| 1. |
- Hjelmér, Carina, 1956-
(författare)
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Leva och lära demokrati? : En etnografisk studie i två gymnasieprogram
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this study is to acquire knowledge regarding democratic education in upper secondary school programmes with different gender and social class profiles. It covers the teaching in and about democracy, pupils’ power-positions and their attempts to affect routine school activities. A particular focus of attention was processes of influence, through which the pupils themselves pursue issues in school. The analysis is based on theories and previous research focused on gender and class perspectives of fostering democracy. Basil Bernstein’s theories regarding power, control and pedagogic codes, in combination with feminist theories (principally those of Arnot, Reay, Skeggs, Gordon and Walkerdine), form the basis of the theoretical framework. Ethnographic methods have been applied, including participatory observations, conversations, interviews, and analysis of relevant documents over one academic year. Two Swedish upper secondary school classes were followed: one from the vocational Child and Recreation Programme and one from the academic Natural Science Programme. Teaching students about democracy and invitations for them to exert influence appeared generally to be unplanned and were marginalised in school. The few invitations that occurred had an individual stamp and focused on pupils’ choices, responsibilities and duties, rather than on their rights in school. Democracy was presented in the form of facts about formal democracy and formal participation in democracy in the future, while a more critical attitude and possible influence strategies for youths were marginalised. Pupils in both classes wished and attempted to influence teaching, primarily through informal means. There were, however, significant differences between the classes in what they were able to influence. Analysis of pupils’ voices in relation to the pedagogic context revealed that the power relationships in these influence processes depend partly on the focal academic subject. More importantly, they also differ between the upper secondary school programs, which differ in strength of classification (sensu Bernstein), demands, pace and difficulty levels. These differences are related, in turn, to whether the programmes are intended to prepare the pupils for higher education and/or a vocation after school. Generally, the Child and Recreation pupils exerted influence more successfully when they wished to reduce the pace and difficulty of lessons than when they wished to get more out of their education, while the opposite applied to the Natural Science class. Who had influence over what was principally related to the programmes’ gender and class profiles and the pupils’ expected positions in society.
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| 2. |
- Andersson, Birgit, 1953-
(författare)
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Nya fritidspedagoger - i spänningsfältet mellan tradition och nya styrformer
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this study is to increase the knowledge and understanding of how leisure-time pedagogues´ professional identity is changed as a consequence of altered governance and resulting new tasks. More specifically the study is oriented towards understanding how external demands for quality accounts, assessments and documentation in leisure-time centers and schools, affect leisure-time pedagogues´ practice of their profession and professional identity, and how the leisure-time pedagogues relate to these demands. The empirical data are generated through interviews with 23 leisure-time pedagogues, 8 school leaders, document analyses, and a survey among 105 leisure-time pedagogues. The analysis draws on profession theories perspective and concepts like knowledge base, jurisdiction and discretion to understand what is central in the leisure-time pedagogues’ profession and in what direction the profession is developing: de-professionalization, professionalization or re-configuration. Bourdieu´s sociological theories with concepts of field, capital and habitus are also used for understanding of the leisure-time pedagogues´ positions, actions, and explicit relations to other professional groups. The results indicate dilemmas that the leisure-time pedagogues face related to far-going decentralisation, introduction of new public management, reduced resources, and closer links between leisure-time centres and schools. Working with traditional methods creates problems and it becomes hard to balance the work between leisure-time centre and school. The thesis shows that leisure-time pedagogues constantly conduct independent individual assessments that are mainly hidden. This has not been pointed out before but is linked to the leisure-time pedagogues´ professional identity. Assessment as an accounting task has on the other hand been added in connection with the transfer to the educational sector and altered forms of governance. Leisure-time pedagogues are both ambivalent and critical to these demands for transparency and accountability. Even though the leisure-time pedagogues are subjected to increased control and expected to work more with assessments in different forms, and are forced to reduce their professional work in leisure-time centres, we cannot entirely talk about de-professionalization. Also features of professionalization and signs of reconfiguration of the profession are visible. The thesis illustrates that the profession of leisure-time pedagogue is being reshaped and that the leisure-time pedagogues’ professional identity can be understood in different ways. The thesis also illustrates how a core of traditional knowledge base stands out as central for most of the professionals in the various professional identities that are found. The differences that are found are related to the local governance of schools’ organisation; to what extent the leisure-time pedagogues’ work is placed in the compulsory school day; and how strong the leisure-time pedagogues’ collective base is in the school unit.
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| 3. |
- Edström, Charlotta, 1974-
(författare)
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Samma, lika, alla är unika : En analys av jämställdhet i förskolepolitik och praktik
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this thesis is to describe, critically analyse and provide information about gender equality in Swedish preschools, in relation to policy and practice. The main focus is on pedagogues’ gender equality work with children. The study includes a comparison between state gender equality policy in Scottish and Swedish preschools. The theoretical starting point for the analysis is a policy and gender perspective. Based on Bacchis’ (1999) and Marshalls’ (1997) work suggesting that gender equality policy issues and problems are socially constructed, a contrasting analytical framework is devised and used in the analysis. The main emphasis in the analysis of gender equality constructions is on underlying assumptions, competing constructions and “areas of silence”, relating to what is missing from a gender perspective. There is also some consideration of the agreement between constructions and concrete measures. The time-period studied was from the end of the 1960s onwards; emphasis was placed on the last fifteen years. The main empirical data consists of: Swedish and Scottish state official policy documents and interviews with Scottish researchers; Swedish local authority official documents and interviews with local authority officials from four municipalities; and interviews with pedagogues from three work-teams in three preschools. This information is complemented with documentation about the preschools’ gender equality work. In state preschool policy, pedagogues are depicted both as part of the solution to the gender equality problem but also part of the problem because there are “too few men”. Local authorities consider that pedagogues need more knowledge about gender equality. The pedagogues themselves make a distinction between the past, when their treatment of children was founded on gender-based stereotypes, and the present, in which they are aware but need to keep up the work. In both Swedish preschool policy and practice, gender equality has mainly focused on treating girls and boys similarly, based on assumptions that this is desirable; and this is still the approach. This similarity discourse has been quite constant in Swedish state policy since the 1960s. One exception, however, was the attention to biological differences which gained influence in the mid 1990s in policies mainly relating to compulsory schooling. Gender equality is, with respect to both policy and practice, largely constructed as a pedagogical preschool issue. Discussions about wider society mainly concern the public sphere and the labour market, whilst the private sphere is seldom considered. Children are mainly positioned as “girls” or “boys” and as recipients of pedagogues’ gender equality measures. In general, little consideration is given to hierarchies and variations among groups of girls or boys, or about intersections between gender and other socially constructed categories. Intersections were most clearly visible in practice, especially in one preschool studied; they concern gender equality, age and space. Issues concerning power and gender order are usually missing, and there seems to be a clear influence of gender role theories. Even though there is clear current emphasis on increased similarities, there is a tension concerning whether gender equality is about treating everybody exactly the same, treating everybody in quite similar ways or treating children as unique individuals. This also involves a tension relating to whether gender equality concerns girls and boys as individuals, or as groups, or both. The study demonstrated that the emphasis on gender equality is stronger in the constructions than in concrete measures. In practice, work-teams’ discussions about gender equality were more nuanced than the somewhat compensatory methods that these practitioners applied during their work with the children.
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| 4. |
- Adolfsson, Carl-Henrik, 1976-
(författare)
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Kunskapsfrågan : En läroplansteoretisk studie av den svenska gymnasieskolans reformer mellan 1960-talet och 2010-talet
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In a society where the labour market is becoming increasingly knowledge intensive and more differentiated, education has assumed greater importance for the capitalist states integrative functions as for the competitiveness in the global economy. As a consequence, the educational system has become a key governing resource for the state to meet and manage different kinds of social changes and problems. Against this background the thesis raises the main question - “what kind of societal problems are the educational reforms studied here considered to be the solution of?” The aim of this thesis is to deepen the understanding of the changes of the formation of knowledge in Swedish upper secondary curriculum between the 1960s and 2010s. In what way attained these changes in view of knowledge legitimacy in relation to the socioeconomic context? And what do these changes mean in terms of the attribution of the positioning of upper secondary school pupils and teachers? This thesis draws on a “classical” theoretical framework of curriculum theory (i.e. the frame-factor theory) this means that the analytical focus is directed at the relationship between the content of the curriculum and the social context. With theoretical and methodological inspiration from critical realism and critical discourse analysis (CDA) the thesis argue for an alternative way to theoretical and empirical examined this relationship. Three historical reform periods are used to explore the discursive changes in the formation of knowledge in the Swedish upper secondary education reforms. The results show how changes in socioeconomic conditions, such as economic crisis, over time have acted as important triggers for governing mechanisms embedded in the control of the educational system. These changes and mechanisms, in turn, have resulted in some major discursive knowledge shifts between the reforms studied, from the 1960s combination of an economic-rational and an objective-subject knowledge discourse, through the deregulated goal-rational and socio-cultural oriented knowledge discourse of the 1990s towards the 2010s knowledge discourses that are characterized by an increased focus on learning outcomes and measurability. Against the background of these discursive shifts, the analysis also points to some underlying continuities in terms of a general “reform imperative”, based on a number of overarching values such as efficiency and rationality. The result show how this imperative was embedded in all three educational reforms and has ruled the order of discourses about what was deemed to be legitimate curriculum knowledge, a professional teacher and a desirable pupil.
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