Keynotes
Jakob Egholm Feldt

Communities of inquiry: Collective engagement in what to study, why, and how
In this presentation, I will discuss a perspective which sees community-oriented pedagogy as both first and last: front line and desired end, at the same time.
Inspired by various sources from Dewey and Whitehead to Latour and Stengers, we will look at possibilities for thinking communities as something which ‘happens’ around or as an effect of what matters.
We will discuss core questions of how to nurture genuine communities which are not reducible to being a means for achieving something else. Ends today are means tomorrow, Hannah Arendt warned. Inspired by Dewey, we can say that communities cannot happen “in the absence of any issue”. With Latour, we could say that “we” are associations with what matters.
During the presentation, I will give examples from practical experiments with how such thinking can walk the talk with first-year students. It starts with finding out what matters.
Suggested reading
- Biesta, G. (2020). ”Risking ourselves in education: qualification, socialization, and subjectification revisited.” Educational Theory. 70.1
- Feldt, JE. (2023). “Exemplarity as deliberative curriculum. Finding out what to study, why, and how”. Studies in Higher Education. 48.3
- Masschelein, J. (2017). “Some Notes on the University as Studium. A Place of Collective Public Study”. Reconceptualizing study in educational discourse and practice (eds. Masschelein and Ruitenberg), London: Routledge
Ib Ravn

Facilitating a Sense of Community—Through the Lens of Self-Determination Theory
It is well appreciated by educators and counsellors in higher education that the social dimension of academic life needs attention and nurturing, but how do you actually do it? The motivational approach implied by Deci and Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory suggests that students’ needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness must be satisfied.
Educators and counsellors can help meet these needs amongst first-year students by assuming the role of facilitator and ensure that classes and other gatherings of students offer plenty opportunities for meeting strangers, reflecting in dyads, solving problems in small groups, exchanging assignment topics, knowledge sharing, barn raising and other forms of enjoyable, intellectual interaction, in class or just before or after class.
Maria Bruselius-Jensen

Transitions and new beginnings in the first study year – nuances in young people’s social communities
Being part of and taking part in social communities are crucial for a good, productive, and continuing study life. Social communities, however, are multiple things, students have very different backgrounds and social expectation varies between different educational programs.
This presentation starts with nuancing the rather ambiguous concept of social communities by introducing a new theoretical concept with four distinctive forms of communities. With that offset it is discussed, how young people with different backgrounds and expectations can be supported in their transitions into the social life as a student.
Including both being part of the lose social ties that construct the social networks of educational programs, as well as taking part in the smaller social groups and educational activities within the everyday study life.
Suggested reading
Bruselius-Jensen, M., & Sørensen, N. U. (2021). Social communities in transitions: Young Danes’ narratives on the change and maintenance of social communities. Young, 29(3), 256-271. https://doi.org/10.1177/1103308820940437