Björn Boman
About me
I successfully defended my PhD dissertation in education (pedagogik), which has a particular emphasis upon lower-secondary level educational achievement in Sweden, in November 2023.
Main research interests:
1. Academic achievement in Sweden, especially at the secondary levels.
2. Academic ahievement among East Asian nations.
3. Contemporary Korean culture (e.g., K-pop, K-film, K-drama) and education.
4. Russia-Ukraine war.
5. Parallelization theory.
6. The relations between intelligence, personality and academic achievement.
7. The nexus between personality, celebrity and social media.
Because of this broad profile, I have been a reviewer for several scholarly journals such as Scientific Reports, Psychology of Music, British Journal of Educational Psychology, Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, Asian Education and Development Studies, Journal of Biosocial Science, Studies in Educational Evaluation, Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Journal of Adolescent Research, Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, Asia Pacific Education Review, Frontiers in Psychology, Education Inquiry, Asian Journal of Women's Studies, Trends in Psychology, Cogent Education, Sage Open, PLOS ONE and Social Sciences & Humanities Open.
In relation to my research, I work with several methodological approaches, such as multivariate analyses of register data and large-scale assessments data (e.g., PISA), systematic literature reviews, textual analysis, on-site observations, semi-structured interviews, and cost/benefit analysis (CBA). Theoretically, I work with for instance the Big Five, socio-ecological theory, input-process-output, cultural globalization theory, and han (한, a Korean psychocultural concept). I have also developed two theoretical models labelled parallelization and CAM (Celebrity Achievement Model), which I aim to develop further.
Previously, I have obtained an M.A. in Education (2010) and an M.A. in History and the Behavioral Science of Religion (2012) from Uppsala University, and studied Korean at Stockholm University, among a set of supplementary courses (2014-2019), in parallel with full-time work as a teacher.
I have taught about 10 years at upper-secondary and lower-secondary level and was nomineed as 'teacher of the year' in Solna in June 2019. My personal interests include fitness and travel (71 countries so far). I have obtained a diploma in personal training (Ylab Education, Stockholm, 2007).
Main research project: Educational achievement - measurement of Swedish lower-secondary school students' results (compilation)
Additional research projects:
Educational achievement in East Asian school systems
Contemporary culture in South Korea
Teaching at Stockholm University: Vetenskaplig teori och metod [Scientific theory and method], 7,5 hp, as a part of Pedagogik A, spring term 2021.
Peer-reviewed articles
(25) 2024: (25) 2024: Parallelization: A theory of cultural, economic, and political complexity (eds. Guiseppina Marsico & Jaan Valsiner). SpringerBriefs in Psychology and Cultural Development. Springer Nature. Forthcoming. (eds. Guiseppina Marsico & Jaan Valsiner). SpringerBriefs in Psychology and Cultural Development. Springer Nature.
(24) 2023: The coexistence of nationalism, Westernization, Russification and Russophobia: Facets of parallelization in the Ukraine war. International Politics, 60, 1315-1331.
(23) 2023: Japanese and Korean collaborations in K-pop: Iz One, TWICE, and K-pop spaces in Tokyo. East Asian Journal of Popular Culture, forthcoming in 2024.
(22) 2023: Vulnerable women: Negotiations among migrant women in the aftermath of the Ukraine war. Human Arenas.
(21) 2023: The relationship between urban locality, socioeconomic status and school achievement: evidence from an intra-urban model in Stockholm country, Sweden. International Journal of Educational Research Open, 4.
(20) 2023: Is the SES and academic achievement relationship mediated by cognitive ability? Evidence from PISA 2018 using data for 77 countries. Frontiers in Psychology.
(19) 2023: Converging cultures? A comparative analysis of South Korea and Sweden’s national curricula, 1980–2018 Converging cultures? A comparative analysis of South Korea and Sweden’s national curricula, 1980–2018. Discover Education.
(18) 2022: Vietnam’s exceptional educational achievement: a thematic review of the emerging literature. Discover Education.
(17) 2022: Feminist themes in Hallyu 4.0 South Korean TV dramas as a reflection of a changing sociocultural landscape Asian Journal of Women's Studies.
(16) 2022: CAM: an achievement model of celebrity SN Social Sciences.
(15) 2022: Regional differences in educational achievement: a replication study with municipality data. Frontiers in Education.
(14) 2022: The influence of SES, cognitive, and non-cognitive abilities on grades: cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence from two Swedish cohorts. European Journal of Psychology of Education.
(13) 2022: The adaptive proculturation process of being a psychotherapist as a Kazakh asylum seeker in Sweden. Human Arenas.
(12) 2022: Educational achievement among East Asian schoolchildren 1967–2020: A thematic review of the literature International Journal of Educational Research Open, 3 (1).
(11) 2022: PISA Achievement in Sweden From the Perspective of Both Individual Data and Aggregated Cross-Country Data. Frontiers in Education, 6 (1).
(10) 2021: Why has Sweden risen in the IFPI league tables but been surpassed by South Korea? A comparative case study Social Sciences & Humanities Open, 4 (1).
(9) 2021: Money or melancholia? Dropout and retention rates in the K-pop industry. Culture and Empathy, 4 (2), 156-180.
(8) 2021: Regional differences in educational achievement among Swedish Grade 9 students. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 66 (4), 610-625.
(7) 2021: The multifold intertextuality in Lee Chang Dong's Burning Social Sciences & Humanities Open, 3 (1).
(6) 2021: Parallelization: the fourth leg of cultural globalization theory Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 55 (2), 354-370.
(5) 2021: The Applicability of Big Five and the Dark tetrad on Literary Analysis: A Case Study of Yukio Mishima’s Novel Protagonists. East Asian Journal of Popular Culture, 7 (1), 95-113.
(4) 2020: From Oldboy to Burning: Han in South Korean films. Culture & Psychology, 26 (4), 919-932.
(3) 2020: Cultural amnesia or continuity? Expressions of han in K-pop East Asian Journal of Popular Culture, 6 (1), 111-123.
(2) 2019: What Makes Estonia and Singapore so Good? Globalisation, Societies and Education, 18 (2), 181-193.
(1) 2019: Achievement in the South Korean Music Industry. International Journal of Music Business Research, 8 (2), 6-26.
Other academic articles (editorially refereed)
2021: Book review: Religion, Tradition and the Popular: Transcultural Views from Asia and Europe, Judith Schlehe and Evamarie Sandkühler (eds) (2014). East Asian Journal of Popular Culture, 7 (2), 313-318.
2019:
2019: Worth narrowing the educational gap between South Korea and Swden? Orientaliska studier, 158 (October).
2019: ”Utbildning i det samtida Vietnam: förändringar och framgångsfaktorer” (Educational policies in Contemporary Vietnam: Development and Factors of Achievement). Orientaliska studier, 157 (June).
2015: “Koreansk skönhet som en förlängning av den koreanska vågen” (Korean beauty as an extension of the Korean wave), Orientaliska studier, 142. This study has been covered in Swedish press, https://www.sydsvenskan.se/2016-01-10/en-vag-av-skonhet
2015: Review (in Swedish) of John Lie's book K-pop: Popular music, cultural amnesia, and economic innovation, (2014), Orientaliska studier, 141.
2015: “Det nutida Koreas religiösa landskap” (The Religious landscape of contemporary Korea), Orientaliska studier, 141.
2014: “K-popens globala begränsningar” (The Global Limitations of K-pop), Orientaliska studier, 140.
Academic conferences (presenter)
2020: Vienna Music Business Research Days (Vienna was turned into an extensive Zoom meeting), 21 September. I presented a paper on the music industries in South Korea and Sweden.
2019: “Educational Achievement in the Republic of Korea and Sweden: Worth to narrow the gap?”. International conference: 60th Anniversary of Diplomatic Relations between the Kingdom of Sweden and the ROK Department of Asian, Middle Eastern and Turkish Studies at Stockholm University May 23-24, 2019.
