In Swedish schools, the so-called ‘Participation Model’ is used to observe and analyse participation, with the intention of supporting an inclusive learning environment. While this model is widely promoted by government agencies, its theoretical alignment to the concept(s) of inclusion is not established. This article therefore compares and maps the six aspects of participation within the Participation Model (i.e. belonging, accessibility, interaction, autonomy, involvement and acceptance) with a hierarchically ordered set of commonly occuring definitions of inclusive education (ranging from the lowest level, placement, to the highest, community). The Participation Model was found to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the lower levels of inclusion, as well as necessary conditions for the higher levels of inclusion. However, we show that the model suffers from construct underrepresentation and outline a few possible solutions intended to increase the theoretical alignment between the Participation Model and the higher levels of inclusive education. Finally, we suggest directions for further research.

 Twice exceptional (2e) students are by some researchers defined as a group of students who “possess high ability in one or more talent domains along with one or more disabilities” (Foley-Nicpon & Assouline, 2020, 1615). In this presentation, we detail long-term perspectives on school from the point of view of a twice exceptional (2e) student and her guardians, based on data from an exploratory single case study, where we conducted semi-structured individual interviews with a female student (age ≈ 13 years) who had been identified as twice exceptional, as well as with her guardians. These results details the students’ social as well as educational situation from pre-school and onwards into her early years of primary school, and thus provides a long-term perspective on the social and educational situation of a twice exceptional student in Sweden. The results of this study thereby provide a more detailed view of how the educational situation of the student has developed and changed over time, as well as the family’s first encounters with an educational system which aims to be “a school for all” students, but which is not necessarily the most well-suited to meet the needs and preferences of twice-exceptional children. 

This study is of importance since there is a lack of studies about twice exceptional (2e) students, even though many researchers in the field consider it a considerable group (cf. Assouline & Whiteman, 2004) with often unmet educational needs. In general, research about high ability, or gifted, students has increased in Sweden as of lately, but not as much focus has been given to 2e students. Not the least, there is a lack of studies that take a long-term perspective of the situation that 2e students are facing when meeting the educational system. Prior studies underline the importance of taking into account the perspectives of both 2e students and their guardians (e.g., Holmgren et al., 2023; Mun et al., 2021).

 Over the past decades, research on gifted education has been steadily increasing worldwide, although some countries, like Sweden, have been comparably late to initialise such research on a broader scale. Still, there are many misconceptions about gifted education and the children and students identified as belonging to this group. This is especially the case regarding so-called twice exceptional (2e) students, which by some researchers are defined as a group of students who “possess high ability in one or more talent domains along with one or more disabilities” (Foley-Nicpon & Assouline, 2020, 1615). Different definitions of twice exceptionality exist in the literature, and it has been noted that the concept of twice-exceptionality has been contested, since many educators had difficulties “comprehending that a child can be gifted and also have learning disabilities” (Brody & Mills, 1997) and many also tended to find the concept of having high intelligence and learning disabilities inconsistent because intelligence was considered a global construct (Dare & Nowicki, 2015), a situation that according to some researchers is still prevailing (Klingner, 2022). However, some research has concluded that up to 7% of school-age children may be 2e (Assouline & Whiteman, 2004). Hence, there is a particular need to conduct more research on twice exceptionality, and not the least is there an great value in research focusing on the perspective of these children themselves and their parents.

In this presentation, we describe an exploratory single case study (Holmgren et al., 2023) of a female student (age ≈ 13 years) in school year seven, based on semi-structured individual interviews with the student herself as well as with her two guardians, regarding her educational situation. The data were first inductively coded and triangulated by three of the authors in collaboration. Subsequently, a fourth author independently and deductively coded a third of the data and thereby conducted a consensus interrater reliability check, which exceeded 85% percent agreement. 

The three following main themes arose from the data processing: (1) multiplex perspectives on academic outcomes and expectations, (2) the intersection between twice exceptionality and academic work, and (3) information and perceptions about twice exceptionality. 

The results thereby suggest several educational challenges and opportunities for twice exceptional students. Further research is needed regarding twice exceptional students in Sweden in particular, as well as in many countries in general.

In our previous research, we developed a theoretical concept that we call ‘the impossibility view’, denoting an attitude commonly held about people with certain disabilities, claiming that they cannot participate in philosophical dialogues, for alleged lack of skills, abilities or prerequisites. Inprior research, we have shown it false for several types of disabilities, and in our ongoing research project, we take on the challenge to prove the impossibility view false also for pupils with intellectual disability (ID), and study what influence a philosophical dialogue intervention has on socio-emotional development and experiences among pupils with ID. We use a mixed-methods pretest-posttest intervention design with an intervention school and a matched control school. In this paper, we outline the background of the research and describe the main methods used. During the presentation, we will present preliminary results.

Current approaches used in educational research and practice to evaluate the quality of written arguments often rely on structural analysis. In such assessments, credit is awarded for the presence of structural elements of an argument, such as claims, evidence, and rebuttals. In this article, we discuss limitations of such approaches, including the absence of criteria for evaluating the quality of the argument elements. We then present an alternative framework, based on the Rational Force Model (RFM), which originated from the work of a Nordic philosopher Næss. Using an example of an argumentative essay, we demonstrate the potential of the RFM to improve argument analysis by focusing on the acceptability and relevance of argument elements, two criteria widely considered to be fundamental markers of argument strength. We outline possibilities and challenges with using the RFM in educational contexts and conclude by proposing directions for future research.

The gifted education research area is rapidly expanding in Sweden. In the context of very limited research nationally, demands are increasing for steering documents and addressing of student and teacher needs in practice. However, Swedish research on students that are ‘twice exceptional’—students classified as being both gifted and disabled (for instance, through a neurodevelopmental disorder such as ADHD)—is nearly non-existent. In this study, we present an exploratory single case study of a female student in school year seven based on semi-structured individual interviews with the student and her two guardians regarding her educational situation. The data were first inductively coded and triangulated in collaboration between three of the authors. A fourth author later independently and deductively coded one-third of the data based on the previously inductively determined thematic structure and conducted a consensus interrater reliability check, exceeding 85% percent agreement. The three main themes are as follows: (1) multiplex perspectives on academic outcomes and expectations, (2) the intersection between twice exceptionality and academic work, and (3) information and perceptions about twice exceptionality. The results indicate several educational challenges and opportunities for twice exceptional students. Further research is needed regarding twice exceptional students in Sweden.

We present results from a single case study based on semi-structured interviews with a student (a boy in school year 3) diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and his school staff after participating in a short and small-scale intervention carried out in a socio-economically disadvantaged Swedish elementary school in 2019. The student participated in a seven week long long intervention with a total of 12 philosophical dialogues (ranging from 45 to 60 minutes). Two facilitators, both with years of facilitation experience and teacher degree and at least BA in philosophy, facilitated the majority of the dialogues, mainly followed a ”routine” procedure. The student was interviewed in direct connection to the end of the intervention about his experiences from the dialogues and his perceptions about wether and how the dialogues had influenced him. The student’s two teachers, who had participated in the dialogues as participants, were interviewed as a pair, also in direct connection to the end of the intervention, while the school principal was interviewed two years after the study. These staff interviews concerned the staff’s experiences of the influence of the dialogues on the students within the intervention as well as transfer effects to other contexts in school. The data from the study include detailed elaborations from a student perspective of different effects on the student’s communicative and cognitive development, which are in several respects supported also by staff reports. The results show that the student was able, interested, and willing to participate in philosophical dialogues, and our data point to several positive outcomes for the student in the communicative and cognitive domains.

In an ongoing project (Vinnova, project dnr 2019-04651), we develop an app, called Dialogica, which is intended for use in app-supported philosophical dialogues for persons with aphasia in an IRL setting. Aphasia is a communication disorder caused by a brain injury and involves often grave difficulties with expressing thoughts to others. Many persons with aphasia are excluded from conversations about deeper issues. In a previous research project (Swedish Research Council, project dnr 721-2013-2161), philosophical dialogues were conducted with persons with acquired brain injuries and aphasia, with positive results in group argumentation development. However, the group of persons with more severe brain injuries and aphasia saw smaller changes and needed more facilitator support than did the group of persons with milder brain injuries and without aphasia. This prompted further consideration about appropriate tools, such as apps, to support the participants with aphasia in increasing their autonomy and participation during the dialogues.

Dialogica is developed with modern digital technologies used in computer games and is intended for use on a portable device such as an iPad. It thus contains technologies for text-to-speech and speech-to-text synthesis, real-time translations, avatar animations, visual highlighting, and so on. The design is based on theory and methodology from the fields of philosophy for/with children as well as argumentation analysis and informal logic, along with experience from years of facilitation of philosophical dialogues in different settings. The goal is to produce an app that is easy to use, visually engaging, and tailored for use in philosophical dialogues, in order to provide tools for higher levels of autonomy and participation in inquiry dialogues to participants who otherwise have limited abilities to express themselves. This is done through several features of the app, such as the “conversation tree”, which gives a visualization of the inquiry, and a palette of predefined dialogic moves, to support spoken interaction.

In the project, we use a methodology inspired by an extended interpretation of the “Living Lab” principle, where the actual end-users of an app is involved in the development process through recurrent workshops including feedback sessions. In our case, these workshops rely on a “routine” PwC procedure in combination with using the app during the joint inquiry and meta-dialogue, and giving feedback during and after the sessions, when questions about usability, overall impression and specific features are discussed. Both persons with aphasia and supporting staff in their daily milieu join the workshops. This methodology can be extended also to school environments, where students and teachers are involved.

In this research presentation, we will present our research about app-supported philosophical dialogues (including an overview of the user input received through the Living Lab workshops), shortly show the user interface of the app, and outline some of its main features.

In this paper, we describe technological advances for supporting persons with aphasia in philosophical dialogues about personally relevant and contestable questions. A computer game-based application for iPads is developed and researched through Living Lab inspired workshops in order to promote the target group’s communicative participation during group argumentation. We outline some central parts of the background theory of the application and some of its main features, which are related to needs of the target group. Methodological issues connected to the design and use of Living Labs with persons with aphasia are discussed. We describe a few problems with researching development of communicative participation during group argumentation using an app assisted intervention for the target group and suggest some possible solutions.