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 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.

Some educational systems include a value transmission approach to moral education, which includes an aim to foster pupils into accepting a predetermined set of core values. Lipman, on the other hand, described P4C as an educational program which deals with the fostering of procedural values, but not substantive moral values (Lipman et al., 1980). This poses a problem for including a Philosophy for/with children approach into teacher education, since teacher students might find it difficult to fulfill both of these conflicting aims simultaneously.

In this chapter, it is argued that Philosophy for/with children is indeed incompatible with value transmission. But, instead of rejecting Philosophy for/with children in teacher education, it is argued that there is a way of approaching moral education that is superior to value transmission, namely a dialogic approach under which Philosophy for/with children is not only possible, but a strong candidate for a reasonable way to treat moral matters in school. Hence, a potential obstacle for including Philosophy for/with children in teacher education is removed, and a strong argument for its inclusion is provided.

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.

We will present results from a multiple case study based on interviews with students diagnosed with neurodevelopment disorders and their school staff after participating in a short and small-scale intervention carried out in a socio-economically disadvantaged Swedish elementary school in 2019. Two small school classes participated in 12 philosophical dialogues each (ranging from 45 to 60 minutes) during a total of seven weeks. Two facilitators, both with years of facilitation experience and teacher degree and at least BA in philosophy, facilitated the majority of the dialogues. 

The philosophical dialogues mainly followed a ”routine” procedure, but a few differences can be noted. First, one of the facilitators wrote short stories prompting interest in contestable issues during the intervention, which helped the stimuli to get adapted to the groups’ developing interests. Second, in the start-up phase of several dialogues, the students were encouraged to practice dialogic skills through randomly assigned individual and group tasks based on both the jointly decided rules for interaction and on ART for kids (a tool for children to become aware of and evaluate dialogic quality and progress in inquiry dialogic sessions). During meta-dialogue, the groups returned to these tasks in order to increase meta-cognitive awareness, evaluate group performance, and set up short term goals for the upcoming session. Third, during two sessions, the sessions were organized in the form of a dialogic puzzle. 

The sample in this multiple case study contains students from two school classes (school years 3 and 4) in a Swedish elementary school. The school was small (about 150 students in total), rural, and ranked among the 10 % most socio-economically disadvantaged in Sweden. The school included students from around 20 different countries and about 20 % of the schools’ students were asylum seekers. All the students in the multiple case study were diagnosed with different neurodevelopmental disorders, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), attention deficit disorder (ADD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and severe developmental language disorder (DLD).

We interviewed the students, four teachers who participated in the dialogues, and the school principal. The students were interviewed individually in direct connection to the end of the intervention about their experiences from the dialogues and their perceptions about the influence of the dialogues. The interviewed teachers (two in each grade) were those who had participated in the dialogues. They were interviewed in pairs, also in direct connection to the end of the intervention, while the school principal was interviewed two years after the study. The 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. All interviews were semistructured. 

For each student, we present data from both student and staff interviews. We strive to give a representative picture of both the advantages and disadvantages expressed by students and staff. 

Most current approaches used in educational research and practice to evaluate arguments are based on Toulmin’s (1958) Argument Pattern (TAP), which defines the structure and core elements of an argument, such as claims, data, and warrants. Assessments based on TAP usually involve awarding credit for the number of structural elements present in an argument. In this presentation, we discuss some limitations of such assessments, 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 Nordic philosopher Arne Næss (1959). Using examples from argumentative writing and excerpts from philosophical dialogues, we demonstrate the potential of the RFM to improve understanding of the quality of argumentation by focusing on the acceptability and relevance of argument elements. We then discuss potential uses of the RFM in the context of P4wC. These include:

1. Researcher use of the RFM in evaluation of P4wC interventions through the analysis of participants’ argumentative writing.

2. Researcher use of the RFM in evaluation of P4wC interventions through the analysis of dialogue transcripts. 

3. Educational use of the RFM in teaching effective argumentation in facilitator training

4. Facilitator use of the RFM during philosophical dialogues.

5. Facilitator and participant use of the RFM in structuring and building joint understandings of argumentation in a dialogue.

This paper presents the current and ongoing research and development of WalkAbout, a distributed and open virtual world application for enhanced and engaging learning. Using WalkAbout, teachers and learners can engage in active learning using different 3D-environments online, where learning and education can be conducted. The environment allows learners to represent themselves using many different avatars, animations, expressions paired with traditional voice communication. More classical presentations are done using one or several virtual web screens that allow users to bring outside content into the virtual world. Another aspect presented in the paper is how gamification can be used to enhance the learning using missions, points and challenges. The paper also discusses aspects of using a commercial game development engine for a non-game application and discusses possible future directions for how an open world learning environment online can be further developed and be used in other scenarios. 

Online- och nätbaserat lärande har använts för utbildning inom tekniska program på universitetsnivå sedan 1990-talet och inom svensk akademi var ett populärt system mStar/Marratech där stora grupper av studenter och lärare kunde interagera i realtid genom ljud, video, chatt, webb, whiteboard m.m. Idag sker mycket av den synkrona utbildningen online genom Zoom där studenter möter lärare genom primärt schemalagda föreläsningar. Här skickar vanligtvis bara lärarna video och den stora massan av elever syns enbart som anonyma namnetiketter med ett fåtal som interagerar via chatt och/eller röst. Samtidigt arbetar många lärare för att aktivera [1] studenterna mer i sitt eget lärande. 

WalkAbout är en experimentell applikation för gruppinteraktion designad specifikt för utbildning och utvecklad som en datorspelsmiljö med hjälp av spelmotorn Unity med både mobila och stationära enheter som mål. Med WalkAbout kan användare uttrycka sig via avatarer med olika stilar och interagera i 3D-miljöer genom animationer, rörelser, text och röstchatt samt föreläsa traditionellt i 3D-miljön via digitala webbskärmar. Istället för att använda grupprum, som i andra verktyg, är det talade ljudet 3D-positionerat vilket innebär att ju längre bort från talaren en deltagare rör sig desto lägre låter det vilket gör att användare kan ha konversationer i separata grupper på en ny plats och tala öppet och samtidigt se de andra deltagarna i närheten.

För att göra applikationen mer inkluderande har särskild omsorg tagits vid val av tillgängliga avatarer, hudfärger, kläder, karaktärsstorlek, accessoarer och även icke-mänskliga former som robotar, skelett etc. En annan aspekt av inkludering är den språkliga där chattmeddelanden kan översättas till andra språk i realtid samt läsas upp via text-till-tal-generering.

I WalkAbout används spelifiering med uppdrag, belöningar, utmaningar och “score-streaks” med målet att öka studenternas intresse och tiden de investerar i sitt eget lärande för att stärka lärandet, metakognition och delaktighet. Vidare experimenteras med autonoma chatbottar via maskinlärande för att hjälpa och motivera studenterna i deras lärandeprocesser där studenterna kan få både personlig uppmuntran och möjlighet att ställa frågor till digitala enheter. 

Målet med WalkAbout är att ge lärare och elever ett alternativ till traditionell utbildning online för interaktion på ett engagerande sätt [2] vilket medför mer aktiva elever och en högre inlärningsnivå genom ökad kognitiv absorption [3] som följer LTU:s pedagogiska idé om aktivt lärande. Ett mål med utvecklingen av WalkAbout är att den ska kunna användas som ett komplement till campusundervisning och i hybridsituationer (dvs. studenter på plats och distans). 

Referenser 

[1] Bernstein, D. A. (2018). Does active learning work? A good question, but not the right one. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 4(4), 290.

[2] A. Kukulska-Hulme, C. Bossu, T. Coughlan, R. Ferguson, E. FitzGerald, M. Gaved, C. Herodotou, B. Rienties, J. Sargent, E. Scanlon, J. Tang, Q. Wang, D. Whitelock and S. Zhang, " Innovating Pedagogy 2021: Open University Innovation Report 9.," 2021

[3] Agarwal, R., & Karahanna, E. (2000). Time Flies When You're Having Fun: Cognitive Absorption and Beliefs About Information Technology Usage. MIS Q., 24, 665-694.

From 2019 to 2021 we conduct the multidisciplinary research project When words fail: advanced communication through digital innovation for persons with aphasia, with support from Vinnova. The project’s aim is to develop a prototype for a mobile application, Dialogica, to support communicative participation for persons with acquired brain injuries and aphasia when joining conversations about deep, personally relevant, and contestable issues. Millions of people each year acquire a brain injury (Colantonio et al., 2016), for instance through stroke or car accidents. The consequences are diverse and may show in the communicative, cognitive, social, emotional, or vocational domains (Cancelliere et al., 2014; Colantonio et al., 2016; Durham, 2012; Fabiano & Sharrad, 2017; Sabatello, 2014, Soeker, 2016). Aphasia – defined as ”a loss or impairment of verbal communication, which occurs as a consequence of brain dysfunction” – is one common consequence in the communicative domain (Brady et al., 2016, p. 79). It often means long-term communicative changes with severe influence over engagement in activities and maintenance of relationships (Lanyon, Rose, & Worrall, 2013). To achieve communicative support for persons with aphasia, we bring together expertise in computer game technology, education, special needs education, and philosophy. Together with end users we develop the application and test its effectiveness. In this paper, we (i) provide an overview of the theoretical background and the development hitherto, and (ii) discuss issues or dilemmas relating to the app and the fulfilment of its purpose.

In short, Dialogica is an application developed through the game development engine Unity, designed for mobile devices with larger screens, and is based on computer game technology, theory in dialogic education, and argumentation theory. The main usage of the app is when the participants are in the same physical room and it is then intended to support participants in expressing themselves in different virtual environments through personal avatars, animations and chats. Dialogica allows for conversations’ argumentative structures to be represented visually through so-called ”conversation trees”. In order to support participants with verbal language loss, the app also incorporates a text-to-speech function.

The project depends on close collaboration with end users, with which iterated workshops and facilitated dialogues using prototypes will be conducted. Through these workshops, we receive feedback used for further development of the prototype. In the end stage of the project, we will compare dialogues with and without Dialogica using an adapted version of the structured observational scale called the Argumentation Tool (Reznitskaya & Wilkinson, 2017), in order to measure the extent to which the application facilitates communicative participation for the participants. However, because of the pandemic, we have not yet been able to test the prototypes developed so far. Other issues that we will attend to in greater length in this paper is the level of applicability of the app in settings others than dialogues facilitated by experienced facilitators, how the app could support the participants’ awareness of improvements in communicative participation, and possible threats to internal validity when using the final app in experimental studies.

Central references

Brady, M. C., Kelly, H., Godwin, J., Enderby, P., & Campbell, P. (2016). Speech and language therapy for aphasia following stroke. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 24(958), 314. http://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD000425.pub4  

Cancelliere, C., Kristman, V., Cassidy, J. D., Hincaplé, C., Côte, P., Boyle, E., . . . Borg, J. (2014). Review article: Systematic review of return to work after mild traumatic brain injury: Results of the international collaboration on mild traumatic brain injury prognosis (ICoMP). Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 95(3), 201–209.

Colantonio, A., Salehi, S., Kristman, V., Cassidy, J. D., Carter, A., Vartanian, O., . . . Vernich, L. (2016). Return to work after work-related traumatic brain injury. NeuroRehabilitation, 39(3), 389–399.

Durham, C. Y. (2012). Empowering people with ABI to acquire better insight into brain injury: An application of educational principles (Doctoral thesis). RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. Retrieved from https://researchbank.rmit.edu.au/eserv/rmit:160046/Durham.pdf 

Fabiano, R., & Sharrad, S. (2017). Rehabilitation considerations following mild traumatic brain injury. Journal of Nurse Life Care Planning, 17(1), 26–34. 

Lanyon, L. E., Rose, M. L., & Worrall, L. (2013). The efficacy of outpatient and community-based aphasia group interventions: A systematic review. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 15(4), 359–374.

Reznitskaya, A., & Wilkinson, I. A. G. (2017). The Most Reasonable Answer: Helping students to build better arguments together. Cambridge: Cambridge Education Press

Sabatello, M. (2014). “If you can’t do it now, you’re out the door:” Employees with traumatic brain injury – A case study. Work, 48(3), 373–379. 

Soeker, S. (2016). A pilot study on the operationalization of the model of occupational self efficacy. Work, 53(3), 523–534.

Persons with aphasia suffer from a loss of communication ability as a consequence of a brain injury. While rare, a small strand of research indicates effectiveness of dialogic interventions for communication development for persons with aphasia, but a vast amount of research studies shows its effectiveness for other target groups. In this paper, we describe the main parts of the hitherto technological development of an application named Dialogica that is (i) aimed at facilitating increased communicative participation in dialogic settings for persons with aphasia and other communication disorders, (ii) based on computer game technology as well as on theory in dialogic education and argumentation theory, and (iii) designed for mobile devices with larger screens.

The high prevalence of brain injury incidents in adolescence and adulthood demands effective models for re-learning lost cognitive abilities. Impairment in brain injury survivors’ higher-level cognitive functions is common and a negative predictor for long-term out- come. We conducted two small-scale interventions (N = 12; 33.33% female) with persons with acquired brain injuries in two municipa- lities in Sweden. Age ranged from 17 to 65 years (M = 51.17, SD = 14.53). The interventions were dialogic, inquiry-based, and inspired by the Philosophy for Children Programme, a participatory thinking skills approach with documented higher-order cognitive outcomes, such as developed argumentation skills, in other target groups. Philosophical dialogues were conducted once a week in the two groups, totalling 12 dialogues per group. Group argumentation development was measured through compared scores from struc- tured observations of filmed dialogues early and late in the inter- vention. Large positive changes in mean scores from early to late in the intervention, together with constantly high facilitator quality, suggest argumentation development in the sample due to the intervention.

En forskargrupp vid Luleå tekniska universitetet har bedrivit filosofiska samtal med ungdomar och vuxna med förvärvade hjärnskador och deras personal i en folkhögskola och i en dagverksamhet.

Annually, more than ten million people in all age groups in the world experience an acquired brain injury (‘ABI’), which is a brain injury caused after birth by external forces (e.g. motor vehicle accidents) or certain internal factors (e.g. stroke). Brain injury survivors are often left with long-term impairments in cognitive, social, or emotional functioning. Despite a promising outset, research on the effectiveness of philosophical dialogues as an educational method for persons with ABI to increase their cognitive, social, and emotional functioning has, to our knowledge, been virtually non-existent. The present research project targets this and uses a pretest-posttest and mixed-method triangulation design and attempts to measure effects of two small-scale interventions carried out in the northern part of Sweden. In this text, the project’s research design, data production, and data processing are described. 

Ett stort antal personer i Sverige drabbas varje år av förvärvade hjärnskador, ofta med livslånga konsekvenser som nedsatta kognitiva, kommunikativa och sociala förmågor, samt minskat välbefinnande. Detta kan leda till utanförskap, svårigheter med studier, långvarig arbetslöshet och stort lidande för den drabbade och anhöriga, liksom till stora samhälleliga kostnader. Filosofiska samtal har visat sig ha positiva effekter för barn. Vår studie visar att sådana samtal framgångsrikt kan användas också i utbildning för personer med förvärvade hjärnskador. Den antyder positiva effekter inom bland annat kognitiv, kommunikativ och social utveckling.

According to previous reports, mental well-being is conducive to increased pro-social behavior and achievement in several domains. Previous studies have also indicated that P4C has a positive impact on mental well-being. In this paper, we discuss how philosophical dialogues affect the mental well-being of persons with acquired brain injuries (ABI), a group for which increases in mental and social well-being as well as performance are especially important. The paper is based on a small-scale study carried out by the researchers in the ongoing research project Education for Participation – Philosophizing back a ”new” life after acquired brain injury (funded by the Swedish Research Council). The research group has attempted to assess effects of two single group small-scale interventions (a weak experimental pre-test post-test design with the two experimental groups as control groups before the intervention started) that were made in the northern part of Sweden. The two groups participated in twelve philosophical dialogues each during a period of fifteen weeks from January 2015 to May 2015. In addition to the persons with ABI, staff participated in the philosophical dialogues in both groups. Besides cognition and communication measurements, the research group measured subjective well-being, which is targeted in this paper. Individual in-depth semi-structured interviews were carried out with all of the participants with ABI based on the following two subjective well-being measurements: (i) the Cantril Ladder, and (ii) The Satisfaction With Life Scale. To utilize the Cantril Ladder, we partly adapted it for the study population and translated it to Swedish. We used the recommended non-verbal ladder device ranging from 0–10, where the top was described as the best life, and the bottom the worst life, as the interviewee defined it. Each interviewee was asked questions about how he/she defined the best and the worst possible future life in terms of happiness and unhappiness, where he/she thinks he/she stands on the ladder today, where he/she stood five years ago, where he/she stood before the ABI, and where he/she will stand in the future. The Satisfaction With Life Scale ranges form 1–7 and contains the following five items: 1) ”In most ways my life is close to my ideal.”, 2) ”The conditions of my life are excellent.”, 3) ”I am satisfied with my life.”, 4) ”So far I have gotten the important things I want in life.”, and 5) ”If I could live my life over, I would change almost nothing.”. (We used a Swedish translation of the questions.) The data collection was finished in June 2015. In this paper, we present some preliminary results. In short, the processed data (to date) indicate that the philosophical dialogues were accompanied by an increase in subjective well-being among the participants with ABI, which makes the case stronger for P4C/PWC as an educational method applicable also in special needs education.

Ethics is of vital importance to the Swedish educational system, as in many other educational systems around the world. Yet, it is unclear how ethics should be dealt with in school, and prior research and evaluations have found serious problems regarding ethics in education. The field of moral education lacks clear and widely accepted definitions of key concepts, and these ambiguities negatively impact both research and educational practice. This thesis draws a distinction between three approaches to ethics in school – the descriptive ethics approach, the value transmission approach, and the inquiry ethics approach – and studies in what way (if at all) they are prescribed by the national curriculum for the Swedish compulsory school, how they relate to students’ moral reasoning about technology choices and online behaviour, and what pedagogical merits and disadvantages they have. Hopefully, this both contributes to reducing the ambiguities of the field, and to answering the question of how ethics should be dealt with in education.The descriptive ethics approach asserts that school should teach students empirical facts about ethics, such as what views and opinions people have. The value transmission approach holds that school should mediate some set of predefined values to the students and make sure the students come to accept these values. The inquiry ethics approach is the view that school should teach students to reason and think critically about ethics and to engage in ethical inquiry.The role of ethics in the curriculum has not been studied in light of the above distinction, in prior research, and such an investigation is undertaken here. The results suggest that ethics has a prominent, but complicated, role in the Swedish national curriculum. Although no explicit distinction is drawn or acknowledged in the curriculum, all three approaches are prescribed throughout the curriculum, albeit to different degrees. In the general section of the curriculum, the value transmission and inquiry ethics approaches are more extensively prescribed than the descriptive ethics approach. It was found that most of the syllabi contained explicit references to ethics, while some only contained implicit references to ethics, and two syllabi lacked references to ethics altogether. In the syllabi, the inquiry ethics approach is the most dominant, both in the sense of being present in the most syllabi, and in the sense of being more strongly prescribed in many of the syllabi where several approaches occur. The value transmission approach has the weakest role in the syllabi. In total, the inquiry ethics approach is the approach most strongly prescribed by the curriculum. But prior research has shown that inquiry ethics is very rarely implemented in the classroom. In this thesis, it is found that the inquiry ethics and the value transmission approaches are incompatible, given certain reasonable interpretations, which makes the finding that inquiry ethics is rarely implemented less surprising, since value transmission is practiced in schools.The students, in their moral reasoning about technology choices, reasoned in accordance with several classical normative theories – including consequentialism, deontological ethics and virtue ethics – and in doing so, they expressed reasoning that in the discussion is found to be in conflict with the values of the value foundation in the curriculum. These findings complement earlier findings, for example that students in their actions contradict the value foundation, by adding that such conflicts also exist in their reasoning. The existence of these conflicts is found to be problematic for a value transmission approach.Many of the students defended very restrictive views on disclosing personal information online, and prior research as well as the present data has shown that adults typically hold views that are very similar to these, concerning how they think that young people ought to act online. On the other hand, youths’ actual online behaviour, as reported in earlier studies, differs considerably from this. In line with this, the students also seemed to endorse a form of private morals view, according to which moral choices are simply up to one’s own taste, which would yield an escape exit from the restrictive views mentioned above, and permit any behaviour. In the discussion, it is argued that this is the result of an attempt at value transmission from the grown-up community, probably including teachers, which might seem to work, since the students claim to hold certain views, but which likely instead constitutes a false security, since these values are not actually accepted, but only paid lip service to, and the adults are therefore wrong in their belief that the students are protected by a certain set of values (that they think the students are upholding), since the students in fact do not uphold, and therefore do not act based upon, these values. This situation risks making the students more vulnerable than had no value transmission attempt been taken in the first place. Hence, the attempted value transmission runs the risk of counteracting its purpose of helping the students acquire a safe online behaviour.Throughout the moral reasoning mentioned above, extensive variations in the students’ reasoning were found, both interpersonally and intrapersonally, both in the decision method and in the rightness criterion dimensions, as well as in between the dimensions. The existence of such variations is a novel finding, and while possible applications in future research are discussed, it is also noted that this existence constitutes a reason to question the successfulness of both the value transmission and the inquiry ethics endeavours of the educational system.The results and discussions described above highlight the importance of investigating the merits of the different approaches. Several arguments that arise from the material of this thesis are presented, evaluated and discussed. The ability of each approach to fulfil some alleged key aims of ethics education is scrutinised; their abilities to educate for good citizenship, to educate for quality of life of the individual, and to facilitate better educational results in other subjects are all investigated, as well as the ability of each approach to help counteract the influence from online extremist propaganda aimed at young people and to promote safe online behaviour in general.It is concluded that the inquiry ethics approach has the strongest support from the material of this thesis. Some consequences for school practice are discussed, and it is concluded that changing the role of ethics in the curriculum would be beneficial, downplaying the role of value transmission and further increasing, and making more explicit and clear, the role of inquiry ethics. It is also shown that there are strong reasons for the inclusion of a new subject in the Swedish compulsory education with special focus on ethics. Some possible causes, and some consequences, of this is discussed.

In this study, the age-old distinction between decision method and criterion of rightness, commonly employed in normative ethics, was used to attain a detailed understanding of inter- and intrapersonal variety in students' moral reasoning. A total of 24 Swedish students, 12–15 years of age, were interviewed. Inter- and intrapersonal varieties in and between the two dimensions of moral reasoning were found, constituting six novel forms of varieties. We describe several explanations proposed within the field of social-cognitive domain theory, and argue that these do not suffice to explain all the found forms of varieties in students' moral reasoning. Some limitations of the present study are discussed, and some suggestions for future research are given.

A recent report by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention in cooperation with the Swedish Security Service shows that the Internet has been extensively used to spread propaganda by proponents of violent political extremism, characterized by a worldview painted in black and white, an anti-democratic viewpoint, and intolerance towards persons with opposing ideas. We provide five arguments suggesting that philosophical dialogue with young persons would be beneficial to their acquisition of insights, attitudes and thinking tools for encountering such propaganda. The arguments are based on stated requirements for problem solutions given by experts in violent political extremism, recent research about the effects of philosophical dialogue in young persons’ thinking skills, and parts of the basic theoretical framework of Philosophy for Children. Philosophical dialogues seem a promising way for young people to achieve a stronger democratic awareness and a more tenacious resistance against extremist views online.

In this article, we distinguish between three approaches to ethics in school, each giving an interpretation of the expression 'ethics in school': the descriptive facts about ethics approach, roughly consisting of teaching empirical facts about moral matters to students; the moral fostering approach, consisting of mediating a set of given values to students; and the philosophical ethics (PE) approach, consisting of critically discussing and evaluating moral issues with students. Thereafter, three influential arguments for why there ought to be ethics in school are discussed, and each argument is interpreted given each approach to ethics in school, respectively. Thereby, we evaluate which interpretation of 'ethics in school' produces the strongest arguments, and thus, which approach is best supported by these arguments. The conclusion is that there ought to be PE in school

In this paper, we are mainly concerned with coherentism as an approach to ethical dialog in school. We have two different but connected aims with the paper. The first aim is to say something about general philosophical questions relating to coherentism as a theory in metaethics, and especially in relation to value education; the second aim is to explore some possible implications of coherentism as a method in studying the enterprise of discussing ethical issues and questions with children as well as the study of the actual ethical discussion in school. Furthermore, we evaluate the connection between a coherentistic approach to justification and the methodological parts of a Philosophy with Children, or Community of Inquiry, approach to ethics in school. Related to this, we scrutinize what implications this has for evaluating ethical learning within Philosophy with Children, or Community of Inquiry, as well as implications for evaluation of the Philosophy with Children, or Community of Inquiry, approaches as methods for dealing with ethical matters in school.

Aim

The aim of this study is to examine to what extent philosophical dialogue can be a good tool for persons with acquired brain injuries (ABI) to regain lost abilities and develop new capabilities that are relevant for participating in the society.

Methodological framework

The empirical data has been collected during nearly two years of philosophical practice with students at the Brain injury program at Framnäs folk high school in northern Sweden. All students at the program have ABI. Persons with ABI may have lost their ability to take positions and they often have difficulties to give arguments and to express themselves clearly. The students that participated in this study have had an ABI and are left with such severe residual functional capacity that their lives have totally changed. The philosophical practice has been inspired by basic ideas from philosophy with children. It is important that individuals with disabilities are viewed as experts in their own recovery process, where their feelings and experiences are treated as valuable in guiding subsequent rehabilitation decisions. Both students and staff have been provided the opportunity to make their voice heard during this project. Hereby, we have approached the experienced utility of philosophical dialogues for persons with ABI from three perspectives; that of the students, the staff and us as participating researchers in the project group.

Conclusions

In general, the preliminary results indicate that the philosophical practice with the students with ABI has been positive for the students to regain lost abilities and develop new capabilities relevant for participating in society.

Relevance to Nordic educational research

In Sweden, research on philosophical practice is still highly infrequent, which makes research on philosophical dialogue in educational institutions that are special and typical for Sweden very important. However, research on philosophical dialogue with persons with ABI is very rare - to our knowledge, non-existing, apart from our study - and is not only important for Nordic educational research, but for the entire research community.

I princip alla vetenskapliga studier vid universitet och högskola kräver kunskaper och färdigheter inom kritiskt tänkande, etik, kunskapsteori, vetenskapsteori, metodteori och vetenskapligt skrivande. Denna bok ger en introduktion till dessa områden.Författarna vägleder läsaren till att upptäcka det intressanta, begripliga och samtidigt problemfyllda med frågor som: Vad är kunskap? Vad skiljer vetenskap från annat? Hur samlar man in data? Hur ska man förhålla sig till källor? Vilka metoder leder till tillförlitliga slutsatser? Var går gränsen för vad man får göra inom forskning? Hur argumenterar och skriver man vetenskapligt?Genom hela boken finns övningar, exempel och förslag till vidare läsning. På bokens webbplats finns ytterligare material för att underlätta och fördjupa lärandet av bokens innehåll. Vetenskapliga tankeverktyg – till grund för akademiska studier vänder sig till studenter inom alla akademiska områden. Den kan användas vid introducerande moment i utbildningar eller som resurs vid skrivande av rapporter, uppsatser och examensarbeten.

AimThe aim of this paper is to give a partial answer to the question ”Why Philosophy with Children?”, posed in the title of the NERA-Symposium the text is intended for. This is answered by giving three arguments for why the practice of philosophising with children about ethics should be implemented in school, and for that this approach to ethics is superior in important senses to other popular approaches to ethics in school.Methodological frameworkFirst, a distinction is drawn between three common approaches to ethics in school, of which a philosophy with children approach is one of them. Second, three common arguments for having ethics in school in general are presented. Thereafter, each argument is scrutinised given each approach respectively. Thereby, it is studied to what extent each approach is supported by the arguments.ConclusionsThe paper concludes that a philosophy with children approach to ethics is the approach best supported by the arguments scrutinised. Relevance to Nordic Educational Research The three arguments discussed in the paper are all relevant to the educational systems of the nordic countries, and all of the three approaches to ethics discussed in the paper can be found in the nordic countries, for example in curricula and other guiding documents. Hence, a study of to what extent these approaches are supported by the arguments are of importance for nordic education and educational research.

'Value' is a central concept in all of the principles and methods applied in Lean Construction, but it is rather difficult to provide a precise definition of the term. The problem lies in the word value itself: its ambiguity and vagueness make theorization difficult. This paper investigates the philosophical concept of value from a Lean Construction perspective. Several elements that contribute to value are considered, including objective elements such as waste reduction, quality, price and functionality, and more subjective elements such as design. The hypothesis of this paper is that the reduction or removal of elements that detract from value, such as waste and costs, is not the only means by which value may be increased. The Sorites paradox is used to form a cohesive perspective on some different meanings of the word ‗value‘. One of the known ‗solutions‘ of the paradox, utilization theory, is then explored through a case study in off-site construction that illustrates how different actors in the construction process view value, and how utility theory can be used to provide a consensus on value that is acceptable. In practice, ‗value‘ is ambiguous because actors generally value different things and these views seldom converge during projects. Our results indicate that the actors involved strive for value individually. Analysis using utility theory allows the actors to establish a shared conceptualization of value, expressed in monetary terms. The work described in this paper aims to improve our understanding of value and of how to design products in construction to improve value for clients of industrialized housing.

This article is about a coming project concerning a coherentist approach to ethics in school. The project has two main parts; one theoretical and one empirical. The former focuses on philosophical problems and issues concerning coherentism as a metaethical position in general, and particularly when applied to the field of value education, and the latter aims to study some consequences of a coherentist approach to the study of discussing ethical matters with children.Metaethical coherentism is a position in the discussion about justification of moral judgements. According to coherentism, we build some kind of web in which different moral judgements are connected by some justification‐relation or the like. Some judgements might be more central than others, but these can be justified by the more particular and peripheral ones, and vice versa. Coherentism differs from foundationalism, according to which there are some foundational judgements that are not justified by any other judgements. The rest of our judgements are justified if they are justified by this foundation. We wish to study what benefits a coherentist approach might have in the study of ethical discussions in school. In Sweden, the educational system has as one of its main purposes to mediate a "value foundation" based on "Christian ethical tradition and western humanism" to the pupils. Suppose now that you have a foundationalist approach to ethical discussion in schools, as many seem to have had historically, and that some pupil expresses the judgement that some of his classmates have a lower value than him, due to the colour of their skin. This judgement conflicts with the judgement that the colour of ones skin does not have any bearing of ones value, included in the value foundation of the school. According to a foundationalist, we here have a conflict between foundational values, or so we can suppose. In this case, there is nothing obvious to do to resolve this conflict, because the foundational values cannot be justified; it is supposed that we simply realise the correctness of them by our moral intuition, or the like. A coherentist, on the other side, could point to how these two different judgements gain different amount of justification from other judgements, and thereby hopefully find consensus, and hence dissolve the conflict.Coherentism is not theoretically unproblematic, though. One problem is how to understand the justification‐relation. What does it mean that two propositions justify each other? Philosophers have discussed several different proposals. We give a new proposal, based on some of Arne Naess' theories. With regard to methods for ethical discussion in relation to a coherentistic approach, it seems as a "philosophy with children" approach will seem as a natural choice.

A main issue in Swedish school debate is the question of how to teach the student a common value system based on democracy and western humanism. The debate is rather intense, to say the least. Not only is the premise that there exists one value system that we share a target for critique, but there is also the question of what value education is or could be. There is, as well, quite a body of research on children's moral development, where many take as their departure the work of Kohlberg. However, there has been little or no attention on how the individual learner conceptualizes and makes meaning out of ethical issues. That is, descriptions of processes. In this paper we will present what we take to be urgent questions that need to be investigated against the background of prior research and practical work at Södra teatern in Stockholm, Sweden. For eight years in a row, Södra teatern has had as a main project to lead a practice on the subject of philosophy with children. Several groups of youths in the age of nine to eighteen have regularly met to discuss philosophical thoughts and problems, which in a democratic manner are settled for discussion by the participants. Today this philosophical practice has spread to the north of Sweden. In Backman's final exam within the teacher education she has explored the development of children's (7‐8 years old) ability to argue for different ethical positions, both verbally and in writing and painting. This practice has been inspired by the tradition at Södra teatern, but customized to fit a regular school class in Luleå, with very little experience of philosophical discussion. In the very short period of five weeks Backman has been able to see quite significant changes in the children's ability to argue for their ethical positions. The study was initiated by examining some argumentative abilities of the pupils, for instance the ability of expressing an argument for an ethical position in writing. In the final part of the study, the same ability was examined in very similar circumstances, and the augment of expressed arguments in writing was significant. Another consideration that was raised as a consequence of the study regards the pupil's conceptualizing of ethical issues. In some conversations about the notion of justice it became clear that children interpreted the term very differently. This is not very surprising but important to pay further attention to. As mentioned earlier, there has been very little attention on how individual children conceptualize ethical issues. In this paper we argue that more interest should be put on investigating these issues in more depth, and we will do this by an outlining of a research application.