Kalle Berggren

I am Director of studies for Child and Youth Studies, with a focus on student matters.

I am also the course convenor for two undergraduate courses: Degree project for the Teacher education programme for primary school, specialising in school-age education and care; and the stand-alone online course Children, youth and sexuality in education.

Ph.D. education

Every few years, I give a Ph.D. course on Critical perspectives on men and masculinity organized by The Gender Academy at Stockholm University. I am also part of Ph.D. courses on theory and theory of science in Child and youth studies.

Research supervision:

• Rannveig Ágústa Gudjónsdóttir, School of Education, University of Iceland (member of the doctoral committee). Ph.D. thesis: Fathers who have been violent: Obstacles and opportunities for change (april 2025).
• Rickard Grimefall, Child and youth studies.
• Noor Nassef, Child and youth studies.
• Anja Norell, Child and youth studies.

Youth and romantic relationships

I am currently interested in questions about young people and romantic relationships. In a new overview article, written with Hanna Bornäs, we explore what different perspectives could mean for relationships education – the third, slightly overlooked part of the expression 'sexuality, consent and relationships'. I have also written a chapter on temporality in youth research.

Publications on this theme:

• Berggren, Kalle & Hanna Bornäs (2026). What about relationships? Navigating rival perspectives in relationships education. Sex Education.
• Berggren, Kalle (2024). Temporalitet: Perspektiv på ungdom som tidskategori. I Bruno, Linnéa (Ed.) Ungas villkor och vuxenblivande: En introduktion till kritiska ungdomsstudier. Liber. [in Swedish]

Men and masculinity

A central theme of my research is about men and masculinity, where I often have an ambition of theory development in the intersection of feminist theory and masculinity studies. I have analyzed questions about masculinity on a range of empirical domains – such as Swedish hip hop, young men's violence against women, and Nordic gender equality policy – as well as contributed with critique and suggestions to more general theoretical debates.

I am the Swedish representative on the board of the Nordic Association for Research on Men and Masculinities (NORMAS), and was part of the organizing committe for the conference Men and Masculinities in Transition in June 2025.

Publications on this theme:

• Berggren, Kalle (2025). Masculinity in Nordic gender equality policy 2019-2024: Concepts, perspectives and differences. NIKK/The Nordic Council of Ministers.
• Berggren, Kalle (2021). Killar: Vad är problemet? Tidskrift för genusvetenskap 42(2-3): 91–108. [in Swedish]
• Berggren, Kalle (2020). Maskulinitetsteorier i förändring: Nya perspektiv, nya tolkningar. Socialmedicinsk tidskrift 97(2): 187–198. [in Swedish]
• Berggren, Kalle (2020). Ashamed of one's sexism, mourning one's friends: Emotions and relations in men's encounters with feminism in Sweden. Culture Unbound 12(3): 466–484.
• Berggren, Kalle (2018). Is everything compatible? A feminist critique of Hearn's composite approach to men and masculinity. Australian Feminist Studies 33(97): 331–344.
• Berggren, Kalle (2014). Sticky masculinity: Post-structuralism, phenomenology and subjectivity in critical studies on men. Men and Masculinities 17(3): 231–252.
  [Also translated into Polish in Teksty Drugie 2015(2): 353-380.]

Young men's and fathers' intimate partner violence

In recent years, I have conducted research on violence in collaboration with Lucas Gottzén, Hanna Bornäs as well as Rannveig Ágústa Guðjónsdóttir. We have adressed questions such as different ways of understanding masculinity and violence, men's processes of change, as well as the social network's response to violence.

Publications on this theme:

• Guðjónsdóttir, Rannveig Ágústa & Kalle Berggren (2024). Dealing with discomfort: Affective dissonance in fathers’ narratives of violence. Feminism & Psychology 34(4): 538–554.
• Berggren, Kalle & Lucas Gottzén (2023). "It's not just dad who's got problems": Feminist phenomenology and young men's violence against women. Men and Masculinities 26(3): 453–471.
• Berggren, Kalle & Lucas Gottzén (2022). Rethinking male peer support theory: Social network responses to young men’s violence against women. The Journal of Men's Studies 30(2): 291–307.
• Berggren, Kalle, Gottzén, Lucas & Hanna Bornäs (2021). Theorising masculinity and intimate partner violence. In Gottzén, Lucas, Björnholt, Margunn & Floretta Boonzaier (Eds.) Men, masculinities and intimate partner violence. Routledge.
• Gottzén, Lucas & Kalle Berggren (2021). The rape capital or the most gender-equal country in the world? I Gottzén, Lucas, Björnholt, Margunn & Floretta Boonzaier (Eds.) Men, masculinities and intimate partner violence. Routledge.
• Berggren, Kalle, Gottzén, Lucas & Hanna Bornäs (2020). Queering desistance: Chrononormativity, afterwardsness and young men's sexual intimate partner violence. Criminology & Criminal Justice 20(5): 604–616.

Intersectionality

A further interest concerns intersectional perspectives. I have written an introductory textbook with Minoo Alinia; a chapter about Anna Julia Cooper, a pioneer in Black feminist and intersectional thought; as well as an article about making sociological theory more inclusive.

Publications on this theme:

• Alinia, Minoo & Kalle Berggren (2023). Intersektionalitet. Liber. [in Swedish]
• Berggren, Kalle (2022). Anna Julia Cooper: Tidig svart feminism. I Eklund, Lisa & Bo Isenberg (Eds.) Sociologins klassiker: Upptäckter och återupptäckter. Studentlitteratur. [in Swedish]
• Berggren, Kalle (2018). Vem är teori? Ett normkritiskt pedagogiskt perspektiv på sociologisk teori. Sociologisk forskning 55(1): 75–91. [in Swedish]

Swedish hip hop

I took my Ph.D. in sociology at Uppsala university with the thesis by compilation Reading Rap (2014). In the dissertation and afterwards, I have analyzed Swedish rap lyrics from feminist, queer and intersectional perspectives.

Publications on this theme:

• Berggren, Kalle (2026). Normate and crip articulations of dis/ability in Swedish hip hop. I Lindholm, Susan & Kristine Ringsager (Eds.) Nordic noise: Hip hop, culture and community in Northern Europe. Routledge.
• Berggren, Kalle (2016). "Snubben trodde han var cool för han hade en pistol": Maskulinitet, våld och föräldraskap i svensk rap. Tidskrift för genusvetenskap 37(3): 58–80. [in Swedish]
• Berggren, Kalle (2016). Theorizing power, identity and hip hop: Towards a queer, intersectional approach. EduCare 2: 75–90.
• Berggren, Kalle (2014). Hip hop feminism in Sweden: Intersectionality, feminist critique and female masculinity. European Journal of Women's Studies 21(3): 233–250.
• Berggren, Kalle (2013). Degrees of intersectionality: Male rap artists in Sweden negotiating race, class and gender. Culture Unbound 5: 189–211.
• Berggren, Kalle (2012). No homo: Straight inoculations and the queering of masculinity in Swedish hip hop. NORMA - Nordic Journal for Masculinity Studies 7(1): 50–66.