Ebba Theorell
Contact
Name and title: Ebba Theorell
Mail: ebba.theorell@buv.su.se
Workplace: Department of Child and Youth Studies Länk till annan webbplats.
Visiting address Room 408Svante Arrhenius väg 21A
Postal address Barn- och ungdomsvetenskapliga institutionen106 91 Stockholm
About me
2025–2027
My postdoctoral project at the Department of Youth and child studies is ongoing. In this project, I examine aesthetic dimensions in the relationship between digital games and the more physical/analog world. I am also working in the research project Plant–child relations in early childhood education – a feminist technoscience approach, funded by the Swedish Research Council. The project focuses on science education and preschool children’s relationships with plants and is conducted in collaboration with Emilie Moberg and Petra Korall.
I completed my PhD in the field of Aesthetic learning processes in 2021, with the dissertation “Force, Form, Transformations: On Kinesthetic Musicality and body worlding in Boys’ War Play.” In the dissertation, I examine boys’ war play from dance-theoretical perspectives. I usually work transdisciplinarily with aesthetic dimensions in research projects, teaching, and artistic projects. My work primarily engages with dance, film, visual art, and for the moment also the world of digital games. I frequently work with aesthetic dimensions in various subjects such as science, mathematics and language. In recent years, my focus has broadened further to include foundational aesthetic perspectives, addressing the very basis of aesthetics: our senses and perception.
Something about my background
I have a background as a visual artist and have also worked with both film and dance. I started working with children in a preschool 1999, and at the teacher education program at Stockholm University in 2001. Alongside my work at the University, I have always been involved in aesthetic and artistic practice-based development projects in preschools and schools, various types of course activities for artists and educators, as well as my own artistic practice. I was also trained as an artistic supervisor (ateljerista) in Reggio Emilia, Italy. After completing the program, I undertook placements at three different preschools in Reggio Emilia, where I also had pedagogues and atelieristas as supervisors. It was there and then my interests in aesthetics, arts, pedagogy and politics really started to combine and to come to life, and this is still one of many different perspectives that often helps me navigate in my work with children.
My research areas and interests primarily concern aesthetic, artistic, pedagogical, philosophical, political, and transdisciplinary perspectives on life.
Ongoing research projects
Plant–child relations in early childhood education – a feminist technoscience approach, funded by the Swedish Research Council. The project focuses on science education and preschool children’s relationships with plants.
https://www.su.se/enheter/barn--och-ungdomsvetenskapliga-institutionen/nyheter/nyhetsartiklar/2024-11-08-att-uppmarksamma-och-starka-barns-relation-till-vaxters-mangfald
A two-year postdoctoral project starting in February 2025, funded by the Ahlström Therserus Scholarship. The project explores children’s digital game worlds.
Convenor of Network 29 within ECER’s international research networks.
Previous research projects
The Magical Language, funded by the Swedish Research Council. A project on young children’s language and storytelling.
Children’s Dialogue with Nature. Philosophical perspectives on art and science, based on children’s investigations and questions. Conducted in collaboration with the Stockholm Institute of Education / Reggio Children / Lemshaga Academy.
Theorell - University of Stockholm, Judit Onsès University of Girona, Tobias Frenssen University of Leuven, Sofia Ré University of Lisboa, Mònica Ruiz Revuelta University of Barcelona, Fernando Hernández-Hernández University of Barcelona (2026). Conference abstract Ecer in Tampere, 2026: Identifying Visible and Invisible Aspects of Conformity in Arts Education and Research. Link to abstract:
http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:2087184
Theorell, Lecusay, Lillo-Linzatti ( in press - to be published in 2027): Exploring Play-Fluid Early Childhood Dance: pre print research gate - Journal of aesthetic education https://www.researchgate.net/publication/406387981_Exploring_Play-Fluid_Early_Childhood_Dance
Conference abstract: The thinner skin score, Learning through dancing, Symposium the 7 of june 2026 at Uniarts, Stockholms konstnärliga högskola
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/405835730_The_Thinner_Skin_Score_Tactile_Listening_Ecological_Attunement_and_Embodied_Knowledge_in_Early_Childhood_Dance_Education_Conference_Abstract_SKH_7_juni_2026
Guest Editor (with Judit Onses):
Vol. 2025 No. 3 (2025): Thematic Issue on Challenging Conformity in Arts Education and through the Arts in Education
https://journal.fi/rae/issue/view/13117
The Value of Democracy in Arts and Education Research (2025). Proceedings of ECER 2024, Network 29: Research on Arts Education. Nicosia, 27–30 August 2024.
Edited Volume / Anthology Chapter
Preparing the Ground for Aesthetic Bildung Through Improvisational Dance – A Bodily Phenomenological Perspective, in Corpos que Dançam III.
https://conselhodecultura.uma.pt/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ebook_danca_2024_versao_otimizada_2025.pdf
Transformative Aesthetic Dimensions in Young Boys’ War Play: Exploring the World Through Kinesthetic Musicality, Journal of Aesthetic Education (2025), 59(2): 7–19.
https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/jae/article/59/2/7/400189/Transformative-Aesthetic-Dimensions-in-Young-Boys
Doctoral dissertation:
Force, Form, Transformations: On Kinesthetic Musicality and Bodily World-Making in Boys’ War Play:
https://su.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1605845/FULLTEXT02.pdf
Theorell, E. (2023). The Choreography of War Play. In The art of creating Emotions in Children’s Culture, edited volume, Centre for Children’s Culture Research, Stockholm University.
Horwitz, E., Theorell, E., Thyrén, D., Scheja, S. & Theorell, T. (2022). Using Transdisciplinary Interpretative Analysis to Understand the Reactions of Preschoolers to Live Classical Music. Creative Education, 13, pp. 2417–2432.
https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=119081
Displacing Identity – Placing Aesthetics: Early Childhood Literacy in a Globalized World. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, Volume 37, 2016 – Issue 5: Fabulous Monsters: Alternative Discourses of Childhood in Education.
Liselotte Olsson, Gunilla Dahlberg, Ebba Theorell.
Olsson, L. M. & Theorell, E. (2014). Affective/Effective Reading and Writing through Real Virtualities in a Digitized Society. In Bloch, M. N., Swadener, B., & Cannella, G. S. (Eds.), Reconceptualizing Early Childhood Care and Education: Critical Questions, New Imaginaries & Social Activism – A Reader. Oxford: Peter Lang Publishing Group.
Book
Seeing War Play. Lärarförlaget.
https://www.adlibris.com/sv/bok/se-krigsleken-kraft-rorelse-och-forvandling-9789188149794
Swedish National Agency for Education – Research Reviews
Engdahl, C. & Theorell, E. (2024). Dance in the Shadow of Sportification and Health in Physical Education. Research review of practical and aesthetic subjects.
Angbah, J., Jatta, M. L. & Theorell, E. (2023). Dance Can Matter for the Individual, the Group, and Society.
Kraus, A. & Theorell, E. (2022). “Kinesthetic Musicality” Is Central to Children’s Learning.
Theorell, E. (2018). Aesthetic Subject-Didactic Spaces. In von Schantz, U., Thorgersen, K., & Lidén, A. (Eds.), The Didactics of the Aesthetic Subjects: Challenges, Processes, and Protests, pp. 149–160. Stockholm: Stockholm University Press.
Interview in the American Pod cast That early childhood nerd about choreographic dimensions in War Play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAfjHpbQApA
Film
Ongoing work on a documentary film; director of a dance film project about the art collective MELO.
Website: http://melo-collective.se/melo/
2023
Director of Photography for the Ukrainian series When We’re at Home, episode eight, filmed during the ongoing war. All female actors were forced to flee to different countries. The actors filmed from their respective locations, while the men remaining in Ukraine filmed as soldiers using their mobile phones from where they were stationed, in the midst of the war.
Trailers
Melorum Kids (2023/2024)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RriKU1h5v30
Melorum 1 (2022), Dansens Hus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7gKs8Dkkz0
Tillhet (2016), Dansens Hus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_osSUiZ72U
Spåra – touring performance for children since 2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nqLOt5Bfko
2016
Director of the short film The Force, a film about boys’ war play, supported by the Swedish Arts Grants Committee.
2013
Lolita – The Pink Armor, short documentary film, 13 min.
Elenur and the Power of Pastel, short documentary film, 15 min.
2010
Director of Photography for artist Monica Sands’ Sound Walk in City Hall.
2009
Film and photography of Monica Sands’ installation and artistic research project Mirror Travel, within the research project Playing the Space.
https://playingthespace.wordpress.com/2009/10/10/mirror-travel-spegelresa/
2016
Suzanne Osten on the film The Force:
https://barnfilmsambassadoren.wordpress.com/2016/04/26/bort-med-domande-vuxenglasogon/
Exhibitions and Stage Work
2017–2019
Design and development of the exhibition Bordercrossing, together with Karin Gandini. A touring exhibition with scientific, technological, and aesthetic studios for children and adults. Hosted by the municipalities of Haninge, Södertälje, Härryda, Oskarshamn, and Örebro.
https://www.haninge.se/forskola-och-skola/forskola-och-barnomsorg/sa-har-jobbar-vi/border-crossing/
2009
Zero to One, a space for children under one year of age and their parents at Kulturhuset Stockholm. Created together with scenographer Magdalena Åberg, by invitation of Katti Hofflin.
https://www.svd.se/vita-moten-i-utstallning-for-de-minsta
Radio
2016
Director, producer, and interviewer for the radio programme Cousin Awake (Kusin Vaken), Swedish Educational Broadcasting Company (UR). Five programmes for preschool children about sound.
https://www.filmochskola.se/ur/k/kusin-vaken-om-ljud/kusin-vaken-om-ljud--starka-mellanhoga-och-svaga-ljud/