Ylva Odenbring

• Professor
• Professor (Full) at University of Gothenburg

Homosexuella, bisexuella, transpersoner, queera personer och intersexpersoner (HBTQI) har sämre hälsa jämfört med övriga befolkningen i Sverige. I denna artikel riktas intresset mot HBTQI-elevers utsatthet och minoritetsstress i den svenska skolan. Artikeln baseras på intervjuer med elever i årskurs nio genomförda i två separata forskningsprojekt....

Since autumn 2020, boys in the fifth year of school (11-year-old students) in Sweden have been offered human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination for free. Drawing from individual interviews with 21 school nurses working in primary schools in one of Sweden’s regions, the aim of this study was to explore nurses’ strategies and experiences of informing s...

In this article, we draw on science and technology studies literature on care practices to analyse school nurses’ work with human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination in schools, in the context of a new vaccination policy including all children in the fifth grade in Sweden. Drawing on 21 interviews with school nurses working in municipalities across a...

Research with a specific focus on bisexual students’ schooling experiences is still quite rare, and studies focusing on bisexual students’ positive schooling experiences are even more uncommon. The present study addresses this scarcity by analyzing interviews with students from a lower secondary school in Sweden. In the article, the center of analy...

This chapter explores ninth grade students’ experiences and understanding of everyday racism in a rural lower secondary school in Sweden. Focus of our analysis is the narratives and situations that revolve around incidents when students are exposed to racist comments and positioned as the Other. The results indicate that immigrant students, regardl...

Today, the “dick pic” (DP) has become a growing phenomenon among teens. This study is designed and constructed as a case study. Case study research aims to understand complex social phenomena, and to understand a case, it needs to be examined in relation to contextual factors relevant to that case. In the present paper, we focus on interviews with...

This chapter draws on a meta-analysis of data from two different research projects conducted in two lower secondary schools in Sweden. The chapter explores teenage boys’ narratives of existing joking cultures and lad cultures in the everyday life of school. Using the concepts of vertical and horizontal homosociality, the study demonstrates that the...

This chapter explores how teenage students living in of Sweden’s most socially deprived urban neighbourhood talk about violence and the teacher’s role in preventing violence at school. The analysis reveals that the students are aware that the neighbourhood and school are situated in a ‘problematic area’, but nonetheless they refuse to let this colo...

Research has shown that peer victimization and bullying are common phenomena among pupils in different educational institutions, yet we know little about these issues in the educational context of the leisure-time centre. This study addresses leisure-time teachers’ reflections on their work regarding peer victimization in the everyday practice of S...

This edited collection focuses on different aspects of everyday violence, harassment and threats in schools. It presents a number of in-depth studies of everyday life in schools and uses examples and case studies from different countries to fuel a discussion on national differences and similarities. The book discusses a broad range of concepts, fin...

This study explores teenage students’ views on sexting, with particular regard to image sharing, as well as how this shapes gender relations at a rural lower secondary school in Sweden. Among the boys at the school, students’ sexting practices have created a hegemonic and homosocial peer culture. Homosociality is expressed by boys’ sharing images o...

The present article, addresses and discusses thin line between teasing, and violence in lower secondary school. The main aim of the study is to highlight and explore different types of “joking cultures” and lad cultures. This study draws from interviews with ninth grade students conducted at three schools in various geographic locations in Sweden....

Studies worldwide indicate that sexual minority students often face different forms of bullying in everyday life at school, and young people growing up in communities with conservative values, such as in rural areas, are often in a particularly vulnerable position. Nonetheless, there is an absence of studies addressing the everyday lives of sexual...

This article provides a meta-analysis of what characterises existing ethnographic research on gender and class in the context of Nordic early childhood education. The encompasses research on education and gender or social class in the Nordic countries published in Nordic and non-Nordic scientific journals as well PhD theses published in the Nordic...

This study explores students' views on cultural diversity and racism in the everyday life of a rural school in Sweden.

This study aims to explore how adolescent girls with minority backgrounds experience different forms of sexual harassment in school. The study draws on semi-structured interviews conducted in a lower secondary school located in one of Sweden’s most socially disadvantaged urban areas. The results reveal that the girls repeatedly experienced misogyni...

The current article links masculine leisure with bodily performances and playfulness connected to global neoliberal expressions of gender, class and ethnicity. This study draws from an analysis of a skateboard video of young white middle-class men skateboarding in an urban environment in one of Sweden’s greater metropolitan areas. An interview with...

Today, approximately 12% of children growing up in Sweden are living in what could be defined as child poverty. Although the number of children living in poverty has slightly decreased during recent years, social exclusion and segregation between different groups in society have increased. The present study will shed a light on the reality of how c...

Att som barn växa upp under ekonomiskt svåra förhållanden innebär ökade risker för sämre hälsa, sämre utbildningsmöjligheter och begränsade möjligheter till att skapa sociala relationer med andra barn. Emellertid vet vi idag väldigt lite om hur aspekter kring social ojämlikhet konstrueras och reproduceras i pedagogiska verksamheter riktade till yng...

In Sweden and other countries, children's everyday lives and educational opportunities depend on their living conditions and class backgrounds. The current study examined the manifestation of issues of social injustice and unequal childhoods in the daily practices of leisure-time centres in Sweden. The empirical data were derived from the written r...

Hot, våld och trakasserier är frågor som uppmärksammas allt mer och väcker debatt. Men hur ser skolvardagens våld verkligen ut? Hur resonerar ungdomar i skolan om detta? Och vilka åtgärder bör vidtas? Denna bok bidrar med ny viktig kunskap om elevers skolvardag samt vad elever själva anser vara väsentligt för att skapa en bättre och tryggare skola...

During the first decades of the twenty-first century, adolescents’ perceived stress has been reported to be an important factor in explaining the health problems among students in Swedish schools. Based on interviews with key professionals working in the student welfare team in three secondary schools, the present article aims to contribute new kno...

The present study explores how officials in Swedish secondary schools define and categorize situations in which students have been exposed to violence in the school. The study is designed as a case study of two secondary schools, situated in two demographically different urban neighbourhoods. The results indicate that different socio-economic condi...

Today, an increasing number of students are suffering from different kinds of mental health problems. Still, we know little about how professionals in secondary school and other professionals in society handle and collaborate around these issues. The findings from the present study make an important contribution to the research field regarding prof...

This paper examines Swedish secondary school’s strategies for supporting students who lack parental care, and what explanations school professionals use to describe and categorize this group of vulnerable students. The results indicate that students’ family backgrounds are central to the explanations given for social problems, as well as to how dif...

Idag spenderar barn i Västvärlden allt mer av sin tid i olika utbildningsinstitutioner och i organiseradefritidsaktiviteter. Hur barn själva upplever sin vardag vet vi idag inte särskilt mycket om. Det är medbakgrund av detta som föreliggande artikel närmare studerar hur svenska och amerikanska barn beskriver och erfar sin vardag och sitt vardagsli...

I denna artikel studeras hur skolpersonal och elever i en skola i en socialt utsatt stadsdel i en småstad beskriver och erfar skolans integrations- arbete. Resultaten pekar på en rådande profes- sionell kultur som präglas av ett starkt socialt och pedagogiskt engagemang. En viktig aspekt i detta arbete är det samarbete som sker mellan ämnes- och mo...

Skolan är den plats där svenska ungdomar oftast blir utsatta för våld av olika slag – och utsätter andra ungdomar för samma sak. Våld i skolan leder gärna till upprörda känslor och högljudda meningsutbyten om ”skolans kris”. Skolpersonal får ofta kritik för sitt sätt att hantera kränkningar och våld. Men vilka möjligheter har skolpersonal att hante...

This chapter explores constructions of boyness in Swedish preschool and preschool class settings. It focuses on data from three different ethnographic studies conducted in two preschools, named Marigold and Ladybug respectively, and one preschool class, named Octopus, all located in Sweden. The chapter considers collective and meta-ethnography to b...

In society today, there is a tendency towards over-diagnosing. This tendency in society at large seems to reflect the normalization of a diagnostic culture. Some researchers have claimed that this normalization could be defined as the ‘medicalization of childhood’. There would seem to be a need for a sociocultural analysis of this phenomenon in sch...

This chapter draws from interviews with school officials working in student health team meetings at three secondary schools in Sweden. The results reveal that domestic abuse and child neglect are often framed within a discourse on parents and their ‘problematic’ behaviour. When Swedish parents abuse their children, it is often understood and explai...

The focus of the present study is on how a number of Swedish schools define and categorise students who have been exposed to different forms of abusive acts and violence at school. The empirical study was designed to explore six Swedish urban secondary schools. The results indicated a recurrent pattern in school officials’ narratives, which is that...

Research relating to children’s views on their childhood and everyday activities, as well as comparative studies around this topic, is still lacking. From this background, the current study hopes to contribute new knowledge to this field of research. This study is a comparative study exploring how children aged 6–7 years experience their everyday l...

The present article focuses on how the so-called War on terror discourse has merged into the educational system and brought about a securitization of education. As a part of efforts to prevent young people from becoming radicalized into terrorism, the educational system is expected to be able to detect individuals ‘at risk’ and deploy methods to pr...

Legal perspectives or Social Pedagogy? Schools strategies of handling harassments The present study explores how Swedish schools define and categorize situations when students have been exposed to different forms of abusive acts and violence at school. The empirical study is designed as case studie of two urban secondary schools situated in areas w...

This article explores Swedish secondary school’s strategies for supporting students who lack parental care. The study was designed as a case study of six Swedish urban secondary schools located in different demographic areas in southern Sweden. The study draws from individual interviews with school officials, focus group interviews with schools off...

The focus of the present study is on how educators and students create a ‘sense of belonging’ and school identity. The ethnography was carried out at an independent Christian school with children and students aged six to sixteen years. This study’s aim is to contribute knowledge about how the identity of a school has become an important factor in t...

There is a strong case for stating that, during the past decades, there has been a shift in perspective when addressing questions of how to handle and preserve social order in schools. As an institution that focuses on social order and education, since the 1990s the Swedish school system has also become an institution that focuses on social order i...

The present study examines how a number of Swedish schools define and categorize students who have been exposed to different forms of violent or abusive acts in school. The study will shed light on how categorizations and forms of explanation used in the schools by professionals emerge from central institutional and professional discourses. The dat...

There is a strong case for stating that during the past decades there has been a shift in perspective when addressing questions of how to handle and preserve social order in Swedish schools. As an institution that has focused on social order and education since the 1990s, the Swedish school system has also become an institution that focuses on soci...

This article explores and investigates school officials' narratives about how schools involve and collaborate with families, social services, the police, and other agencies to support students who are suspected of being exposed to domestic violence. School officials' describe their work as positioned within legal restrictions and official policies,...

The present study will shed light on peer interaction and children's positioning in preschool. Theoretically, the study takes its point of departure from the concept of interpretive reproduction, which stresses the importance of children's collective actions and participation in cultural production and reproduction. Positioning refers to how childr...

De senaste två decennierna har barnböcker med karaktärer som bryter mot gängse normer blivit allt vanligare inom svensk barnlitteratur. Barns vardag porträtteras på ett allt mer mångfacetterat sätt. Mot bakgrund av detta är fokus i föreliggande artikel att studera hur intersektionella aspekter av kön, sexualitet och klass porträtteras och konstruer...

In early childhood education, children’s daily practice revolves to a great extent around order and discipline. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork from a Swedish preschool class, the present study further explores how the task of being a teacher’s assistant can be critically understood in terms of how gender, discipline and order are expressed in di...

1970-talet var ett decennium då barnlitteratur av mer radikal karaktär kom att få genombrott. Gamla hierarkier mellan vuxna och barn ifrågasattes och nya institutioner kom att porträtteras i litteraturen. Under detta decennium var Gunilla Wolde en av de mest framträdande barnlitteraturförfattarna i Sverige. Hennes Emma böcker är fortfarande bland d...

Barns könade vardag - om (o)jämställdhet i förskola, förskoleklass och skola tar avstamp i en teoretisk förståelse som grundar sig i att det finns många olika sätt att vara pojke och flicka på. Kön är pågående sociala processer som varierar över tid och beroende på social och kulturell kontext.Barns könade vardag - om (o)jämställdhet i förskola, f...

In the current article, we explore educational practises in terms of the transition from pre-primary education to compulsory schooling. Our cross-cultural analysis is based on two ethnographic studies conducted in three educational institutions providing pre-primary education: two in Finland and one in Sweden. The analysis is guided by feminist the...

Barns vardag är på många sätt mångfacetterad, inte minst när det gäller konstruktioner av kön. I föreliggande artikel studeras konstruktioner av kön i termer av hur barns gränsöverskridande agerande framträder lokalt i en förskoleklass i Sverige. Studien baseras på etnografiskt fältarbete och mer specifikt är det utifrån så kallade episoder av en p...

I föreliggande artikel studeras könade kategoriseringar i samtal. Analysen tar sin utgångspunkt i teoretiska antaganden om att kategoriseringar som uttrycks i människors dagliga samtal ger signaler om en persons sociala status. Kategoriseringar som anspelar på kön, definierat som könade kategoriseringar i artikeln, är en sådan typ av etikettering....

Full link to PhD-thesis: http://hdl.handle.net/2077/22144