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May Sissel Rognstad

PhD Candidate

Faculty of education
Department of Pedagogy
Campus Lillehammer

May Sissel Rognstad is PhD candidate in Child and Youth Participation and Competence Developement. She has work experience from kindergarten as educational leader, preschool teacher, support teacher, special educator, and environmental worker and therapist in municipal shared housing. Furthermore, she completed a bachelor's, and master's degree in Special Needs Education at Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences.
The working title for her PhD project is: Participation and learning: On quality of life for young people with intellectual disabilities. The study has a student perspective and the purpose is to generate knowledge and understanding of conditions in upper secondary school that can contribute to good quality of life, and reduced quality of life. Therefore, data are gathered through semi- structured fenomenological interviews.
The study is partly based on a subjective psychological understanding of the quality of life concept; Quality of life (or subjective well being) is understood as a subjective phenomenon that only has meaning through studens' cognitive assessment of domains, such as school, friends and leisure, and emotional experiences, for instance joy,pride, loneliness, frustration and so on. Social belonging and friendships, learning and mastery, as well as self- determination are causes of subjective- well being within a socio- ecological context.

Rognstad, May Sissel (2024). Subjektivt velvære sett fra perspektivet til elever med utviklingshemming i videregående opplæring. Spesialpedagogikk. ISSN 0332-8457. 24(2).
Rognstad, May Sissel (2022). Two stories of quality of life from adolescents with intellectual disability in upper secondary school . Spesialpedagogikk. ISSN 0332-8457. 22(04), p. 59–74. Show summary
This article is about how two adolescents with intellectual disabilities perceive their quality of life in upper secondary school, focusing on social belonging. It focuses on factors enhancing and reducing the quality of life. Their stories emerged through several individual interviews, where they expressed having a good life in school. Friendships and social interactions were mentioned as factors enhancing their quality of life, both in school and during leisure time. On the other hand, loneliness was a reason for reduced quality of life, both before and during the corona-pandemic.

Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences
Postboks 400 Vestad
2418 Elverum
Norway