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- Jonasson, Kalle, 1976-
(författare)
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Sport Has Never Been Modern
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Sport has often been understood as a set of formalised physical contests, and moreover as something inherently modern. New conceptions of the term implicates that sport ought to comprise all physical activity. However, the studies and approaches that describe the range and tension between those positions are lacking. The thesis addresses this lacuna and suggests that the aforementioned conceptions could be inquired as the narrow (physical contest) and the broad (physical activity) understanding of sport. The work presented in this thesis sets out to outline a theoretical and methodological framework that could comprise the different conceptions of sport. This framework is laid out with inspiration from Bruno Latour’s symmetrical anthropology. The empirical material was collected from an array of sources with a broad range of ethnographical methods. Four sporting practices (break time football, parkour, eSport, and company table tennis) that embody the tension between the broad and the narrow are inquired into in the articles. The comprehensive framework that the thesis seeks to outline takes form in shape of the different concepts (“dromography,” “minor sport,” and “the art of tracing”) constructed within the articles. It is concluded that the broad understanding of sport threatens to hollow the term. However, the narrow understanding of sport tends to downplay the material dimension of modernity. It is argued that the connection between the material and the social dimension of sport, with regards to categories such as age and gender, mustn’t be neglected in the study of sport. Furthermore, it is argued that the competitive element of modern sport is related to modern science in an unexpected way that adds new understanding to the ontology of modernity in general.
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| 2. |
- Magnusson, Maria, 1960-
(författare)
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Skylta med kunskap : en studie av hur barn urskiljer grafiska symboler i hem och förskola.
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The topic of this study is to generate knowledge about children’s understandingof graphical symbols. These forms of knowledge are prevalent in contemporarysocieties, for example, in the form of letters, numbers, road signs, maps, andcomputer icons. More specifically, in this thesis is scrutinized in detail howchildren develop symbolic skills and how this can be supported througheducational activities. The theoretical basis of the study is variation theory(Marton & Tsui, 2004). This theory conceptualizes learning in terms ofdifferentiation and integration. Two empirical studies are reported. The first isabout two children, Olle and Lasse, who both are in the age span four to fiveyears. How these children handle graphical symbols in the form of producingsigns that they put up in their homes are followed over time. Hence, thechildren’s own make and use of symbols in their everyday life are studied. In thesecond empirical study, the findings from the first study and theoretical insightfrom variation theory are orchestrated in a preschool center with two teachersand twelve children, to see if these principles can be functional in supportingchildren’s development of symbolic understanding. Both studies are based onvideo data. The findings are that a particular pattern of variation entitled,‘contrast’ is functional in developing such insight, while another pattern ofvariation entitled, ‘induction’ is not. In addition, meta-communication is arguedto be important not only for the researcher to gain access to the child’sunderstanding but also to the child’s development as such. The theoreticaldistinction made by Vygotsky between ‘pseudo concepts’ and ‘concepts (proper)’is used to discuss the findings.
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| 3. |
- Baldwin, Richard
(författare)
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Changing practice by reform : the recontextualisation of the Bologna process in teacher education
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of the thesis is to investigate a specific case of curriculum change; that of organizing teacher training courses around learner outcomes in line with the Bologna process. The investigation is an example of a practitioner research case study and looks at how official Bologna policy messages are re-interpreted and recontextualised at the local micro level. A variety of methods are used to collect and analyse the data produced. A form of discourse analysis, as well as a survey of research literature, is used to identify policy discourses connected with the Bologna process. At the local micro level, local documentation as well as teacher talk in planning meetings are analysed to throw light on how the Bologna process was implemented. A number of discourses were found in policy documents; including the need to modernize higher education and to move towards a more student centred approach to learning. The thesis shows that these discourses were mediated locally by a regulative discourse portraying teachers as role models who have the task of passing on knowledge that is essential for the students to obtain before entering the profession. Instead of challenging the pedagogic identities for teachers and students, the introduction of learning outcomes acted to strengthen the fundamental vertical relations between teachers and students, cementing and confirming the level of control that teachers had over all aspects of the curriculum. Changes made in connection with the introduction of learning outcomes had a minimal influence on practice and were contested by some teacher educators. Teacher educators resisted and mediated the changes made by continuing to use their traditional practices.
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| 4. |
- Jonsson, Agneta, 1958-
(författare)
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Att skapa läroplan för de yngsta barnen i förskolan : barns perspektiv och nuets didaktik
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis takes as one point of departure the concept of the expanded curriculum where curricula encompass both the formal steering documents, as well as that which goes on within the framework of preschool education and through the actors in preschools. The overarching purpose is therefore to generate knowledge about what conditions for learning the work of teachers make possible when curricula are created in preschool settings for children aged between 1 and 3. The purpose is also to contribute with knowledge about what these created curricula would mean for children’s agency, and the importance they can have for children’s opportunities for learning and development. The three empirical studies consist of digitally recorded interviews with teachers and video observations with a focus on teachers’ communication with children in preschool. The discussion in the overarching text is constructed around three aspects that emerge in the overall results of the studies. First, the studies reveal how teachers’ work can be likened to a limiting curriculum which, on the one hand, is entirely child-centered, with the children as seen actors, but, on the other, can be interpreted as entirely teacher-centered. Secondly, there is the discussion about the affirmative curriculum, where children are presented as affirmed actors. In other words, content becomes those things that children are interested in, and their modes of expression are seen, affirmed and often repeated. Finally there is the discussion about the possibilities and dilemmas related to an expanding curriculum where children are regarded and treated as real actors in the sense that their intentions and expressions are taken seriously as relevant challenges. The current curriculum text for Swedish preschool can, in this sense, be seen as an obstacle in that its formulations are extremely broad-based, as discussed related to the results of this thesis.
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| 5. |
- Schwartz, Anneli
(författare)
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Pedagogik, plats och prestationer : en etnografisk studie om en skola i förorten
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is part of a Swedish Research Council financed project called The School and its Surroundings (Omvärlden och skolan: Vetenskapsrådet, 2005-3440) and is based on a thorough examination of the pedagogical practices that took place in a particular school in a multicultural suburb. A main aim was to analyse these practices and the pupils’ responses to them in relation to descriptions of the school and its needs, attainments and difficulties as provided by the pupils, teachers and others,including the media. The pedagogical practices of the school are based on a particular kind of pedagogy, called Monroe pedagogy. This pedagogy is characterised by strong leadership and places high expectations on pupils. Using ethnographic data, obtained from fieldwork and interviews, and an analysis informed by Bernstein’s theoretical concepts the thesis provides an analysis of the regulation of social interaction in the school and the pupils’ experiences and appreciations of this regulation. As a pedagogical discourse Monroe pedagogy exhibits principles of strong classification and framing (Bernstein, 2003). The thesis is composed of four articles and a kappa. Article one, “Bracketing” backgrounds for an effective school, describes Monroe pedagogy in relation to the school day and pupils’ results. Article two, Pupils’ responses to a saviour pedagogy: An ethnographic study, elaborates on the feedback that pupils at the studied school provide on their education. Article three, The significance of place and pedagogy in an urban multicultural school in Sweden, examines how the location of the school in a ‘multicultural suburb’ is used to attribute deficiencies to pupils and the need for strong leadership and a visible pedagogy. Article four, Complexities and contradictions of educational inclusion: a meta-ethnographic analysis, describes the importance of place for educational expectations and performances in relation to the stigmatisation of the suburban reach and its residents. Collectively the articles depict, principally through an analysis of pupils’ responses, how Riverdale School sells a success concept, based on orderliness, motivation, responsibility and hard work, and how the staff and pupils at the school identify with and believe in this concept. The articles also demonstrate how the pedagogy in use actually fails to become a saviour discourse in practice, as promised, but instead strengthens exclusion and maintains the image of a failing pupil who will be saved from, her-his background and her-his place of residence.
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| 6. |
- Tyrén, Lena
(författare)
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"Vi får ju inte riktigt förutsättningarna för att genomföra det som vi vill" : en studie om lärare möjligheter och hinder till förändring och förbättring i praktiken
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Initially the overall aim of this thesis was to describe and analyse what was happening in the educational activities when teachers at a school that I have called Tower School introduced the computer as a tool for helping pupils who were learning to write and read. Key questions concerned the issue of improvement. Did introducing the computer as a tool in the teaching and learning process help the pupils with their learning or not and, if so, in what ways. The research approach chosen was an action research approach. Action research is concerned with professional practice and improvement. It is contextual and oriented toward action processes and change. The initial phase of the research went more or less according to plan. I followed the development process of the introduction and use of the computer as a learning tool, met regularly with the teachers and together with them developed a good working relationship. After about a year things changed. With the restructuring that was taking place in the region changes began to take place also at Tower School and this had effects on the research. In addition to the initial aim to research changes related to student learning a second purpose developed. This purpose was to describe and analyse how political governance and underlying societal forces might influence what happens in school development. There were two reasons for this new extra dimension. One was a methodological interest in relation to planning action research projects at times of political change in the education sector. The other was an educational theoretical interest connected to the school as a policy-driven organization. My interest here was for changes in the political economy at the macro level and how the network of macro-political and economic relations affected the micropolitical level of the school, its classrooms, participating teachers in these classrooms, their students and me as a researcher?
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Magnusson, Maria, 1960
(författare)
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Skylta med kunskap. En studie av hur barn urskiljer grafiska symboler i hem och förskola.
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Abstract Title: Signing with knowledge: A study of how children discern graphical symbols at home and in preschool Author: Maria Magnusson Language: Swedish with an English summary ISBN: 978-91-7346-767-4 (print) ISBN: 978-91-7346-768-1 (pdf) ISSN: 0436-1121 Keywords: Graphical symbols, learning, children, conceptual development, variation theory, Vygotsky The topic of this study is to generate knowledge about children’s understanding of graphical symbols. These forms of knowledge are prevalent in contemporary societies, for example, in the form of letters, numbers, road signs, maps, and computer icons. More specifically, in this thesis is scrutinized in detail how children develop symbolic skills and how this can be supported through educational activities. The theoretical basis of the study is variation theory (Marton & Tsui, 2004). This theory conceptualizes learning in terms of differentiation and integration. Two empirical studies are reported. The first is about two children, Olle and Lasse, who both are in the age span four to five years. How these children handle graphical symbols in the form of producing signs that they put up in their homes are followed over time. Hence, the children’s own make and use of symbols in their everyday life are studied. In the second empirical study, the findings from the first study and theoretical insight from variation theory are orchestrated in a preschool center with two teachers and twelve children, to see if these principles can be functional in supporting children’s development of symbolic understanding. Both studies are based on video data. The findings are that a particular pattern of variation entitled, ‘contrast’ is functional in developing such insight, while another pattern of variation entitled, ‘induction’ is not. In addition, meta-communication is argued to be important not only for the researcher to gain access to the child’s understanding but also to the child’s development as such. The theoretical distinction made by Vygotsky between ‘pseudo concepts’ and ‘concepts (proper)’ is used to discuss the findings.
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| 9. |
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| 10. |
- Bennerstedt, Ulrika, 1979
(författare)
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Knowledge at play. Studies of games as members’ matters : Kunskap genom spelande. Studier av digitala spel och spelande som kunskapsdomän
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- On a general level, this thesis seeks some answers to the broad question of what one can learn from digital games. With an analytical approach informed by ethnomethodology, the main thrust of the work is an exploration of members’ matters in the area of games and gaming. In response to prevailing discussions about how, where and what gamers learn, the aim is to examine emerging forms of knowledge embedded in practices in and around digital games. The first part of the thesis addresses three themes: the question of whether leisure gaming could be understood to have transfer effects; how games are positioned in a state of restlessness and multistableness; and how the domain encompassing gaming and game development is advancing in terms of professionalization and institutionalization. The second part is comprised of three empirical studies based on two sets of video recordings: collaborative gaming in The Lord of the Rings Online, and assessment practices in game development education. The studies begin to unravel the elusive phenomena of gaming by making some gameplay practices and conventions visible. For instance, the findings suggest that there are specialized coordination practices, developed through long-term engagement with the online game. Furthermore, from the perspective of the institutional framing, it is argued that understandings from other media are not applicable in a straightforward manner, but must be carefully calibrated to matters such as game genre conventions and control over gameplay conduct. By describing the reasoning and knowledge displayed by gamers and game developers, the thesis contributes to interrelated discussions about knowledge development, currently carried out in educational science, interaction studies and game studies. In conclusion, it is suggested that digital games are establishing autonomy from other forms of entertainment media and software industries as a result of the ways games and gaming as multistable objects of knowledge have become deeply embedded in society.
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