This article builds on Deborah Lupton’s concept of design sociology. It explores the potential of this approach for examining and visualizing experiences and how they are coordinated by social institutions and discourses. Particularly the article highlights how design sociology can contribute to scholars and fields that focus on gender issues and recognize experiences as an epistemological resource. By revisiting two previous research projects, one addressing power imbalances and neglected experiences in reproductive healthcare and the other examining the undervaluation of experiences and care-based knowledge in the female-dominated care sector, the article demonstrates how practicing this approach can reveal and visualize gendered experiences and their connection to social structures in a novel way. Consequently, it is argued that design sociology is relevant for feminist and gender studies, as well as sociology more broadly. © The Author(s) 2025.

Inom samhällsvetenskapliga och humanistiska forskningsfält har designorienterade ansatser fått allt större uppmärksamhet under senare år. I denna artikel presenteras och diskuteras designsociologi, ett tvärvetenskapligt fält som kombinerar sociologiska teorier med designmetoder. Ansatsen har uppmärksammats i internationella tidskrifter och böcker men det saknas svensk litteratur som behandlar området. Syftet med artikeln är därför att introducera designsociologi och att genom empiriska exempel illustrera hur designsociologi kan omsättas i praktiken. Enligt professor Deborah Lupton, som är framträdande inom fältet, kan designsociologi delas in i tre inriktningar: sociologi om design, som analyserar hur design påverkas av sociala och kulturella sammanhang; sociologi genom design, där design används som ett verktyg för sociologisk forskning; och sociologi med design, där sociologer och designer/designforskare samarbetar. Med stöd i Luptons definition diskuteras ett tidigare genomfört projekt inom äldreomsorgen som ett exempel på designsociologi. Artikeln avslutas med reflektioner kring möjligheter och utmaningar med designsociologi för sociologisk forskning och högre utbildning. Copyright © 2026 Anna Isaksson

This article presents a novel methodological approach in which institutional ethnography borrows from design sociology. Although mapping is a core component of institutional ethnography, previous research highlights opportunities to further develop mapping techniques as both an analytical tool and a means of presenting research findings. Design sociology is an emerging interdisciplinary field that merges sociological inquiry with design methodologies, offering creative tools for analyzing and visualizing complex social phenomena. The article builds on a project conducted in the elderly care sector, illustrating how design-based approaches can bring caregivers’ everyday experiences and invisible work to the forefront while revealing systemic challenges. Utilizing design sociology, the study broadens the methodological repertoire of institutional ethnography by introducing new strategies for analysis and communicating research findings. This interdisciplinary framework offers opportunities for mapping and visualizing how people's experiences and activities are structured by larger institutions and structures. © 2025 The Author(s)

INTRODUCTION AND HYPOTHESIS: Pelvic organ prolapse (POP) is a complication of childbirth that may impair the overall health of women. We hypothesized that women with symptomatic pelvic organ prolapse (sPOP) would rate their health lower than women without sPOP 1 year after childbirth.

METHODS: The Swedish National Pregnancy Register, and the Pregnancy Survey were merged and searched for women with data on self-rated health and POP 1 year after childbirth. The women (n = 43,082), who answered these validated questions in the Pregnancy Survey between December 2022 and October 2024 comprised our study population, of which 40,392 were included in the final analysis. Analysis was performed using descriptive statistics and a binary logistic regression model to estimate the associations between self-rated health and sPOP 1 year after childbirth.

RESULTS: In total, 5704 (13.2%) participants reported sPOP; 1617 (28.3%) women with sPOP and 6669 (17.8%) women without sPOP rated their health as poor. sPOP was associated with poor self-rated health 1 year after childbirth (OR 1.557, 95% CI 1.453-1.669). Additionally, the following covariates: low education, urinary incontinence, fecal incontinence, and poor self-rated health before pregnancy were also associated with poor self-rated health 1 year after childbirth.

CONCLUSIONS: Women with sPOP had higher odds of reporting poor self-rated health 1 year after childbirth compared to women without sPOP. In Sweden, sPOP represents a public health concern affecting women in their prime years and may lead to poorer health outcomes throughout the rest of their lives. © The Author(s) 2025.

This study addresses the knowledge gap concerning whether and how digital support tools can amplify children’s perspectives in care contexts while counteracting adult-centric and healthcare-grounded norms. Acknowledging the influential role and power position of care professionals, this paper explores 11 professionals’ perceptions of how a digital communication tool affected child participation in pediatric and social care meetings. Professionals’ narratives were analysed from a socio-technical perspective using Interpretive Description. We found that the tool’s affordances and materiality were perceived to improve the participation conditions for some children, though not all. In cases where professionals felt the tool helped facilitate participation, they described how conversing through the tool influenced topics, meeting dynamics, and parental involvement. Based on these experiences, professionals identified shortcomings in current approaches and practices, expressed an increased openness toward new tools, and ideated alternative ways of working. We discuss how design, affordances, and materiality were perceived to facilitate immediate participation, and what implications these experiences may have for norm transformation in care contexts over time. The insights can inform designers and care professionals aiming to enhance child participation in care settings. © 2025 Teleman, Isaksson, Nygren, & Svedberg.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is often described as crucial for making healthcare safer and more efficient. However, some studies point in the opposite direction, demonstrating how biases in AI cause inequalities and discrimination. As a result, a growing body of research suggests mitigation measures to avoid gender bias. Typically, mitigation measures address various stakeholders such as the industry, academia, and policy-makers. To the author’s knowledge, these have not undergone sociological analysis. The article fills this gap and explores five examples of mitigation measures designed to counteract gender bias in AI within the healthcare sector. The rapid development of AI in healthcare plays a crucial role globally and must refrain from creating or reinforcing inequality and discrimination. In this effort, mitigation measures to avoid gender bias in AI in healthcare are central tools and, therefore, essential to explore from a social science perspective, including sociology. Sociologists have made valuable contributions to studying inequalities and disparities in AI. However, research has pointed out that more engagement is needed, specifically regarding bias in AI. While acknowledging the importance of these measures, the article suggests that they lack accountable agents for implementation and overlook potential implementation barriers such as resistance, power relations, and knowledge hierarchies. Recognizing the conditions where the mitigation measures are to be implemented is essential for understanding the potential challenges that may arise. Consequently, more studies are needed to explore the practical implementation of mitigation measures from a social science perspective and a systematic review of mitigation measures. © The Author(s) 2024.

Engaging individuals with lived experience in research and design without incorporating critical perspectives on norms in knowledge production may result in tokenism and disempowerment. This scoping review pulls together method contributions from 38 recent health-related studies that involved children or young people in marginalized or vulnerable positions, to assist researchers and designers in methodological decisions and planning. We explore participation levels and norm-critical aspects of the studies and map their rationales for participation, theoretical frameworks, output types, and participatory tools. The analytical framework was based on youth participation models and literature in norm-critical innovation and critical participatory and health-related research. Patterns and variations in participation levels and norm-critical aspects are discussed in relation to the studies’ methodological differences and the ages of participants involved. We illustrate where high levels of both participation and norm-critical aspects were found and what signified these studies. © The Authors

This article explores how norm-critical design can contribute to the relational turn in design, drawing on a previous study of the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children survey. While relational design emphasizes contextualization, interdependencies, and evolving relationships, norm-critical design provides tools to identify, visualize, and challenge embedded norms within these relationships. By transforming survey questions into design concepts, this study demonstrates how norm-critical design materializes implicit assumptions, making them visible for critique and reflection. The findings illustrate that surveys are not neutral data collection tools but performative instruments shaping relationships, self-perceptions, and societal norms. The article argues that norm-critical design expands relational design by offering methodologies to critically examine, understand and engage with the complex networks of relationships that shape human and non-human interactions. This alignment between norm-critical and relational design underscores how design is not merely a problem-solving tool but an intervention into relational dynamics.

Future engineers must be fluent in different technologies, methods, and methodologies requiring a highdynamic capability, in opposite to many students' behavior.Project Based Learning,student-centred with a dynamic approach to teaching where students study real-world problems andchallenges,aimsto increase dynamic capability.This research reports transforminga course inconstruction managementinto a project-based approachtostimulate students’ intrinsic motivation,i.e interest in what is learned and the pleasure it brings. Course material has been developed in fourrounds, ranging from 2022-2024.Course documentation regarding the execution of the course as wellas documented student feedback was thematically reviewed and analyzed relation to the aim of thischapter.The development shows interesting challenges in teaching regarding the balance betweenshowing results from the actual project vs. stimulation of creativity among students. Age and workexperience positively affect how the students execute the projects. It also shows the significance of thecourse framing and variation of project set-ups. Our findings also show values in PBL for students’ability to handle changes in a world with many insecure influences and it is indicated that PBL requiresa learning process over time both for students and teachers.