Introduction to Educational Research

GU 2026/236

The course reading is listed under the four main study elements of the course: globalisation and education for sustainable development, the nature of educational science, writing academic essays, and doing interviewing.

Reading on globalisation and education for sustainable development

Agbedahin, A. V. (2019). Sustainable development, Education for Sustainable Development, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: Emergence, efficacy, eminence, and future. Sustainable Development, 27(4), 669–680. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.1931

Bylund, L., Hellberg, S., & Knutsson, B. (2022). ‘We must urgently learn to live differently’: The biopolitics of ESD for 2030. Environmental Education Research, 28(1), 40–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2021.2002821

Fekih Zguir, M., Dubis, S., & Koç, M. (2021). Embedding Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and SDGs values in curriculum: A comparative review on Qatar, Singapore and New Zealand. Journal of Cleaner Production, 319, 128534. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.128534

Isaksson, K., & Weldemariam, K. (2024). Thinking with fire, water and sun: Material-discursive entanglements in Swedish outdoor education. Environmental Education Research, 0(0), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2024.2326455

Laird, S. (2017). Learning to live in the Anthropocene: Our children and ourselves. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 36(3), 265–282. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-017-9571-6

Malik, R. S. (2018). Educational challenges in 21st Century and sustainable development. Journal of Sustainable Development Education and Research, 2(1), 9. https://doi.org/10.17509/jsder.v2i1.12266

Sinakou, E., Boeve-de Pauw, J., & Van Petegem, P. (2019). Exploring the concept of sustainable development within education for sustainable development: Implications for ESD research and practice. Environment, Development and Sustainability, 21(1), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-017-0032-8

Stein, S., Andreotti, V., Suša, R., Ahenakew, C., & Čajková, T. (2022). From “education for sustainable development” to “education for the end of the world as we know it”. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 54(3), 274–287. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2020.1835646

Reading on educational science

Berliner, D. C. (2002). Comment: Educational Research: The Hardest Science of All. Educational Researcher, 31(8), 18–20. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X031008018

Englund, T. (2006). New Trends in Swedish Educational Research. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 50(4), 383–396. https://doi.org/10.1080/00313830600823738

Husen, T. (1988). Research paradigms in education. Interchange, 19(1), 2–13. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01815504

Keeves, J. P. (1988). The unity of educational research. Interchange, 19(1), 14–30. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01815505

Morgan, D. L. (2007). Paradigms Lost and Pragmatism Regained: Methodological Implications of Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Methods. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 1(1), 48–76. https://doi.org/10.1177/2345678906292462

Nisbet, J. (2005). What is educational research? Changing perspectives through the 20th century. Research Papers in Education, 20(1), 25–44. https://doi.org/10.1080/0267152052000341327

Papadopoulos, D., Lumsden Wass, K., & Wärvik, G.-B. (2025). Individualising processes in the making: policy complexities and tensions of municipal adult education in Swedish for immigrants. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 69(1), 194–207. https://doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2023.2275805

The Swedish Research Council (2017). Good research practice. https://www.vr.se/english/analysis/reports/our-reports/2017-08-31-good-research-practice.html (pp. 12–29)

Vanderlinde, R., & van Braak, J. (2010). The gap between educational research and practice: Views of teachers, school leaders, intermediaries and researchers. British Educational Research Journal, 36(2), 299–316. https://doi.org/10.1080/01411920902919257

Reading on academic writing

Graff, G., Birkenstein, C., & Maxwell, C. (2014). They say, I say: The moves that matter in academic writing (p. 245). New York: WW Norton.

Nygaard, L. (2017). Writing your master's thesis: from A to Zen. Sage Publications.

Swales, J. & C. Feak. (2012). Academic Writing for Graduate Students. Essential Tasks and Skills, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.

Reading on doing research interviews

You are invited, in addition, to select reading from among the following texts on doing research interviews. We suggest that you minimally read around 100 pages, for example in a combination of articles and book chapters that seem suitable to the interviewing you want to do.

Alby, F., & Fatigante, M. (2014). Preserving the Respondent’s Standpoint in a Research Interview: Different Strategies of ‘Doing’ the Interviewer. Human Studies, 37(2), 239–256. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-013-9292-y

Brinkmann, S. (with Kvale, S.). (2015). InterViews: Learning the craft of qualitative research interviewing (3., [updated] ed.). Sage Publications.

Edwards, R. (with Holland, J.). (2013). What is qualitative interviewing? Bloomsbury.

Flick, U. (2022). Doing interview research: The essential how to guide. Sage Publications.

Flick, U. (2023). Doing Interview Research: The Essential How To Guide | Online Resources. https://study.sagepub.com/flickdir

Gillham, B. (2000). The research interview. Continuum.

Gubrium, J. F., & Holstein, J. A. (2001). Handbook of interview research: Context & method. Sage Publications.

Guest, G., Namey, E. E., & Mitchell, M. L. (2013). In-depth interviews. In Collecting Qualitative Data: A Field Manual for Applied Research (pp. 113–171). Sage Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781506374680

Magnusson, E., & Marecek, J. (2015). Doing Interview-based Qualitative Research: A Learner’s Guide (1st ed.). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107449893

Roulston, K. (2011). Working through Challenges in Doing Interview Research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 10(4), 348–366. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940691101000404

Roulston, K. (2022). Interviewing: A guide to theory and practice. Sage Publications.

Schostak, J. F. (2006). Interviewing and representation in qualitative research. Open University Press.