The educational pathways among the 4000 Swedish folk high school teachers are many and diverse. Drawing on existing literature and five authentic cases that exemplify folk high school teachers’ career trajectories, this chapter describes and discusses this diversity of teachers’ educational pathways. 

This chapter aims at describing the ways in which folk high school teachers in Sweden understand and claim themselves and their mission. Besides existing literature on the subject, the analysis is based on interviews with 12 teachers, located at different folk high schools and working with different courses and subjects.

Ett av folkhögskolans kännetecken är dess förmåga att samspela med sin tid och sin omvärld. Denna förmåga har genom historien bidragit till att den varit innovativ både vad gäller vilka kurser som erbjuds och vilken didaktisk praxis som tillämpas. I detta kapitel försöker vi beskriva och förstå denna folkhögskolans förmåga till didaktisk innovation. Vi kommer att undersöka fyra utbildningars respektive tillkomsthistoria. Frågan om vilka verksamheter som kan rymmas inom folkhögskolan och hur folkhögskolans idé kan nytolkas blir central när folkhögskolor förnyar sin verksamhet. I någon mening handlar kapitlet därmed om folkhögskolornas förnyelse, och hur utbildningsformens egenart är under ständig förhandling.

I det här kapitlet ska vi ge ett svar på frågan vad en folkhögskola är. Vi kommer att beskriva skolformen och den verksamhet som bedrivs. Vi kommer att redogöra för hur skolorna är organiserade, hur de styrs och finansieras, vilka olika funktioner folkhögskolan fyller och vilka värderingar den vill arbeta för. Vi kommer också att diskutera några aktuella tendenser och utmaningar, och hur skolorna förhåller sig till dem.

Vad kännetecknar folkhögskolan? Hur kan folkhögskolornas verksamhet beskrivas? Vilka värderingar vill folkhögskolan arbeta för? Vilka aktuella tendenser kan iakttas och hur bemöter skolorna dessa? I detta kapitel försöker vi ge ett svar på frågan vad en folkhögskola är. Vi säger något om hur den en gång grundades, och hur den utvecklats över tid med avseende på grundläggande idéer, uppdrag och verksamhet. Men framför allt berättar vi om folkhögskolan i dag, hur den är organiserad och vilken verksamhet som äger rum på landets över 150 olika folkhögskolor.

The present report is based on a review of previous research and it expands an earlier report2(Olofsson & Persson Thunqvist, 2014). By highlighting the various forms of initial VET that havebeen established in Sweden during the last decades (1991 and onwards), the present report willilluminate how different challenges have been tackled in various ways. What are the experiencesof different VET-tracks in providing access to higher education as well as work-based learningand skilled employment? In addition, in accounting for these VET-forms, we will point out thepossibilities for change within the existing educational model. The ambition is to go beyond astatic description of the “theoretically school-based regime” in Sweden and explore the potentialsfor institutional change.

The article discusses the concept of biographical learning and reviews previous research on the subject. Several tensions between different versions of the concept are recognized, and a wide range of research areas in which the concept has been used are identified and presented. The general idea in the biographical learning tradition regarding the occurrence of general conceptions of one’s biography, as well as the idea of narrative coherence, is discussed critically. New areas of research are suggested.

The purpose of this study is to increase knowledge regarding involuntary work transitions among laid-off workers. It is part of an ongoing cooperation with two outplacement agencies enrolling white-collar workers. The particular arrangements, which are based on collective agreements, include relatively generous support, both economically and regarding the educational and counselling arrangements offered. A narrative research approach is used and the analysis is based on interviews with 15 people, conducted on two occasions with about a year in between. Conceptualizing the transition as a biographical learning process, the findings point out a great variety within and between cases. While the basic distinction is drawn between people who have changed their status and those who have not, a number of rhetorical varieties are identified, pointing to different modes of biographical learning. The originality of the paper lies in its narrative approach and the particular conceptual framework showing that biographical learning is a vital part of enforced work transitions.

I det här kapitlet vill vi diskutera hur intersektoriell samverkan mellan offentlig, privat och ideell sektor etableras och utvecklas. Mer specifikt vill vi utforska villkoren för och betydelsen av förtroende och misstroende mellan individer och organisationer över tid, i dylika projekt. Detta gör vi genom att närmare utforska och granska ett lokalt arbetsmarknadsprojekt drivet bland annat av ett arbetsintegrerande socialt företag. Projektet har följts över tre år i en höggradigt interaktiv process. På basis av resultaten diskuteras även intersektoriell rörlighet som en av den interaktive forskarens utmaningar och möjligheter.

In this article, we introduce a narrative approach to biographical learning; that is, an approach that considers autobiographical storytelling as a practice through which claims about life history are performed and negotiated. Using insights from narrative theory, we highlight evaluations in those narratives and suggest their crucial role in promoting self-reflective thought. The research area is unemployment, more specifically, work transitions following company restructuring and redundancy supported by outplacement services. Recognizing the learning potential in autobiographical storytelling, the article examines job-loss narratives told by people made redundant. The analysis focuses on strategies used in moments of evaluation. Our findings point to a variety of rhetorical strategies, different kinds of reflexivity and, in turn, variation in the potential for biographical learning.

Objective: This article examines how workers supported by outplacement services engage with an occupational transition through problem solving and learning.

Participants: The participants were 23 mid-life redundant white collar workers with at least eight years in their sector, organization or occupation. The selected interviewees either participated in training to broaden their professional competence or did not make any such ‘expansive’ efforts.

Methods: The study was based on narrative interviews, which enabled a detailed cross case examination of individuals’ actions and choices and how the process unfolds over time.

Results: The results showed that people treat their job loss as a practical problem to be solved using various strategies. This problemsolving process is structured, with people passing similar crossroads defining particular challenges and opportunities giving people limited sets of choices.

Conclusion: The results point to the significance of creativity and learning in occupational transitions.

Looking at ‘biographical learning’ as part of a work transition, the aim of this paper is to investigate how social relations enable and constrain such a learning process in outplacement clients. To examine the process, its character and social conditions, the study draws on interviews with workers who had been made redundant and were enrolled at an outplacement agency. The interviews were analysed using a comparative cross-case analysis. A distinction was made between ‘strong’ (long-term and intimate), ‘weak’ (short-term and non-intimate) and ‘formal’ (e.g., professional counsellors) relations. Findings showed that strong and formal relations were rather influential on people's engagement in biographical learning while weak relations were important to the straightforward career. Since transitions in late modern society has become not only a passage but also a learning option, the different sources and functions of social relations should be considered a vital part of outplacement counselling. Future research should examine more closely both parties in strong relationships and the (joint) process of career decision-making inherent in occupational transitions.

Our aim in this article is to look for more diversity within the concept of biographical leaning. As a conceptual tool for investigating learning in life transitions, biographical learning has gained some recognition over recent years. The concept centres on people’s abilities and possibilities to cope with change in a rapidly changing environment. As transitions have become more common, ‘learning processes within transition’ has become an important area for educational research. The development of the concept of biographical learning is related to this trend, since biographical learning processes appear to be more explicitly triggered when a person’s life course is changing and people are faced with transitions in it. In this article, biographical learning will be discussed in relation to research on restructuring, job loss and enforced work transitions. The article will suggest that such transitions may be understood in terms of biographical learning, acknowledging that learning in work transitions is not only about ensuring one’s ‘professional competence’ or ‘employability’ but includes identity issues and decision-making that affect one’s biography.

Alheit and Dausien portray biographical learning as a certain perspective on lifelong learning, suggesting a ‘shift in analytic perspective’ and a departure from the policy-focused view in which lifelong learning is framed by political and economic precepts. Acknowledging the inner tensions between the ‘instrumentalist’ and ‘emancipative’ power of lifelong learning, the authors place some confidence in the latter, calling for an outlook in which the learning individual ‘is taken more seriously’. There are empirical reasons for such a preference. Although traditional lifeworlds are eroding, people’s responses are not inevitably a ‘panic’ reaction. Instead, people cope with changes rather creatively by using different action strategies that affect both their own biography and the social world in which they live.

The concept of biographical learning is regarded as useful in this context, firstly because it takes account both of social structures and of the individual’s subjectivity. Hence, it recognizes people’s sense of being able to control their own lives interacting with biographical and structural conditions. Even though life chances are unequally distributed and agency is always ‘bounded’, when people face transitions decisions must be made and actions taken that are affected by and affect their biography. Secondly, biographical learning could be considered valuable because its scope is wider than predominant lifelong learning policies and because its aim extends beyond instrumental skills and ‘employability’. Thirdly, biographical learning can be regarded as helpful because it includes not only formal and organized aspects of learning, but also ‘cognitive and reflexive dimensions of learning as much as the emotional, embodied, pre-reflexive and non-cognitive aspects of everyday learning processes and practices’.

However, further investigations of the concept are called for, as pointed out by Alheit and Dausien. One possible development concerns challenging its somewhat uniform character. While Alheit has identified three current ‘biographical coping patterns’ (‘patchworking’, ‘networking’ and ‘designing’; Alheit, 1999, p. 75), further analysis will probably reveal new insights and perhaps lead to a more complex description of what biographical learning is. It seems reasonable to assume, for example, that there might be differences between more continuous and more disruptive versions of biographical learning. In order to encompass a wider spectrum of approaches, the aim of this paper is to analyse, explore and expand the notion of biographical learning and to suggest a number of different modes of such learning.

In recent years, researchers have pointed out that individuals understand their lives to a great extent through narratives and narration. In the field of adult education this idea has been taken up for instance in the concept of biographical learning. This thesis discusses the concept of biographical learning in relation to a research project on job loss in mid-life, as it is experienced and handled by whitecollar workers in a Swedish context. While much of the previous research on job loss and unemployment has focused on causes and effects, coping strategies and job search behaviour, this study suggests that an enforced work transition can be thought of as a biographical learning process.

It also suggests that a greater diversity in the learning concept can be attained by reconsidering the concept in the framework of a pragmatist’s view of action. Analysing narrative interviews with white-collar workers (n=23), the study finds diversity in biographical learning with respect to the relative weights and characters of creative action and reflexive identity work. Individual’s variety of engagement in a work transition has also been understood by theoretically describing the process as structured by particular choice junctures. The study finds that a job loss during particular circumstances furthers reconsiderations, novel career decisions and ‘horizontal’ career moves.

Being a central part of biographical learning, reflexivity is used in moments of evaluation, when people tell stories about the transition. It should be discussed in the plural, as the variety of evaluations implies a variety of reflexive efforts. Furthermore, it emphasizes that a work transition is a relational project, pointing out the significance of strong ties and formal ties to people who consider ‘horizontal’ career moves during a work transition. Altogether, this suggests that practical, existential, rhetorical as well as relational issues are involved in work transitions and biographical learning. Keywords: biographical learning, work transition, job loss, adult learning, adult education, outplacement counselling.

The aim of this study is to outline how to make use of a number of perspectives in the tradition of pragmatism1 to understand agency in work-life transitions. It will focus on the interplay of cultural conditions, educational praxis in the field of career development and human action. The intention is also to develop theoretical resources that will be used in a forthcoming empirical study. The research question to be examined is how agency arises or emerges in occupational transitions; the main proposal is that pragmatism holds valuable insights that may be harnessed in this particular field of research.

The paper begins by introducing the tradition of pragmatism. This is viewed in relation to the basic cultural and philosophical conditions known as modernity and enlightenment; it is characterized as modern but at the same time a departure from the rationalist-modernist era. Although this discussion will be preoccupied to some extent with the epistemological question, I will keep in mind the issue of human action and put forward  some arguments about the relationship between modernity, pragmatism and action theory. The content draws largely from analyses by the German sociologist Hans Joas.

In the second part of the paper, I will make explicit use of Joas’ view of action to understand how agency emerges in work-life transitions. Three action-related phenomena are examined. The first is goal setting. The dynamic and elastic character of human intentionality as well as the ‘pre-reflective’ sources of agency will be emphasized. Consequently, career planning as some kind of instrumental, rationalist endeavour will be investigated. Secondly, the power of the situation will be examined and highlighted as a force that may produce reflection and creativity in work-life transitions. However, agency presupposes an ability to take different perspectives of the actual situation in order to find an appropriate line of action. Third, I will explore the importance of imagination further, in relation to goal setting. Emotional power and creative imagination are supposed to be latent in our wishes, but they need to be cultivated in imaginative interplay with the current conditions and in moments of ‘reality testing’. Creative imagination, however, presupposes confidence and ‘the capacity to be alone’. For that very reason, it is argued, insecurity and risk in work-life transitions need to be balanced by trust in order to release the crucial imaginative processes.

Bland socialarbetare i Ryssland pågår ett intensivt och angeläget arbete med hemlösa och föräldralösa barn. Många barn lever utan föräldrars omvård-nad, samtidigt som de ekonomiska resurserna som socialtjänsten förvaltar är knappa. För att höja kvalitén och effektivisera arbetet pågår sedan ett antal år tillbaka ett försök att introducera familjehemmet som samlevnadsform inom den ryska socialtjänsten. Ambitionen är barn ska kunna tas emot i familjer i stället för att placeras på institution. Som ett led i denna omställning genomfördes under 2002-2005 ett svensk-ryskt utvecklingsprojekt som syftade till att utveckla familjehemsverksamhet. Projektet var ett samarbete mellan de sociala myndigheterna i Leningrads län och Kommunförbundet (numera Regionförbundet) Sörmland. Det byggde bland annat på erfarenhetsutbyte mellan ryska och svenska socialarbetare. Mälardalens utvärderingsakademi vid Institutionen för samhälls- och bete-endevetenskap på Mälardalens högskola, har på uppdrag av projektledning-en genomfört en utvärdering av projektet. I föreliggande rapport presenteras resultatet från utvärderingen. Utfallet har bedömts med avseende på de resultat som kunnat iakttas när det gäller (1) expansion av familjehem och minskning av institutionsplacer-ingar, (2) fördjupning av den verksamhet som bedrivs, (3) strategisk program-utveckling samt (4) i vilken utsträckning projektet medverkat till en grundlig analys av det samhällsproblem som ska bemötas. Dessutom har frågor ställts om verksamhetens relevans och hållbarhet. Det empiriska underlaget för be-dömningen utgörs av både enkäter, intervjuer, dokument, ljudupptagningar från seminarier, observationer och informella samtal. Resultaten visar att projektet har medverkat till begränsad expansion och kvalitativ fördjupning av ett angeläget arbete med att utveckla familjehem samt att familjehemsprojektet därmed har angripit ett samhällsproblem som bör ha hög prioritet hos såväl ryska myndigheter som svenska biståndsor-gan. Problemets omfattning är ett skäl till arbetets aktualitet och angelägen-hetsgrad. Dess nära förhållande till en utbredd kriminalitet bland unga är ett annat. Projektet har stärkt de ryska deltagarna i deras dagliga arbete. De har fått uppslag och utvecklat kunskaper om hur arbetet kan utformas. Projektet har också medverkat till att deltagarnas arbete fått större legitimitet från myn-digheter och medborgare i det ryska samhället. Omställningen från ett institutionsbaserat system till ett system som byg-ger på familjen har emellertid inte kunnat fullföljas. Framför allt har de eko-nomiska resurserna saknats. Förklaringen är otillräcklig eftersom familje-hemsverksamhet är mindre kostnadskrävande än institutionsboende. Projektet har blottlagt och kanske förstärkt en intressekonflikt mellan olika myndigheter. Flera av länets kommittéer har de utsatta barnen inom sitt an-svarsområde. Om det samhällsproblem som projektet handlar om ska kunna bemötas fordras samarbete mellan dessa myndigheter. Att systemskiftet inte har kunnat genomföras kan ha sin förklaring i att myndigheterna inte kunnat enas. I mötet mellan svensk och rysk praxis och juridisk tradition har både lik-heter och skillnader länderna emellan blivit uppmärksammade. Familje-hemsmodellen har inte fullt ut kunnat integreras i den ryska socialtjänsten. Lagstiftningen ger inte verksamheten den legitimitet som fordras. Tack vare projektet har emellertid verksamhetens svaga juridiska grund placerats på dagordningen.

Från både forskare och praktiker framställs idag önskemål om en större rörlighet på den svenska arbetsmarknaden. Ohälsan i arbetslivet skulle kunna mötas med en större rörlighet menar somliga. Andra för fram ekonomiska motiv och förhoppningar om att generativa effekter som innovation och idéutveckling kan följa på en ökad inter- och intraorganisatorisk mobilitet. Därtill kan anföras en värderings- och mentalitetsförändring som skett de senaste decennierna, som innebär att människor tycks värdesätta växling och förändring högre än vad tidigare generationer gjort. Samtidigt tyder statistiska uppgifter på en relativt svag mobilitet. Begreppen -yrkesinlåsning- och -arbetsplatsinlåsning- myntas som redskap för att förstå det förhållande att människor som säger sig vilja byta yrke eller arbetsplats ändå förblir vid sin läst. Att frågor som rör arbetsliv och mobilitet tas upp till behandling är av betydelse ur både individ- och samhällsperspektiv. Det handlar om den enskildes livskvalitet, samhällets önskan att ge förutsättningar för livslångt lärande, ett hållbart arbetsliv och dess möjligheter att sörja för personalbehovet på en föränderlig arbetsmarknad. Inte minst tycks det angeläget att adressera frågor om hur människor bemästrar yrkesmässiga omställningsprocesser och hur dylika processer kan stödjas och uppmuntras inom institutionella ramar och med pedagogiska incitament. Föreliggande forskningsöversikt behandlar dessa frågor med utgångspunkt i framför allt amerikansk och utomnordisk europeisk forskning, med syftet att presentera, diskutera och generera kunskaper om några av mobilitetens förutsättningar. Avsikten är att med hjälp av befintliga forskningsarbeten beskriva kunskapsläget, tydliggöra, analysera och diskutera problemet samt identifiera områden som bedöms vara angelägna att utsätta för ytterligare forskningsinsatser.