| 1. |
- Lönngren, Johanna, 1985, et al.
(författare)
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"I don't want to be influenced by emotions" - Engineering students' emotional positioning in discussions about wicked sustainability problems
- 2020
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Ingår i: Proceedings - Frontiers in Education Conference, FIE. - : IEEE. - 1539-4565. - 9781728189611
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This Work-in-Progress research paper describes the results from a pilot study that aims to explore the role of emotions in engineering students' discussions about a wicked sustainability problem, i.e. a problem that is characterized by a high degree of uncertainty and ambiguity and for which it is not possible to develop a perfect solution. There is strong evidence from educational research that emotions are important for learning at all levels of education and particularly in education related to sustainability and wicked problems. At the same time, dominant discourses and stereotypes in engineering and engineering education construct engineering as purely rational and unemotional. In this study, we explore how engineering students re-construct-but also challenge-this dominant discourse in interviews about a wicked problem. We use discourse analytic tools from positioning theory to analyze how the students construct and negotiate emotional subject positions for themselves and others. The results provide illustrative examples of how emotional positioning can strengthen and/or challenge the dominant discourse: examples from the dominant discourse illustrate how students position emotions as irrelevant or even detrimental for engineering work, while examples from the counter-discourse illustrate how students sometimes construct emotions as part of what it means to be an engineer and as important for engineering work.
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| 2. |
- Ottemo, Andreas, 1979, et al.
(författare)
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Contextualizing technology: Between gender pluralization and class reproduction
- 2020
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Ingår i: Science Education. - : Wiley. - 0036-8326 .- 1098-237X. ; 104:4, s. 693-713
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A diverse body of feminist scholarship has addressed the masculine orientation of Western engineering education for at least four decades. Among critiques specifically targeting curriculum, a recurrent line of argumentation highlights its reductionist framing and narrow focus on mathematics and technology. The argument is that these traits represent a masculine orientation and that women would gain from a curriculum more oriented towards the context and applicability of technical knowledge. Simultaneously, researchers working in a Bernsteinian, social realist, educational tradition have suggested that, from a social-class perspective, it is important to provide all students with access to theoretical, abstract and context-independent knowledge. This article explores the resultant, theoretical tension between these two positions. Our empirical starting point is a recently completed ethnographic study of a male-dominated bachelor's degree engineering program in Sweden. This program's curriculum repeatedly emphasizes the value of experiential and contextually rooted knowledge over contextless and mathematically modeled knowledge. Borrowing Bernstein's terminology, we argue that such emphasis represents a privileging of horizontal discourse over vertical and that, as such, said curriculum potentially deprives the male, working-class students of access to powerful knowledge. We further highlight how the program represents a poor target for the line of feminist critique identified above, despite being strongly male dominated. We thereby shed light on challenges related to formulating (intersectional) critiques of the engineering curriculum simultaneously attentive to both class and gender. Conclusively, we argue that efforts directed at making the engineering curriculum more inclusive can learn from both feminist and social realist lines of argumentation.
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| 3. |
- Ingerman, Åke, 1973, et al.
(författare)
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Learning science in groups – a multianalytical perspective on constituting and participating in spaces of learning
- 2011
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Ingår i: The 14th Biennial Conference EARLI, Exeter, UK, 30 August - 3 September 2011.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- What can be learned by whom in groups discussing physics? This paper offers results based on empirical material from audio and video recorded small groups of three to four university students discussing and solving physics problems in Newtonian mechanics. In addressing the question, we have foregrounded aspects in relation to the knowledge content. However, in order to more fully understand the situation, we have applied two distinct analytical frameworks – phenomenography and position theory – which are primarily focused on how the learning possibilities are constituted in the group discussion and the discursive and social aspects of the group work, respectively. Bringing the results of these two analyses together reveal some interesting connections, like that the character of the storylines links to certain characters of learning possibilities. We will also discuss the basis for and implications of addressing the same learning events with parallel theoretical perspectives, phenomenography and variation theory on the one hand and situated learning and position theory on the other hand, in relation to a pragmatic aim of improving university science teaching and learning and in relation to a research-framed aim of understanding learning processes in science education.
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Berge, Maria, 1979, et al.
(författare)
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Different stories of group work: Exploring problem solving in engineering education
- 2012
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Ingår i: NorDiNa. - 1504-4556 .- 1894-1257. ; 8:1, s. 3-25
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article aims to further the understanding of group work in higher education, primarily in science. This is done through an empirical investigation of problem solving in small groups. Position theory is used as an analytic tool for describing the complex and dynamic processes of group work, focusing simultaneously on the physics content and the student community and how they constitute each other. We analysed four video-recorded sessions with students from two Master’s programs, Engineering Physics and Bioengineering, respectively. The students addressed two introductory mechanics problems. The analysis resulted in a characterisation in terms of seven ‘storylines’ of two different kinds. These are argued to reflect different aspects of engineering student communities, where one kind of storylines captures ways of approaching the problems and the other kind exemplifies boundary work involved in the constitution of communities.
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| 6. |
- Berge, Maria, et al.
(författare)
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Multiple theoretical lenses as an analytical strategy in researching group discussions
- 2017
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Ingår i: Research in Science and Technological Education. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0263-5143 .- 1470-1138. ; 35:1, s. 42-57
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: In science education today, there is an emerging focus on what is happening in situ, making use of an array of analytical traditions. Common practice is to use one specific analytical framing within a research project, but there are projects that make use of multiple analytical framings to further the understanding of the same data, either in parallel or in sequence. Purpose: This methodological paper offers a description of using multiple theoretical lenses to address the question ‘What can be learned in groups discussing physics?’ This paper aims to consider and discuss drawbacks and benefits of this design. Sources of evidence: In our earlier research project, different theories were purposefully applied in a series of stratified analyses on video data of university students solving physics problems. Level one used phenomenography and variation theory, level two used positioning theory, and level three used techniques from conversation analysis. Main argument: Each lens contributed new information about group work in physics. Partly due to the openness of our initial question and the character of our video data, every lens brought new relevant information to the picture of group work in physics. While the theoretical lenses did not reference the same data, they operated with data from the same social setting. We point out that although our analytical frameworks are not commensurable, our different results are: together they offer a better understanding for group work in physics. Conclusions: The main benefit was that every level of analysis provided new understandings to create a bigger picture about group work in physics. The order of the analyses was also crucial, since each analysis informed the framing of the next analysis. The biggest drawback was the amount of time and quality of work needed to conduct the analyses.
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| 7. |
- Berge, Maria, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Triple vision in different theoretical spaces : exploring physics jokes in small group discussions in engineering education
- 2013
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Ingår i: Presented at the EARLI2013 conference in the symposium "Approaches to the Strategic Use of Multiple Theories to Research Teaching and Learning", Munich, August 2013.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- We have used multiple theoretical spaces as analytical strategy when researching learning possibilities when engineering students discuss physics together. Three different theories were purposefully applied in a series of stratified analyses. Level one employing phenomenography and variation theory, level two using positioning theory and level three making use of the techniques of conversation analysis. Having done this, we wanted to explore to what extent a phenomena in one theoretical space is visible in other theoretical spaces (but not naturally focused on) and what it in that case looks like. The students’ jokes are examples of such which were also important part of the students’ conversation. Our analysis illustrates how one joke is observable through all three analytical lenses. The three analytical lenses are linked to three different theoretical spaces, even when it is linked to the same original event. The lenses have become advantageous in different ways: the lens of conversational analyses assistances to discern the joke, the lens of position theory provides clues about the cultural context and the lens of phenomenography and variation theory informs us the learning possibilities that are related to the jokes. In this paper we propose and illustrate that these three theoretical perspectives are complementary rather than commensurable, because they are not referring to the same data, even though the data they reference is derived from the same event.
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- Danielsson, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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Power and Knowledge in the Technology Classroom: The Development and Illustration of a Conceptual Framework
- 2014
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Ingår i: Presentation at ECER 2014, "The Past, the Present and Future of Educational Research in Europe", Porto, September 2-5.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper explores the constitution of power and knowledge in science and technology classrooms. A deepened examination of the teaching of science and technology is partly motivated by these subjects high status in society, how they portrayed as crucial both for the individual, in order to function in an increasingly technologically advanced society, and for the society at large, while finding it increasingly difficult to attract interest among the youth .
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| 10. |
- Danielsson, Anna, 1978-, et al.
(författare)
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Studying Power and Knowledge in the Technology Classroom: Towards a Conceptual Framework
- 2014
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Ingår i: BERA Annual Conference 2014.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper reports on an empirical exploration of the constitution of power and knowledge in science and technology (S&T) classrooms. A deepened examination of the teaching of S&T is partly motivated by high status of these subjects in society, how they are portrayed as crucial both for the individual, in order to function in an increasingly technologically advanced society, and for the society at large, while finding it increasingly difficult to attract interest among the youth. The aim of this paper is to develop and illustrate the use of a conceptual framework for exploring how power relations are constituted in the technology classroom – in terms of what Foucault (1982/2002) conceptualises as ‘actions upon actions’ (p. 340) – by the research questions: 1) How are teacher actions communicating how and what knowledge is privileged in the classroom? 2) How is this knowledge privileging establishing power relations, in terms of possibilities for student actions? The conceptual framework makes use of practical epistemological analysis (Wickman & Östman 2002) as an analytical tool for describing teacher actions that involves a privileging of a certain educational content. Furthermore, it also utilises an adaptation of Brousseau’s (1997) concept ‘didactical contract’ that includes a Foucauldian conceptualisation of power. The empirical design relies on a purposive sampling of classrooms, documenting classroom activities using video recordings. This paper will illustrate the use of the conceptual framework, by an analysis of a case of three lessons in one Swedish technology classroom in grade 8. The topic of these lessons concerns solid and stable constructions. The pupils work in smaller groups with construction of bridges, a very common activity when working with this topic in Swedish classrooms. The first stage of the analysis focuses the actions initiated by the teacher, through the identification of epistemological moves (Lidar et al. 2006), such as instructional or confirming moves. In a second stage, the analysis focuses on how these ‘moves’ are functional in constituting a ‘didactical contract’, that is ‘the (specific) set of behaviours of the teacher which are expected of the students and the set of behaviours of the student which are expected by the teacher’ (Brousseau & Warfield 1999, p. 47). In summary, we argue that the investigation of how power and knowledge interrelate in moment-to-moment interactions in the classroom may provide additional clues to how micro-inequalities, adding up to patterns of exclusion in S&T (Rosser 2012), occur in the classroom context.
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