| 1. |
- Sjöberg, Lena
(författare)
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Bäst i klassen? : Lärare och elever i svenska och europeiska policytexter
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis takes its departure in the recent criticism directed to the Swedish school system and its schools, teachers and pupils, but especially the epidemic of policies produced in order to develop and improve Swedish schools, in particular after the change of government in 2006. The general aim of this thesis is to study how teachers and pupils are represented, and thus constructed, regulated and positioned in a number of current key policy texts. The study also involves a discussion of the construction and regulation practices regarding the school, and its role in society. The main context for the study is policy texts and policy practices related to teacher education. Four studies form the cornerstone of the thesis. Through these policy texts different institutional practices are analyzed. These range from European union policy to examination data from a local teacher education institution in Sweden. A main source of inspiration to the theoretical framework of the study has been provided by the work of Michel Foucault. However, in addition to Foucault's constructionist and poststructural basis, theoretical and methodological approaches drawn from Norman Fairclough's critical discourse analysis, Mark Olssen's social-materialist analysis of policy and Stephen J Ball's policy sociology are also included. The first study examines the constructions and governing technologies in four policy texts within the European Union working programme 'Education 2010'. The second study takes a historical perspective in the construction of teachers and pupils, based on teacher education policy text since 1948, and how the ideal teacher, pupil and school are constructed and positioned genealogically. The third study explores the discursive notions of teacher professionalism and how the regulation of teachers operates through this and other discursive practices by the Swedish government and the Teacher union (Lärarförbundet) during two different time periods, 1995-2000 and 2007-2008. The final study examines student teachers' examination assignments, as a local policy practice, and how the student teachers position the ideal pupil and themselves as ideal teachers. It examines how different policy discourses operate in relation to positioning practices. The thesis shows that current neoliberal discourse order in educational policy today is partly challenged by neoconservative rationalities. Secondly, the thesis shows how each teacher and pupil is governed through several discourses, governing technologies and governing techniques, and how these three entities function relationally in the governing of the subject. In common for discourses, governing technologies and techniques are that they are often very 'seductively packaged', which implies that it is almost impossible to resist and oppose them. Finally I claim that the current discourse order, and its discourses, and governing technologies and techniques imply structural inequalities for teachers, but especially between different pupil groups
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| 2. |
- Henry, Alastair, 1963-
(författare)
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L3 Motivation
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of this thesis was to study secondary school students' motivation to learn a second foreign language in addition to English. In addition to the empirical investigation of L3 motivation over a program of study and the testing of the widely-held assumption that L2 English impacts negatively on L3 motivation, the aim was also to contribute to the conceptual development of self-based motivation theory by examining the evolution and development of language-speaking/using selves, and by addressing the issue of interference between different self-guides. In Studies I and II the L3 motivational trajectories of two samples of secondary school students (n=532, n=169) were mapped across grades 4 – 6 (Study I) and grades 6 – 9 (Study II), with a particular focus on differences in the trajectories of girls' and boys' ideal language-speaking/using selves. The results of Studies I and II revealed a pattern where initial gender differences, although remaining stable after a year of learning, thereafter follow different developmental paths. While boys' ideal L3 selves declined by the end of grade 9, girls' ideal L3 selves became stronger. Although a similar pattern was found for L2 English selves, the gender gap here was not as marked. In Study III the hypothesis that, as a result of negative cross-referencing between ideal L2 and ideal L3 selves, L2 English would have a negative effect on L3 motivation was tested in a sample of 9th grade students (n= 101). Analysis of the data indicates that students are aware of the ideal L2 English self in L3 learning situations and support was found for the hypothesised negative effect on L3 motivation, with the impact being stronger among boys. In Study IV the hypothesised processes of negative cross-referencing were examined in a series of in-depth interviews with four participants selected using a maximum variation sampling strategy. Analysis of the data revealed that when cross-referencing takes place, some students seem to invoke counteracting resources. In the discussion of the findings it is suggested that, rather than interference, competition may provide a conceptually more coherent descriptor of the processes of cognition that take place in the working self-concept when more than one possible language self is active. The implications of the findings for theoretical development are discussed in relation to both qualitative applications of the L2 Motivational Self System (Dörnyei, 2005), and the proposed ID component in the Dynamic Model of Multilingualism (Herdina & Jessner, 2002). Finally, the educational implications of the findings are discussed and a series of proposals for classroom interventions are put forward
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| 4. |
- Hjalmarsson, Marie, 1961-
(författare)
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Lojalitet och motstånd : anställdas agerande i ett föränderligt hemtjänstarbete
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis aims to shed light on the dynamics and the complexity in the relationship between power and resistance in labour, from an employee-perspective. This is done by describing and analyzing how a group of employees in municipal home help services interpret and make use of their possibilities to act in relation to a process of change, initiated by the management, involving new technology. Hand-held computers were implemented by the management and the home helps were supposed to use them to register their daily work performance. A theoretical framework based on power and resistance in accordance with Michel Foucault and Jon McKenzie, together with Ackroyd & Thompson’s concept of self-organization, is used. The study has an ethnographic approach. The empirical material is based on a combination of participant observation, interviews and document analysis. Two major periods of observations were conducted. The first period focused on understanding the work performance and its routines. During the second period, the use of (or rather attempts to use) the hand-held computers was in focus. The interviews with 11 home helps focused on the meaning and content of their work with regards to work performance, skills and knowledge, possibilities and limitations and their opinions of the ICT project. Five management representatives, a local councillor, a software consultant and a union representative were also interviewed in order to grasp a management perspective. The results show a pattern in the actions of the home helps. It is a rational way of acting where adaptability, responsibility and reliability permeate thoughts and actions. It functions as a premise for how the home helps interpret their possibilities to act at work. They address their loyalty in several directions: to the care recipients, but also to their colleagues, to the management and to the organization as such. This rationality of loyalty is reproduced by the home helps but also by the management. The home helps are to a certain extent aware of the loyalties in their actions and every so often they use them in a conscious way. They reflect on how strong the loyalty should be and towards whom or what it should be directed. The actions of the home helps at work in general and in relation to the ICT project in particular is characterised by loyalty and consent rather than by formal resistance. The home helps don’t show any formal resistance but they do self-organization. They strive towards a relative autonomy and to maintain their dignity. This way of acting is however related to the rationality of loyalty that has a regulating influence on their informal resistance. Despite the limited and informal character of the self-organization of the home helps, it can be considered subversive. It has a possibility of undermining the exercise of power and it creates an alternative professional identity to the one offered by the management
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| 5. |
- Johansson, Eva M., 1956-
(författare)
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Det motsägelsefulla bedömningsuppdraget : En etnografisk studie om bedömning i förskolekontext
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study examines the assessment practices and discourses in Swedish preschool in times of changing principles for state control and steering. These practices and discourses are analyzed in relation to theories about state control, and about cultural and social reproduction in education. The study was conducted with an ethnographic approach in two preschools located in areas that differ in terms of socio-economic status and ethnic diversity. The results show that pre-school teachers express ambivalence towards assessment as an aspect of their work. An increased focus on children's learning and on mastery of specific assessment formats and discourses are on the one hand constructed as signs of being professional – and thus function to increase their professional status. On the other hand, by their association with school, the same features seem to conflict with the values and discourses that constitute preschool teachers' professional identity. In their talk about assessments, the preschool teachers tend to focus on how assessments should be expressed (form) rather than what they are targeting (content). Furthermore, the assessments tend to concern social and behavioral aspects rather than the children's learning. As much as promoting institutional development and children's learning, the assessment practice can thus be seen as a sort of assessment game. Finally, the results suggest that the norms and focus of assessments to some extent both indicate and reinforce the institutional culture of different preschools, thereby exposing children to different socializing messages. This is problematized in regard to the role of education to promote justice and equality.
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| 6. |
- Risenfors, Signild, 1957-
(författare)
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Gymnasieungdomars livstolkande
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis describes and analyses views of life and religion, as a component of „view of life‟,among young people in a Swedish upper secondary school that in the words of the youngpeople themselves is „multicultural‟. The concept „view of life‟ is rooted in a Scandinavian research tradition, and is based on a stipulative definition provided by Jeffner (1973), which includes„view of world and man‟, „values and moral‟ and „attitudes towards life‟. Thedefinition is formulated in a society where secularization is an on-going debate. However, in that secularization is contested, religion has re-emerged in a society increasingly characterized by religious pluralism, but also privatization according to religion. Views of life and religion have become political as well as private issues and, in school, are discussed in relation to the „fundamental values‟ and the subject of „Religious Education‟. In such discussionsthe aim is to help students to form an own view of life, just as long as it is consistent with the normative standards of „fundamental values‟.The focus of this thesis is directed to young people‟s articulations. An ethnographic approach has been adopted and the data consists of field notes, letters and interviews (individually and in groups). The fieldwork has taken place in four graduating classes of a single school year. Using analytical concepts from discourse theory the focus of the analysis is on how the youngpeople articulate the three dimensions of „views of life‟, linguistically and physically through narratives, reflections and staging.The most prominent results of the thesis are that, as well as the positioning of religion, views of life are directed towards the self. Articulations about „being yourself‟ appear as a very open concept that can be filled with different content. In accordance with the notion of staging, the young people demonstrate andtest identity with the quest for „authenticity‟ being central. Through high expectations of the „good life‟, vulnerability is also noticed, especially in the anonymous letters.With regard to values and morals a consensus-perspective appears to a greater extent than specific values. Value questions and moral issues dominate in the public arena while ontological and existential questions dominate in the individual letters and interviews. Here the concept „view of life‟is brought into a field between the private and the public and is especially evident in the subject of Religious Education.Although religion is articulated in terms of tolerance and freedom of choice, these concepts are given connotations of a half-hearted attitude and a consensus perspective rather than interest and curiosity for the faith and religious life of „the Other‟.However, if a religious positioning becomes a political issue, the half-hearted setting is challenged. There is also a difference between those having acquired a religious literacy and those who have not.
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| 7. |
- Thorsen, Cecilia, 1976-
(författare)
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Dimensionality and Predictive validity of school grades : the relative influence of cognitive and social-behavioral aspects
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of the thesis is to investigate the relative influence of cognitive and social-behavioral aspects on compulsory school grades and the importance of the different dimensions for the predictive validity of grades. Data is retrieved from the Gothenburg Educational Longitudinal Database (GOLD) and the Evaluation Through Follow-up (ETF) database. The sample in Study I consisted of three cohorts each of about 100 000 students in Grade 9, in Study II of about 4000 students in Grade 9, and in Study III of about 9000 students who were followed-up through compulsory school. All analyses were conducted using structural equation modelling (SEM). Both criterion-referenced and norm-referenced compulsory school grades were found to be multidimensional, reflecting both subject-specific dimensions and a common-grade dimension, cutting across grades and teachers. The common-grade dimension, which in previous research has been found to be related to social-behavioral aspects, contributed to predict study success in upper secondary school, indicating that social-behavioral aspects partly contribute to explain the predictive power of school grades. The influence of cognitive aspects was substantial. Fluid abilities had a continuous direct influence on the development of knowledge and skills throughout compulsory school, which is in line with the predictions from Cattell's (1987) Investment theory. Substantial indirect effects of fluid abilities on school grades were found, although no direct effects. In sum the results in the present thesis show that both cognitive and social-behavioral aspects contribute to explain the predictive validity of school grades.
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