Våldsförebyggande arbete, eller våldsprevention, är åtgärder som ska förhindra att våld uppstår eller upprepas. I Sverige ses idag ett utökat våldsförebyggande arbete som avgörande för den nationella strategi som antagits för att förebygga och motverka mäns våld mot kvinnor, våld mot barn, våld i hbtqi-relationer och hedersrelaterat våld och förtryck (Socialdepartementet 2016) med avseende på alla former av fysiskt, psykiskt och sexuellt våld samt hot om våld. Våldsförebyggande arbete är centralt även i bekämpandet av gäng- och nätverkskriminalitet (Justitiedepartementet 2023).

Då forskning visar att en stereotyp syn på könsroller ökar risken för våld (se ex. Miller m.fl. 2020) ses arbete mot destruktiva könsnormer och för jämställdhet som en förutsättning för att våldspreventiva åtgärder ska vara effektiva (Franzén & Gottzén 2020; Jämställdhetsmyndigheten 2020). Den nationella strategin (Socialdepartementet 2016) framhåller bland annat att föreställningar om våld och hot som legitima uttryck för manlighet aktivt bör motverkas i sammanhang som är särskilt viktiga i formandet av pojkars och unga mäns identitet (Regeringskansliet 2016). Eftersom föreställningar om hur män är och bör vara kan upprätthållas av alla behöver dock insatserna för att förändra förväntningarna på pojkar och män rikta sig till alla, oavsett kön.

I Sveriges kommuner finns flera verksamheter som kan och bör arbeta våldsförebyggande, däribland förskolan och skolan, där fritidshemmen också ingår. Den här rapporten behandlar ett våldpreventivt utvecklingsarbete i två skolor i Tanums kommun. Arbetet leds av Hälsokällan, en verksamhet som drivs av Fyrbodals kommunalförbund. Hälsokällan kallar projektet Tidiga våldsförebyggande insatser i förskola, skola och fritidshem – rätten till en uppväxt fri från våld. Det finansieras av statsbidrag från Jämställdhetsmyndigheten.

Under 2023 inledde Hälsokällan och Högskolan Väst en samverkan med syfte att utforska detta utvecklingsarbete. Samverkan pågick under hela 2024 och innebar att forskare genom observationer och intervjuer följde pedagogernas arbete med att införa Hälsokällans modell för våldspreventivt utvecklingsarbete.

In many countries, fitness testing is used in physical education (PE). Advocates of fitness testing maintain that testing promotes physical activity and has long-term health benefits. Other scholars question using fitness tests for children in educational contexts and describe them as demotivating, embarrassing, and humiliating. The purpose of the study is to contribute to this educational dilemma with knowledge on the use of “fitness tests” in PE practice. This is done by exploring a pedagogical intervention in Sweden where tests were used to teach from a norm-creative perspective and considering how bodies with different weight and form could be included. We draw on “new materialist” methodologies, asking what tests do and can do in PE practice. In our analysis, we brought together six affective elements of what tests do. Many tests produced traditional PE practices, and there were apparent silences regarding body hierarchies, which often render big bodies invisible. Teaching tests paradoxically, however, also produced opportunities for creativity in moving and opportunities to reflect upon norms about justice and “normal” bodies. This analysis highlights the potential of teaching with the test in order for fitness tests to become educational. 

Purpose

Over the last couple of decades, health has become a central part of the subject content in physical education (PE) curricula in many countries. As a result, issues of health have been foregrounded much more clearly in the teaching of PE. The aim of this study was to explore how Swedish PE teachers make sense of health in relation to their teaching practices. This was done through investigating conceptions and theories about health in the teachers' descriptions of their teaching practices.

Design/methodology/approach

The data analyzed in this paper were collected through focus group and individual interviews with PE teachers in the grades 7-9 within compulsory schools in Sweden. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis.

Findings

Four dominant themes were identified in the data: 1) Health as a healthy attitude, 2) Health as a functional ability, 3) Health as fitness, 4) Health as mental wellbeing. There is a clear impact from healthism and obesity discourses on the teachers' accounts of health, but there is also an impact from holistic views and approaches to health. The authors contend that teachers should be explicit in what they mean by health in relation to what they teach, how they teach and why they teach health in a certain way.

Originality/value

The knowledge produced by this study is crucial since teachers' assumptions regarding health affect the subject content (what), the pedagogies (how), as well as the reasons (why) they teach health and therefore what students learn regarding health.

I den bästa av världar [In the best of worlds]Den bästa av dagar [The best of days]Vi slapp ju nazister [We did not have Nazis]Så vad ska vi klaga? [So what should we complain about?]

In the above poem, trans* activist and spoken word poet Yolanda Aurora Bohm Ramirez (2018) both names the ways the lives of specific groups of people in Sweden are threatened by the increasing neo-Nazi violence and illuminates the response of the majoritarian population to these threats: their demands of silence where protest and criticism is made nearly impossible.

The notion of Sweden as a secular nation-state, or rather the linkage between notions of secularism and gender equality, is strong in public discourse. Within this frame, religion is located in a traditional past and often understood as a hindrance to liberal and modern values.In this chapter we focus on our own situatedness as feminist researchers living in Sweden and thereby explore how, where and why ideologies of secularism entangled with notions of European values and superiority become dominant. Inspired by the feminist tradition of memory work, an aim is to explore the boundary between the secular and the religious through our own experiences and from our location in Sweden. The aim is also to search for counter-memories, both in the doing of secular (gendered) selves as well as the ongoing production of the "religious other".

Body positivity messages and practices are rapidly being spread transnationally, particularly in the form of digital activism, challenging oppressive body ideals and advocating for diversity and the acceptance of all body types. At the same time, however, the movement is increasingly being criticised for its commodification, how it goes hand in hand with neoliberalism and its lack of intersectional perspectives. This text investigates the potential of the expansion, redefinition and 'repoliticising' of body positivity beyond the white, neoliberal discourse. The analysis mainly dives into the texts and images of blogs by two body positive advocates, Leah Vernon and Stephanie Yeboah, who both identify as black and fat and who both address the issues of race and racism. It is suggested that through their body politics, they display how race and gender are intersected in the shaping of both body shaming and the production of 'proud' bodies, thus contributing to the situatedness of body positivity. The stance of being unapologetic in one's body—a central element of body positivity—is regarded as being reframed through the contestation of the whiteness privilege and racism.

Background: People often expect physical education teachers to look fit and athletic, to do lots of physical activity, and to eat well. While ample research exists on physical education teachers’ bodies, relatively few scholars have investigated how physical educators relate corporeal expectations to broader ideas about subject content, pedagogy, and the purposes of the school subject. Aim: The specific aim of the paper is to identify the assumptions about content, pedagogy, and educational purposes that teachers make when they talk about a perceived need for physical educators to look fit and athletic. Method: To frame our work theoretically, we draw from a Swedish didaktik of physical education tradition and employ Bakhtin’s concept of speech genres, and Wertsch’s concept of privileging. Our empirical material consists of transcripts generated from 6 focus group and 6 individual interviews (24 teachers in total, average age of 40 years, average teaching experience 11 years). Findings: Data suggest that when teachers use an ‘athletic-looking teacher as healthy role model’ speech genre, they tend to privilege: (1) a particular version of health as subject content that involves not being too overweight and maintaining physical functionality in sports. This content is based on biomedical conceptions of health which foreground exercise, eating and weight, and a pathogenic reduction of risk; (2) particular pedagogies in PE that put the teacher at the centre of the pedagogical situation, and; (3) a certain educational purpose in PE, which is to educate citizens for healthy lives through participation in sport. With respect to this purpose, increasing body weight enters the genre as a potential obstacle for educational success. Discussion: The findings raise questions concerning appropriate curricular content and its relation to teacher identities. They suggest that learning possibilities may be missed when certain content, pedagogies, and outcomes are privileged. The findings also indicate how wider voices are implicated in the speech genre. Conclusion: The paper is concluded with reflections on the possibility for change regarding expectations of physical education teachers’ bodies and pedagogies.

The focus of this book is on the many far from predictable transformative political processes on gender, sexuality and coloniality that grow out of the broad range of bodies and actors engaged in politics outside the hegemonic order and in everyday activities. These processes are not conducted by states, governments or transnational nongovernmental organisations; rather, they are examples of politics in-between states, organisations and national imagined communities. In this first chapter we will introduce some of the main themes, regarding these processes we in our joint research programme have worked on over the last couple of years.

Aim: To provide insight into how physical education teachers use discursive resources related to obesity to create particular professional identities. Method: Data come from focus group and individual interviews with physical education teachers in Sweden. Discourse theory on teacher identities frame the analysis of the empirical material. Results: Data suggest that teachers in Sweden make use of six distinct but related discursive contributions to produce three professional identities: the caring practitioner, an identity concerned with ensuring all pupils irrespective of size participate in physical education; the activity luminary, an identity that focuses on inspiring pupils toward activity across the lifespan, and; the body rationalist, an identity concerned with challenging unrealistic media discourses and reassuring pupils that they have “normal” bodies. Discussion: The identities appear more inclusive, sensitive, and critical than current physical education literature on obesity suggests, however they also contain elements that are fundamentally unsympathetic to overweight individuals.

This open access book seeks to understand how politics is being made in a pluralistic sense, and explores how these political struggles are challenging and transforming gender, sexuality, and colonial norms. As researchers located in Sweden, a nation often cited as one of the most gender-equal and LGBTQ-tolerant nations, the contributions investigate political processes, decolonial struggles, and events beyond, nearby, and in between organizations, states, and national territories. The collection represents a variety of disciplines, and different theoretical conceptualizations of politics, feminist theory, and postcolonial and queer studies. Students and researchers with an interest of queer studies, gender studies, critical whiteness studies, and civil society studies will find this book an invaluable resource.