WERA TASK FORCE Global Research in Extended Education Conference, Linköping University 2025

Water in front of a bridge and a building. Blue skies and a tree in autumn colours.
Campus Norrköping. Photographer: Jenny Widén

The international conference "WERA TASK FORCE Global Research in Extended Education: Extended Education in the Future - Opportunities and Challenges" will take place in Norrköping, Campus Norrköping, September 24-27, 2025

The theme of the conference includes opportunities and challenges in the future of extended education and can be understood from many different perspectives. Extended education gathers after-school programmes for children outside school hours. Conditions, policy documents and purposes differ between national contexts. By bringing together international researchers, knowledge about challenges and opportunities for conducting extended education activities can be spread and deepened across national borders. The ambition of the conference is to be a meeting place for new and already established collaborations and, through presentations of current research, to increase knowledge to build extended education of the future.

The conference includes different possibilities for meetings during the week:

  • 22 September: Conference for practitioners. Welcomes practitioners and policymakers in Extended Education both on site and hybrid seminars.
  • 23-24 September: Pre-conference for PhD students. Application for fundings from Erasmus+ is possible, for more information contact Myung Hwa Baldini.
  • 24 September: Site visits on different School-age educare settings.
  • 25-27 September: Main conference. Keynotes, parallel paper sessions and symposiums.

More information will be available soon.

Submissions of abstracts

Abstract submission is now closed.

Keynote speaker

Joakim Caspersen, NTNU Social Research in Trondheim, Norway

Joakim Casperson.

Joakim Caspersen is a sociologist (PhD) and Research Director at NTNU Social Research in Trondheim, Norway. He also works at the Norwegian Centre for Learning Environment and Behavioural Research in Education at the University of Stavanger. In recent years, much of his research has focused on inclusion and exclusion in schools and Norwegian day care facilities for children. He has also conducted extensive research on educational organizations, discretionary decision-making in welfare professions, and the relationship between professional practice and professional competence. Caspersen is currently part of the national research coordinator team for both the 2022 and 2027 cycles of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study.

Inclusion and exclusion as consequences of discretionary decision making in extended education practice

Professional practice can be viewed as a continuous series of discretionary decisions, influenced by the specific characteristics of the professional; the situation (including the traits of individual children and groups of children); professional knowledge, experiences, and values; the characteristics of each organization (routines, leadership, resources, etc.); external factors (collaboration with others, economic resources, and municipal resources); and laws, guidelines, and regulations.

In the daily grind and chaos, the immediate structural limitations are more explicitly reflected upon than other constraints, and how these constraints relate to norms of inclusion and exclusion, as well as fairness and equality. Norms of inclusion sometimes guide practice but are also overshadowed by the everyday demands and minute-to-minute decisions that must be made.

In this talk, I will reflect on the idea of inclusion and exclusion as consequences of discretionary decision-making in extended education practice and relate this to often unarticulated norms of inclusion and exclusion. Examples will be drawn from Scandinavian, particularly Norwegian, day care facilities for children, which are universally oriented with a mandate for social inclusion and equality, but where daily practice involves handling multiple dilemmas and discretionary decisions at a rapid pace, often leading to undesired outcomes.

WERA Task Force

Logo WERA.

Global Research in Extended Education

WERA is an association of major national, regional, and specialty education research associations, mainly dedicated to developing networks.

Registration

Registration is open

Now you can register for the conference. Please sign up for participation using the following links

Registration fee participants

Early bird before 15 May 2025: 490 EURO
After 15 May 2025: 550 EURO

Registration fee PhD students

Early bird before 15 May 2025: 420 EURO
After the 15 May 2025: 450 EURO

What’s included with registration fee?

The conference fee include, lunches, snacks during coffee breaks, welcome reception and conference dinner.

For PhD students the pre- conference 23 and 24 September is free of charge if you participate in the main conference.

Programme Pre-Conference for PhD-students

Practical information

Site visits

Welcome to participate in site visits to Swedish school-age educare centers and youth clubs in Norrköping.

On Wednesday 24 September there is an opportunity to participate in site visits to Swedish school age-educare centers and youth clubs. When you register for the conference, you can indicate your interest in participating. More information about the site visits will be available later.

The schedule will be as follows:

11.00-12.00
Information about Swedish school age-educare centers and youth clubs. The information gives you a background on how the Swedish system works, the overall function of these institutions, management and administrative tasks and policies.

12.00-13.00
Lunch on your own

13.15-16.00
Visits to school-age educare centers

16.00-17.00
Time for reflection and mingle at Campus Norrköping

17.15-19.00
Visit to the youth clubs (for this visit the number of participants is limited)

Contact

Organisation