In this study, we adopt a critical perspective on knowledge about sustainable development in Swedish free teaching materials, where certain ways of illustrating sustainable development can make invisible alternative ways to understand and delimit it. We analyse physical, free materials for school teaching, distributed by Utbudet. The materials were produced between 2008 and 2019. Our analysis shows that there is a focus on facts, certifications and technical fixes, as well as scientific and societal consensus. The companies’ perspectives are prominent in the free materials, as are anthropocentric and Western approaches. Taken together, our study shows that the free materials convey that the global situation has improved and that development is on the right track, rather than in crisis, or that the sustainability problems are complex and difficult to manage. Thus, the materials present a fairly one-sided picture of the situation and the future, which does not really agree with the aim in Swedish education of presenting a balanced view of sustainable development.

Even though construction tasks have a long history as an activity in the Swedish preschool, technology as a content matter (e.g., construction) is relatively new. Hence, preschool teachers are generally unsure of the content of technology and how to handle it from a teaching perspective. Thus, there is need for deeper understanding of how construction tasks in preschool can be enacted and what kind of premises are offered to the children. To investigate this, we took our stance in activity theory and the concepts of mediating artifacts, rules and division of labour. This helped us discern what type of instructional practices that were enacted by preschool teachers when working with construction tasks. Activity theory in combination with thematic analysis helped us distinguish four general didactic actions that the teachers used to bring about the construction task-to engage, to guide, to coordinate, to show. These four strategies were then formulated into specific technology didactic actions through the perspectives of technology as product, process and concepts.

As has been pointed out in previous research, teacher-led learning plays an important role in developing preschool children's technological skills and technological self-esteem. What is missing in research are more detailed analysis of how the children’s and teachers’ actions and interactions shape the learning process. In order to study this within the field of construction, an action research project was conducted, where construction activities were developed, implemented and revised in an iterative procedure. Data from the second cycle were analyzed for this article using graphic transcriptions and multimodal analysis, with a focus on action, interaction and experience from a pragmatist perspective. Our findings show that children who quickly and decisively engage with the material, the teachers and their peers in suggesting which material to use and/or how the material can be used, end up in a central role in the design process. These children (or their actions) often get legitimized by the teachers. Thus, in order to give children access to equal opportunities in the construction activities, it is important for teachers to understand how the children’s construction-focused actions become constitutive and what their role in that process is.

The aim of this article is to investigate how Swedish teachers manage the uncertainty and complexity associated with sustainable development (SD) as a field of knowledge, in relation to the requirements in the school curriculum. Underlying the whole concept of sustainable development is the vision that there is a possible solution to the ecological, economic and social problems created by humans. However, it is not so clear what this solution actually means in practice. The article builds on an analysis of transcribed individual and group interviews with 40 teachers at Swedish lower and upper secondary schools, related to the topic of sustainable development as a field of knowledge. A thematic analysis was carried out by identifying four broad themes, including dominating discourses. The results indicate that there is a lack of vision among the teachers for a future sustainable society, while at the same time, it seems to be taboo to talk about what an unsustainable society might mean in the long run. Presentations of the problems and knowledge of what causes them must always be combined with instructions on how problems can be solved and how pupils can influence their own future and help create sustainable development. The starting point for such a solution-oriented approach to SD is based on an assumption that individual behaviour is essential to achieving sustainable development and thus that individual responsibility is crucial. This focus leads to individual consumer choices, behaviours and lifestyles at the heart of teaching, while progressive, alternative visions and critical perspectives are downplayed.

En stor andel svenska barn mellan sex och nio år gamla går efter skolan till ”fritids”. Fritidshem kännetecknas av både utbildning och omsorg, och därmed av både formella och informella aktiviteter. På senare år har verksamheten blivit mer och mer influerad av skolan och numera finns ett eget kapitel för fritidshem i den nationella läroplanen för grundskolan. Fritidshemmen genomgår därför en förändring som kommer att medföra att mer formella aktiviteter införs, exempelvis inom teknik, samtidigt som praktiskt taget ingen forskning har gjorts på detta. Syftet med det här kapitlet är att presentera några resultat från en pågående forskningsstudie om teknikens roll i aktiviteter på fritidshem. Observationerna fokuserade på de dagliga aktiviteterna på fritidshemmen där teknik hade en central roll. Vi använder begreppet gränsobjekt för att analysera teknik i aktiviteterna. Resultaten visar att det är en speciell sorts teknikundervisning som uppstår i fritidshem, på gränsen mellan den informella och formella verksamheten: från det informella lekrelaterade byggandet med Lego och träklotsar till den mer formella datorundervisningen. I dessa aktiviteter finns ett tydligt fritidsinslag, framför allt i form av ett fritt val av teknik och vad man vill lära sig. Det faktum att barn kan välja fritt pekar inte bara på att teknik i fritidshem är ett gränsobjekt med en stor tolkningsflexibilitet, utan också att teknikundervisning i fritidshem skulle kunna vara en lustfylld och effektiv väg till teknisk allmänbildning.

Background: Sustainable development, as an area of knowledge, appears in several different places in the curriculum and does not fit neatly within the scope of traditional subject areas. In many countries, including Sweden, it has long been upheld as an important tool for increasing understanding of, and dealing with, environmental problems. It is not clear, however, what role education can actually have in the making of a more sustainable future. Even though there are several potential ways for sustainable development to be involved in education, the concept raises many questions when transferred to the school context.

Purpose: This paper investigates how teachers deal with the difficulty of defining and approaching sustainable development as an area of knowledge in Swedish schools.

Sample: This article is based on semi-structured interviews with 40 teachers, 13 of whom were lower secondary school teachers (pupil age 12–15) and 27 were upper secondary school teachers (pupil age 15–18). The study involves teachers in all subjects where sustainable development is a goal in the syllabus. The study is also based on participant observation in one upper secondary class. A total of 17 different schools were involved, from a wide range of locations in Sweden.

Design and methods: The paper builds on qualitative data and the analysis of transcribed interviews and group interviews with teachers in Swedish lower and upper secondary schools. Group interviews, involving three or more people, were conducted on eight occasions. The pupils at an upper secondary school were also observed while they were working on a course called ‘policy and sustainable development’. Data were transcribed and analysed thematically.

Findings: The analysis suggests that, according to the teachers’ experiences, the demands of equivalence and measurability in school have increased and that this affects how sustainable development is approached in teaching and learning. Three main categories of knowledge were identified. The study also presents two representations that model how teachers may approach knowledge about sustainable development – metaphorically termed ‘the Accountant’ and ‘the Adventurer’ – and their different effects on knowledge.

Conclusions: There is a tendency for complex knowledge areas such as sustainable development, which do not fit seamlessly into traditional curriculum subjects, to become oversimplified when translated into teaching situations. According to the representations that we described metaphorically, the teacher, as an accountant, is characterised by ‘knowledge instrumentalism’, which means that teachers administer knowledge and the pupils consume it. In this transactional model, the accountant is also very dependent on external governance and control. Alternatively, the teacher, as an adventurer, is characterised by authority, knowledge and self-control. In this model, knowledge sometimes grows in an unpredictable way in the meeting between people who share common experiences. For adventurers, sustainable development is a matter of commitment and awareness, and it involves an explicit stance. The metaphors can be placed on a continuum which describes how teachers manage the demands of the school system in relation to the knowledge area of sustainable development.

A majority of Swedish children between six and nine years old attend afterschool activities in a leisure-time centre, fritidshem, until their parents finish work for the day. Leisure-time centres are characterised by “educare” activities, that is, both educational and carerelated activities and thus both formal and informal learning settings. The centres are part of the Swedish educational system and activities should be related to the national curriculum for the compulsory school. The centres are right now in an interesting transition which will lead to the introduction of more formal learning activities, for instance, in technology, at the same time as virtually no research has been carried out on technology activities in the centres. The aim of this paper is therefore to study the role of technology in activities in leisure-time centres. The results are drawn from field work conducted in three Swedish leisure-time centres. The observations focused upon the daily activities in the leisure centres, specifically activities where technology play a central part. The data collection was completed with interviews with teachers. We use the concept of boundary object to analyse the technological activities. The findings indicate that there is a special technology education that emerges in the context of the leisuretime center – leisure-time technology education – at the intersection between informal and formal technology learning, which ranges from the informal play-related construction of Lego and wooden blocks to the more formal computer instruction. The amorphousness of leisure-time technology – the fact that children can choose what they want it to be and what to learn –points to it being a boundary object with a very open interpretative flexibility.

This paper investigates human–animal relations in sustainability education. To understand what educational relationships and boundaries are challenged and/or strengthened in education promoting future sustainable societies, we argue that educational theory and practice must move beyond the anthropocentric framework’s sole focus on relationships between humans. Drawing on focus group interviews with teacher instructors at eight Swedish universities, we discuss cases in which sustainability education benefits from being understood as crafted via human–nonhuman relations. By concentrating on human–animal relations, we discuss the political and ethical implications arising from relationships being created in certain ways and not others. The empirical examples illustrate how the relations between teacher instructors and various animals can be a critical starting point for understanding the limitations and possibilities fostered by sustainability education.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss some of the different strategies used by teachers in handling sustainable development (SD) as an area of knowledge in Swedish schools. A dominating idea in Western school systems is that knowledge is somewhat separated from the subject. Regarding this idea, the task of the school system is to deliver necessary packages of knowledge and bring forward the subject’s ability to make rational and autonomous choices. When it comes to SD, this becomes a problematic standpoint.

The paper builds on the analysis of transcribed interviews and focus interviews with teachers in Swedish high schools and upper secondary schools as well as on observations and sound recordings in classrooms while working with sustainable development as an area of knowledge. The coding was done by identification of key concepts, tensions and meaning fixations and their relations to each other.

The study presents two models for how the teachers handle - and are allowed to handle - knowledge about SD: the Accountant and the Adventurer. The accountant counts, distributes and summarizes knowledge; it is the results that matter. The adventurer goes into the wild, with a more flexible map; where the experiences are the ones that count. The school system pressures the teachers to become accountants, but it is in the wild that routines and patterns are shaken and boundaries are tested; where students acquire understanding and deeper knowledge.

De flesta människor vet att vi står inför gigantiska miljöproblem. De flesta vet också hur man kan göra för att minska sin påverkan och därmed också minska effekterna av problemen. I själva verket känner de flesta till väldigt många åtgärder och förändringar i sitt vardagsliv som faktiskt skulle kunna göra skillnad. Fast å andra sidan så är ju den lilla skillnaden som jag kan göra så liten att det kanske inte har så stor betydelse i det stora hela. Dessutom så gör jag redan en massa saker och vissa saker tycker jag att jag har rätt att göra. Det finns många argument för att inte göra det man själv anser att man egentligen borde göra. Denna bok lyfter fram och diskuterar tio sådana skäl och diskuterar varför det är så svårt att förändra vardagligt beteende som påverkar miljön.

A household’s energy behaviour consists of several processes and interactions and involves the decisions and functions of several entities. The topic of this study is to reconstruct, through narrations, the process of designing and implementing the new student dorms at Linköping University through the lens of household energy behaviour. In particular, we aim to investigate how the interactions between entities such as the builders, landlords, users, ventilators, heaters, climate and so forth co-perform energy behaviour in the setting of residential student buildings. Inspired by the actor-network theory, the study treats energy behaviour as a hybrid collectif. It is the relations and their heterogeneity that are important in this approach. The project studies how heterogeneous relations among everyday practices, human experiences and interactions with nonhumans enact energy use patterns.

The history of technology can play an important role in illuminating the fundamentals of technological change, but it is important that technology teachers, teacher educators, curriculum developers and researchers can be provided with good analytical tools for this purpose. In this article, we propose a model of techno-historical interplay, as a help in deciding what historical artefacts and systems should be included in technology curricula and teaching as well as in analyzing and conveying to students the fundamental issues of technological change. We want to emphasize particularly three points of importance in employing the model as a tool of analysis. First of all, it is crucial to decide what one wants the technologically literate student to know about technology and technological change. This should include an awareness of the historical and geographical contingency of any technology. Second, on the basis of this decision one should adapt the model as a tool for selecting relevant technologies. Third, the model should be applied as an instrument of analysis of the history of the selected technological artefacts or systems as well as theories of technological development.

Besides that Swedish households stands for half of the environmental stress in Sweden they also have one of the words highest electricity and heat consumption. The purpose with this paper is to show the dominant discourse in how Swedish householders reason about energy. It is built on the analysis of transcribed interviews with 19 households. Sometimes there were just one and sometimes two persons participating in the interviews. The coding is done by identification of key concept, tensions and meaning fixations and their relation to each other. Three different discourses are identified: One is called “the green dream”, another “the path of least resistant” and the most dominant discourse is called “the technoscientific optimization of lifestyle”.

The discourse of technoscientific optimization builds on a very active relation to energy. The basic idea is that what you do matters but on the other hand you just do what you can, what you have time and other resources to perform. Energy is divided into different areas of action and these areas are measurable (light bulbs, insulation) and defined by amount of money, electricity, heat loss, etc to earn/save. The optimization also means that you can choose environmental friendly activities according to what fits in a certain situation. Environmental problems can be solved by increased knowledge and new technology. Thus there are a strong trust in experts and their capability to solve crucial problems of the modern society.

This paper contributes with a deeper understanding of how global environmental problems are handled in day to day life and the role of science and technology.

The aim of this study is to analyze the dominating discourse of Swedish climate politics between the autumn of 2006 and the end of 2009, i.e. the tense period between the publication of the Stern-report and COP15. An analytical point of departure is the theory of reflexive modernity advocated by Ulrich Beck. His concept of industrial fatalism is used to explain the frames of climate politics that were constructed during these years of climate alarms. The empirical material that is investigated consists mainly of a large amount of debate articles on climate change and climate mitigation published in Swedish newspapers and journals during the period. Methodologically close reading of every single text is used in order to identify its central meanings and rhetorical figures. The coding process led to the identification of different patterns and meaning relations which together form different discourses. The most dominant of these discourses is called “the discourse of industrial fatalism”.

The aim of this article is to analyze the relationship between identity work for environmental responsibility and sustainable development in relation to an ecological master frame. The material is based on a case study with Swedish householders and focusses on the interviewees identity work in relation to specific and detailed environmentally friendly activities. The argument put forth is that individuals construct what is possible and reasonable by identifying themselves in relation to the multitude of others and by doing certain activities. The conclusions suggest that the householders consider themselves to have a responsibility for the environment, but that they do enough by performing specific activities such as recycling. Thereby the study shows how the individuals present their own ideas and actions in relation to an ecological master frame.

This article investigates the mechanisms that govern the processes of inclusion and exclusion of knowledges. It draws on three cases from Swedish classrooms about how energy is created as an area of knowledge. We are interested in how knowledge is made valid and legitimate in a school context, and in defining and finding tools to identify structures that govern potential meanings in a certain situation. To do this we develop a theoretical model that explains the preconditions for meaning. The purpose is to understand why certain knowledges are legitimated in the classroom and to explain how this happens. The analysis is based on participatory observations in classrooms, audio recordings of students engaged in group projects, educational materials, and the students' own work. The apparatuses of the school offer a wide range of possible meanings concerning energy. At the same time there are forces evolved in the school practice that effectively sift out what counts as values from what counts as facts and valid knowledge. These forces create a certain order and certain effects for what counts as truth. The article investigates the nature of the correlations between the different preconditions identified that makes one discourse more likely and “true” than another.

Teknik är ett angeläget ämne. Om det än handlar om energi, globala klimatförändringar, välfärd eller mer vardagliga göromål spelar tekniken en avgörande roll. Att förstå samspelet mellan teknik, människa och samhälle är därför viktigt, både för oss som enskilda individer, medborgare och för samhället i stort. Världens gång - teknikens utveckling är uppbyggd kring ett antal centrala teman som exemplifieras genom olika författares kapitel. Bidragen ger exempel på viktig teknik i människans historia och är tänkta som inspiration för att kunna problematisera modern teknik. Vi får möta gammal teknik när den var ny, teknik under förändring, teknik i skolan och hos arkitekten, teknik som identitetsskapare, teknik som såväl redskap som komplexa system, teknik när den inte fungerar och när den får svårbegripliga och ibland förhatliga konsekvenser. Det handlar om teknikens roll i världens gång! Boken vänder sig till blivande och verksamma lärare, ingenjörer och tekniker samt till forskarstuderande inom olika ämnesområden. Den kan också läsas med stor behållning av personer med ett brett allmänt intresse för teknik.

Teknik är ett angeläget ämne. Om det än handlar om energi, globala klimatförändringar, välfärd eller mer vardagliga göromål spelar tekniken en avgörande roll. Att förstå samspelet mellan teknik, människa och samhälle är därför viktigt, både för oss som enskilda individer, medborgare och för samhället i stort. Världens gång - teknikens utveckling är uppbyggd kring ett antal centrala teman som exemplifieras genom olika författares kapitel. Bidragen ger exempel på viktig teknik i människans historia och är tänkta som inspiration för att kunna problematisera modern teknik. Vi får möta gammal teknik när den var ny, teknik under förändring, teknik i skolan och hos arkitekten, teknik som identitetsskapare, teknik som såväl redskap som komplexa system, teknik när den inte fungerar och när den får svårbegripliga och ibland förhatliga konsekvenser. Det handlar om teknikens roll i världens gång! Boken vänder sig till blivande och verksamma lärare, ingenjörer och tekniker samt till forskarstuderande inom olika ämnesområden. Den kan också läsas med stor behållning av personer med ett brett allmänt intresse för teknik

This article examines the discourse that the idea of efficiency is built upon according to different actors trying to influence households’ energy behaviour in Sweden. The focus is on information from authorities as well as from interest organisations and energy companies. Information directed to households often contains a strong idea that the individual has to take responsibility for his/her own choices, and that it is through consumer choices the energy system will become more sustainable. The reasons given for changing one’s behaviour are motivated both by lower energy costs and a reduced impact on the environment. Common advice for energy reduction is to change to a more energyefficient apparatus. In this sense efficiency is a way of not changing lifestyle but instead changing technical equipment and user routines. Only the LA21 project questions the need for all the apparatus as well as the possibility to improve existing artifacts, pointing to a need to change our lifestyle. The strong belief in science and technology results in a definition of the problem as a lack of knowledge, where the only solution is to fill this gap.

Teknik är ett angeläget ämne. Om det än handlar om energi, globala klimatförändringar, välfärd eller mer vardagliga göromål spelar tekniken en avgörande roll. Att förstå samspelet mellan teknik, människa och samhälle är därför viktigt, både för oss som enskilda individer, medborgare och för samhället i stort. Världens gång - teknikens utveckling är uppbyggd kring ett antal centrala teman som exemplifieras genom olika författares kapitel. Bidragen ger exempel på viktig teknik i människans historia och är tänkta som inspiration för att kunna problematisera modern teknik. Vi får möta gammal teknik när den var ny, teknik under förändring, teknik i skolan och hos arkitekten, teknik som identitetsskapare, teknik som såväl redskap som komplexa system, teknik när den inte fungerar och när den får svårbegripliga och ibland förhatliga konsekvenser. Det handlar om teknikens roll i världens gång! Boken vänder sig till blivande och verksamma lärare, ingenjörer och tekniker samt till forskarstuderande inom olika ämnesområden. Den kan också läsas med stor behållning av personer med ett brett allmänt intresse för teknik.

Teknik är ett angeläget ämne. Om det än handlar om energi, globala klimatförändringar, välfärd eller mer vardagliga göromål spelar tekniken en avgörande roll. Att förstå samspelet mellan teknik, människa och samhälle är därför viktigt, både för oss som enskilda individer, medborgare och för samhället i stort. Världens gång - teknikens utveckling är uppbyggd kring ett antal centrala teman som exemplifieras genom olika författares kapitel. Bidragen ger exempel på viktig teknik i människans historia och är tänkta som inspiration för att kunna problematisera modern teknik. Vi får möta gammal teknik när den var ny, teknik under förändring, teknik i skolan och hos arkitekten, teknik som identitetsskapare, teknik som såväl redskap som komplexa system, teknik när den inte fungerar och när den får svårbegripliga och ibland förhatliga konsekvenser. Det handlar om teknikens roll i världens gång! Boken vänder sig till blivande och verksamma lärare, ingenjörer och tekniker samt till forskarstuderande inom olika ämnesområden. Den kan också läsas med stor behållning av personer med ett brett allmänt intresse för teknik.

   Teknik är ett angeläget ämne. Om det än handlar om energi, globala klimatförändringar, välfärd eller mer vardagliga göromål spelar tekniken en avgörande roll. Att förstå samspelet mellan teknik, människa och samhälle är därför viktigt, både för oss som enskilda individer, medborgare och för samhället i stort. Världens gång - teknikens utveckling är uppbyggd kring ett antal centrala teman som exemplifieras genom olika författares kapitel. Bidragen ger exempel på viktig teknik i människans historia och är tänkta som inspiration för att kunna problematisera modern teknik. Vi får möta gammal teknik när den var ny, teknik under förändring, teknik i skolan och hos arkitekten, teknik som identitetsskapare, teknik som såväl redskap som komplexa system, teknik när den inte fungerar och när den får svårbegripliga och ibland förhatliga konsekvenser. Det handlar om teknikens roll i världens gång! Boken vänder sig till blivande och verksamma lärare, ingenjörer och tekniker samt till forskarstuderande inom olika ämnesområden. Den kan också läsas med stor behållning av personer med ett brett allmänt intresse för teknik.

Teknik är ett angeläget ämne. Om det än handlar om energi, globala klimatförändringar, välfärd eller mer vardagliga göromål spelar tekniken en avgörande roll. Att förstå samspelet mellan teknik, människa och samhälle är därför viktigt, både för oss som enskilda individer, medborgare och för samhället i stort. Världens gång - teknikens utveckling är uppbyggd kring ett antal centrala teman som exemplifieras genom olika författares kapitel. Bidragen ger exempel på viktig teknik i människans historia och är tänkta som inspiration för att kunna problematisera modern teknik. Vi får möta gammal teknik när den var ny, teknik under förändring, teknik i skolan och hos arkitekten, teknik som identitetsskapare, teknik som såväl redskap som komplexa system, teknik när den inte fungerar och när den får svårbegripliga och ibland förhatliga konsekvenser. Det handlar om teknikens roll i världens gång! Boken vänder sig till blivande och verksamma lärare, ingenjörer och tekniker samt till forskarstuderande inom olika ämnesområden. Den kan också läsas med stor behållning av personer med ett brett allmänt intresse för teknik.

A household’s energy behaviour consists of several processes and interactions as well as it involve the decisions and functions of several entities. A household constitutes a technical infrastructure where people live, meet, and shape their identities in different ways. This study aims to open the black box energy behaviour and highlight different aspects and entities that influence and shape the way households use energy sources. A household’s energy behaviour is defined by different material and socio-economic objectives/aspects. These objectives often conflict with each other in terms of economic resources, political prioritisations, and technical potentials. For example, the implementation of environmental-friendly provisions in a household implies often costs and distribution of priorities. The most suitable method for highlighting and conceptualising the relationship between energy behaviour and different actors’ engagement is to study the development and construction of infrastructures (such as houses, apartment buildings etc), since infrastructures comprise the complexity of the modern society.

The aim of this study is to reconstruct and follow the process of designing and implementing a construction project, namely Colonia – the new student dorms at the university of Linköping, through the lenses of household’s energy behaviour. Particularly, we aim to investigate how the interaction among different entities, such as constructors, owners, users, ventilators, heaters, climate etc, co-produces energy behavior in the context of residential student buildings and standardizes ways of construction as well as patterns of consumption. In doing so, we intend to reconstruct the households’ everyday experiences/patterns as well as to follow construction and owning practices: How does a household conceptualize its own energy use? What kind of actors influences energy use? How material and natural aspects affect the construction process and the production of behavioural patterns of energy use? How do experts and constructors interact with the built environment? What negotiations take place between actors in the process of configuring a specific construction project regarding energy use and how these negotiations materialize in the context of the project, in terms of efficient energy behaviour/use?

The study treats energy behavior as a hybrid collective (Callon & Law, 1995. ”Agency and the Hybrid Collectif”). Our aim is to follow and reconstruct relations between the components of the collectif. It is the relations and their heterogeneity that are important in this context. The project will attempt to illustrate how everyday choices, experiences and interactions with other actors regarding the energy equipment of a household define the energy identity and behaviour of its members. In other words, to study the processes through which the design and construction of a house regarding electricity, heat, ventilation, water, drain system etc provides evidence concerning the materialisation of energy patterns within a household on an everyday basis.

Consumption has become one of the most crucial factors, or tools, for managing development towards sustainability. Consumption offers different choices on the scale of more or less sustainable commodities. The politics and responsibility for the environment has to a large extent been transferred from an aggregate level of national politics to the world of everyday life. This paper investigates how different actors try to influence the choices made in the world of everyday life concerning energy. The study is conducted through interviews with different actors such as energy companies and municipal energy advisors, and by participating observation of practices where households are informed or educated in areas concerning energy. Another growing source of information and knowledge is, of course, the Internet. A number of different websites have been selected and analyzed in the same manner as other material. There are different ways to motivate households to change their energy behaviour. There is a strong conviction that in order to change behaviour, something must be gained, preferably economic gain. A more efficient way of living results in more money left in the wallet, and a positive side effect is that it is also good for the environment. The idea of efficiency might be the strongest one. Increasing efficiency is a way of not changing lifestyle but changing technical equipment and user routines.

I denna förstudie ska vi analysera tidigare forskning kring hushållens energianvändning och relatera detta till styrmedel och energibeteende, samt bygg- och bostadssektorns aktörers arbete med energieffektivisering och hushållning. Syftet med denna rapport är att få en överblick av forskningen kring byggnader och hushållens energibeteende samt att formulera teoretiska och metodologiska tillvägagångssätt för att undersöka hushållens energibeteende. I denna rapport ska vi diskutera teoretiska och metodologiska angreppssätt inför fortsättningen av projektet och påbörja utvecklingen av en analysram för att förstå energianvändningen i hushåll.

 Denna artikel belyser och problematiserar olika kommunala praktikers förutsättningar för val och beslut i samband med energi. Här visas att tillförseldiskursen dominerar de praktiker som studeras. Tillförsel innebär att energi betraktas utifrån energikällorna och att de är utifrån de olika energikällornas egenskaper som vi har att göra våra val kring hur energisystemet ska utformas. Inom denna diskurs problematiseras inte brukarna. På 70-talet fick dock tankar om effektivisering ett starkare genomslag, inte minst på kommunal nivå. Effektivisering innebär att framför allt tekniken kan göras mer energisnål men också att användningen optimeras efter behoven. Detta perspektiv rymmer dock inte möjligheter till en problematisering av brukarna och brukarnas ansvar men den öppnar för perspektiv som inte bara handlar om val av energikälla. På de kommunala arenorna som studerats identifieras också en brukardiskurs som, trots att den lever i skuggan av tillförseldiskursen, gör en helt annan syn på energi gällande. I brukardiskursen har individen en stark roll. Individen har ansvar för sina handlingar och kan göra aktiva, mer eller mindre etiska val. I artikeln visas hur de olika diskurserna kommer till uttryck inom de olika kommunala praktikerna samt varför vissa diskurser är så starka medan andra lever på undantag.

This study concerns how energy is treated as an area of knowledge in the Swedish school. Energy is encountered in traditional subjects such as history, physics and social studies. Energy also has another entry due to its constant relevance in the world outside school, thereby obligating school to address and discuss energy within its curriculum. Energy is thus qualified to cut across subject lines in school and to connect strongly to problem issues outside school.

The purpose of this book is to study how energy is handled as an area of knowledge in school. Viewing school as a practice implies that energy is handled within a specific social and cultural context. All meanings which are created construct and reproduce notions concerning the nature of reality. It is thus important to study the school's assumptions and methods for dealing with this area of knowledge.

The analysis in the book is based on participatory observations, tape recordings of pupils engaged in group projects, educational materials and the pupils' own work. Three different energy-related projects are included in the study: (1) Two social studies classes which worked using energy as a theme. A number of different subjects were involved in this theme. (2) A natural science class which also worked using energy as a theme, although here the only subjects involved were physics and biology. All three of these classes were upper secondary college-preparatory school classes. (3) The study also includes two classes from the ninth grade. As in the case of the social studies classes, their work on energy involved most of the pupils' other subjects. The theme for the nine-year compulsory school pupils was "Man-Energy-Environment".

This analysis has shown that school as practice has created certain forms which govern how energy is treated as an area of knowledge. The forms maintain and legitimise a particular view as to what is considered valid knowledge. The discourses which best live up to requirements regarding what was to be considered "valid" knowledge were the scientific discourse and the supply discourse.

The scientific discourse was accorded high status as a result of its ties to a scientific conceptual world, and to approaches which are associated with the scientific method. The supply discourse must be considered to be the most dominant of the identifiable discourses.

Other discourses were identified but did not nearly have the same bearing on school. The user discourse was most evident in the projects of the nine-year compulsory school pupuls, and was also implicated in goal documents for their assignments. The civilisation-critical discourses made their presence felt mainly during the group work, but otherwise had few points of correlation for school practice.