| 1. |
- Gonsalves, Allison J., et al.
(författare)
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Other spaces for young women's identity work in physics: Resources accessed through university-adjacent informal physics learning contexts in Sweden
- 2022
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Ingår i: Physical Review Physics Education Research. - : American Physical Society. - 2469-9896. ; 18:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- For young women, inbound identity trajectories into physics are generally regarded as exceptional. In this study, we investigated the experiences that young women have which may support their sustained interest and achievement in physics, and their ongoing inbound trajectories into post-secondary physics education. To understand these experiences, we look to the role of informal physics learning (IPL) environments as spaces which can offer resources that support women's trajectories into physics. In this paper, we highlight the important role of what we call "university-adjacent" IPL experiences-internships, summer schools, and associations that connect secondary students with the research lives of physicists. Focusing on case studies of six women enrolled in post-secondary physics programs across Sweden, we identify the various forms of resources made available through IPL environments, and how these create possibilities for young women to engage in forms of identity work that contribute to the construction of new possible selves in physics. Findings suggest that young women can access important relational and ideational resources through university-adjacent IPL programs. Relational resources included (a) supportive social networks, (b) enduring relationships, and (c) relatability. Importantly, our research finds that IPL opportunities that emphasize relationship building can create immersive experiences which go beyond representation and rather emphasize opportunities to develop practice-linked identities. Ideational resources emerged as (a) sources of information which possibilized physics for participants, and (b) types of information that provided possibilities to learn about the life of a physicist. Finally, while we claim that IPL experiences provide important possibilities for young women to immerse themselves in the practices of physics, we also discuss that these kinds of experiences remain inaccessible to most students, and thus reproduce a certain elitism in the field.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Berge, Maria, 1979, et al.
(författare)
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Different stories of group work: Exploring problem solving in engineering education
- 2012
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Ingår i: NorDiNa. - 1504-4556 .- 1894-1257. ; 8:1, s. 3-25
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article aims to further the understanding of group work in higher education, primarily in science. This is done through an empirical investigation of problem solving in small groups. Position theory is used as an analytic tool for describing the complex and dynamic processes of group work, focusing simultaneously on the physics content and the student community and how they constitute each other. We analysed four video-recorded sessions with students from two Master’s programs, Engineering Physics and Bioengineering, respectively. The students addressed two introductory mechanics problems. The analysis resulted in a characterisation in terms of seven ‘storylines’ of two different kinds. These are argued to reflect different aspects of engineering student communities, where one kind of storylines captures ways of approaching the problems and the other kind exemplifies boundary work involved in the constitution of communities.
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| 5. |
- Danielsson, Anna, 1978-, et al.
(författare)
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Studying Power and Knowledge in the Technology Classroom: Towards a Conceptual Framework
- 2014
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Ingår i: BERA Annual Conference 2014.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper reports on an empirical exploration of the constitution of power and knowledge in science and technology (S&T) classrooms. A deepened examination of the teaching of S&T is partly motivated by high status of these subjects in society, how they are portrayed as crucial both for the individual, in order to function in an increasingly technologically advanced society, and for the society at large, while finding it increasingly difficult to attract interest among the youth. The aim of this paper is to develop and illustrate the use of a conceptual framework for exploring how power relations are constituted in the technology classroom – in terms of what Foucault (1982/2002) conceptualises as ‘actions upon actions’ (p. 340) – by the research questions: 1) How are teacher actions communicating how and what knowledge is privileged in the classroom? 2) How is this knowledge privileging establishing power relations, in terms of possibilities for student actions? The conceptual framework makes use of practical epistemological analysis (Wickman & Östman 2002) as an analytical tool for describing teacher actions that involves a privileging of a certain educational content. Furthermore, it also utilises an adaptation of Brousseau’s (1997) concept ‘didactical contract’ that includes a Foucauldian conceptualisation of power. The empirical design relies on a purposive sampling of classrooms, documenting classroom activities using video recordings. This paper will illustrate the use of the conceptual framework, by an analysis of a case of three lessons in one Swedish technology classroom in grade 8. The topic of these lessons concerns solid and stable constructions. The pupils work in smaller groups with construction of bridges, a very common activity when working with this topic in Swedish classrooms. The first stage of the analysis focuses the actions initiated by the teacher, through the identification of epistemological moves (Lidar et al. 2006), such as instructional or confirming moves. In a second stage, the analysis focuses on how these ‘moves’ are functional in constituting a ‘didactical contract’, that is ‘the (specific) set of behaviours of the teacher which are expected of the students and the set of behaviours of the student which are expected by the teacher’ (Brousseau & Warfield 1999, p. 47). In summary, we argue that the investigation of how power and knowledge interrelate in moment-to-moment interactions in the classroom may provide additional clues to how micro-inequalities, adding up to patterns of exclusion in S&T (Rosser 2012), occur in the classroom context.
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| 6. |
- Danielsson, Anna T., Professor, 1978-, et al.
(författare)
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Young Peoples’ Online Science Practices as a Gateway to Higher Education STEM
- 2023
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Ingår i: Research in science education. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0157-244X .- 1573-1898. ; 53:4, s. 759-770
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The purpose of this manuscript is to explore how students perceive that online practices have enabled their participation in university physics programmes. In order to conceptualise how students bridge their science participation across physical and online spaces, we make use of the learning ecology perspective. This perspective is complemented with the notion of science capital, analysing how students have been able to strengthen different aspects of science capital through online participation. Data has been generated through semi-structured interviews guided by a timeline, constructed in collaboration between the interviewer and the interviewee. Twenty-one students enrolled in higher education physics have been interviewed, with a focus on their trajectories into higher education physics. The findings focus on four students who in various ways all have struggled to access science learning resources and found ways to utilise online spaces as a complement to their physical learning ecologies. In the manuscript, we show how online practices have contributed to the students’ learning ecologies, e.g. in terms of building networks and functioning as learning support, and how resources acquired through online science practices have both use and exchange value in the wider science community. Online science participation is thus both curiosity driven and founded in instrumental reasons (using online tutoring to pass school science). Furthermore, we argue that online spaces have the potential to offer opportunities for participation and network building for students who do not have access to science activities and science people in their everyday surroundings.
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| 7. |
- Gonsalves, Allison J., et al.
(författare)
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Masculinities and experimental practices in physics : the view from three case studies
- 2016
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Ingår i: Physical Review Physics Education Research. - : American Physical Society. - 2469-9896. ; 12:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- [This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Gender in Physics.] This article analyzes masculinity and experimental practices within three different physics communities. This work is premised on the understanding that the discipline of physics is not only dominated by men, but also is laden with masculine connotations on a symbolical level, and that this limited and limiting construction of physics has made it difficult for many women to find a place in the discipline. Consequently, we argue that in order to further the understanding of gender dynamics within physics communities and enrich the current understandings about the lack of women in physics, perspectives from masculinity studies are crucial. The article draws on three different ethnographic case studies dealing with undergraduate students, graduate students, and research scientists.
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| 8. |
- Gullberg, Annica, 1962-, et al.
(författare)
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Pre-service teachers' views of the child : Reproducing or challenging gender stereotypes in science in preschool
- 2018
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Ingår i: Research in science education. - : Springer. - 0157-244X .- 1573-1898. ; 48:4, s. 691-715
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We report how 47 pre-service teachers during their preschool placement in Sweden identify events related to gender and emerging science. We analysed their reflections on the situations with Gee’s Discourse analysis. Two dominant discourse models were identified: the Discourse Construare, where pre-service teachers assumed that children have potential interests in a variety of subjects, and the Discourse Essentia, where children were regarded to have a stable core identity. In the latter discourse, the pre-service teachers’ task would be to encourage the children to be who they are. The analysis found a connection between pre-service teachers’ views of the child and whether gender stereotypes were reproduced or counteracted. The Discourse Essentia is in conflict with the goal in the Swedish national curriculum that all children should learn science. We discuss how the different discourses affect whether children are stimulated or inhibited in their emerging science activities and interests. Based on the results from an analysis of answers reflecting the Discourse Construare, we have designed a model illustrating a process for gender-aware teaching.
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| 9. |
- Larsson, Johanna, 1986-
(författare)
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Trainee teacher identities in the discourses of physics teacher education : Going against the flow of university physics
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis investigates what is involved in being recognized as a legitimate physics teacher-to-be in a Swedish physics teacher programme. Drawing on in-depth, qualitative interviews with 17 physics teacher educators and 17 trainee physics teachers, this thesis sees learning to become a physics teacher as a process of performing professional identities. It demonstrates aligning discourses of educators and trainees, and outlines a number of challenges that trainees have to negotiate when learning to become physics teachers.The first part of the project analyzes the discourses of teacher educators. Four discourse models are identified which demonstrate how the talk of physics lecturers portrays the default goal of learning physics as becoming a researcher. Choosing to become a teacher in this system, means diverting from the expected path of a physics student, and moving backwards towards school physics. In such a system, trainee physics teachers are described as less competent and ambitious than other physics students, and can be understood to be incomprehensibly “going against the flow” of university physics by aiming towards school physics.The second part of the project shows how physics courses are experienced by the trainee physics teachers as primarily meeting the needs of other student groups. The educators’ talk about trainee teachers as less competent and ambitious is mirrored by trainees who see no incentive to try hard for good results. The analysis shows a physics study culture that emphasises brilliance and nerdiness, resulting in a passive classroom culture and high stress. Deepened analysis of the identity negotiations of three female interviewees shows how trainee teachers are resourceful in navigating this study culture. Combining positions of feminine woman, trainee teacher, and physics student, these students create practices of relaxed and constructive physics learning that challenge the elitist physics discourse.The education of physics teachers is important for many reasons. There are projected shortages of trained teachers, and physics teachers have the power to affect how physics, a field that is lacking diversity, is perceived by young people. By exploring how becoming a physics teacher is entangled with discourses of competence, femininity, and the status of the physics discipline this thesis takes a novel approach to the education of physics teachers. The findings suggest that physics faculty in their role as teacher educators examine assumptions about physics teacher education and trainee physics teachers, and can be used to empower trainee physics teachers to challenge norms of brilliance and masculinity in physics.
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| 10. |
- Larsson, Johanna, 1986-, et al.
(författare)
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Crafting constructive positions of learning physics : Trainee teachers’ negotiations of femininity in a traditionally masculinized learning space.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Female underrepresentation in physics is a global issue, and it has been suggested thatphysics teachers should be one part of the solution. In this paper, we explore how femaletrainee physics teachers negotiate their positioning as women and trainee teachers to createspaces for themselves as learners of physics. The empirical data consists of interviews with17 trainee physics students, and the analysis focuses predominantly on the identitynegotiations of three of the female students. We find that the women simultaneouslysubmit to and master a “physics nerd” discourse that connects physics with nerdiness,masculinity, and intelligence, which enables them to successfully create subject positionsof physics student, teacher student, femininity, and constructive study practice. This is ofparticular importance to trainee physics teachers who are going to be responsible forcreating inclusive and productive physics learning environments for their students.
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