Conference Agenda

The transition from secondary education into adult life is a period marked by complexity and uncertainty for many young disabled people and their networks (Pearson et al., 2020; Husny & Fasching, 2020). While transition studies often focus on postsecondary education or the shift from adolescence to adulthood, many rely on outdated, linear frameworks of adulthood that fail to reflect the nonlinear and relational nature of transition processes (Field, 2010). These dynamics become especially visible in the transition to employment, often the first major adult-life transition anticipated by disabled youth—one that already takes shape during secondary schooling. Decisions about future work trajectories typically begin long before the end of compulsory education, positioning the school‑to‑work transition as a site where normative expectations about adulthood, productivity, and independence are actively produced and reinforced.

Dominant approaches to transition to work tend to be problem-oriented. Disabled people are often perceived as slower, less productive, or in need of additional accommodations, reproducing neoliberal and ableist notions of work that prioritize efficiency and output over individual strengths and diverse contributions. As a result, many disabled young people cannot easily align with predefined milestones embedded in linear transition models (Furlong, 2009; Langøy & Kvalsund, 2018; Pearson et al., 2020).

In Flanders, many young pioneers who experienced inclusive education found themselves navigating this transition while searching for alternative life paths beyond the commonly prescribed trajectories of day care centres, sheltered workshops, or supported employment. These institutionalized options—often linked to living arrangements and shaped by support needs—tend to structure disabled lives in advance. The young people in our study voiced dreams and expectations for an inclusive work and life beyond school. Along with their families, they emphasized the importance of holistic and inclusive approaches rather than fragmented, siloed service systems. Their experiences of discrimination and exclusion within inclusive education itself strengthened their desire for futures grounded in dignity, participation, and recognition.

Our research asked: How can young disabled adults who followed inclusive education be supported in the transition to inclusive work? We sought not only to explore their expectations but also to take initial steps toward realizing them. Over time, it became clear how ambitious and layered this question was. The young people involved had already undergone complex life processes long before entering the study. Their transitions must therefore be understood within broader life-course trajectories shaped by intersecting social, institutional, and relational forces.

In this article, we explore alternative conceptualizations of transition by focusing on the story of Wout, a young man with Down syndrome embedded in a warm, closely connected family network. We employ a diffractive analysis, as conceptualized by Barad (2007), to examine Wout’s story not through sameness or comparison but through difference. Diffraction, as a new materialist method, allows us to read Wout’s experiences as producing alternative possibilities for how a disabled young person’s life course can be shaped. We trace several key events—from early childhood to young adulthood—to identify who and what comes to matter in his transition processes. For Wout, books and reading emerge as particularly powerful material-discursive elements, shaping his sense of self, aspirations, and ways of navigating postsecondary transitions.

In the discussion, we mobilize Barad’s ethico‑onto‑epistemological framework, in which ethics, being, and knowing are inseparably entangled. We argue that this new materialist perspective opens imaginative and practical possibilities for rethinking transitions beyond deficit-oriented or linear models. It invites us to consider futures for disabled young people that exceed the narrow expectations often assumed to be possible. By diffractively analysing Wout’s story, we show how everyday materials, relationships, and affective entanglements can generate alternative trajectories toward inclusive work and adult life.

This presentation derives from my ongoing PhD-project. The overarching aim is to understand how children at inner-city preschools in Stockholm make space for play in in public space, and what their mobile practices look like in the dense city. There is an ongoing densification of cities, where new buildings are prioritised before areas for recreation. One effect of this densification is that we can see a decrease in space for children in the inner-city (Ekman Ladru & Gustafson, 2025). Space that children as citizens should have the right to. In Sweden, there is a strong tradition of outdoor activities for preschool children, where most preschool children spend some time every day outside (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2019; Åström et al., 2022). In the inner-city of Stockholm there are preschools with no yard of their own, or with a limited yard compared to the number of children attending that preschool, and many of the preschools therefore leave the preschool premises on a regular basis (Ekman Ladru & Gustafson, 2025). This means that children’s learning and playing occur in public space. In order to reach these places, the group need to move as a collective body (Ekman Ladru & Gustafson, 2018), either by foot, using pushchairs or by public transport. From previous research we know that children tend to make moving between places into more than just transportation, and that they create play spaces even in places not primarily meant or created for children (see for example Cortés-Morales & Christensen, 2014; Ekman Ladru & Gustafson, 2018; Kullman, 2010). Hence, the questions guiding this research are: how is this done by children in preschool groups in the inner-city of Stockholm? How are the children’s play enabled or limited while walking-in-line? How are the children’s mobile practices created? And how are the children’s play and mobilities enabled or limited by the surroundings in different places?

In order to understand how children at inner-city preschools in Stockholm make space for play and what their mobile practices look like, I turn to new mobilities (Creswell, 2010; Nansen et al., 2015; Sheller & Urry, 2006) as well as childhood studies (Corsaro, 2018; James & James, 2004; Kraftl, 2020; Prout, 2005). Here I want to emphasise the joint view of children as social actors, as individuals with their own agendas. These theories will aid in understanding how children collectively create different kinds of playful mobilities. This collective work is however not made in isolation by solely children, but created in the encounter between different actors, humans as well as more-than-humans (Nansen et al., 2015). For the study in question, the actors involved are primarily the children, but also teachers, preschool organisation and routines, as well as things and infrastructure in different places. These actors are understood to create interdependent mobilities through collaboration and compromises (Nansen et al., 2015). Similarly, the notion of interpretive reproduction also highlights the collective actions of children, where they establish peer cultures through which they understand their surrounding cultures as well as contributing to the making of the same cultures (Corsaro, 1993).

The importance of regularity and habit has been highlighted in studies examining school-related achievement (Quilez-Robres et al., 2021). Evidence suggests that reading-related routines established as early as preschool are associated with higher reading achievement by fourth grade (Claes et al., 2024). Although some research questions the extent to which schools and classrooms shape students’ reading attitudes (Nonte et al., 2018), other studies indicate that the routines and practices of schools and classrooms – where students spend much of their daily time – are linked to reading achievement (Kampmane & Ozola, 2024). One widely promoted approach in both research and practitioner literature for fostering reading as a habit is sustained or independent silent reading (SSR). The sustained reading method is grounded in the premise that independent reading – where students select texts aligned with their interests and reading abilities, its overarching aim is to position reading as an enjoyable and intrinsically rewarding activity (Ripp, 2017). This method is characterized by three core principles: regularity (ideally every day), a relatively brief duration (five to fifteen minutes), and freedom of choice regarding reading materials. Accordingly, students may choose from a wide range of texts – such as comics, magazines, encyclopedias, or fairy tales – emphasizing that virtually any genre or format can be suitable (Krashen, 2005).

Prior work has reported positive effects of SSR on reading habits and attitudes (Chua, 2008), while some state that independent reading lacks guidance and structure (Hiebert et al., 2012). Meta-analytic evidence indicates a small but statistically significant positive effect of regular independent classroom reading on students’ reading achievement, with particularly pronounced benefits for students at risk of reading difficulties (Merke et al., 2024).

Despite this substantial body of research underscoring the value of habit formation and regularity –often examined using linear regression models that assume linear associations –few studies address a practical yet consequential question: how much practice is enough, and when do additional gains begin to level off?