lens of identity, asking what identities are recognized by university biology teachers at a large Swedish university, analyzing 94 teaching statements written when applying for faculty positions in biology. We argue that in and through teaching statements, university biology teachers negotiate and perform overarching academic and disciplinary norms and discourses with the goal to present themselves as intelligible candidates. As statements of value, they thereby display implicit and explicit identities recognized in worlds of higher education biology. Using a discourse analytical framework, we identified two university teacher identities imagined as intelligible: Research Science Teachers and Facilitating Science Teachers. Research Science Teachers position research and associated masculine-coded competences as anchor points of biology practice. They consider researchers to be ultimate knowers and consequently to be best suitable for university teaching with the goal to recruit students into research. Facilitating Science Teachers, even though aware of the hegemonic position of research, disentangle imaginaries of what makes a researcher from what makes a university teacher. They transgress dominant imaginaries of research as the ultimate competence for themselves and students, and create spaces for alternative identity work. These findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of (re)productive processes in science education, providing perspectives of how to together infract intergenerational (re)productions of hegemonic norms of doing science. Additionally, this study provides further evidence that higher education biology is not a gender-neutral higher education landscape.

Studying biology entails negotiating knowledges, identities, and what paths, more or less well-trodden, to follow. Knowledges, identities, and paths within the very practices of science are fundamentally gendered and it is, therefore, critical to recognize when exploring students' learning and participation in natural sciences. Even though students' numbers in undergraduate Higher Education Biology are female-biased, it does not mean that gendered processes are absent. In this study, we focus on early undergraduate biology students' identity work at a Swedish university, analyzing 55 study motivation texts discursively. Embedded in a Figured Worlds framework, we explore how students imagined and authored themselves in(to) the Figured World of Higher Education Biology along two imagined identity trajectories, the Straight Biology Path and the Backpacking Biology Path. While the first and numerically dominant imagined trajectory entails typical stories of a scientific child striving toward a research career, the latter recognizes broad interests and biology competences to be collected in a backpack for transdisciplinary use. Students imagining the Backpacking Biology Path authored themselves in relation to and explicitly not as having a linear trajectory, which positions the Straight Biology Path as dominant and culturally recognized. Our findings reveal gendered myths about science practices present in Higher Education Biology, yet also contested through alternative imaginaries. We, thereby, show that it is crucial for Higher Biology and Science Education to be aware of how students imagine their trajectories and how they negotiate masculine norms of science to create spaces for diverse and alternative identity trajectories.

This study examines preservice preschool teachers’ university science education experience.The empirical data are from a research and intervention project conducted on teacher education programs at two Swedish universities. We analyzed one of the assignments completed by 111 students within a science course as well as their conversations about the assignment at a number of seminars. We combined culture contrast and thematic analysis to examine the data. The results showed a tension between the preschool culture and the university science culture. We described this tension between the boundary lines of the two cultures as a chafing borderland. These cultures do not merge, and the defined boundaries cause chafing with each other. We discuss ways of diminishing this chafing of borderlands, potential border crossings such as caring and children as boundary objects and equalizing power imbalances.