| 1. |
- Elfström Pettersson, Katarina, 1959-
(författare)
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Production and Products of Preschool Documentation : Entanglements of children, things, and templates
- 2017
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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.
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| 2. |
- Bergh, Andreas, 1964-, et al.
(författare)
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Local enactment of the Swedish ‘advanced teacher reform’
- 2019
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Ingår i: Journal of Curriculum Studies. - : Routledge. - 0022-0272 .- 1366-5839. ; 51:3, s. 326-341
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article focuses on a new form of governing that targets a selected group of teachers. Specifically, it analyses how the Swedish so-called advanced teacher reform is enacted at the local level and discusses its implications for teachers’ professionalism. The methodological approach enables a local analysis in a broader international policy context. Using characteristic elements from curriculum theory to analyse the relationship between different levels and elaborating on the linguistic turn of curriculum theory, three concepts are central in the analysis: enactment, linguistic criteria and professionalism. Empirically, the study draws on material from a two-year application process in a medium-sized municipality. The result demonstrates that the local enactment process is clearly influenced by transnational policy trends and that less allowance is made for teachers’ own experience-based knowledge in the second studied year. The linguistic analysis shows how the applicants using the ‘right concepts’ were selected to become ‘advanced teachers’. As complex and qualitative aspects disappeared from the agenda, this type of governing, with its standardized use of language, may reduce schools’ educational potential. Changes like this raise new questions about how schools can maintain and develop democratic and professional values whilst being exposed to new policy trends.
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| 3. |
- Klaar, Susanne, 1964-
(författare)
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Naturorienterad utbildning i förskolan : pragmatiska undersökningar av meningsskapandets individuella, sociala och kulturella dimensioner
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The overall purpose of this thesis is to investigate, illuminate and clarify meaning making processes and content when children between the ages of 1-3 encounter nature in a preschool practice. Further, the aim is to develop and illustrate action-centred methodological approaches that facilitate investigations of individual, social and cultural dimensions of preschool children’s meaning making of nature. The results are presented in four substudies that all take their starting points in John Dewey’s pragmatic philosophy, with a specific focus on Dewey’s concept of transactions, his theory of action and educative experience as meaning making. In the first substudy, a Practical Epistemology Analysis (PEA) is developed and used to investigate physical meaning making by studying actions and the consequences of these actions. In the second sub-study, a Custom Analysis is developed to facilitate investigations of how the preschool culture contributes to children’s meaning making of nature. An Epistemological Move Analysis (EMA) is used in the third sub-study for investigations relating to teachers’ guiding processes. Here, a Substantive Learning Quality Analysis (SLQA) is also developed and used for investigations of multi-dimensional learning qualities in children’s learning about nature. In the fourth substudy, the analysis methods above are refined to form a tool that can be used by teachers in their reflective work with pedagogical documentation in preschool practice. The results illuminate a multifaceted perspective of meaning making about nature. In this context, meaning making includes cognitive, physical, moral and aesthetical qualities, and nature content includes caring for nature, health and well being in nature and knowledge about natural phenomena and processes. The results contribute to a critical discussion about preschool science education that concerns how preschool practices can highlight nature learning and the multifaceted aspects that are of importance for making meaning of the environment and of life.
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| 4. |
- Löfdahl, Annica, 1960-, et al.
(författare)
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What happened to the glowing activism in the Swedish School Rebellion on Facebook?
- 2023
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This presentation focus on Swedish teacher’s School rebellion on Facebook, a group whose conversations early in the spring of 2021 were filled with enthusiasm and glowing activism. In about 650 post every month, teachers vividly discussed how to improve the Swedish school and the working conditions for teachers. However, in the following year there was a sharp decrease in the number and type of posts in the group. To understand the changes of the group discussions, the aim of this paper is to study what content is given presence in the posts and to analyse to what extent this is deliberated on between the teachers.Our theoretical perspective is inspired from research on deliberative communication, where analyses of arguments, stances and concretizations are made (Englund, 2006). We are particularly interested in how different perspectives in the posts and comments are received and if there is space for tolerance and respect for different viewpoints. We have followed the activities (posts, comments and likes) in the rebellion group from March 2021 and intensively for ten weeks, then occasionally until March 2022. As the posts rapidly decreased, we searched among the about 100 posts made by the administrators, from which we selected ten for further analyses. Repeatedly during the year, the administrators tried to initiate and stimulate discussions, by asking for advice on how the group should act, what focus the members wanted the group to have or by challenging the members to react on or think about specific issues. Thereby, we direct a specific focus at the administrators’ roles to create a conversation climate that support the group’s ambitions.We found that the administrators, besides asking the teachers to present topics of interest, to initiate several different issues to discuss in the group. When we analysed the conversations in the light of the concept of deliberation, we found in some posts no deliberative approach at all, in other posts a pre-deliberative approach and in some posts even a counter-deliberative approach to appear. From these findings, we discuss the administrators’ roles in keeping the spirit and glowing activism alive. The specific Facebook forum for these conversations is discussed in terms of online deliberation and specific limitations and possibilities. When it concerns the question of content, it is naturally so that the content is important for the discussion to be liked and commented on by the teachers in the group. However when the conversation does not have a clear agenda, when discussions are not followed up by the administrators, who started the thread - or even when the admin takes over and hijacks the discussion - the interest becomes less among the members and the glowing activism seems to fade out. The topic is of high relevance to the Nordic educational research as similar online forum show up in all Nordic countries, discussing issues of relevance for schools’ and teachers’ work.
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| 5. |
- Löfdahl, Annica, 1960-, et al.
(författare)
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Preschool's new suit : Care in terms of learning and knowledge
- 2015
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Ingår i: Early years. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0957-5146 .- 1472-4421. ; 35:3, s. 260-272
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article focuses on aspects of the notion of care in relation to the work of quality documentation in the Swedish preschool. Questions deal with how teachers enact pedagogy in relation to the documentation work; how they handle the demands of visibility; and which aspects of the teacher profession are exposed and which are silenced. Data consist of observations from staff meetings at a preschool and interviews with preschool teachers and their managers while discussing the work of documenting quality in the preschool. Our analytical tools are based on theories of teacher professionalism, combined with education policy. Our results show that the preschool staff rarely talk about care and that difficulty in describing and documenting the meaning of care leads them to use various professional strategies whereby they escape the challenges and transform care into children's learning and knowledge.
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| 6. |
- Thelin, Katina, 1971-
(författare)
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Mellan varumärke och gemensamt raster : Skilda sätt att se verksamhetsidéer för pedagogisk verksamhet
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this study is to explore the ways in which verksamhetsidé is seen within the Swedish educational context.In Sweden, the concept verksamhetsidé is used for an idea or a set of ideas related to the practice of an organization, for instance a school or a school district. Although the importance of such shared ideas is often pointed out by practitioners as well as researchers within the field of school development, there is little consensus about their meaning. When it comes to questions about the actual function and character of such an idea, or set of ideas, little guidance is found in the literature. This thesis seeks to contribute to such knowledge.In order to describe variations in the ways such ideas are seen as well as in the ways working with such ideas are seen, a phenomenographic study was carried out. The empirical data consist of deep interviews with 14 school directors of education in one larger city in Sweden; each responsible for several schools and preschools in one district. As directors they were all involved in the process of developing a verksamhetsidé, to guide all educational activities in the area.Results suggest that verksamhetsidé can be seen as a trademark, as putty, as a compass, as a map, or as a shared perspective. Each of these conceptions is used as a label for a category of description, and together they constitute one of the study’s outcome spaces. When it comes to working with such ideas, another variation is found. This variation is described through the concepts of top-down implementation and bottom-up sensemaking. Moreover, the data suggest no correlation between a certain way of seeing a verksamhetsidé and a certain way of seeing how to work with it.
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| 10. |
- Enochsson, Ann-Britt, et al.
(författare)
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Incongruence in Ethical and Methodological Issues in Research Concerning Children's Perspective
- 2003
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Abstract Experiences from two doctoral dissertations where childrens perspective has been focused have shown that ethical as well as methodological issues have to be highlighted. Interview studies and ethnographical studies often take up the perspective of the researcher or other adults to obtain as valid results as possible. The authors would like to extend the problem to include also what it means to the children in preschool and school to participate in a scientific study, and put focus on ethical aspects which can arise when chil-dren and researchers meet.
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