Conference Agenda

This paper focuses on how alternative schooling programs influence young people's understanding of themselves in relation to their school life.

In Denmark, all lower secondary schools are now required to offer alternative, craft-based programs aimed at students who are disengaged from traditional academic pathways. These programs emphasize manual skills, motivation, and practical learning.

My study explores the intersection between politically informed initiatives and the underlying logics and ideologies that shape this alternative, craft-based educational programs in Denmark. It examines how these frameworks influence the lived experiences and meaning-making processes of young people within specific educational settings.

Using a decentered view of learning from a situated perspective, the project critically engages with issues of social inequality, class, and cultural difference, highlighting how broader structural conditions are negotiated and reproduced in everyday (school)life practices. Inspired by critical psychology and Jane Laves situated learning theory, I approach learning as a changing practice, that is influent by cultural norms, political change and struggles over what learning are for (Lave). By following young people closely, the project explores how they navigate diverse demands, participate differently across contexts, and develop self-understandings as “suited for school”.

The paper invites discussion on how social differences - particularly those related to class and culture - contribute to experiences of marginalization and alienation. It also raises questions about how educational spaces can foster belonging in times of institutional and societal trans-formation, and how responsibilities for supporting vulnerable children are distributed within educational systems.

This article presents a theoretical and methodological approach towards a greater understanding of the digital everyday lives of children through their own perspectives. The analysis sheds light on aspects of digitalised childhood by applying critical psychology and cultural-historical theory to interview excerpts with children.

The article suggests the theoretical concept of screen ambivalence as a possible way to understand children’s conflictual experiences in specific digital engagements. It is proposed that engaging in curious dialogue with children as knowledgeable agents in their own digital lives provides valuable insight for researchers, professionals and parents alike. Concurrently, it is argued that the commercial functionality of screen technologies must be critically investigated as a developmental condition for children today.

In times characterized by political instability, crisis, and social fragmentation, theory takes on a renewed urgency. It emerges as a form of political engagement: an act that challenges dominant narratives and power relations and opens up the possibility of alternative futures. In this context, our contribution offers an epistemological and methodological reflection on walking as a qualitative research practice, explored in combination with food and consumption practices conceived as everyday, material, and symbolic devices.

Walking with participants through foodscapes is not just a data collection strategy. It constitutes a political gesture that upsets traditional hierarchies of knowledge and promotes a dialogical and situated way of theorizing. At the same time, food—understood as a language of everyday life and means of identity construction—provides access to cultural, individual, and relational dimensions that are often silent. Together, walking and food create an embodied and participatory scene that allows for critical engagement with issues of belonging, exclusion, and recognition.

More than a means of accessing lived experience, this methodological interaction foregrounds food and walking as ordinary but universal practices, bridging the gap between scientific research and everyday life. Highlighting the limitations, ethical and reflective implications of such an approach, we argue that walking through foodscapes can be seen as a practice for making theory but at the same time political, an epistemic practice that resists reduction of complexity, nurtures spaces of justice and equity, and contributes to a psychology “of and for the world”.

This paper invites you into the world of pediatric palliative care as experienced by children and their families, guided by the family's own logic of time – a temporality shaped by uncertainty, presence, and the proximity of death. From the positions of (health)care professionals and researchers, I explore how ethics in this field are never fixed or fully articulated, rather emergent, relational, and deeply situated within communities of care.

Pediatric palliative care is a field of sensitivity, where institutional ethical frameworks often fall short of capturing the lived complexities of families navigating life-limiting or life-threatening illnesses. I propose a temporal ethics – one that follows the rhythms of care, loss, and hope as they entangle, yet unfold in real time. With Kofoed & Staunæs’ concept of hesitancy as ethics interpreted as a free, oscillatory movement across, beyond, and within disciplines, this approach challenges dominant paradigms as procedural ethics.

Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives, including pragmatism, feminist approaches to care ethics (Tronto, Gilligan, Noddings), and liminality theory (Stenner), I reflect on how research itself becomes a caring practice. Ethics is more than abstract rules – it is about affirmative meaning-making processes shaped by affective encounters and cross-cultural understandings. In this abducted temporality, where time for care and reflection is displaced by institutional demands, we must consider how to perform ethically within.

What does it mean to conduct ethically sound research in a space where hope and loss coexist – and how might a temporal ethic help us listen, hesitate, and respond in a world of institutional care, where no one seems to listen, hesitate, or respond (in time) with care?

This project explores how codeine users negotiate their identities through symbolic boundary work and its relevance for people using other psychoactive substances that also function as medicines. Symbolic boundary work describes how individuals draw distinctions between themselves and others to maintain a positive self-image and navigate stigma.

The project shows how these boundaries shape perceptions of “functional” versus “dysfunctional” use and influence users’ self-narratives. It also highlights the value of sociological concepts for psychology, offering insights into identity, self-perception, and social influences on substance use. Understanding these processes can inform therapeutic practice by clarifying users’ beliefs and self-understanding. This is especially important in the context of the opioid crisis and broader concerns about the overuse of medicinal substances. At the same time, as substances like cannabis or psychedelics are increasingly used therapeutically, the boundary between medicine and psychoactive use can become blurred.

Codeine, a weak opioid with analgesic, psychoactive, and cough-suppressing properties, occupies a unique position between medical and non-medical use. In countries such as Poland it is widely available over the counter and often perceived as safe, yet it carries addictive potential. Its dual role blurs conventional boundaries and complicates classifications of users. Many codeine users create symbolic boundaries to separate themselves from stigmatized or stereotypical users, portraying their use as controlled or justified while viewing others’ as excessive. Some identify as “respectable addicts,” maintaining social and professional functioning despite problematic use.

Preliminary findings come from a Polish online forum, where codeine is the most discussed opioid, and are compared with international research based on interviews with users, considering differences in availability. The study shows how symbolic boundary work provides a nuanced understanding of identity, self-perception, and social context, demonstrating that sociological concepts can enrich psychological research and practice.

This paper investigates how political actors mobilize social representations and collective memory when drafting legislation dealing with the past, focusing on Spain and its contentious legacy of Francoism. The legacy of the dictatorship has long been marked by silence and legal constraints. A survey published this year shows that around 20% of the population evaluates the Franco era positively, reflecting the enduring societal and political divisions rooted in this unresolved past.

The study analyzes Spain’s memory laws from the creation of the democratic state to the present, examining how historical interpretations have been debated and institutionalized over time. Its goal is to identify the representations that Spaniards have of their past and how these have evolved, in order to observe how identities and political opinions have been constructed over time. The research builds on the premise that lawmaking not only regulates social life but also reshapes how societies interpret their own histories; resistance to new legislation can therefore be understood through the social representations held by its opponents.

Methodologically, the project combines two approaches. A lexicometric analysis using IRaMuTeQ identifies the vocabulary that structures parliamentary debates and maps the associated semantic fields. A complementary qualitative dialogical analysis then pinpoints zones of tension within the legislative texts and uncovers the underlying social representations that produce these disagreements.

Through this study, we not only observe how collective memory shapes society and its political elites, but, more importantly, how politicians’ perceptions of social divisions decisively influence the formulation and negotiation of memory laws.