| 1. |
- Blanck, Sara, 1980-
(författare)
-
Elever möter samhällsfrågor : Didaktiska och bildningsteoretiska perspektiv på samhällsorienterande undervisning om epoktypiska samhällsfrågor
- 2023
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Med utgångspunkt i didaktik och bildningsteoretiska perspektiv är syftet med denna avhandling att undersöka och analysera ämnesövergripande undervisning om epoktypiska samhällsfrågor i grundskolan för att utveckla kunskap om undervisningens didaktiska möjligheter och utmaningar.Avhandlingen är en sammanläggning och består av tre ingående texter: en licentiatuppsats om samhällskunskapsämnet i ämnesintegrerad undervisning som genomfördes 2012–2014 samt två artiklar från forskningsprojektet ”Att utveckla undervisning i samhällsfrågor: om didaktiska val i SO-ämnena i grundskolans mellanår 4-6” som genomfördes 2017–2022. I de empiriska undersökningarna användes olika metoder såsom observationer och ljudinspelning av undervisning, intervjuer med lärare, enkät, fokusgruppsintervjuer med elever samt forsknings- och utvecklingscirkel tillsammans med lärare. Vid analysen används didaktiska och bildningsteoretiska perspektiv för att analysera empirin. Resultaten presenteras i form av så kallade curriculumprinciper som kan fungera som utgångspunkter för lärares didaktiska analys, val och handlingar, när det kommer till undervisning om epoktypiska samhällsfrågor. Genom en analys av de didaktiska relationerna visas betydelsen av att lärarens didaktiska val görs utifrån ett relevant och kraftfullt innehåll som också blir meningsfullt för elevers samtid och framtid. Fyra curriculumprinciper föreslås som utgångspunkter för lärare när de planerar och genomför undervisning om epoktypiska samhällsfrågor. De två första principerna handlar om hur ett flerdimensionellt bildningsbegrepp, där kognitiva, etiska och estetiska dimensioner samverkar, kan utgöra en målsättning för undervisningen. Innehållet kan struktureras i ämnessamspel med skolämnenas olika bidrag till förståelsen av dessa komplexa samhällsfrågor. Den tredje och fjärde principen har utgångspunkt i dels elevers begreppsliga utveckling genom autentiska exempel och inferenser dels i hur lärares didaktiska val av exempel blir betydelsefulla för hur innehållet förstås av eleverna.
|
|
| 2. |
- Svensson, Malin, 1976
(författare)
-
Hoppet om en framtidsplats. Asylsökande barn i den svenska skolan
- 2017
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thesis explores how accompanied refugee and asylum-seeking children experience everyday life in Sweden. During the asylum process, as part of a policy for promoting ‘normal life’, these children have the same right to education as permanently resident children. An ethnographic approach brought out data from combining interviews with participant observation and visual material produced by children. Methodological inspiration was sought in the new sociology of childhood and in its potential to make an eclectic analysis of the empirical data. Study I explores how spatial and temporal dimensions theoretically may guide dialogue with refugee children and interpretation of their visual material. The findings point to how children negotiate opportunities for the future where everyday life takes place, and how conditions for education are perceived in relation to their future prospects. Inquiring into the meaning of school, Study II explores the sense of possibility as perceived by asylum-seeking children, and shows how school is a social place that provides structure, a sense of belonging and a learning environment. Paradoxically, schools’ limited attention to the children’s predicament risked accentuating the ambivalent social position of being an asylum seeker and thus weakening the benefits of their right to education. Study III examines the challenges teachers face, as street-level bureaucrats, in catering to the needs of asylumseeking pupils and demonstrates how conflicting goals of education policy and asylum policy conditioned teachers’ work and risked undermining the compensatory pedagogical task. In sum, through analyses that encompass how an unsecured residence permit does not prevent children aspiring to their futures, as envisioned in the present, creating a home can be understood in terms of hope. While the asylum process conditions ideas of the future, the thesis contributes to an understanding of how it also shapes how children and teachers, as social actors, construct what is considered to be ‘normal life’ during the asylum process.
|
|
| 3. |
- Doyle, Andrew, 1992-
(författare)
-
Consolidating concepts of technology education : From rhetoric towards a potential reality
- 2020
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thesis focuses on the relationship between international rhetoric and classroom realities in technology education. For some time there has been widespread recognition that the intended goals for learning in the subject area have failed to manifest in enacted practices as envisioned. As the intermediary between rhetoric and reality, the technology teachers and ways of understanding their enacted practices are the focus of this work. The thesis is based on four research articles which adopt theoretical and empirical approaches to investigating the technology teacher as mediator of enacted practice. In Article I, technology education in the Irish national context is investigated through technology teachers’ reflections on enacted practice. In response to a variety of situational- and systemic- factors which impede classroom practice being identified, Article II and III theorise approaches to investigating enacted practice in technology. In acknowledging the epistemological basis of technology as depicted in the extant literature, a reconceptualisation of how to utilise pedagogical content knowledge research in explaining enacted practice is put forward. Article IV returns to the technology teacher in a transnational context, whereby teachers from the Republic of Ireland, Sweden and New Zealand are interviewed in constructing a grounded theory of teachers’ purposes for teaching technology. The contributions of the research are twofold. Firstly, following the identification of evidence to support the existence of rhetoric-reality tensions in technology education, an ecologically situated framework of enacted practice is put forward. The framework acknowledges how subject matter is treated in technology education in striving for more comprehensive ways of investigating enacted practice. Secondly, in taking a preliminary step toward understanding enacted practices, a grounded theory of teachers’ purposes for teaching technology is put forward. This grounded theory offers a unified model for articulating the purposes of teaching technology that prevail in classroom realities today.
|
|
| 4. |
- Elfström Pettersson, Katarina, 1959-
(författare)
-
Production and Products of Preschool Documentation : Entanglements of children, things, and templates
- 2017
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The objective of the present study is to produce knowledge about how children, things, documents, computers, teachers, templates and other entities take part in and produce documentation in preschool systematic quality development work. The thesis asks questions about how and what is produced as quality in preschool documentation. Through a posthumanist agential realist approach, the study engages empirically in video recordings of preschool documentation practices from one Swedish preschool, and in documentation from four other Swedish preschools.The results, presented in four articles, show that documentation practice is complex and entangled with a variety of entities, human and non-human, and spaces and time. The study shows how children’s participation in production of documentation does not depend on which documentation method is used. In the study, objects such as computers, images and coloured labels, together with teachers’ attitudes and agendas, have an impact on the way that children are involved in producing documentation. The results also show that the products of documentation, intra-acting with a local template, with past and present preschool traditions and policies, produce rather than represent certain elements of quality such as teachers’ actions, children’s interests and thematic work. The thesis produces knowledge about how the focus of preschool documentation shifts away from individual children and towards teachers’ activities, and creates possibilities for what preschool practices and quality may become.
|
|
| 5. |
- Bodén, Linnea, 1981-
(författare)
-
Present absences : Exploring the posthumanist entanglements of school absenteeism
- 2016
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of the study is to explore how school absenteeism as a material-discursive phenomenon is produced in the practices of humans and nonhumans, when absences and presences are registered and managed through digital technologies. How is the phenomenon of school absenteeism produced when absences and presences are digitally registered? How does the phenomenon of school absenteeism emerge when both human and nonhuman entanglements are included in the apparatuses of knowing?Through a posthumanist approach, the study engages empirically with two types of software for the registration of absences and presences at three Swedish schools. The results show that digital registration blurs the division between absences and presences, and queers what is absent and what is present. Digital registration produces school absenteeism as a phenomenon for all students every day, and at the same time as mainly for the students who are present most of the time. A conclusion that is drawn from the study is that digital registration makes absences present, by the visualization and performative repetition of the registration. The study points to how school absenteeism is always ‘in the making’, and proposes the concept of school absenteeing as a productive way to open up new possibilities in relation to students’ absences.
|
|
| 6. |
- Landström, Inger, 1954-
(författare)
-
Mellan samtid och tradition : folkhögskolans identitet i kursutbudets yrkesinriktning
- 2004
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this thesis the vocational orientation of the courses offered - as an expression of the folk high school's self-identity- is analysed. The point of departure was that what the folk high school do, is a way to show what it wants to be and, therefore, reflects what it is. Focus is on how the folk high school meets with contemporary tasks and demands in different areas of society. The research objects are, the folk high school as type of school (a total of 147 schools) and a sample of ten individual schools with different ownership. The study is about what the offered courses reveal about the folk high school's reflections and conclusions as regards its future activities in relation to its history and contemporary society.The theoretical framework of the thesis is built on the sociologist Anthony Giddens 'Theory of Structuration' and the concepts of structure and agency. Reflections about the surrounding world and the contributions the schools' want to make in society is assumed to result in a more or less conscious strategy for the future, the folk high school's course politics as it is expressed in action. The identity has been interpreted in vocational roles as they appear in course contents. The word 'vocation' is used in almost the same sense as Giddens defines 'work'.Self-identity was analysed from three different kinds of texts and with one question for each. In the first perspective focus is on official investigations and political decisions, in the period 1970-2000. What role in society is imposed upon the folk high school in contemporary educational policies? In the second perspective all courses offered at all folk high schools in 1972 and 2000 are studied, in order to present a picture of the overall pattern of vocational orientation. In the third perspective the course politics of the ten selected folk high schools are investigated, from the start of the respective schools, and in relation to what each school thinks it 'is'- with different owners and in its particular geographical situation.One overriding conclusion is that the characteristics that make the identity of the folk high school seem unclear and paradoxical are the very same that constitute the self-identity of the folk high school as being complex and multifaceted. The self-identity seems paradoxical when the vocational orientation presents itself as both preserving traditions and answering to today's needs. In other words, the school 'does what it has always done' (is conservative) and at the same time 'captures new needs and tasks' (is flexible).The folk high school's role and uniqueness in what they actually do can be understood as what I have called 'contemporaneous civic functionaries'. Their profiles emerge when flexibility is based on history. I want to designate 'existential rationality' to the motivating mechanism that seems to at the same time force changes and lean on own experiences. Expressing contemporary self-identity is grounded in the individual tradition as motivationbased values, cultural and geographic conditions.
|
|
| 7. |
- Forssten Seiser, Anette, 1965-
(författare)
-
Stärkt pedagogiskt ledarskap : Rektorer granskar sin egen praktik
- 2017
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of the study is to generate knowledge about principals´ pedagogical leadership practice. Furthermore, the study aims at generate knowledge of what is happening in a joint action research practice when principals explore a pedagogical leadership. In the study the theory of practice architectures interacts with the choice of methodological orientation and is used to analyse the results. The study is embedded in the Nordic action research tradition. Partnership between universities and practitioners is seen as an important arena for professional development. The results are of importance to the principals who daily work to improve their schools. The students' learning and development appear to be an important and almost obvious component of the principal´s pedagogical leadership practice. The principal's pedagogical leadership is defined as an indirect leadership in which the principal focuses on arranging the conditions for the teachers so that they are given the opportunity to improve their teaching. A pedagogical leader is not just talking about changes, he/she also calls for concrete actions in the school's internal work. The principals´ pedagogical leadership can be described as orchestrating the surrounding arrangement in such a way that they enable a learning and collaborative practice at the school. Part of this orchestration is about supporting forms of cooperation so that good norms and a development-promoting culture are established. The study shows how trustworthy relationships in the groups were absolutely necessary for the participants to be able to change their understanding of the pedagogical leadership. The changes in the joint action research practice have been described as three stages: the establishment stage, the testing stage and the critical stage, where the names of the stages characterize what happened in the groups during different periods of time in the change process. A critical and emancipatory approach was developed in the process.
|
|
| 8. |
- Vesterlind, Marie, 1964-
(författare)
-
Knowing at work : A study of professional knowledge in integration work directed to newly arrived immigrants
- 2016
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Currently, new knowledge domains and professions emerge as a consequence of societal changes that transform that conditions for work and work integrated learning. Integration work directed to newly arrived immigrants is one example of such a new professional knowledge domain. In civic orientation, which is the empirical case in this study, quality, standardization and dialogue are explicit strategies that impact the planning, organization and decision-making in everyday work. The interest in this thesis concerns the professional knowledge that is developed in activities aiming to provide heterogeneous groups of immigrants an orientation in the Swedish society. By making activity systems the prime unit ofanalysis and scrutinizing the ways in which integration workers make use of a stipulated course material and interactions in a specific context, the aim is to contribute to the understanding of the pedagogical and communicative knowledge that is developed in practice. The analytical approach takes its point of departure in a socio-cultural perspective on workplace studies. Three separate studies have been carried out in which the empirical data consist of observations,interviews, video recordings, field notes and documents from various integration offices.The results show that different perspectives on knowledge and culture becomes relevant in local discourses on quality in integration work. What distinguishes the integration workers professional knowledge concern seeing and understanding the heterogeneity of immigrants' cultural backgrounds and bridging boundaries.Culture function as an organizing element in work that makes it possible to make distinctions and organize a contextually relevant content that can be elaborated together with the members in the groups. Such work imply transformation of procedures and it is shown that the integration workers develop their knowledge from specific situations to understand the significance of textually mediate dimeanings in other situations. Knowledge is developed as the integration workers move between different situations and activities. It is concluded that the meaning-making involved in bridging between different cultural contexts relies on extensive knowledge in and about the recognition of the other and of interactions based on equal grounds. Negotiating agreements with the members of the groups about how common possibilities and responsibilities can be understood is central for respecting heterogeneity in the process and is at the core of the integration workers professional knowledge. Considering the future development of integration work, cumulative structures are needed that recognize and support the development of the integration workers professional knowledge within as well as between organizations and other related fields of practice and in relation to higher education.
|
|
| 9. |
- Elofsson, Jessica
(författare)
-
Children’s early mathematics learning and development : Number game interventions and number line estimations
- 2017
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Children’s early mathematics learning and development have become a topic of increasing interest over the past decade since early mathematical knowledge and skills have been shown to be a strong predictor of later mathematics performance. Understanding how children develop mathematical knowledge and skills and how they can be supported in their early learning could thus prove to be a vital component in promoting learning of more formal mathematics.In light of the above, with this thesis I sought to contribute to an increased understanding of children’s early mathematics learning and development by examining effects of playing different number games on children’s number knowledge and skills, and by investigating children’s representations of numbers on number line tasks.Two number game intervention studies were performed, and effects of three different number game conditions (linear number, circular number and nonlinear number) were investigated by examining 5- and 6-year-old children’s pre- and posttest performance on different numerical tasks. The findings indicate that playing number games in general support children’s development of number knowledge and skills, where the specific learning outcomes are affected differently depending on the type of number game utilized.To elucidate children’s representations of numbers, their performance on two different umber line tasks have been analyzed using a latent class modeling approach. The results reveal that there is a heterogeneity in 5- and 6-year-old children’s number line estimations and subgroups of children showing different estimation patterns were distinguished. In addition, it is shown that children’s number line estimations can be associated to their number knowledge as well as to task specific aspects.The findings presented in this thesis contribute to the discussion of the value of selecting game activities in a conscious way to support children’s early mathematics learning and development. They also add to the discussion regarding the number line task and how children’s number line estimations can be analyzed and interpreted.
|
|
| 10. |
- Basic, Goran, 1972-
(författare)
-
Samverkan blir kamp : En sociologisk analys av ett projekt i ungdomsvården
- 2012
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this dissertation a collaboration project in Swedish youth care is analysed. The aim of the project was to enhance coordination between the Social Services and the Swedish National Board of Institutional Care in order to make the efforts more efficient. The project also employed a number of coordinators. The overall purpose of this dissertation is to analyse conflicts, alliances and comparisons identifiable in interviews and observations. The analytic findings are put into an overall “collaboration context” represented by earlier research on the social phenomenon of “collaboration”. In this way the dissertation tries to contribute to a sociological understanding of a contemporary widespread phenomenon. The empirical materials of the study consist of recorded conversational interviews with 147 project participants (youngsters, parents and various professional categories) as well as observations of meetings, informal get-togethers and visits to institutions, Social Services offices, the head office of the National Board of Institutional Care and coordinators. The material was analysed using the analytic perspectives of Georg Simmel (1950/1964), Theodore Caplow (1968) and Erving Goffman (1959/2004). The analysis shows that the project manifested and led to struggles between organizations involving representatives from the Social Services, the National Board of Institutional Care and the project, as well as to several interpersonal conflicts between representatives from various categories of involved professionals, and the youngsters and their parents. The study also shows that the client, in such human service organizations, faces a significant risk of being marginalized. Professionals who appreciated the collaboration often drew their conclusions based on their interaction with other professionals, but the collaboration did not guarantee a successful treatment of the client. Conflicts concerning the roles of the coordinators and their written documents (“the agreements”) emerged and were actualized through the creation of the project. The coordinators and their “agreements” can be seen as the project’s most visible representatives and symbols, which during the project become both themes for conflict and actualize already established conflict patterns. The youngsters and their parents appreciated the projects’ coordinators who appeared as personally involved and able to make concrete changes. However, many of youngsters and their parents criticized the coordinators and even portrayed a victim identity in relation to the project. The coordinator’s relationship with the youngsters and their parents was mostly characterized by passivity. This is clearly apparent in the analysis of the administrative and/or passive coordinator. Different alliance constellations became visible in these presentations. When the coordinator roles were altered in the description, the alliance constellations change. It is a common strategy for clients in human service organizations to try to enter into alliances with professionals involved in their cases and, in so doing, try to alter the situation to their own advantage. The fact that these alliances are often sought by the client indicates, among other things, the client’s will to fight against the situation in which he/she finds him/herself. I believe that this can be seen as something productive rather than problematic.
|
|
