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Posting about one’s pregnancy on social media has become a common practice for many expectant mothers in the global North. However, social media sharing implies transcending the conventional time and space boundaries of interpersonal communication. As such, women may feel ill at ease when deciding whether and how to narrate their journey online. This article examines mothers’ pre-birth social media dilemmas via a thematic analysis of 1237 posts from 26 threads on a parenting forum in which expectant mothers discussed their doubts and fears about sharing their pregnancy on social media. The dilemmatic dimension of social media sharing challenges the simplistic idea that sharenting is a practice most women naively adhere to without question. Indeed, the present research shows that online posters face dilemmas about performing their pregnancies on social media and collectively learn to make sense of and question a culture of surveillance, while reclaiming their self-representational agency in the process.

This special issue represents the culmination of a journey, which began with the introduction of transformative learning (TL) into Europe throughout the monumental task of establishing a network dedicated to TL within the European Society for Research on the Education of Adults (ESREA). Both the authors represented in this issue and the editors played important roles in this journey. In this issue, we are offered four lenses to reflect on TL and possibly reframe it. Of course, the articles were written separately, but now they are connected in the same place and our conversation can start a dialogue. These four pieces can serve to further this reflection and dialogue on what we mean by TL, how it differs from what Michael Newman (2012) refers to as ''good learning,'' and how it might be fostered within formal educational practices as well as within the informal contexts of our daily lives. To begin this special issue, John Dirkx and I would like to engage in a transatlantic dialogue. After all, we are ''researchers of difference'' (Norris, & Sawyer, 2012), living on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, with different academic backgrounds and different languages. I am a newcomer in TL, and you are the editor of this journal. Difference is a powerful means for thinking and learning, ''food for perception'' (Bateson, 1979, p. 32), provided that we are able to transform it; and dialogue is the human way to transform meaning. TL is facing a new challenge, new differences, with a newly formed European Network that will ''interrogate'' it. So, I propose to you a conversation about this issue, its contents, and the possibilities of transformation that can be opened by dialogue. The Origins of This Special Issue Laura Formenti: ESREA is a diverse and heterogeneous family (Formenti, West, & Horsdal, 2014), we speak several of the 24 official languages in Europe, we gather scholars from many disciplines and local academies with their own profiles, requirements, and habits. There is not one culture, in Europe, but many local cultures. The result is that locally everybody wants to be the landlord. In Italy, my country, this is called campanilismo (literally, each single village is proud of its own bell tower).

Background Despite a global policy push toward the advancement of family- and community-based care, residential care for children and youth remains a relevant and highly utilized out-of-home care option in many countries, fulfilling functions of care and accommodation as well as education and treatment. Objective As part of a larger project involving five European countries (Finland, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, and Spain), the objective was “to map” the context and content of residential care in each country, thereby building a foundation for meaningful comparisons and deepened understanding of each system’s inherent logic. Within the context of global deinstitutionalization efforts, the study also aimed to understand factors that hinder or enhance the transformation of residential care. Method Using an embedded multiple-case design, data was gathered by each country on its residential care macro context as well as salient variables related to three units of analysis–residential care system/program features, residential care training and personnel, characteristics of youth. Cross-case synthesis was used to summarize and compare cases across relevant dimensions. Results The analysis highlighted areas of overlap and singularity, particularly with regard to utilization rates, concepts and methods, workforce professionalization, and characteristics of youth. Conclusions Findings provide a more nuanced understanding of how residential care continues to be viewed and utilized in some countries, challenging the ‘residential-care-as-a-last-resort-only’ rhetoric that is currently dominating the discourse on residential care. It further provides an understanding of historical and sociocultural factors that need to be considered when trying to transform services for children, youth, and their families.