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- Dahlén, Ewa
(författare)
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Rektorn och den dubbla styrningen : en studie om gymnasierektors uppdrag i styrkedjan
- 2023
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In a global education policy context, school leadership has grown in importance in relation to improving school outcomes as well as equity in education. At the same time, during the last decades, the Swedish school system has undergone several large-scale national education reforms. Reforms that have changed the relations between the different levels in the decentralised Swedish school system and at the same time created debates about the purpose and goals of the school system. These debates are based in different perspectives and shaped by various school discourses. The result discourse connected to the perspective of marketization and the democratic discourse connected to the perspective of social inclusion and equality. These are two central discourses who proclaim different views on how challenges within the school system should best be solved. The purpose of this study is to contribute to knowledge about the mission and responsibilities of principals in upper secondary schools in the Swedish school system. The study takes its point of departure in observations of follow-up meetings between principals within upper secondary schools and the local education authority (LEA). This study has three theoretical contributions. The first contribution concerns knowledge of the principal’s mission, assignment, and work tasks. The second contribution is knowledge of how the result discourse and the democratic discourse are used in conversations about the principal’s mission, assignment, and work tasks. The third contribution is knowledge of the interaction between the principal and the LEA, different levels in the decentralised Swedish school system, in the context of follow-up meetings. The results show that LEAs describe the principal’s mission in three parts – economy, administration, and pedagogy. The two discourses are used in all three of the missions where they sometimes collide, creating a discursive conflict and sometimes co-exist without conflict. The results also show that the LEA and principals often have a common view of the purpose and goal of the school system, but there is seldom a common strategy for how these goals are to be achieved. This study contributes to an understanding how LEAs and political governance shape the role of the principals, but more studies are needed.
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| 2. |
- Oskarsson, Björn
(författare)
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Towards Pedagogical Content Knowledge in Logistics
- 2014
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Logistics is regarded as an area of high importance in business, contributing to profitability and competitiveness. Logistics is crucial also from a societal perspective, since logistical activities count for a big proportion of a country’s GNP, and since effective logistics systems can help reducing some of the environmental problems we face today. Higher education has an important role to play in order to provide business and society with well-educated logistics personnel. Since not much research is published within higher education in logistics, the purpose of this thesis was defined as:To contribute to the knowledge on teaching and learning logistics in higher education.More specifically, two research questions were set up:RQ1: What knowledge and skills are important for students to learn during highereducation in logistics? RQ2: How can students’ learning of these skills and knowledge be facilitated?A comprehensive literature review serves as a basis for the study. The literature on logistics education gives limited guidance concerning what is to be learned during higher education in logistics, as well as how to facilitate learning within logistics. These findings indicate that the logistics teaching faculty do not base their course designs and teaching practices on solid knowledge on what and how to teach.Although a major finding of my work is that more research is needed, some more concrete propositions can be made. In order to reach some kind of answers to the research questions, a selection of pedagogical theories was applied on logistics education with help from illustrating examples, partly found in literature, and partly from specific studies performed as part of this thesis.Concerning the first research question, I propose a tentative model, illustrating how different logistics knowledge and skills can be positioned against each other. A division is made between subject-specific and generic knowledge and skills, and two core generic skills within logistics are proposed: Total cost analysis and Structured investigation method.From pedagogical literature, the concept of thresholds was introduced. A threshold refers to something that is troublesome for students to overcome, but once passed leads to a new way of understanding. The identification of the thresholds associated with acquiring important knowledge and skills, is therefore important for teachers. Some thresholds concerning logistics education are discussed in the thesis. For the two core generic skills proposed above, it is suggested that ‘case-specific adaptation of total cost models’ is a threshold for total cost analysis, and ‘investigation planning’ is suggested as a threshold for structured investigation method.The question of how something can be learned is dependent on what is to be learned. Since there is a lack of clear answers concerning the what, the second research question (focusing the how) is difficult to answer in a concrete manner. On a general level, some findings were found though.Logistics is a discipline where education has strong emphasis on usefulness for the workinglife. Problem- and practice-based instructional methods are therefore recommended to create learning situations, where learning is extended from theoretical models as such, to their application in realistic settings. Reflection upon the appropriateness of the models then becomes essential. The use of educational games, simulation, and field-based projects are examples of such methods.In pedagogical literature, the term pedagogical content knowledge addresses the need for teachers to know the subject-matter (the content) in a way that makes it possible for him/her to make it understandable for the students. This kind of knowledge is built up from a number of knowledge components. One of those concerns knowledge about what is troublesome for students, which bridges over to the previously described threshold concepts. Another component is knowledge of students’ pre-understanding. An example of a method for capturing such pre-understanding is given in the thesis. Given that a teacher knows the subject-matter, the students pre-understanding, and some other contextual factors, a good knowledge on how to instruct and assess the students is crucial. The instructional methods are to a big extent case-specific, but as indicated above, problem- and practice-based methods are often to recommend within logistics education.Based on the findings and discussions in this study, a number of suggestions for future research are proposed. Among those is the need to identify the thresholds connected to learning core logistical knowledge, and to investigate appropriate instructional methods for helping students to overcome these thresholds.
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