Action research on marginalization and exclusion often seeks to examine relations between recognition, respect, and inclusion, but addressing these topics is difficult. Theatre-based action research opens up a new way to communicate and make visible knowledge and experiences from below that have difficulties reaching the public agenda or influencing structures of power. In this article we follow the creation of a play and of scenes that address the life, sufferings, and wishes of unemployed people. The skills of actors, writers, and producers are worked into a critical utopian action research project and used to highlight and enlarge both critique and dreams in life outside the labor market. The article also discusses some of the reactions the plays received and the formation of knowledge linked to these processes.

Many organisations strive to make disability management (DM) responses to prevent work disability and promote return-to-work (RTW). However, a deeper appreciation of methods that can ensure equitable worker participation in the development and change of RTW policy and practice is needed. Using an action research approach, this study expands the concept of participation in disability management (DM) creating new insights into the resources, dilemmas and aspirations of RTW policies in organisations. Empirical data was gathered from a development and change process conducted together with managers and workers at a large health care workplace. A series of workshops were conducted, studying the common history of RTW policy evolvement and configuration, and encouraging the creation of worker-driven proposals for alternative actions to current management. Action research protocols were used to document knowledge creation. Analysis of action research processes reveals how workers insisted on discussing their work environment as an important factor for maintenance of RTW, and how consistent participatory possibilities and team oriented RTW coordination among all levels of the organisation are perceived as critical features for supportive and sustained job retention. Participatory processes created relevant knowledge of the importance of work environments in coordination of stay at work, which may strengthen RTW capacity building and advance DM in organisations.

This article explores the relations and tensions between sus tai nability education and social inclusion in the context of Nordic early childhood education. Based on ethnographic field studies of ecological sustainability education in socially vulnerable neighborhoods, we discuss how a focus on access to nature experiences and nature education appears to overlook societal mechanisms of exclusion, which frame and get entangled with sustainability education activities. This, we argue, becomes a barrier for inclusive sustainability education, but it also prevents attention being paid to ambivalent emotions connected with relations to nature that could be a key to developing further the content of early childhood sustainability education.

Artiklen præsenterer et længerevarende aktionsforskningsstudie med deltagelse af pædagogisk personale og børn i fem danske daginstitutioner, som udviklede nye bud på pædagogik for bæredygtighed. Dette implicerede åbne eksperimenter med at udvikle eksisterende naturaktiviteter til at møde den regulerede natur og åbne nye døre til verden uden for daginstitutionen. Studiet viser, at den mest dominerende form for pædagogik for bæredygtighed tog form af øko-venlige aktiviteter, som det pædagogiske personale relativt ubesværet arbejdede ind i deres praksis. Studiet indeholder endnu et bud på pædagogik for bæredygtighed, som tog form af øko-kritik. Denne form viste sig at indebære langt mere krævende, vanskelige og konfliktfyldte udfordringer, som angår spørgsmål til, hvordan pædagogisk praksis både kan åbne større og mere komplekse verdener med barnet og samtidig passe på barnets sind.Nøkkelord: aktionsforskning, bæredygtighed, natur, samfund

Artiklen vil præsentere, hvordan brugen af teater og drama åbner og skærper forsknings- og udviklingsarbejdet i arbejdslivsforskningen. Udgangspunktet er de erfaringer, vi har gjort gennem en årrække med at inddrage teater og drama i udviklings- og forskningsprojekter på feltet omkring arbejdsliv, marginalisering og arbejdsløshed. Gennem eksempler fra vores aktionsforskningsprojekter vil vi belyse, hvordan teater og iscenesættelser af kritik og utopi har skærpet tabuiserede og marginaliserede temaer og styrket perspektiverne på forskningens rolle som forandringsaktør.