An increased concern for children and young people's lack of physical activity (PA) worldwide has made societies take measures in order to counteract the development. The education system, schools and especially the school subject physical education (PE) have in many countries been identified as an arena for improving physical activity among children and youth. This is the case also in Sweden. In 2003 the Swedish government introduced and added guidelines concerning "daily physical activity" (DPA) in the national curriculum for compulsory schools. This means that the school should offer PA during the school day in addition to the subject PE(H) for all students between ages 6 and 16 (1).

Research on PA has mainly focused on interventions among children in elementary school (2) and the effects on PA in relation to gender, body mass index (BMI), socioeconomic status, psychological well-being, time spent in relation to screen (see e.g.2-4). To date, less attention has been paid to students with disability or in need of special education. Even if there are some studies concerning BMI, inactivity and their need of physical activity, few studies address how schools approaches the possibilities to be physical active during the school day. Offering students daily PA seems to be a hard nut to crack for schools, especially at secondary level. Also, less attention on PA in schools have been paid to students with invisible’ disabilities such as students with diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD), like Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) (see e.g.5-6).

In addition, research shows that children with NDD less often participate in sports and physical activity during their free time. Moreover, research shows that participation in organizes physical activities can lead to more participation in other everyday life contexts for these students (7). Based on insights from scholars about inclusion and school development grounded on a learning organisational perspective, the overall aim of this study is to increase the understanding of opportunities and challenges of the school’s task to organize “daily physical activity” in a school with students with NDD. The research questions are: What characterize the needs of the students concerning PA during the school day? What facilitators and barriers are there according to staff and students for PA during the school day? The analysis and results will be discussed from a school perspective, how PA can be made possible for students with special needs.

To achieve the purpose of this project employs a qualitative methodology based on interviews, observations and fieldnotes. The choice of design is related to a view of knowledge as constructed and subjectively experienced (8). This means that through interviews, observations and fieldnotes researchers will provide detailed descriptions of people, behaviours, and cultures in their ordinary environment. With a sociocultural perspective, the individual and the environment are understood as mutually constructed (9). Both students and staff act consciously or unconsciously based on the experiences they have of what is needed in different situations (9).

Conditions for the students to be physically active and being involved and included are created by the school staff in the context in which the students and staff cooperate (9). To listen to the experiences of the students and staff means not only to get a view of formal decisions but also in informal everyday lives (9). The sociocultural perspective where human actions are in focus for understanding of organisational opportunities and challenges to be physically active is an important part in this study.

This study is part of an ethnographic approached multiple-case study, drawing on short-term ethnography design described by Pink and Morgan (10). The presentation is based on one of the four schools invested.The four schools involved in the whole project were sampled based on a combination of convenience and strategic selection. The school in this presentation is a school for students in grad 5 to 9 (age 11 to 16). The school is managed by a foundation with special interested in students diagnosed with neurodevelopment disorder (NDD). The students come from city centre to suburbs around a city with over 1 million inhabitants. The design includes shorter periods of fieldwork of approximately two weeks at a time, at three times over a period of a year (fall 2021 and spring 2022) about 200 hours of fieldwork, performed by a team of four researchers in the four schools. The fieldwork involved participant observations, informal conversations, and semi-structured interviews (11). These participant observations mainly took part in surrounding areas within the school environment such as the school yard and proximal neighboring areas, and inside the school building itself. Both research questions and matters that comes up in the dynamic of being in the field have been guiding the research. Strategic purposeful sampling was used for the semi-structured interviews throughout the study period, based on the study aim and research questions. This involves school management, staff who are responsible mainly for secondary students, staff and teachers who are responsible for student health or/and are engaged in physical activity, physical education and health teachers, as well as secondary school students (mainly 13-14 years old) on the premise of variation in gender and activity engagement. In total, at this school we performed 11 interviews with students in grad 7 and 8 and 13 interviews with staff. The interviews were conducted with one respondent at a time and lasted between 30 and 60 minutes. All interviews were recorded except for three interviews with students where just nots were taken. The analysis process was guided by Braun and Clarke’s (12) six phases of thematic analysis. In the analysis the sociocultural perspective is used paying attention to the interrelation of students and staff (agency) and structure (school organisation and environment), the values at stake (PA and education) and the boundaries of the fields in focus (in school as an educational and fostering institution).

The analysis of the empirical material is not yet finished, therefore, findings will be presented and discussed at the conference if the abstract is accepted.

1.Swedish National Association for Education (SNAE). (2011). Curriculum for the compulsory school preschool class and leisure-time centre. Stockholm, Sweden: Skolverket. 2.Love, R.E., Adams, J., and Van Sluijs, E. (2017). Equity effects of children’s physical activity interventions: a systematic scoping review International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity 14:134 DOI 10.1186/s12966-017-0586-8 3.Kjellenberg, K. Ekblom, Ö., Stålman, C., Helgadóttir, B., Nyberg, G. (2021). Associations between physical activity patterns, screen time and cardiovascular fitness levels in Swedish adolescents. Children 8(11), 998; https://doi.org/10.3390/children8110998 . 4.Poitras, V J., Gray, C., Borghese, M., Carson, V., Chaput, J.P., Janssen, I., Katzmarzyk, PT., Pate, R., Gorber, S., Kho, M., Sampson, M., & Tremblay. M. (2016). Systematic review of the relationships between objectively measured physical activity and health indicators in school-aged children and youth1. Appl. Physiol. Nutr. Metab. 41:S197–S239. 5.Lamb, P., D. Firbank, and D. Aldous. 2016. Capturing the world of physical education through the eyes of children with autism spectrum disorders. Sport, Education and Society 21 (5): 698–722. 6.Arnell, S., K. Jerlinder, and L. O. Lundqvist. 2018. Perceptions of physical activity participation among adolescents with autism spectrum disorders: A conceptual model of conditional participation. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 48 (5): 1792–1802. 7.Kissow A-M. (2015) Participation in physical activity and the everyday life of people with physical disabilities: a review of the literature. Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research 17: 144-123. 8.Denzin, N. K. (2005) The Sage Handbook of qualitative research. London: Sage Publications, 1-32. 9.Säljö, R. (2014). Lärande i praktiken: ett sociokulturellt perspektiv. [Learning in practice: a sociocultural perspective.] (3. uppl.) Lund: Studentlitteratur. 10. Pink, S. and J. Morgan (2013) Short term ethnography: intense routes to knowing symbolic interaction 36(3): 351-361. 11.Brinkmann, S. & Kvale, S. (2015). Interviews: learning the craft of qualitative research interviewing. (3.,ed.) Los Angeles: Sage Publications. 12.Braun, V. & Clarke, V. (2022). Thematic analysis: a practical guide. Los Angeles: SAGE.