Students’ cultural capital plays a major role in their success in higher education. In Sweden today, many students come from diverse cultural, social and educational backgrounds. Knowledge of requirements in academic systems differs widely. Some students feel insecure about how to interpret academic codes, thus weakening these students’ opportunities for academic success. The major goal of this project was to lay the groundwork for a more equal educational system. Using social media, in this case conversations (e.g., chats) in a closed forum on Facebook monitored by a tutor, we aimed to improve student integration into academic culture. We differentiated two central themes related to student conversations on Facebook: (1) Access to academic habitus – cracking codes and (2) Emancipation by co-learning – extended academic codes. It was found that students participating in study groups created on Facebook learnt to better crack and extend the codes extant in university studies. © 2015 Taylor & Francis

The aim of this article is to show examples from a study, and reflect on, how teaching with a gender perspective (gender conscious pedagogy) in higher education can support students to be confident about gender matters and as a consequence of this, become gender actors outside the university and in private and working life.

The objective of this paper is to critically reflect about the results from a pilot study, in which Facebook was used as a co-learning community. A communicative tool or arena for discussing educational matters in order to facilitate for students with diverse backgrounds to reach better understanding on academic culture and knowledge production. In the pilot study we worked with a “consciousness-raising” pedagogy for encouraging and supporting students to cooperate with each other, and by the use of Facebook as a platform. The development of these pedagogical view and method can be seen as providing equal opportunities, by generating better results in higher education studies. The project is supposed to contribute to knowledge concerning more profound issues associated to ideas of democracy and empowerment connected to change and development in academic cultures. The central questions to be answered are: What means by “co-learning community” by Facebook? How does this tool stimulate students to be more confident and as a consequence, reach a better understanding about the ways into “break down” obstacles, in terms of academic cultural codes? How does it is expressed by the students in terms of benefit?

In order to reflect about methods that can generate social justice and democratization, this article emphasises on practical implementations, connected to gender pedagogy. Gender pedagogy aims at overcoming the myth of objectivity, and by questioning through teaching what is considered as common sense and ‘normal’. Studying gender in the classroom entails therefore, acting and reflecting on breakthroughs, for example about an understanding of how gender codes influence everyday instances as well as working life. The collected data is based on narratives from alumni students who were asked to memorise and reflect on their gender studies and particularly about how useful this type of knowledge is in connection with everyday and working life - as politician, lecturer, IT-manager, doctoral student etc. The aim of this article is to focus on how teachers support students to be gender confident and as a consequence of that, becoming gender actors outside the university, in working life. Some central questions are: how are gender issues represented and integrated in the different areas of studies; what can teachers do in order to generate equality in the classroom; in what way and how are students given possibilities of understanding, internalizing and discussing gender issues. Our experiences as lectors, especially in gender studies, play a central role.

Synen på familjen och familjelivets former förändras ständigt. Trenden som sedan länge gått mot ökad självständighet och jämlikhet bryts ibland och ett slags nostalgisk längtan efter förment trygghet i svunna tiders föreställda familjegemenskaper inställer sig. Det är inte en pendelrörelse fram och tillbaka över tid utan utvecklingen innebär snarare en rörelse som på samma gång går både fram och tillbaka. Författarna menar att vi idag befinner oss i en tid med en bakåtblickande rörelse och ett sökande efter lösningar på våra problem i det förflutna. Att sådana lösningar riskerar att väcka till liv traditionella över- och underordnings­förhållanden döljs ofta, i såväl människors familjeromantiska drömmar som i det offentliga samtalet. Ett samhällsvetenskapligt perspektiv innebär att betrakta familjen inte bara som något oomtvistat positivt att sträva efter, utan även som en social form av villkorad gemenskap, med fördelar och nackdelar, möjligheter och hinder för medlemmarna. I boken diskuteras vad nyfamilistiska trender i tiden kan innebära för individen, hennes frihet och livsval. 

Higher education (HE) has changed from elite to mass education (HSV 2006:26R, Leathwood & Read 2009). In the last few decades, the number of women in higher education has increased substantially in most OECD countries. Sweden’s reform of HE in 1993 encourages university institu- tions to develop new degree programs (SFS 1993:100). This opened opportunities for the development of programs designed to attract women & men in equal numbers but the result was disappointing. According to a Swedish study, an increasing number of new degree programs attract almost exclusively one gender (Witt 2009, Nelson et al 2009). It is a well- established fact that technical educations are male-dominated while care- related educations are predominantly chosen by women. This paper inves- tigates the motivations for choice reported by 620 students in 17 programs. We have categorized these motives as follows: knowledge seeking; work- ing life orientation; shoulder responsibility for society; program design; second choice and “follow the map”. Moreover, the paper discusses how gender-segregated educational choices may affect the future opportunities of student in terms of professional careers, income development and, con- sequently, social standing & life styles. To study gender segregation within HE is like looking at a three dimensional picture. We can focus at different parts or images a one image shows the gender division among the students, another show the genderized division between program choices, while the third image is about the vertical gender division among teachers and researchers & their career opportunities. This paper deals with the first two.

Higher education (HE) has changed from elite to mass education (HSV 2006:26R, Leathwood & Read 2009). In the last few decades, the number of women in higher education has increased substantially in most OECD countries. Sweden ́s reform of HE in 1993 encourages university institutions to develop new degree programs (SFS 1993:100). This opened opportunities for the development of programs designed to attract women and men in equal numbers but the result was disappointing. According to a Swedish study, an increasing number of new degree programs attract almost exclusively one gender (Witt 2009, Nelson et al 2009). It is a well- established fact that technical educations are male-dominated while care-related educations are predominantly chosen by women. This paper investigates the motivations for choice reported by 620 students in 17 programs. We have categorized these motives as follows: knowledge seeking; working life orientation; shoulder responsibility for society; program design; second choice and “follow the map”. Moreover, the paper discusses how gender-segregated educational choices may affect the future opportunities of student in terms of professional careers, income development and, consequently, social standing and life styles. To study gender segregation within HE is like looking at a three dimensional picture. We can focus at different parts or images – one image shows the gender division among the students, another show the genderized division between program choices, while the third image is about the vertical gender division among teachers and researchers and their career opportunities. This paper deals with the first two.

I det följande sammanfattar vi de resultat som framstår som mest centrala i studien. Det första vi vill lyfta fram är att studenterna som läser ett grundutbildningsprogram på Högskolan har gjort ett positivt val i den bemärkelsen att de inte har valt högreutbildning för att slippa vara arbetslösa. Studenterna på högskolan värderar både utbildningarnas bildande som yrkesorienterade aspekter som viktiga. I de data som analyserats har vi dock sett att utbildningens betydelse för det kommande yrkeslivet ges allt större betydelse efter hand som de studerar. En annan betydelsefull förändring som skett mellan det första och andra mättillfället är att intresset för ochden upplevda möjligheten att påverka sin egen utbildning sjunker avsevärt. När detgäller studenternas prestationer efter det första studieåret kan vi konstatera att devarierar, och att faktorerna kön och kulturell bakgrund har betydelse. Kvinnor ochstudenter med nordisk bakgrund presterar betydligt bättre än män och studentermed utomnordisk bakgrund. Traditionella sociala bakgrundsfaktorer somföräldrarnas utbildning och yrke visade sig inte han den betydelse för prestationernasom man kan förvänta sig utifrån tidigare studier.

In spite of engagement and efforts to bring about gender equality in Swedish universities, gender division paradoxically appears in both old and new degree programs and academic disciplines. In recent years there has been a tendency for higher education students to enrol in degree programmes rather than in single subject courses. Due to the decreasing number of students taking subjects like sociology, Halmstad University College has constructed a degree programme, Sociologi och socialt utvecklingsarbete [Sociology and social development], focused on community development and social action; sociology is the main specific subject here. In the autumn of 2007, 95% of the 61 students were female, compared to the 75% of female students in sociology degree courses that Sweden has had in the past seven years. The problem of skewed gender representation in sociology is discussed here, and its consequences for educational practices in sociology as well as for the contents and status of the discipline in the future.

In recent years there has been a tendency for Swedish higher education students to choose to study degree programmes rather than single subject courses. Due to the decreasing number of students taking for example sociology, Halmstad University in Sweden has constructed a degree programme, Sociologi och socialt utvecklingsarbete, with focus on community development and social action, with Sociology as the main specific subject. In the autumn of 2007 ninety-five percent of the 61 students were female, compared to the seventy-five percent of female students in sociology degree courses that Sweden has had in the past seven years. An increased gender division previously related to specific professional fields such as technology/engineering and care/nursing, seems to come into academic disciplines that earlier have not had problems with such a skewed gender representation. I look upon gender division in all its shapes as problematic.

The paper is based on a lager study on students at Halmstad University in which the students’ motives for taking the sociology programme and their expectations on sociology as well as the programme are investigated. The importance of equal gender representation in sociology is discussed in this paper and its consequences for educational practices in sociology as well as the contents and status of the discipline in the future will be illuminated.