Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning (IBL)

AI literacy in Teacher Education

The rapid technological advances made in the past few years, and the development of new AI-tools, underscores the importance of enhancing teachers' competences. This project contributes to the development of AI literacy and new teaching methods.

An Investment in Research with a Focus on School-Age Educare

Utgångspunkt för vår forskning är barn och elevers erfarenheter av olika former av utbildningsinstitutioner. Vi studerar yngre barns villkor för till exempel lärande och meningsfull fritid i barns institutionaliserade vardagsliv.

An inclusive labour market?

Increased demands in working life have resulted in many people being outside the regular labor market. This research project examines labour market policy measures for jobseekers with disabilities.

Apprenticeship – learning occupational identity in industrial work

How is identity developed? In this project we focus on conditions for learning and identity development within the Industrial Technology program.

At the Heart of Reading

The aim of this study is to produce knowledge on the bodily dimensions - the sensuousness - of students' reading practices in primary education.

Attracting and retaining healthcare professionals the magnet hospital model

The magnet-hospital model can be described as a management idea to remedy staff shortages where the idea is that a hospital, like a “magnet”, can attract, recruit and then retain staff even in the event of a labor shortage.

Bullying and Morality

Moral reasoning, moral disengagement and self-efficacy when it comes to defending bullying victims are all variables affecting a bullying situation. Depending on these, bullying situations and the outcome of them can look very different.

Bullying as a Social Process

How can we understand the social processes behind bullying in school? Students explain that bullying occurs because someone is different and that the bullies create what is considered as being normal.

Child and Infant Lab

At the Child and Infant Lab we study several aspects of children's memory and social abilities. Some of these are attention, imitation, thinking and language.

Children and Adolescents' Perspectives on Bullying

People's behaviour in different situations depends on how theyinterpret the situation and other people’s behaviour. How do children and adolescents view bullying, reasons for bullying and different kinds of bystander behaviour?

Children's reasoning about school rules and rule transgressions at school

There are several types of rules for how to behave in school. How do children reason about these rules and about rule transgressions? Are some transgressions worse than others?

Cognitive Psychology – Decision, Emotion, Perception

How are emotions elicited and how do feelings influence our everyday behaviours? Our research group examines these questions using different psychological methods.

Costumed Heroes in the Classroom

Comics touch on subjects such as ethnicity, gender and class in provoking and engaging ways. This project contributes to understanding of how comics can be used in school for engaging in norm-critical discussions through image and text.

Covid-19: Closer to the senses – The (es)sense of presence in online education

This project investigates qualitative aspects of digital teaching in teacher education in the distance and hybrid mode caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Creating popular culture encounters in leisure-time centres

In leisure-time centres, children develop their identity and understanding of different ways of being. Popular culture centres creation and language, offering opportunities for children and teachers to meet. We explore how culture is produced here.

Cultural heritage tradition and religion in Swedish preschool practices

In Sweden, over 80 percent of all children between 1-5 years are enrolled in preschool education. In the age 3-5, the rate is 95 %.

Developed teaching efficiency through virtual practice

There is a great need to make the training of prospective teachers more efficient. This project investigates the effect of different teaching methods on teacher students' development of teaching and leadership skills.

Digital media, communication and education

This knowledge field is interested in digital media, information visualization and AI in education. Post-qualitative methods contribute to issues of digital interaction, literacy, multimodality, machine learning, education and policy reform.

Ear, memory and dementia

Hearing loss may cause reduced speech comprehension, memory problems and possibly contribute to dementia. We study the relationship between hearing, cognition and communication over time and thus any connections to the development of dementia.

Education and social change

The starting point for this knowledge field is that prescholl, school-age educare and school reflect and contribute to societal change and processes. Education changes society and societal change affects the practice of educational institutions.

Employers’ involvement in Higher Vocational Education and the local labour market’s skills supply

Higher Vocational Education was established in 2009 and since then it has grown and become an increasingly important source of skills supply. What makes employers get involved in programmes and what does their participation look like?

Fiction in Medical Education

What happens when reading fiction literature is included in Medical Education? We record fiction book seminars with future physicians and examine how empathy is construed in the conversations and how fictions literature is used in medical education.

Forum for Outdoor Education

Forum for Outdoor Education is a joint research forum for the faculties and departments at Linköping University, where researchers and teachers meet and discuss current issues within outdoor education and outdoor didactics.

GROWL: Greening of Working Life

To meet climate goals, the world of work must undergo a transformation. The GROWL research group focuses on the people, organizations, and policies involved in the green transition of working life.

Good Auditory Ecology for Active and Healthy Aging

The purpose of this project is to investigate the kind of noisy environments encountered by older people and which particular real-life situations they find most challenging.

Growing up with digital world

The recent surge in availability of digital media has made media accessible even to very young children. However, we know very little of the effects of digital media on infants social and cognitive development.

Higher vocational education - educational policy and curriculum

What is the function of Swedish higher vocational education? How, and by who is it shaped? Whose knowledge counts and what values shape the educational communication?

How are older adults affected by their partner's hearing impairment?

Online survey (in Swedish) on health, communication and social activities among older adults whose partners have impaired hearing.

Interaction between knowledge traditions in non-formal adult education

The project investigates how interaction between different knowledge systems and learning traditions are of importance for the design of non-formal adult education activities in Eastern Africa.

International Longitudinal Twin Study

How does genetic and environmental factors affect early reading and cognitive development? In an attempt to answer this we have studied twins in different countries.

International Network for Well-Being

Our research comprises the whole field of the Science of Well-Being within different populations to promote health and the study of biopsychosocial resilience in the face of the challenges of the 21st century.

LGBTIQ+ young people’s lived experiences of homophobic bullying in Swedish Schools

The project investigates LGBTIQ+ young people's experiences of homophobic bullying in school. The research can contribute with important knowledge on experiences, the associated effects on their wellbeing; and what might be protective factors.

Language, tools and representations

This research area focusses on these tools and representations and what opportunities for learning science they present. We also examine how new types of tools change learning in the natural sciences in and of itself.

Leadership in hybrid work

An increasingly large part of the work in the future will likely take place remotely with the support of digital tools. The project studies the challenges hybrid work creates for leadership concerning employee well-being and work performance.

Linnaeus Centre Head

Our hearing plays an important role when communicating with others. Together we develop new knowledge that helps people with hearing loss in their everyday life.

Marketisation of adult education and its consequences

The focus in this project is on the marketisation of municipal adult education (MAE), and specifically the consequences of marketisation, through a tendering based procurement system, on teachers' work and profession.

Mathematics in vocational education

Why should vocational students learn mathematics, what do they learn and how can maths education be organized on vocational programs? The study aims to investigate mathematics education in vocational education, and its relation to the working life.

Meaning making in Governance and Voluntariness in School-Age Educare

How does children make everyday life in School-Age Educare meaningful? In this study we explore children's meaning making in free play and teacher led activities.

Meaningful leisure in children’s middle years

Barn i mellanåldern dvs. barn mellan 10 och 12 år som inte längre är ett litet barn men inte heller tonåring. Den här studien undersöker hur barn i den här åldern har det.

Media in Education

This field comprises research on various media such as books, theater and film, as well as their role not only in education but also in more informal contexts.

Migration, learning and social inclusion

What effect do different kinds of educational interventions aimed at learning the Swedish language have for migrants' inclusion in the Swedish labour market and society more widely? What do the migrants themselves have to say about this?

New forms of organising clinical training in health care

The project examines new forms of organising clinical training (internship) in medical and healthcare education.

Nordic Conference on Adult Education and Learning, NAEL 2026

NAEL is a research conference that circulates between the five Nordic countries ever two years. NAEL is arranged by a loosely organized Nordic network of researchers with interests in adult education and learning. Next time will be in Finland 2026.

Nordic Symposium on Comics and Norm-critical Perspectives

This year's symposium will take place on 18-19 June, 2024 in Norrköping. The symposium aims to explore the use of comics as a tool and material to advance norm-critical discussions.

Nordic research group: Robots and AI in Working Life

The Nordic research group “Robots and AI in Working life” (RAiW) aims to strengthen and develop sociological research within the areas of robotization and ai-fication in working life and advance the state of knowledge.

Physical, mental and reproductive health among sexual and gender minorities during pregnancy, childbirth and first year of parenting

The interdisciplinary research project s will follow the health and experiences of LGBTQ people during pregnancy, childbirth, and early parenthood to contribute to important knowledge in an unexplored area.

Preschool Meals

Learning doesn't take a lunchbreak, so what happens when young children eat together in preschools? This project examines the multimodal and discursive practices that scaffold eating and social interaction during preschool mealtimes.

Profession in education

We explore interdisciplinary issues on profession and professional work in preschool, school, school-age educare and teacher education, originating in a critical point of view.

Professional Self-efficacy, Emotional challenges and Moral stress in Teacher and Medical Education

Schools and healthcare are complex that place high cognitive and emotional demands on professionals. The project investigates how students develop professional self-efficacy during their education to become teachers and doctors.

Reading aloud in preschool - language developmental work and cultural involvement

The purpose of the project is to generate new knowledge about read-aloud in preschool. This activity is considered critical to introducing young children to important cultural tools and practices (e.g., language use, vocabulary and values).

Regional Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Simulations - RIDES

Our research concerns epidemiological data and information processing in connection with infectious disease outbreaks at local and regional level.

SAHA digital interventions for refugee mental health problems

Detecting and treating mental health problems for refugees - development of and research on digital tools for the assessment and treatment of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, sleep problems and migration-related mental health problems.

School Bullying Research Group

Physical violence, verbal harassment, social ostracism, rumour spreading and cyber bullying. In today’s school bullying comes in all shapes. What factors affect children’s different behaviour in bullying situations?

Science Education

Subject-based teaching in the natural sciences is a research area that conducts research in conjunction with teacher training at Linköping University, in particular the part which is carried out in Norrköping.

Searching for quality in Swedish municipal adult education

How is quality construed in Swedish municipal adult education? How do school inspectors, head’s of education, principals, career counsellors and teachers talk about quality?

Section for Pedagogic Practises

The section for Pedagogic Practices is a research environment that deals in research in association with Linköping University’s teacher training, especially the training held in Norrköping.

Sexual harassment within the police

One of tasks of the police is to take reports about sexual assault, investigate and to some extent prevent sexual offences. But what happens when sexual harassment and abuse take place within the police?

Simulated Provocations – Student Teachers’ Strategies for and Development of Leadership

Teacher students suggest that methods used to train leadership in the classroom are not enough. Does computer-simulated provocations give them more opportunities to develop their leadership?

Simulation based training in vocational education in upper secondary school

When simulation training with a high fidelity simulator is used as teaching method in vocational education, what are teachers’ intention. how do they organize it? How do students learn professional knowledge and skills working with a simulator?

Skills that matter for workers in Industry 5.0 – a skills transformation ecosystem approach (SKILL-UP)

What future skills are required for the vision of a fifth industrial revolution, labelled Industry 5.0?

Small steps: Children's socialisation into traffic in preschool

How do young children learn to safely participate in traffic? In this project, we film and analyse preschool walks through urban areas, allowing us to understand the teaching practices and get a grip on children’s gradual socialisation into traffic.

Social Interaction as Educational Practice

The research in this knowledge field analyzes interplay between actors (children, pedagogues, physical artefacts) with different special and social contexts (classroom, sandbox) in different communicative activities (free play, driving lessons).

Social Psychology

Social relations and social interaction affect how we behave and how we see and interpret our world. We are also affected by the context and the systems or organizations that we are in - it affects what we do but also how we feel.

Social inclusion and pupils participation - SIPP

The SIPP project focuses on social inclusion and builds on students' experiences of participation. Funded by Erasmus plus, the project brings together researchers and teachers to develop participatory practices.

Special Needs Assistants' Mission in Swedish Schools

Special Needs Assistants' mission in Swedish schools: How is it going and according to whom? These are questions asked in this research project. We want to contribute knowledge about opportunities and barriers of the work of Special Needs Assistants.

Subject-based approaches in natural sciences instruction

Research in this area is focussed partly on further developing subject-based approaches in the natural sciences and partly on investigating and critically examining their contemporary historical and cultural expression.

Swedish National Graduate School in Science and Technology Education Research

Lic-FontD is a network between 10 Swedish universities (2018) and includes local science and technology education research communities at participating universities.

System and individual perspective in assessment

In this research area we throw light on issues such as what educators do when they conduct assessments and on what basis they make their assessments.

Talk about film and theatre as social interaction

What do you think of a film or a play? Do you also discuss other things after a visit to the cinema or the theatre? I hope to contribute valuable knowledge on the role and functions of fiction today and about being cinema- and theatre-goers.

Teachers' interpretation and application of curriculum and other governing documents in municipal adult education

Teachers working in municipal adult education (MAE) have a variety of laws and steering documents to relate to in their work. This research project investigates how teachers interpret and apply them in their planning and teaching.

Technology Education

The research conducted at TESER includes technology education from pre-school up to high school and teacher education, both as a research area and as area of teaching in our various teacher education programs.

Technology and Science Education Research - TESER

Technology and Science Education Research – TESER – is a research unit in science and technology education research that was initiated in 2011.

Technology and emotions in elderly care

Digital work tools can facilitate care work for caregivers but also challenge traditional care ideals. This project explores how caregivers manage their emotions when using digital technology in relation to care recipients.

The Internet, Health and Clinical Psychology Research Group

The research group works with many different areas such as anxiety, depression and health problems. Many of the projects work with internet-based CBT, and the group carries out randomised controlled clinical trials.

The Social and Moral Processes of Bullying - a four-year longitudinal study

Focusing on the interplay between individual and contextual factors will help us to better understand bullying, the reasons for bullying and different bystander behaviour.

The Swedish National Centre for Science and Technology Education – NATDID

NATDID’s aims to support the development of education in science and technology by communicating current research to Swedish schools.

The everyday life of children and free time in education

Our research is on children’s and students’ experiences of different forms of educational institutions. We study young children’s conditions for, e.g., learning and meaningful free time in children’s institutionalized every day life.

The joy in reading – a co-design project around students’ interaction with social robots

A study investigating the ways in which artificial intelligence (AI) can contribute to students' reading. It examines how key reading activities and situations in school can be designed for interaction between a social robot and 10-year-old students.

The pedagogy of education in political parties

The project studies internal education in the Swedish parliamentary parties. "Education" here includes all forms of organized practices that are staged in order to contribute to the learning processes of the participants.

Theory of evolution in comics

Since 2022, evolution is a part of science education in Years 4-6 (ages 10-12). This project explores how a comic book can be used for teaching and meaning making around evolution.

To make the Invisible Visible (TIV) - Network building in relation to didactics into school-age educare

An international research network with the aim to build up a comprehensive knowledge base and thereby strengthen research in the field of school-age educare with a focus on didactic issues.

Together we can raise achievements - A study of co-operation between school, preschool class and LTC

This project uses action research to study how teachers in school, preschool class and leisure-time center talk about, create the conditions for and implement work with collaboration.

Try a little first: Communication strategies for reducing plate waste during preschool meals

Reducing 'plate waste' during preschool lunches is a delicate balance between food preferences, satiety and daring to taste new food. In this innovative project, we examine which communication strategies can help to reduce food waste.

Understanding the Ecological Factors Associated with Bullying

Changes across the transition to middle school in early adolescents’ relations to school and their teachers are predictive of changes in bullying.

Validation - recognition of adults prior learning

Validation – recognition of prior learning – means to recognize what people actually know, and particularly the results of learning outside formal education. We develop knowledge about validation, from an individual and an organizational perspective.

Values Education

Values education an aspect of the educational practice which entails that moral and political values are mediated to or developed among students. Both by school rules and how teachers uphold them and by ways of organization and social interactions.

Visual Analytics and Tools for Knowledge Visualization in School

WERA TASK FORCE Global Research in Extended Education Conference 2025

The international conference WERA TASK FORCE Global Research in Extended Education will take place in Norrköping, Campus Norrköping, September 25-27, 2025.

WHOLE - Research on organizational and social work environment

Management, organizational structure and reward systems are factors that may affect organizational and social work environment. How do they affect individuals’ work experience, occurrence of bullying, levels of reporting in sick and perceived health.

Work environment management: conditions and consequences

The work environment is important for people in working life. Still, there is a lack of knowledge regarding management of work environment and health, and what impact this has for how the work environment develops.

Working memory in visual noise

We are investigating how the brain copes with indistinct signs at different levels of memory load and how memory processing changes over time.

Working with Eurovision in school-age educare center

This project examines the role of the Mello (the Swedish competition for Eurovision) in  school-age centre, focusing on how the Mello takes place in children's everyday life and how teachers use the Mello in teaching and activities.

Youth Clubs as an Arena to Prevent Societal Exclusion and Social Unrest

Social unrest and exclusion among young people are recognized problems. This project focuses on the youth club as a social practice and how working methods and activities can be developed to support young people's sense of belonging.

aSTEM: Models and modelling for authentic STEM education

The aim of the research is to define and investigate the authentic integration of science and technology as two selected components of STEM education through models and modelling in Sweden.

“You could call it the middle class”

This project addresses transitions in the early school years, how they are accomplished and understood, and how children and  adults make meaning in connection with them.