Mid Sweden University

The lower academic performance of boys in compulsory school has long been a well-known fact, but only in the last decade has it been shown in the public debate. Various explanations for boys’ underperformance mainly include background, expectations, norms, and hierarchical gender order. Few studies have focused on what can be affected, namely the teaching in the classroom. In addition, studies have not, to any significant extent, focused on the students’ perceptions. This study was conducted through eight group interviews with 2nd and 5th-grade students and explored how boys and girls perceive learning in a classroom context. Similarities and differences in perceptions emerged through a reflexive thematic analysis from a didactic theoretical perspective—the similarities in perception concerned the teacher’s leadership, interactions, learning strategies, and learning environment. The differences were about reprimands, different developed learning strategies, confidence in the teacher, and the social atmosphere. The result indicates a need for the teacher to be more aware of the processes going on in the classroom and to build both social and learning support structures with a focus on learning strategies.

This thesis investigates how teaching practices and classroom dynamics influence boys’ educational experiences, emphasising the interplay between environmental structures, social norms, and individual meaning-making in Swedish classrooms. It employs a mixed methods approach within a pragmatist framework, using an explanatory sequential design combining quantitative breadth and qualitative depth. This design facilitates a nuanced analysis of both patterns and processes in boys’ educational trajectories. By drawing on data from five sub-studies, including systematic literature reviews, large-scale surveys, classroom observations, and in-depth interviews, this framework provides the potential to conduct an empirically grounded analysis of how boys may interplay with, respond to, and contribute to their learning environments.

The thesis adopts a transactional theoretical framework, grounded in Deweyan pragmatism, to explore how experience, meaning-making, and habit formation emerge through dynamic interactions within the learning environment. Educational outcomes are not understood as individual traits but rather as products of situated and relational educational processes.

The results suggest boys rely heavily on structured teacher support and exhibit heightened sensitivity to environmental cues. Their engagement is frequently constrained by traditional masculinity norms and peer dynamics, which may conflict with academic expectations and discourage help-seeking and self-regulated learning strategies. This contributes to a fragmented learning process and highlights the role of classroom context in sustaining or disrupting gendered performance patterns.

Further, a key contribution is the didactical perspective on how relational support, responsive teaching, and structured learning environments may foster more inclusive and equitable conditions for boys, counteracting gendered disparities in educational attainment. The thesis aims to equip educators, school leaders, policymakers, and stakeholders with knowledge and guidance while enhancing academic discourse. It does so by presenting an integrated theoretical model and striving to merge empirical insights with theoretical analysis and practical application.

This study investigates how gender and school year influence students’ perceptions of the learning environment in Swedish compulsory schools. Using the adapted patterns of adaptive learning scales (PALS) questionnaire, this research examined 831 students from years 3, 6 and 8 (ages 9–14). Data were analysed using principal component analysis (PCA), t-tests, and multiple regression analysis. Findings indicate a significant decline in students’ overall perception of the school environment, goal orientation and confidence in their teachers’ management skills as they progress through school years, with the most pronounced changes occurring between years 3 and 6. This decline is most pronounced prior to adolescence, suggesting that factors beyond pubertal onset may contribute to this trend. Gender differences were also evident, with boys exhibiting more positive perceptions across all aspects considered despite typically lower academic performance reported in other studies.

This study aims to investigate the impact of age and gender on self-perception and views of the learning environment in light of the consistent gender disparities in academic performance between boys and girls. The study adopts a pragmatic approach to motivation, given that perceived motivation and schoolwork engagement are closely related to students’ academic outcomes. An adapted PALS questionnaire was used to investigate the relationship between a learning environment and students' self-perception and motivation. 831 compulsory school students participated in school year 3, 6, and 8 (n=831). Data was analyzed with Principal Component Analysis (PCA), t-tests, and multi-regression analysis. Findings indicate that as students advance in age, their overall perception of the school, goal orientation, and confidence in their teacher's classroom management skills decline. This decline is most pronounced prior to adolescence, indicating that factors beyond pubertal onset may contribute to this trend. Gender differences were also evident in the students' perceptions, with boys exhibiting a more positive outlook across all aspects considered in this study, particularly towards their teachers. more positive throughout the school years in all the aspects mentioned above, especially towards the teacher.

Extensive problematic school absenteeism is a growing problem in Swedish schools. This means serious consequences both for the child and for society at large. This makes it essential to carry out a study where the voices of students and teachers are heard. This study identified and analyzed the risk and protective factors expressed by teachers and students regarding extensive problematic school absenteeism. The students are found within the autism spectrum, something that is common when it comes to students who are absent from school. The Semi-structured interviews were conducted and analyzed through reflexive thematic content analysis. The results showed that students' and teachers' perceptions were consistent and distinctive. Structure, learning environment, and relationships were the themes that emerged most clearly during the analysis. 

This study examined a group of primary Swedish students' conceptions of their own motivation for learning. Altogether, 68 students in Grades 3, 6, and 8 participated in the study, in which similarities and differences among students in the three grades were considered. Theoretical and methodological aspects were guided by the phenomenographical approach. For most students, positive and negative influences on motivation emerged in seven distinct categories: feelings, teachers, teaching, subjects, learning environment, classmates, and well-being. The apparent importance of good teachers, structured and varied lessons, practical aesthetic subjects and more group-rooms was similar across the three different grades. Differences that emerged were students' reduced joy in learning, decreased interest in mathematics, higher levels of stress and pressure, more worry and anxiety, higher degree of preparation for the future, and a greater need for individualisation for the older students. The study's results confirm previous research but also provide new knowledge about variations across the grades and more specific factors that promote or inhibit students' motivation to study.

Research has shown students’ study motivation is complex and demanding. It also asserts that teachers’ perceptions and attitudes are decisive, complex, and demanding because they need to make many choices about planning and handling lessons and review their fundamental beliefs about study motivation. We aimed to describe teachers’ perceptions of students’ study motivation. We collected the data from nine focus-group interviews with 26 Swedish teachers in five primary schools. Through reflexive thematic analysis, the following six themes of perceptions emerged: emotions, teachers, teaching, learning environment, family and friends, and health and well-being. Although many teachers assumed students have more intrinsic than extrinsic motivation, they described more extrinsic motivation factors. Changing factors of importance for study motivation are primarily background factors, things needed to feel and function in everyday life, such as good health, friends, and functioning relationships. The study’s results make an important contribution to understanding teachers as a starting point for understanding their didactic choices and how these choices can affect students, as well as how teaching could be changed to correspond more closely to students’ needs and conditions.