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Purpose: The article unpacks potentials of and resistance towards facilitating meetings between refugee and non-refugee youth in global citizenship education. Design/methodology/approach: The analyses are based on participant observation in a school-based intervention in three locations, developed on the principles of design-based research [DBR]. Findings: The article exposes both how meetings between students could be deeply educational and how teachers prevent meaningful interaction between students out of concern for refugee students. Research limitations/implications: More research is needed on how students care for themselves and others in transformational learning contexts. Practical implications: Privileged teachers' concern for retraumatising students can veil unconscious protection of the privileged self against students' trauma and should therefore be subject to critical reflection.

Background: Despite accumulated evidence that language development depends on basic cognitive processes, the balance in contributions of verbal and non-verbal cognitive skills to language abilities is still underexplored. Little is known about which cognitive measures best predict the degree of severity in children with language disorder (LD). Aims: To examine the association between verbal and non-verbal cognitive abilities with language abilities in typically developing and language impaired 8-year-old children, as well as which cognitive abilities are most effective in distinguishing LD severity levels. Methods & Procedures: Children (N = 509) from the Language-8 Study, which oversampled probable cases of children with LD from a population-based cohort in Norway, were assessed at 8 years. Language skills were assessed using the Norwegian Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals--4 (CELF-4). Children's verbal and non-verbal cognitive abilities were assessed via standardized cognitive measures. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was first conducted to uncover the underlying factor structure of the cognitive variables. Using a hierarchical multiple regression analysis, we then examined to what extent the non-verbal cognition factor explained language abilities above and beyond verbal cognition factors. Lastly, multinomial logistic regression was used to examine which cognitive measures best predicted the degree of severity in the children with LD. Outcomes & Results: The EFA resulted in three factors (Verbal Cognition, Processing Speed and Memory, and Non-Verbal Cognition). The hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that all three cognitive factors contributed significantly to individual variation in language abilities. Non-Verbal Cognition explained 5.4% variance in language abilities above and beyond that accounted for by Verbal Cognition and Processing Speed and Memory. Results from the multinomial logistic regression analysis indicated that cognitive subtests, including Familiar Sequences, WASI Vocabulary and WASI Similarities, not only distinguished LD from typically developing children, but were also efficient in distinguishing severity of LD symptoms. Conclusions & Implications: This study confirms concurrent links between language and non-verbal cognitive skills above and beyond the contribution of verbal cognitive skills. The results provide further evidence that children with LD experience both language and cognitive problems in mid-childhood. Our findings suggest implications for LD intervention and diagnosis. The findings support the importance of measuring both verbal and non-verbal cognitive skills when making an LD diagnosis, and point to the potential of targeting underlying cognitive skills as one strategy to support language abilities.

This article investigates use of digital storytelling as a learning activity in education about migration. Based on a study in two Norwegian schools and two adult education centers for refugees and migrants, the article analyzes student's digital stories and observations of the process of production. Counter to research on the promise of digital storytelling to promote diverse perspectives, personal experience and creativity, our findings show that digital stories as a learning activity includes powerful standardization drivers. The standardization limits diversity in students' knowledge and experience from coming into view in the final product. The identified standardization drivers are: (1) discursive blueprints of refugee experience, including the narrative about the 'Good Refugee' and idealization of the destination country, (2) challenges with representing traumatic experiences through photographic imagery, and (3) material affordances in the production process such as google algorithms. In conclusion, we argue that critical engagement with the involved modalities and standardization drivers is a condition for using digital stories to foster critical thinking about migration.

Teachers' assessment enhances students' learning in many situations in physical education (PE). The present study aims to examine the issue of potential unequal assessment of students due to their different physical abilities in PE in upper secondary school, where the research question is: What experiences do students with high or low levels of physical fitness have of their PE teacher's assessment of and for learning? Individual interviews were conducted with thirteen boys and thirteen girls in the second year in upper secondary school to answer the question. Respondents were recruited on the basis of scores on physical fitness tests (measurement of oxygen uptake). Thirteen respondents scored on the lowest level and thirteen on the highest level of the fitness scale. Two main themes emerged from the analysis, revealing an unequal assessment of learning given to the students in the two groups, but a shared, equal experience of assessment for learning. Unfortunately, assessment for learning was experienced 'rarely or never', and the unequal assessment of learning did not favour the students with low physical fitness, who perhaps need more assessment than the students with high physical fitness. The study contributes new insight into students' experience of assessment due to unequal conditions for learning. The analysis revealed elements that were lacking in the PE teaching and assessment, especially for the students with low physical fitness. Another finding is that few students experienced that they owned their learning process, even though some students experienced to be in a learning environment, wherein the teacher gave them learning-promoting assessment. The study reinforces the finding in earlier research to integrate assessment for learning in theories of teaching in PE, and from this perspective we support further exploration of assessment for learning as well as the concept of assessment literacy.

Purpose: The aims of this study were (a) to examine the relationship between speech intelligibility at the age of 5 years and literacy skills at the age of 8 years, (b) to explore the possible mediating or moderating role of broader language skills at 5 years in the relationship of interest, and (c) to assess whether the potential risk factors (child gender; maternal education levels; and family history of speech, language, reading, and writing difficulties) influence the relationship between speech intelligibility and literacy in terms of moderated mediation effects. Method: We used mother-reported questionnaire data on 16,184 children participating in the population-based, prospective Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study as well as conducted linear regression analyses using the PROCESS macro in SPSS. In addition, logistic regression was conducted to make predictions about risk. Results: The association between speech intelligibility at 5 years and literacy skills at 8 years was statistically significant ([beta] = 0.168, p < 0.001). Children with speech problems at 5 years had a risk ratio of 2.38 (95% CI [2.10, 2.70]) and an odds ratio of 2.74 (95% CI [2.35, 3.19]), as compared to children without such problems. Broader language skills at 5 years partially mediated the relationship between speech intelligibility at 5 years and literacy at 8 years, and the effect of language skills appeared to be moderated by child gender, a family history of language difficulties, a family history of reading difficulties, and maternal education. Conclusions: Severity of speech problems indexed by parent-reported speech intelligibility in preschool predicted school-age literacy problems. Broader language skills are a crucial mediating mechanism through which these problems are linked, and the mediated relationship is amplified by female gender, low maternal education, family history of language difficulties, and family history of reading difficulties. The findings call for increased use of a multiple-risk model when planning early interventions in children with unclear speech.

Purpose: This article explored the predictive values of three main language delay (LD) trajectories (i.e., persistent, late onset, and transient) across 3-5 years on poor literacy at 8 years. Additionally, the effect of gender was assessed, using both gender-neutral and gender-specific thresholds. Method: The data comprised mother-reported questionnaire data for 8,371 children in the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort Study. Analyses were conducted using binary logistic regression in SPSS to make predictions about risk. Results: LD reported at preschool age was associated with excess risk of poor literacy at 8 years with odds ratios ranging from 3.19 to 9.75 dependent on trajectory, persistent LD being the strongest predictor. The odds ratio of transient LD was similar to that of late-onset LD. Gender was not found to play an important role in the association between oral language and literacy, as the gender difference disappeared when gender-specific deficit criterion was used. Conclusion: Our study supports the longitudinal association between preschool oral language and school-aged literacy skills and highlights the importance of different LD trajectories across preschool ages in predicting later literacy. Furthermore, practitioners are recommended to consider gender-specific cutoffs in relation to language and literacy measures.

While there is little political opposition towards sex education as such in Norway, recent attempts at reforming the subject reveal underlying heteronormative presumptions that seem resistant to reform. While a focus on homosexuality is included in the national curriculum at all levels of compulsory education, the sexual practices involved in same-sex relations remain conspicuously absent from the education provided. This paper provides an overview of contemporary Norwegian sex education, and discusses its primary shortcoming: the absence of a focus on sex acts other than coitus. The political challenges to good sex education in Norway emerge when this absence of sex acts is addressed by innovative teaching programmes that focus on sexual pleasure. Norwegian political consensus about a free and equal sexual culture does not seem able to embrace the discussion of specific sexual practices in the classroom. (Contains 1 figure and 6 notes.)

In recent years, equality between homosexual and heterosexual relationships has increasingly been presented as a marker for Norwegian values. Norwegian schooling encourages tolerance toward homosexuals, and the state shows active interest in counteracting bullying against LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) youth by supporting research and prevention programs. Recent studies concerning LGBT youth in Norway do indicate, however, that young Norwegians in general find it difficult to imagine themselves living a nonheterosexual life. Suicide is still considered a "reasonable" reaction to having to face a future as a homosexual. How can this be understood? Our analyses of teaching and textbooks in Norwegian schools points to three approaches to understanding young peoples' reluctance to imagining themselves as nonheterosexual: the double message of homotolerance, the self-evidence of heterosexuality, and the absence of nonheterosexual futurescapes. (Contains 8 notes.)

Objective: Respiratory outcomes and work-related factors were studied in two seafood worker populations representing different occupational environments. Methods: Levels of fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FENO), spirometric values, prevalence of respiratory symptoms, and self-evaluated exposures were compared between 139 Norwegian salmon workers and 127 Russian trawler workers. Results: Increased odds ratios (ORs) of shortness of breath with wheezing and prolonged cough as general respiratory symptoms were found in salmon workers, while increased ORs of work-related dry cough and running nose were found in trawler fishermen. Both worker groups ranked "cold work environment," "use of disinfectants," and "contaminated indoor air" as the first, second, and third most important causes of work-related respiratory symptoms, respectively. Fractional exhaled nitric oxide levels were higher in asthmatic trawler workers compared to asthmatic salmon workers. Conclusions: Respiratory symptoms commonly associated with obstructive airway diseases were more prevalent in salmon workers, while symptoms commonly associated with asthma and short-term effects of cold air exposure were more prevalent in trawler workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]