| 1. |
- Boström, Ulrika, 1970-
(författare)
-
”När man kollar på bilden tänker man så här” : en receptionsstudie av gymnasieelevers uppfattning om bilder som kunskapskällor i historieundervisningen
- 2014
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Images are used in history education for a variety of reasons, not least to generate interest through a better understanding of historical events and people. The aim of this study was to investigate how historical pictures, either illustrated or documentary/photographic, can be used as a resource for activating and improving pupils' historical empathy, in the way described by Stéphane Lévasque.I conducted a reception study on five different focus groups consisting of pupils from different upper secondary schools in Sweden. The pupils varied with regard to number of credits for admission to upper secondary school. A sixth group of pupils was interviewed as a contrasting control group in order to add perspective to the results. The discussions were based on the pupils' interpretations of 34 selected pictures, all of which were taken from the most common history textbooks. Each pupil was asked to choose the picture he/she felt was the most representative historical image. On the basis of the strategies used by the pupils when interpreting the pictures and discussing them, the material was analysed in accordance with Lévesque's categories: imagination, historical contextualisation and morals. The last category, morals, was further divided into three sub-categories: sense of justice, sympathy and progression.The reflections of the pupils and the degree of contextualisation varied. It appeared that the pupils were less inclined to discuss assumptions about the persons in the pictures; instead they chose to discuss the historical context in question. The pictures in this study did not seem to trigger the pupils to fabricate anachronistic reasoning about history; when they did produce lengthy reasoning, it was contextual, structural and metahistorical. In this context, the pupils who belonged to the group with the highest average of credits showed some signs of reflection on the basis of historical context and some criticism about the historical sources. On no occasion did any of the pupils choose a picture as a concrete expression of injustice.One of the questions this study aimed to explore was whether a lack of historical context affects how pictures trigger emotions and reasoning on the basis of moral aspects. Some of the pupils displayed moral standpoints, primarily the degree of morals concerning injustice. One possible interpretation could be that the feeling of being unfairly treated and subjected to insulting behaviour and social injustice was something the pupils could relate to. The group of pupils who had not yet studied history at upper secondary school, the control group, generally made reflections using this sort of reasoning when they discussed the historical aspects of the pictures.
|
|
| 2. |
- Gidlund, Ulrika, 1966-
(författare)
-
Discourses of Including Students with Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties (EBD) in Swedish Mainstream Schools
- 2018
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- When students’ behaviours cause difficulties for their teachers, themselves, and the rest of the class, teachers often construct inclusion as problematic. The overall aim of this study was to contribute to the understanding of teachers’ discourses regarding inclusion of students with emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD) in Swedish mainstream schools. The sample of empirical data collected for articles II–IV was derived from focus group interviews of 5–8 mainstream teachers in grades 4–6 in 6 different schools. Article I is a research synthesis on 15 studies that feature the attitudes of teachers from 15 different countries. It frames the entire thesis by examining how teachers perceive students with EBD from other countries, cultures, and times. In this study, neither inclusion nor EBD are said to be so much objectively “real” as socially produced and can be regarded as social constructs. An approach of discourse theory that takes inspiration from Laclau and Mouffe (1985) is applied in articles II–III and is complemented with constructionist thematic analysis. The results revealed that teachers construct meaning and understanding of students in relation to their everyday professional missions in the classroom. Discourses about successfully including students with EBD face problem fixing their meaning as they require new and other types of resources as well as other time distributions, teachers, curricula, and classrooms. The teachers’ discourses revealed a clear gap between policy and practice in the Swedish education system. Discourses that were pragmatic based on everyday reality of the school overpowered the discourses of ensuring equal opportunities for all students and the celebration of diversity. When the wordings of the Swedish steering documents are arbitrary and interpreted differently among various actors within Swedish schools, the teachers feel insecurity, frustration, and inadequacy. Inclusion of students with EBD is a complex and complicated matter that the teachers do not feel competent enough to fully handle. They revealed their frustration with being expected to do something that cannot be done due to practical and economic reasons. When teachers experience failure and dissatisfaction with specific teaching situations, they construct discourses that justify and legitimize that failure. These discourses inevitably have consequences for how the teachers understand and organize their everyday teacher missions.
|
|
