Josefine Karlsson

About Josefine Karlsson

Current research and development

Josefine Karlsson is a lecturer in pedagogy at Örebro University since 2018. She teaches both preschool teacher students, elementary school teacher students, secondary school teacher students and special education students. Josefine participates in the research environment Special Education, Development and Learning. The research that Josefine conducts is based on cognitive theories and methods and regards research questions of factors that affect children's reading comprehension. She focus on the individual's knowledge and development, but also their encounter with classrooms and schools at group and organizational level. Thereby, factors in education that promote inclusion are important. As such, Josefine is conducting interdisciplinary research and she is interested in building bridges between different research fields.

At Örebro University, Josefine is also involved in the Social Impact Lab, where social innovations arise from academic research results. Josefine works with an idea for a digital reading companion for students. The work is a part of the Teacher Education of Tomorrow, as the knowledge is also used to educate our teacher students. As this digital teaching tool is adapted to the individual, the idea is particularly important for special education and the theories of special education become important for developing the digital reading companion.

Doctoral studies

After obtaining her Bachelor´s degree in Cognitive Sciences in 2007 at Skövde Högskola, Josefine obtained her Research Master´s degree in Cognitive Sciences in 2011 at Universiteit van Amsterdam. During her research master program, she developed an interest in research of reading and language development. In March 2012 Josefine started her PhD project at the Department of Educational Studies at the Institute of Education and Child Studies. The research that Josefine conducted as a doctoral student is based on cognitive theories and methods, with questions concerning which factors affect children's reading comprehension ability. These factors include the reader's cognitive abilities, as well as the degree of difficulty of the text and the task. Under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Paul van den Broek and Dr. Linda van Leijenhorst she worked on several research projects, including those reported in her dissertation. Josefine defended her doctoral dissertation in April 2021. In addition, Josefine was involved in various teaching activities for students at different programs and levels and thereby obtained her University Teaching Qualification.

Grants and prices

2022 - grant to participate in a mobility program, host organisation is Örebro kommun and it's schools 

2021 - Grant to develop a reading program prototype by Fyrklövern innovationskontor, Sweden

2020 - Internal research grant, Örebro Universitet

2019 - Grant to conduct market research by Fyrklövern innovationskontor, Sweden

2018 - Grant to conduct development of digital reading tool, Social Impact Lab, Örebro Universitet, Sweden.

2015 - Grants to conduct research at Karolinska Institutet, Leiden University Fund/ Den Dulk-Moermans, and Erasmus+ Grant

2015 - Grant to participate at the annual conference of Society of Text and Discourse, Minneapolis, USA, Student Travel Fund Award of Society of Text and Discourse

2015 - Price for best research poster, Winter School of Netherlands Graduate school of Linguistics, Amsterdam