Background and experience
Lene C.H. Sirevåg is a childhood and field researcher and has been employed at the Department of Education, Faculty of Humanities and Education, University of Agder since 2019. In 2023, she earned her PhD in Education at the University of Agder with the dissertation Playful Citizenship: Between Disruptions and Productive Breaks. An Ethnographic Study of Democracy as a Way of Life and Children’s Citizenship in Primary School. With this dissertation, she was the first to defend under the initiative *Democratic Mobilisation in Education* at UiA. This initiative aims to highlight the role of democracy in pedagogy and education. Her research is both theoretical and ethnographic and lies at the intersection of democratic citizenship, children’s restlessness, play, childhood, and educational philosophy and theory.
Dr. Sirevåg holds a Master’s degree from King’s College London in the United Kingdom in Educational Sciences and Childhood Studies. She has extensive experience from various projects both in Norway and abroad, where she has worked extensively on children’s rights and democratic participation in different parts of the welfare system, particularly in relation to early childhood education, schools, and the education sector—both through direct advisory work with children and more systematic approaches. Lene has also worked extensively in outreach activities with children and young people in Norway and internationally.
Areas of responsibility
Dr. Sirevåg is the coordinator for early career researchers in the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI), within Special Interest Group (SIG) 13, Moral and Democratic Education. She serves on the board of the research centre at the University of Agder; UDFORSK, which focuses on research in the area of Democracy and Citizenship in Education, and she is the leader of the Nordic Research Network for Democracy in Early Childhood Education.
Dr. Sirevåg har organised several international academic conferences, including the EARLI SIG13 Conference 2022 at UiA and the SIG11 & SIG13 Conference 2024 in Oxford. The next conference she is involved in will take place at the University of Agder in June 2026: Navigating Polarisation & Fostering Civic Engagement through Education.
Teaching
Dr. Sirevåg has taught, supervised, served as course coordinator, and subject coordinator at the Department of Education since 2019. She is responsible for, teaches, and supervises students in several courses at both bachelor’s and master’s level, as well as holding course responsibility for research methods teaching at PhD level. Sirevåg supervises both bachelor’s and master’s students. She is also responsible for teaching about play through the Play Project in pedagogy within the early childhood teacher education programme. She is committed to exploring different forms of interaction in teaching, working closely with students, and making teaching practice-oriented within professional education programmes.
Research
Democratic citizenship in schools and early childhood education; the relationship between restlessness, play and children’s participation; Bildung and educational philosophy; ethnography and qualitative research; institutional theory; children’s play and play theory; childhood and youth culture.
Research interests
Children’s democratic citizenship in schools, early childhood education and society; restlessness; children’s play; the relationship between social inequality and play; ethnography as a research practice; childhood; conditions for growing up in our educational institutions; philosophy of education and postcolonial perspectives on childhood and education.
Selected publications
Jortveit, M. & Sirevåg, L.C.H (2026). Norwegian Bilingual Teacher Education. Tailor-Made or not Suited for Addressing the Needs of Multilingual Children in School? In., Lena Cataldo-Schwarzl, Miroslav Janík (ed)., Multilingual Education in the Flow. Research-based Approaches to Teaching in Times of Global Opportunities and Challenges. Waxmann.
Sirevåg, L.C.H. (2024). The possibilities of disturbances and the revival of the pedagogical paradox. Nordic Journal of Pedagogy and Critique, 10(4).
Sirevåg, L.C.H. (2024). Play with the handbrake on: A study of play’s encounter with goal-oriented learning activities in Year One. Nordic Journal of Pedagogy and Critique, 10(5).
Dissemination: selected publications & engagements
Sirevåg, L.C.H. (2025). We need to stop talking about children's low playcompetence . Utdanningsnytt. Chronicle.
Sirevåg, L.C.H. (2025). Dilemmas and risks of play in early schooling. Keynote. National Research Conference: Play in Early Schooling 2025. Organisers: OsloMet and USN.
Sirevåg, L.C.H. (2025). We need to talk more about the intrinsic value of play and less about its instrumental value. Utdanningsnytt.no
Sirevåg, L.C.H (2025). Importance of Democracy Education. Lecture & panel conversation. Democracy week Kristiansand. 6th May.
Sirevåg, L.C.H. (2025). Restlessness in school – unruly, uncontrollable and important? Collets Café, Bare Studenthouse, 17 March.
Sirevåg, L.C.H. (2025). Play with the handbrake on – dilemmas and risks of goal-oriented play. Saturday University Kristiansand, Teateret, 29 March.
Sirevåg, L.C.H. (2022). Listening to children’s voices is a demanding pedagogical practice. Fædrelandsvennen.
Sirevåg, L.C.H., Josephsen, K.L., Kristiansen V. (2022). Open days in the weekly schedule – space for children’s participation. Barnehage.no
Sirevåg, L.C.H. (2021). Mum, why do we have homework? Geita.no
Sirevåg, L.C.H. (2022). Teaching content for The Multilingual Film Room. Funded by the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training. In collaboration with Norwegian Film. Resource for schools working with multilingual pupils.