The right to participation and inclusion for persons with disabilities is stated in the CRPD (UN 2006). In this study we aim to discuss how participation and inclusion for persons with intellectual disabilities is constructed, negotiated, and experienced during daily activities in the social context of horse-related activities. 

The study is based on ethnographic data gathered at two establishments, both of which keep horses and offer daily activities in line with the Swedish LSS Act (SFS 1993:387). 

The main theme, Staging for inclusion, is a theoretical elaboration based on Goffman’s (1959) dramaturgical perspective, making sense of categories such as meaningful work and working side by side. Tasks are adapted to the individual’s capabilities enhancing feelings of being needed and belonging to the community of the stable. The horses play an important role due to their dependence on human care, thus adding another layer in the understanding of disability and animality.

Trots att djurs beteenden har intresserat naturvetenskapens forskare under lång tid, och trots att relationer med djur spelar en stor roll för många människor, har forskare historiskt sett inte intresserat sig för relationen och interaktionen mellan djur och människor i någon större utsträckning. Detta gäller även kommunikationen mellan människor och hästar. Skotten mellan naturvetenskaplig forskning om djurs beteenden å ena sidan, och humanistisk-samhällsvetenskaplig forskning om människors sociala handlingar å den andra sidan har dessutom varit närmast vattentäta.

The aim of this study is to enhance the understanding of how sport dressage riders describe rider-horse communication when riding, and to relate these descriptions to current research on human-horse communication. Interviews with 15 amateur dressage riders were analyzed using a qualitative approach. The study shows that the interviewed riders describe the communication with the horses partly in a behavioristic way, applying concepts based on learning theory, which deviate from the description of riders as lacking understanding of these concepts put forth by some researchers. The riders connect the timing of their aids to equestrian feel, which they describe as the most difficult yet the most awarding aspect of the interspecies communication that riding is. Simultaneously, they acknowledge that horses are fully capable of choosing to listen to and cooperate with their requests.

This study investigates interaction during equestrian dressage trainings, focusing on the trainer’s communication with horse and rider. The study is based on interaction analyses of 15 video recorded training sessions, as well as analyses of interviews and field notes. The results reveal a wide variety of non-verbal communication modalities deployed by trainers sharing their practical expertise with the athletes. Equestrian trainers use activity specific onomatopoetic constructions, paralinguistic resources such as rhythm, pace and prosody, as well as a number of embodied resources where they use the space of the riding arena and various communicative configurations of their own body and the co-present bodies of horse and rider to represent the horse, the rider and/or the equipage as a whole.

The study is a part of a larger project about equitation as a communicative and didactic practice, aiming at making the practical, embodied knowledge that riding and equestrian training rests on explicit, thus enabling reflection and discussion among both practitioners and researchers of communication and equestrianism.

Good teamwork ensures the close collaboration and coordination between professional groups and across disciplinary boundaries. This is particularly important in healthcare centres and clinics admitting complicated patient cases, but contrary to what many healthcare organisations seem to believe, effective teamwork does not happen automatically. It needs to be successfully trained and practiced.

Teamwork in Medical Rehabilitation provides a guide to efficient teamwork in professional healthcare. Showcasing the practice of medical rehabilitation in Sweden, the book describes how to create, develop, nourish and organise a team. Medical rehabilitation in Sweden is a discipline filled by not only doctors and nurses, but also physiotherapists, occupational therapists, psychologists, social workers, speech therapists and dieticians. Using these multi-professional teams as clinical case studies, the book contains many practical examples from different rehabilitation care areas.

This book will prove to be invaluable to healthcare professionals and students as effective collaboration is essential to good clinical outcomes. Managers will also find this a worthy read thanks to its understanding of how working conditions affect good teamwork.

In the equestrian sports we agree that the communication between horse and rider forms the core of good riding. This communication is therefore often the main focus of for instance a dressage training session. However, in-depth analyses of how the communication between horse and rider is used as an educational resource in training are scarce. Here, theories and methods from communication and learning science are brought together to show how trainers and riders together address this communication during intermediate level dressage training. The results presented are based on a qualitative, mixed methods study, combining interactional analyses of 15 hrs of video recordings of dressage trainings and phenomenographic analysis of interviews with the participants. Analyses of the interviews show the complexity of these learning situations: the foci of the training sessions vary depending on the riders’ and the horses’ condition and the goals set up by the human participants as well as on the experience of the horse and the rider. Regardless of the didactical focus (on training the rider, training the rider to train the horse or training the horse) and the scope of the training session, the analyses of the video recordings show how all trainers orient towards the horse-rider interaction in essentially the same three ways. The trainers give verbal instructions aimed at modifying the horse-rider communication, they use their own bodies as models and they intervene physically by for instance altering the posture of the rider, the position of parts of the rider’s body or showing the correct degree of pressure to be applied in a certain situation (and combinations of the above). However, trainers do not always set the agenda for the discussions. When given the opportunity, many riders participate actively the discussions. During the presentation, extracts from the video material will be used as illustrations of these findings. By enlightening the complex interaction between the participants as well as the interaction’s intrinsic connections to the goals of the training, it becomes possible to discuss (and further develop) the communication in the horse-rider-trainer triad within both the equestrian and the scientific communities.

This study is part of a project with the overall aim to improve riding education through a better understanding of the interplay between rider, riding instructor and horse. The rider influences the horse through a combination of weight, leg and rein aids together with the voice. The horse responds to these and the rider receives and interprets these responses. The current study aimed to describe and analyse the riders´ perceptions and views on this communication. Fifteen experienced riders (all female) of intermediate level in dressage were recruited to participate in the study, most of them riding their own horses. The riders received private training from five experienced riding instructors/trainers. One training of each rider was video and audio recorded. Directly after the training, the riders watched 10 minutes from the video recording (stimulated recall) followed by a semi-structured in-depth interview. The riders were asked to give a general description of how they communicated with their horses. They were also asked to describe how they interpreted the horse’s responses to the rider’s signals and how they acted when the horse responded/or did not respond to their signals. The results showed that all riders were well aware of the importance of giving clear and precise signals to the horse and to remove a given signal (aid) as soon as the horse responds. Most riders (12 of 15) agreed that it is essential to check that the horse responds to the rider’s basic signals in the beginning of each training session. The riders also pointed out that it is important to adjust the aids to the character of the horse and to the current physical and mental status of their horse. When the horses responded correctly on the rider’s aids, the riders praised the horse either by using their voice or by petting the horse. When the horse did not respond as the rider wished, the riders generally repeated or strengthened their signals until they received a desired response. Interestingly, a major part of the riders (13 of 15) blamed themselves when the communication with the horse failed. In conclusion, the riders seemed to be aware of the practical application of the basic principles of learning theory, even if they were not familiar with the terminology. However, the riders also reported that in practice they perceived difficulties to control their own bodies and to adequately give and release their signals.