| 1. |
- Göransson, Kerstin, et al.
(författare)
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Voices of special educators in Sweden : a total-population study
- 2015
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Ingår i: Educational research (Windsor. Print). - London : Routledge. - 0013-1881 .- 1469-5847. ; 57:3, s. 287-304
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: There are two occupational groups in Sweden that are expected to have significant impact on educational work related to children in need of special support. These two groups are special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs) and special education teachers. In this paper, we use the collective name special educators' to refer to both groups. Special educators are expected to have specific knowledge regarding the identification of, and work with, school difficulties. However, there is noticeably little research concerning these occupational groups. This study was undertaken in order to further our knowledge about special educators' work.Purpose: The overall purpose of the present paper is to provide a first overview of special educators' work. The paper investigates these special educators' perceptions of their occupational role, of their preparedness for the role and of how their role is practised. The paper also illuminates questions about SENCOs' and special education teachers' knowledge and values as well as the grounds for the occupational groups to claim special expertise related to the identification of, and work with, school difficulties.Design and method: A questionnaire was sent out in 2012 to all SENCOs and special education teachers in Sweden who received their degree from 2001 onwards and in accordance with the Swedish examination acts of 2001, 2007 and 2008 (N=4252, 75% response rate).Results: According to the results, special educators state that they are well prepared to work with some tasks, such as counselling, leading development work and teaching children/pupils individually or in groups. Concurrently, there are tasks that the groups are educated for (e.g. school-development work), which they seldom practise in their daily work.Conclusions: Primarily using reasoning concerning jurisdictional control, we discuss SENCOs' and special education teachers' authority to claim special expertise in relation to certain kinds of work, clients and knowledge and thus, their chances of gaining full jurisdictional control in the field of special education.
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| 2. |
- Hirsh, Åsa, et al.
(författare)
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Reviews of teaching methods : which fundamental issues are identified?
- 2022
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Ingår i: Education Inquiry. - : Taylor & Francis Group. - 2000-4508. ; 13:1, s. 1-20
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The purpose of this study is to discern and discuss issues with relevance to the tension between contextuality and generalisation, which recurrently are identified over time in research reviews of teaching methods. The 75 most cited reviews on teaching methods listed in the Web of Science from 1980 to 2017 were analysed. Since our interest is the claims made in each article about the teaching method under study, the analysis concerned the abstract, results, discussion, conclusion, and implication parts of each review. Three main issues, cutting across the reviews over time, were identified: 1) the abundance of moderating factors, 2) the need for highly qualified teachers, and 3) the research-practice gap. It is argued that the three issues reflect tensions in original research. The implications of these findings are discussed in the article. One main conclusion is that such issues ought to be more explicitly attended to and elaborated in both primary and secondary level research. The importance of viewing validity as a multidimensional concept, including internal, external, and ecological aspects, is underlined. Further, ideas from realistic reviewing are used to discuss a contextually bound approach to causality.
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| 3. |
- Göransson, Kerstin, et al.
(författare)
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Speciella yrken? Specialpedagogers och speciallärares arbete och utbildning : En enkätstudie
- 2015
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Forskningsprojektet ”Speciella yrken? Ett projekt om speciallärares och specialpedagogers arbete och utbildning” är finansierat av Vetenskapsrådet. I den här rapporten redovisas resultat från delprojekt 1. Syftet med rapporten är att ge en övergripande och representativ bild av specialpedagogers och speciallärares yrkesroll. Det empiriska materialet utgörs av data från en enkätundersökning som omfattar alla som tagit specialpedagog- eller speciallärarexamen från och med 2001 års examensordning (4252 personer, svarsfrekvens 75%). I rapporten redovisas vilka kunskaper och värderingar yrkesgrupperna bedömer att deras utbildning har resulterat i, vilka arbetsuppgifter de menar kännetecknar deras praktiserande av yrkesrollen, och även vilka förutsättningar yrkesgrupperna har att hävda en specifik expertis vad gäller att identifiera och arbeta med skolproblem. Rapporten riktar sig i främsta hand till praktiskt verksamma inom skolverksamheten på olika nivåer, lärarutbildare och blivande specialpedagoger och speciallärare.
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| 4. |
- Klang, Nina, 1978-, et al.
(författare)
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Enacting the role of special needs educator : six Swedish case studies
- 2017
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Ingår i: European Journal of Special Needs Education. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0885-6257 .- 1469-591X. ; 32:3, s. 391-405
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- With the increasing focus on inclusion, special needs educators (SNEs) are now expected to share responsibility for pupils with teacher colleagues and to lead school development, but it is a challenge to enact this role in schools. The aim of the study was to explore how professional roles of Swedish SNEs are enacted in local school contexts. From a survey of SNEs in 10 Swedish municipalities, six participants whose work tasks were expected to correspond to the degree ordinances for their university training were chosen. The participants were followed at work, and data were collected through observation of the participants at work, participants’ diaries and interviews with the participants, their teacher colleagues and their school principals. The analysis involved both quantitative and qualitative methods. First, based on the researchers’ observations of the participants at work, categories of SNEs’ tasks were discerned, and the amount of time devoted to those categories of tasks was summarised. Second, case study narratives of the SNEs’ work were constructed to describe how the participants, their teacher colleagues and their school principals view the SNE role and to describe how the work is enacted in various school contexts. The results revealed seven categories of work tasks practised to varying degrees by the six SNEs. The case study narratives exposed large variation in how the SNEs conceptualised their role and how it evolved in relation to local school contexts. The results of the study are discussed with regard to the role of the SNE in relation to policies of inclusion.
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| 5. |
- Cameron, David Lansing, et al.
(författare)
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A comparative study of special educator preparation in Norway and Sweden
- 2018
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Ingår i: British Journal of Special Education. - : Wiley. - 0952-3383 .- 1467-8578. ; 45:3, s. 256-276
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The purpose of this study was to explore similarities and differences between special educator preparation in Norway and in Sweden. Graduates of special education programmes at two Norwegian (n = 320) and two Swedish universities (n = 425) who completed their training between 2001 and 2012 responded to surveys. Findings indicate that both Swedish and Norwegian graduates felt prepared for their current work and that teaching approaches employed in the different programmes were similar. However, there appears to be a stronger focus on pupils’ social goals in Sweden, as well as on advising teachers, school development and promoting inclusive environments. In contrast, Norwegian participants reported a greater focus on preparation to work with specific types of learning and behavioural difficulties. Findings are discussed in relation to differing political and social structures, such as national regulations for steering special educator preparation in Sweden, which are absent in the Norwegian context.
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Göransson, Kerstin, 1955-, et al.
(författare)
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Inclusive education in Sweden? A critical analysis
- 2011
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Ingår i: International Journal of Inclusive Education. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1360-3116 .- 1464-5173. ; 15:5, s. 541-555
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- When it comes to pupils in need of special support and pupils with disabilities, Sweden's compulsory school system is sometimes considered a one-track system. This article analyses and critically discusses current policy and practices at various levels of Sweden's compulsory school system for these pupils. The analysis traces three themes at the national and municipal levels: (1) values and goals; (2) organisation and placement of pupils; and (3) importance of categories in obtaining support. A rather complex picture emerges from this analysis. Several conclusions are made: (1) state policies leave a lot of room for interpretation at the municipal and school levels, and this results in an extensive variation; (2) Swedish state policy is not as inclusive as is often stated; (3) celebration of difference seems to be hard to achieve; (4) learning goals can be a double-edged sword with regard to inclusion; and (5) most pupils appear to enjoy participation in school, and in an international perspective, Swedish classrooms seem to be largely democratic.
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| 9. |
- Göransson, Kerstin, et al.
(författare)
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Local school ideologies and inclusion : the case of Swedish independent schools
- 2013
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Ingår i: European Journal of Special Needs Education. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0885-6257 .- 1469-591X. ; 28:1, s. 49-63
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper reports on the development of a framework for the classification of local school ideologies in relation to inclusion that provides a tool for classifying the general educational direction as well as work with pupils in need of special support of individual schools. The framework defines different aspects of local school ideology in terms of values related to the societal level, school level and individual level of the education system. The paper also reports on a study exploring variations among Swedish independent schools, concerning local school ideology using the framework as a theoretical tool. In this qualitative analysis, eight schools were selected from results of a questionnaire to all Swedish independent schools (return rate 79.5%) for further analysis based on interviews with different categories of school personnel, parents and pupils. Five different patterns of local school ideologies were found more or less in line with values of inclusion, e.g. the holistic-inclusive and the market-oriented-exclusive. Results are discussed in relation to the multiple and sometimes competing objectives that every school has to deal with and make priorities between. Implications for pupils in need of special support in a school system rapidly undergoing marketisation are finally discussed.
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| 10. |
- Göransson, Kerstin, et al.
(författare)
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Om smygrepresentativitet i pedagogiska avhandlingar
- 2009
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Ingår i: Pedagogisk forskning i Sverige. - Göteborgs universitet, Insitutionen för pedagogik och didaktik. - 1401-6788 .- 2001-3345. ; 14:2, s. 136-142
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)
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