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This paper highlights the digital challenges within education in Norway and explains how the digital revolution creates new possibilities, dilemmas and challenges for school and teacher education in our contemporary society. Today we find a consensus among policy-makers, researchers, teacher educators and school management that digital literacy and ICT implementation must be given high priority and needs to be explored more deeply in our contemporary educational institutions. Despite this consensus, previous ICT efforts have revealed that implementation of ICT in the Norwegian context has been more strongly anchored rhetorically, than in practice. Consequently, the paper focuses on whether we now have learned from the past and are entering a time of upheaval within technology implementation and asks what kind of possibilities, challenges and dilemmas teacher educators and teachers face in this new pedagogical terrain. The paper focuses on some urgent questions and the search for answers within this pedagogical area, based on research findings from PILOT (Krumsvik, IKT i det nye læringsrommet, 2 (ICT in the new learning-space, 2), Unipub, Universitetet i Oslo, 2004a; Krumsvik, Norsk Pedagogisk Tidsskrift (Norwegian Journal of Pedagogy), 88:467–480, 2004b; Krumsvik, Scand. J. Educ. Res., 49:27–50, 2005a; Krumsvik, J. Nord. Pedagog. Res., 25:190–207, 2005b; Krumsvik, ICT in the school. ICT-initiated school development in lower secondary school, University of Bergen, Bergen, 2006), other relevant research studies, policy documents and theoretical foundations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper deals with the actual as well as possible roles of sociologists in modern societies. It is based on the experiences of a typical pragmatical Scandinavian welfare state, namely Norway, where sociology undoubtedly has reached a certain level of success, especially as a repair-oriented applied science. Sociology thus provides an avenue for entering important political and administrative processes in society. But this development--desirable as it may be--also includes certain risks. Sociology may thus abstain from becoming a kind of critical and intellectual pursuit it could be by paying due attention to alternative ways of organizing social life. A discussion is needed about how to avoid this trap and how new roles may be created. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Worldwide, there has been an increased emphasis on enabling students to recognise the real-world significance of mathematics. Mathematical literacy is a notion used to define the competencies required to meet the demands of life in modern society. In this article, students' encounters with mathematical literacy are investigated. The data comprises interviews with 22 students and observations of 16 mathematics lessons in three grade 9 classes in Norway. The analysis shows that students' encounters with mathematical literacy concern specific mathematical topics and contexts from personal and work life. Students' encounters with ML in school is characterised by an emphasis on developing mathematical knowledge within the school context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses how history was used in efforts to portray Norway in the postwar period. The main narratives of Norwegian history played a dominating role in the construction of national images during this period. These narratives had been constructed as part of the nation-building processes of the 19th century. In several aspects, the historical narratives used in portrayals of Norway mirrored developments in Norwegian historiography in the period. In the 1960s, however, the use of these narratives to portray Norway became problematic, owing to the priority given to a new rationale of information and demands that Norway should be portrayed as a modern society. The article takes a use-of-history approach as a point of departure and argues that such an approach is fruitful in studies of how national images are constructed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contemporary European societies, which for decades have been going through a process of redefinition as a result of migratory phenomena, Islamophobia is certainly one of the conflicts that must be discussed and tackled. The Norwegian postmigration literature, which portrays the life of the "second generation", provides interesting insights into this problem. If on the one hand there are many cases showing that Islamophobia negatively affects the lives of young Muslims, on the other they express the desire to talk about themselves and to be recognized as full-fledged Norwegian citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sosiologisk tidsskrift is the property of H. Aschehoug & Co. (W. Nygaard) AS and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of International Journal of Practical Theology is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Loss of biological diversity is among the most pressing environmental problems facing modern societies. Whereas today much is known about peoples' opinions on climate change, there is still a lack of knowledge regarding how people asses the issue of biological diversity. The article represents a step towards a better understanding of public opinions on the issue of biodiversity, and hence also of the prerequisites and possibilities for a more or less vigorous or legitimate policy on this issue. The analyses show that social background matters for concern about biodiversity, but only to a certain extent: women are less negative towards biodiversity protection than men, the older segments of the population, at least in Norway, are less concerned with biodiversity, and education has only a marginal effect. Hence, to a large extent, political attitudes matter and indicate that concern for biodiversity seems to work by various types of available heuristics whereby a given case is linked to political understandings of other and similar and/or familiar issues. The inclusion of other political variables (local decision-making) and what the authors label ‘cultural variables’ (e.g. view of nature and trust in science) seem also to matter decisively for attitudes towards biodiversity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the anthropology of the modern Scandinavian society, focusing in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The anthropology of modern Scandinavia can be examined in relation to its welfare states. Its best anthropology is often well written, relatively sophisticated and relevant to a wide readership. One of the main tendencies in contemporary Scandinavian anthropology is the study of identity management within households, communities and ways of life. Anthropological studies in the region tend to reflect on some of the central ideas underpinning and informing the Nordic welfare states while criticizing bureaucratic centralization and standardization.