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The aim of the article is to shed light on children's perspectives of the relations between home and school. The study is based on 52 interviews with children aged 12-13 years in Sweden about their knowledge and notions of the relations between their parents and teachers, and what they perceive their own role to be in this context. The study reveals that the children's understandings are drawing on both ideas of connectedness and autonomy to different actors characterised by a vertical or horizontal frame and that generational and institutional power are important in their understanding of the relations. The results reveals the different ways in which children talk about home-school relations, namely as (1) an asymmetric vertical "keep-apart-relation" characterised by institutional power, generational power and children's autonomy and power and (2) a horizontal relation that is characterised by a symmetric power relation between the actors, i.e. they think that the parties to some extent sometimes have an equal influence in the relation. In addition, the study indicates that children adopt different strategies in relation to the adults. The children's accounts show that they reproduce and also resist the social order and structure.

The aim of the article was to shed light on children's experiences and views of documentation in home–school relations. The study draws on qualitative interviews with 52 pupils in Year 6 in Sweden. The analyses reveal pupils' understanding of documents and documentation and how they form an important part of the communication between home and school. Furthermore, the analyses show that children see themselves positioned as objects and messengers between home and school, but also as subjects who resist and use documents and documentation in their own interests.

AbstractThis paper investigates the identity constructions of youths who are objects of special interventions in the area of child welfare. The aim of the paper was to explore the various dimensions of resistance to institutional identities among youths in special schools and foster‐care institutions. Interviews were conducted with adolescents aged between 12 and 15, identified as having social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. The analysis generates knowledge about society's interventions as well as how adolescents respond to offered institutional identities by adopting different kinds of discursive resistance. The paper highlights the different types of discursive resistance that adolescents use to present themselves as accountable individuals and discusses the importance of considering resistance as a positive force rather than as something that must be defeated.

This article is based on an ethnographic study of children's everyday life in Swedish preschools. The ethnography is used to explore children's strategies for influencing, defending and constructing the social order of a preschool institution. The focus of our concern is on how the children, in their interactions with each other and with the preschool teachers, manage the collective regulation and how they negotiate their participation in collective activities. There is an inherent tension between free play and the high degree of routinised and collective activities within the preschool institution. The study shows that children are active in playing at the border, acting as if the institution is the children's place. It also shows how they draw on different strategies as resources for managing the regulations, accounting for personal autonomy and negotiating the social order. In taking a child perspective and acknowledging children as active agents, it is possible to see how they influence and shape their everyday life in a preschool context. In addition, the article illustrates individual children's strategic and pragmatic use of resources and in doing so contribute to their own childhood and thereby become part of a social and cultural construction process.

The law requires staff at Swedish preschools and schools to report suspected or known child abuse to the child protection services (CPS). In this qualitative study, focus group and individual interviews with teachers and staff in the school health teams (SHTs) were conducted to examine their experiences and strategies when they decide to make or not make a legislative report to the CPS when they suspect or know that a child has been witnessing domestic violence. What affect professionals at preschool and school when they decide whether to make a report to the CPS? What arguments do the professionals at preschool and school use when they talk about what affects them in their decisions on whether to make a report to the CPS? What prevents or promotes such a decision? The data is analysed from a social constructionist perspective and the concept emotional work. The results indicate that the professionals seem to be very insecure and emotionally governed in such situations. It is explained as a result of a lack of knowledge and support at the institutional level for their complex emotional and practical work in making decisions and acting in relation to children affected by exposure to domestic violence (EDV). In addition, their relations with the CPS are an important factor in how they respond to children that are affected by EDV. The study also reveals some good examples and strategies that professionals use to live up to their mandatory duty to report children that are exposed to domestic violence.