Erik Andersson

Situational political socialization : a normative approach to young people’s adoption and acquisition of political preferences and skills

Research on young peoples political socialization has had an adult-centered top–down bias in which young people are considered incomplete and in need of the right upbringing. The article attempts to balance this bias. The aim is to introduce and argue for another normative approach – situational political socialization. Four theoretical elements constitute its basis: (1) the political, (2) contingency (the principle of the public sphere), (3) space and place, and (4) situation. In the contingent western digital media society marked by cultural dissemination, individualism, and the erosion of traditional institutions, situational political socialization represents a normative basis for a research approach which is open, action-oriented and contextualized, viewing young people as political actors in their own right.

Subphenotypes of inflammatory bowel disease are characterized by specific serum protein profiles

Objective Genetic and immunological data indicate that inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are characterized by specific inflammatory protein profiles. However, the serum proteome of IBD is still to be defined. We aimed to characterize the inflammatory serum protein profiles of Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), using the novel proximity extension assay. Methods A panel of 91 inflammatory proteins were quantified in a discovery cohort of CD (n = 54), UC patients (n = 54), and healthy controls (HCs; n = 54). We performed univariate analyses by t-test, with false discovery rate correction. A sparse partial least-squares (sPLS) approach was used to identify additional discriminative proteins. The results were validated in a replication cohort. Results By univariate analysis, 17 proteins were identified with significantly different abundances in CD and HCs, and 12 when comparing UC and HCs. Additionally, 64 and 45 discriminant candidate proteins, respectively, were identified with the multivariate approach. Correspondingly, significant cross-validation error rates of 0.12 and 0.19 were observed in the discovery cohort. Only FGF-19 was identified from univariate comparisons of CD and UC, but 37 additional discriminant candidates were identified using the multivariate approach. The observed cross-validation error rate for CD vs. UC remained significant when restricting the analyses to patients in clinical remission. Using univariate comparisons, 16 of 17 CD-associated proteins and 8 of 12 UC-associated proteins were validated in the replication cohort. The area under the curve for CD and UC was 0.96 and 0.92, respectively, when the sPLS model from the discovery cohort was applied to the replication cohort. Conclusions By using the novel PEA method and a panel of inflammatory proteins, we identified proteins with significantly different quantities in CD patients and UC patients compared to HCs. Our data highlight the potential of the serum IBD proteome as a source for identification of future diagnostic biomarkers.

The pedagogical political participation model (the 3P-M) for exploring, explaining and affecting young people’s political participation

ABSTRACT In young people’s political participation in public decision-making, research and youth policy may benefit from a participation model that is pedagogical and sensitive to context. Due to the limitations of established participation models, the pedagogical political participation model (referred to here as the 3P-M) is suggested. The 3P-M is a theoretical and methodologically embedded model that builds on three observations: (1) that young people (as a category) are always presented as dependent on and subordinate to adults (decision-makers) in public decision-making, (2) that participation cannot be quantitatively measured without being normative and insensitive to context and (3) that different types of pedagogical leadership determine what kind of political participation is possible. The 3P-M offers an analytical framework for practitioners, policymakers and researchers to identify, explain and affect public pedagogical settings and situations in which young people politically participate.

Young people’s conversations about environmental and sustainability issues in social media

Young people’s conversations about environmental and sustainability issues in social media and their educational implications are under-researched. Understanding young people’s meaning-making in social media and the experiences they acquire could help teachers to stage pluralistic and participatory approaches to classroom discussions about the environment and sustainability. The aim of the article is to explore the characteristics of meaning-making in young people’s conversations about environmental and sustainability issue in social media, more precisely in an online community. The study takes a public pedagogy and citizenship-as-practice approach and uses Epistemological Move Analysis. The conversation are shown to be argumentative, sophisticated, elaborative and competitive and create an educational situation in which facts about the world and moral and political values and interests are confronted and argued. The findings raise questions about pluralistic and participatory approaches and the staging of classroom conversations in environmental and sustainability education.

The school as a public space for democratic experiences: Formal student participation and its political characteristics:

School democracy in terms of formal student participation is often expressed through different types of councils. This requires that these forms of political participation function democratically. The article contributes knowledge about the school as a public space and the democratic experiences gained through formal student participation in class and school councils. The article is designed in four steps: (I) the presentation of previous research, (II) the presentation of the pedagogical political participation model used for analysis and discussion, (III) the findings of an empirical case in Sweden, and (IV) theoretical synthetizes using John Dewey’s educational theory. It is argued that the political characteristics of formal student participation are uniform and bound to different types of political participation, such as being informed and heard and a lack of political influence that positions students as political objects for democratic fostering. This raises questions about the consequences of students’ growth of democratic experiences.

Young People’s Political Participation: A Public Pedagogy Challenge at the Municipal Level

In established democracies, a public pedagogy challenge for municipalities is to create, integrate and expand opportunities for young people’s political participation in decision-making. These opportunities are guided by different reasons, values and explanations as to why young people’s political participation is important. This article contributes empirical knowledge about the motives that direct young people’s political participation in decision-making at the municipal level. By means of a case study in a municipality in the west of Sweden, three recurrent motives have been identified: political participation as a means, democratic fostering and an intrinsic value. Based on political socialization theory, empirical findings and previous research, two major challenges in youth policy work are identified and discussed in terms of public pedagogy.