Øystein Lund Johannessen

Øystein Lund Johannessen has a professional background as a primary school teacher, counselor, and second language teacher for refugees, and since 1992 as a researcher at the Center for Intercultural Communication (SIK). He holds a PhD in Educational Science from the University of Stavanger and a Cand. Polit. degree in Social Anthropology from the University of Bergen. At SIK, Lund Johannessen has worked as a researcher and consultant, senior researcher, and academic-administrative leader. He is currently a Research Professor in Intercultural Education. His professional engagement has primarily been within the fields of intercultural competence in public service, intercultural pedagogy, and religious didactics. Within these fields, he has extensive experience as a leader and partner in projects designed according to principles from follow-up research, action research, and action learning. From 2007-2012, Lund Johannessen led one of two sub-projects in the NFR-funded action research project Religious Education and Diversity, where participants were researchers and primary school teachers with practice in the subject of religion, worldview, and ethics. His PhD thesis from 2015 was titled Cultural Competence in Religious Education? A study of religion teachers' work in the diverse classroom. Here, the focus was on (K)RLE teachers' work with student diversity in their own classrooms and the cultural and diversity competence they developed. From 2013-2018, Lund Johannessen was involved in the international research project Religion and Dialogue in Modern Societies (ReDi) led by the Academie der Weltreligionen at the University of Hamburg (2013-2018). Here, he researched, together with colleagues at the University of Stavanger, interreligious activities and faith and worldview dialogue in the Oslo area and in Western Norway, and on dialogue as a didactic tool in the religion and ethics subject in upper secondary school. In recent years, Lund Johannessen has particularly researched and published within the thematic areas of 1) religious didactics and worldview diversity, 2) interreligious relations and worldview dialogue, and 3) diversity and inclusion in schools. From 2019-2023, he was the national representative in the COST Action network Transnational Collaboration on Bullying, Migration and Integration at School Level (TRIBES), where he was active in a working group that particularly researches schools', school owners', and school authorities' preparedness and practice for the inclusion of newly arrived migrants and second language and subject support in schools. From 2023, Johannessen is a work package leader and steering group member in the NFR project "LIFE: Life skills in theory and practice" led by the Center for Learning Environment at UiS (https://www.uis.no/nb/laeringsmiljosenteret/forskning/life-livsmestring-i-teori-og-praksis). The project examines how schools have introduced the cross-cutting theme "Public Health and Life Skills" in the school day and whether it is possible to define life skills as a separate field of research. Johannessen is also a researcher and deputy leader for the NFR project TranCit - Transloyalties in Citizenship Education (TranCit) (https://www.vid.no/forskning/forskning-ved-vid/eksternt-finansierte-prosjekter/trancit) which is about how history education in secondary school has promoted citizenship, both today and historically in countries in three African countries and in Norway.