| 1. |
- Thyberg, Anna, 1969-
(författare)
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Ambiguity and Estrangement : Peer-Led Deliberative Dialogues on Literature in the EFL Classroom
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thesis focuses on ideological and emotional dimensions of literature reading in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom. The empirical data at the heart of this dissertation comprises questionnaires, group sessions, student texts, and post-study evaluation. Drawing on the fields of postcolonial studies, reader response theories, and critical literacy, the study investigates upper secondary students’ formulations of values in carefully staged peer-led deliberative dialogues on literature. Bakhtin’s theory on internally persuasive discourse has been instrumental in examining the properties of the novel that inspire students to formulate values. Moreover, the concept of positionality provides a framework for understanding how the text decenters the subject position of the students but also how reading is productive of creating moments of instability because of the positions offered in the EFL setting. The discussion of how the students move between reading stances is located in reader response theories dealing with aesthetic reading. My proposition is that the ambiguity of literary texts and the added estrangement effects of reading in EFL conjoin in fostering a predisposition towards language, literature, and interaction characterized by what Bakhtin calls ideological becoming.The organization of reading into deliberative dialogues makes it possible to delineate ecologies of transformation created over the course of the project. Representations of the texts change by way of social interaction in the groups, but there is also transformation in the individual brought about by this kind of active and dynamic reading. In short, the reading process that occurs in the project can be said to reflect bounder crossings and the in-between spaces of human textual transactions; between personal world and imagined text world as well as the collaborative meaning negotiated in the groups. An important finding regards the points of convergence for axes of disaffiliation and affiliation in this EFL setting, leading to reinforcement of positions of privilege and constructions of difference. Nevertheless, the overarching argument remains that deliberative dialogues on literature in EFL can function as a hands-on democratic practice generating critical exploration of ideological dimensions coupled with respectful reading of the experiences of Another. Keywords: literature, EFL, peer-led deliberative dialogues, civic values, postcolonial, positionality, ambiguity, estrangement, aesthetic reading, internally persuasive discourse, upper secondary students, transformative learning.
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| 2. |
- Cronquist, Eva, 1959-
(författare)
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Samtidskonstbaserat gestaltningsarbete i utbildningen av bildlärare : Om vikten av transformativ beredskap i förändringsprocesser
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation addresses student learning processes in contemporary arts- based practice in visual arts teacher education programs. The arts-based processes studied are based on the explorative method for exploring social and social phenomena. ‘Art’, as a school subject, is based on scientific foundations that are informed by a ‘semiotics of art’ perspective. Notwithstanding this, artistic methods comprise a large part of the subject. The aim of this dissertation is to deepen our knowledge of the students’ experience of the learning processes that are present in contemporary arts-based practice in visual arts teacher education programs. Three empirical investigations into two visual arts teacher education programs were conducted. Study I reports on an investigation into an introductory course in contemporary arts-based practice where focus was placed on the student’s learning processes. The theoretical frameworks used in Study I were hermeneutics, symbolic interactionism, and transformative theory. The results of Study I were reported on in their entirety in a licentiate thesis (Cronquist, 2015), and can be summarised in terms of the concepts ‘resistance’, ‘challenges’, and ‘alienation and conciliation as a communicative process’. This introductory study gave rise to new questions which demanded both further depth and breadth in their answers. These issues were addressed by investigating an additional art teacher education program and by analysing the more advanced courses in this program, in contrast to the analysis of the introductory courses that were analysed in the first investigation. Study II presents an investigation into the meanings which emerged in the students’ experiences of the learning processes in a prescribed contemporary arts-based projects whilst Study III presents an investigation of the meanings with emerged in the students’ experiences of learning processes in a prescribed contemporary arts-based independent project, second cycle (Master of arts in secondary education for upper secondary). Study II and Study III take their point of departure in Dewey’s ‘pragmatism’, where human behaviour is considered to be a transactional process between people and their environment. The method of analysis that was used in these studies was inspired by ‘practical epistemological analysis’ (PEA) (Wickman & Östman, 2014). The object of study, which links all three studies together, addresses deepening our knowledge of the learning processes in contemporary arts-based projects. The results of these studies are revealed in three distinct problem areas namely, the laboratory - explorative problem, the subject-cultural problem, and the methodology problem. The laboratory - explorative problem involves the difficulties which students are faced with when they are tasked with making independent choices of methods for creative laboratory - explorative workprocesses in art projects. The subject- cultural problem refers to how students carry within themselves their experiences of learning processes from other subjects and how they put them in contrast with their learning experiences in their art classes. The methodology problem reveals to us how scientific research methods and exploratory art methods come to collide with each other (from the students’ perspective) in the students’ independent art projects. In conclusion, I present a discussion of the questions and challenges that contemporary art concepts can provide to an art teacher education program. ‘Transformative preparedness’ is highlighted as a central concept which students can use to move forward in their art teacher training when habitual behaviours are challenged. ‘Transformative preparedness’ is based primarily on the ability to adopt another person’s perspective.Keywords: teacher education program, art teacher education program, contemporary art, art project, contemporary arts-based practice learning processes, transformation, subject culture, artistic project methods
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| 3. |
- Eek-Karlsson, Liselotte, 1955-
(författare)
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Ungas samspel i sociala medier : Att balansera mellan ansvar och positionering
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The growing communication that takes place between young people today causes concern. The purpose of this study is to develop in – depth knowledge of the interaction that young people engage in online. The pedagogic interest is based on an investigation of conditions for social learning and social integration that exist in practice, which unfolds in virtual spaces created by social media. The technology referred to in this thesis is considered to be a social construction, which entails that values circulate between people, technology, and society. The theoretical point of departure is based on a pedagogic theory, which proposes that people develop their ability to cooperate, their social identity, and their understanding of the world through interaction with others. This dissertation includes three studies. The first study investigates support and harassment online (for example, insults). The second study is conducted for the purpose of revealing the discursive patterns in young people’s argumentation, based on a series of interviews. Finally, a text analysis of Facebook’s policy document was performed, with focus on the democratic values that are mediated via this document. The overall result is that considerably more young people feel that they are supported in social media, than those who are harassed. Both a supportive culture and a harassing culture can be defined however. The more often young people support their friends, the more often they find themselves to be the recipient of support. The same relationship pertains for harassing communication. Reciprocity, respect, and being responsible are dominant themes in a close circle of friends. In interaction with friends who are not members of the close circle of friends, communication is characterised by asymmetry and control. The imposition of discipline takes place as a function of both gender and status. The risk of being subject to reprisals is great, if the prevailing system of norms is violated. Young people’s social interaction in virtual spaces tends to be dominated by marketization where strategic behaviour, which primarily is a function of the individual’s social position and profit interest, is observed.
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| 4. |
- Gustafsson, Barbro, 1954-
(författare)
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Undersökningar av sociovetenskapliga samtal i naturvetenskaplig utbildning
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thesis examines the potential of students’ group discussions in science education in the context of a communicative perspective on democracy and meaning-making. The group discussions in focus are about socioscientific issues (SSI), i.e. controversial and complex issues with scientific as well as sociological aspects. The philosophical works of John Dewey and Jürgen Habermas serve as the main theoretical underpinnings. Different types of empirical data were used for the qualitative analyses: policy documents, student teachers’ essays, student interviews and recorded group discussions between classmates.Attention is drawn to the twofold educational mission to ensure students’ subject knowledge and democratic growth, where the democracy aspect of this mission is in danger of being given secondary priority in science education. Deliberations about SSI are suggested as a possible way of bridging the gap between the two tasks. An ideal deliberation is characterised by democratic virtues such as sincerity, consideration, a critical review of what is otherwise taken for granted and an aspiration to seek agreement. SSIs facilitate theoretical, ethical and moral reflection and examine argumentation skills in a reflective and considerate way in order to lead to participation and the creation of meaning in mutual communication.Both the possibilities and shortcomings of deliberative-oriented group conversations were highlighted in the interviews with upper secondary school students involved in the socioscientific tasks. This then provided guidance for an extended study of SSI-deliberations among students, also from upper secondary school. An analysis tool, DEQUAL, was constructed in order to be in a position to assess their democratic and deliberative qualities.The overall results showed that students could maintain respectful and engaged conversations in which they jointly created and developed arguments. However, expressions of meaning-making in terms of insights and new-found experiences were scarce. Furthermore, the students seemed too eager to agree. Although the guidelines emphasised the importance of advancing various arguments, other students’ statements were rarely challenged. If SSI-conversations are to approach democratic and deliberative ideals and stimulate meaning-making, the participants must be prepared to exchange contrasting views. According to Habermas’ theory, when deliberating one relates to a subjective world of experiences, a social world of common agreements and an objective world of facts. Since both science and SSI contribute objective, factual dimensions, it is suggested that the deliberative idea might have a particular bearing on science education, since the conversations do not just revolve around personal opinions.It was concluded that the development of deliberative conversation skills requires careful, guided practice. It also became clear that the deliberative guidelines for seeking agreement and the teacher’s non-participation in the talks needed to be reviewed.
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| 5. |
- Håkansson, Jan, 1959-
(författare)
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Lärande mellan policy och praktik : Kontextuella villkor för skolans reformarbete
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Abstract Håkansson, Jan (2006). Learning between policy and practice. Contextual conditions for reform activity in schools. Acta Wexionensia No 95/2006. ISSN:1404-4307, ISBN: 91-7636-510-7. Written in Swedish with a summary in English. Considerable changes have characterised the past decades’ education policy. These changes apply to all types of schools within the Swedish education system. This thesis treats issues of professional teacher development, the introduction of project work in upper secondary school as well as quality audits in the school system. While intending to problematise and intensify discussions on the school reforms’ significance for school development, the thesis focuses on the conditions for practitioners in-depth reflection and deliberative learning in relation to various development measures in school. The overall purpose is to contribute to a deeper understanding of the relation between policy and practice with respect to school staff’s learning processes, which is constituted in policy and practical contexts examined here. One intention here is to present an analysis of the learning aspects in the explicit development measures formulated in policy documents. Another intention is to analyse learning, which is rather implicitly attached to the implementation of policy. The three reform processes have been studied in a broad socio-theoretical perspective on policy and learning. Yet, inspiration was also provided by a critical action research approach. Discursive and dialectic perspectives on policy, practice and learning are significant for carrying out the empirical studies, but also for the analysis of the empirical material. The study depicts myriad and controversial relations between policy, practice and learning. With respect to professional teacher development projects in partial study A, one outcome is that the policy’s transparent character interplays with creative learning aspects both in policy and practice. Regarding the introduction of project work in upper secondary education, partial study B establishes that the unclear and implicit policy character can be related to preserving learning aspects in the official discourse, yet, it can be creative when applied in practice. The policy on quality audits in the school system as examined in partial study C can be referred to as uncommunicative with an orientation towards preserving learning aspects, while there is possibilities within local evaluation and quality audits for an orientation towards creative learning aspects. On the whole, these reform processes are part of what can be identified as hybrid integration patterns in line with communicative perspectives and perspectives on set objectives. The results in this thesis illustrate a potential for improved participation aided by extended possibilities for communication within the framework of a deliberative perspective on governing schools. It is of great significance to pay attention to this in future reforms. Keywords: communication, critical action research, deliberation, learning, policy, school reform.
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| 6. |
- Norman, Ann-Charlott, 1965-
(författare)
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Towards the creation of learning improvement practices : Studies of pedagogical conditions when change is negotiated in contemporary healthcare practices
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In the early 2010s, competitive market logic was introduced into healthcare systems so as to achieve rapid improvements. This took place as improvement policies began to emphasize the notion of collaboration as a method of ensuring patient safety across organizational boundaries. This thesis addresses how staff, in their practical improvement work, balance economic values, on the one hand, against meaningful solutions for the patient, on the other. The research interest focuses on the particular interpretations about improvements that emerge in negotiations about change. These interpretations are foundational to the learning that simultaneously takes place. The aim of the thesis is to analyse and explain the pedagogical conditions that take place in improvement practices in a healthcare system in the 2010s.The thesis takes its theoretical point of departure in a pedagogical theory that describes how contextual conditions influence learning processes in a specific practice where communication is foundational for learning. The thesis uses critical discourse analysis as a methodological point of departure and builds on a model of improvement work, namely, the clinical microsystem. The first study consists of a literature review of the microsystem framework. Subsequently, three case studies were conducted at Jönköping county council, Sweden. Discussions of improvements at clinical meetings and improvement coaches’ reflections over their pedagogical approaches provide the empirical data for the case studies.The findings show that market logic gives rise to a number of displacement effects with respect to learning processes. Short-term profits are shown to supersede goals of a more profound development of knowledge. The composition of an improvement practice is of critical importance to the nature of the negotiation that takes place, and thus how the practice comes to successfully challenge things that are taken for granted and the power structures that exist within the practice. Improvement coaches themselves become pedagogical prerequisites under the influence of the prevailing conditions, as they promote different learning organizations. This thesis develops the conceptual framework that is instantiated by the clinical microsystem, and it also contributes to the social constructionist field of improvement science by establishing pedagogical and discursive perspectives on improvement and change.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Axelsson, Cecilia, 1973-
(författare)
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En Meningsfull Historia? : Didaktiska perspektiv på historieförmedlande museiutställningar om migration och kulturmöten
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis concerns the mediation of history in a public arena in society, namely in historical exhibitions in museums. The foci of the thesis are exhibitions on migration history, cultural encounters, “Us” and “the Others”, and in particular how relations based on the principles of class, gender and ethnicity are mediated. The research concerns two exhibitions – "Afrikafararna" (The Travellers to Africa) and "Kongospår" (Traces of Congo).In this thesis museums are viewed as arenas for public education and meaning-making. It explores how the historical contents as well as the forms of mediation in the exhibitions correspond to the task of promoting democracy that has been assigned to Swedish museums. This task is expressed in the intentions of the respective museums, in the general policies on culture and also in the policy documents for schools. Therefore the thesis also explores how pupils and teachers understand the mediation of history and use the museum as a source for learning.Exhibitions are regarded in this thesis as mediation processes of history. Three distinct phases can be seen in this process – the phase of production, the phase of mediation and the phase of reception. People connected to the different phases, such as curators, producers, museum educators, and pupils, have been interviewed. These interviews show how conditions, convictions and scope for action influence how the stories of migration and cultural encounters are told and understood. The contents of the exhibitions are analysed from a perspective of class, gender and ethnicity. Furthermore, the limitations and possibilities for the visitors to intensify their historical consciousness are discussed.The study shows how economic conditions and access to historical source material influence the way history is mediated, but also, and to a very large extent, convictions on pedagogy and concepts of history among museum staff. The latter two are determining factors when it is made clear that the way the historical source material is used results in the fact that history is mediated in a way that does not correspond to the intentions and goals to promote democratic values, such as equality, and active democratic readiness for action.The study shows that the exhibitions in question mediate patterns of subordination and asymmetrical relations between women and men and between Swedes/Scandinavians and Africans in their mediation of history. There are sometimes very distinct lines between “Us” and “the Others”. One of the exhibitions offers more space for individual meaning-making and reflection than the other, however, because of its problematization of the occurrence of African artefacts in Scandinavia and because there are more stories and more voices in the exhibition.The interviews with teachers and pupils show that the visits to the exhibitions are often isolated events that are rarely incorporated into the students’ education in a prolonged theme or perspective. Several students uncritically accepted the mediation in the exhibition, others were provoked and challenged, but the students had little opportunity to discuss these experiences in either the museum or in school. In summing up, several of the results of the analysis show that the mediation of history in the exhibitions cannot be described as corresponding to the demands of a democratic conception of education.
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| 9. |
- Bergman, Bengt, 1960-
(författare)
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Poliser som utbildar poliser : Reflexivitet, meningsskapande och professionell utveckling
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This compilation thesis concerns how an educator task in Swedish police education context can be understood as individual and collective meaning making and professional development. The main actors in this thesis are police teachers, police supervisors and field training officers (FTOs), and they have a mutual task in educating new police officers and hence preparing for a complex occupation. However, due to varied educating preparations these three groups of police educators seem to perform their task with different prerequisites in a constantly revised and developed Swedish police education. During the last twenty years research and literature regarding occupational and professional education concern, among other issues, professional development and professionalization, frequently from a learner orientated and lifelong learning perspective. Hence, as ideas of transferring occupational knowledge from person to person increasingly appears to be regarded as obsolete, internship education through supervising pedagogies seems to have evolved during the last decades. The rarely investigated intra-professional educators (e.g., police officers educating new police officers) have an important role in this kind of learning process, especially due to socialisation phenomena frequently described in worldwide research regarding the police occupation. The conceptions of Swedish intra-professional police educators are investigated through an exploratory and qualitative design using mainly focus-group interviews and with a reflexive approach and hermeneutic analyse models. Viewed through a theoretical framework based on meaning making, reflexivity and thought styles/thought collectives, the findings disclose that the Swedish police educators clearly share similar views on pedagogies although they have disparate preparations before the task. Their conceptions reveal how the police educating task works as an incentive for increased insights in the police task, as well as in the educating task. These findings are also conceptualized as a collective process in interacting with police students and police probationers, with reflexivity as a main tool for meaning making, especially in the educating task. In conclusion this thesis argues how the conceptions of the Swedish police educators can vitalize the discussion about how police educators better can be prepared, especially through courses with reflexive pedagogies. The conclusion also emphasizes on how the positive, reflexive and creative intentions within the intra-professional police educators can be used as a role model and as an incentive in developing the Swedish police force, and that these ideas can be applied on other occupations and professions.
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| 10. |
- Cronquist, Eva, 1959-
(författare)
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Spelet kan börja : Om vad en bildlärarutbildning på samtidskonstens grund kan erbjuda av transformativt lärande
- 2015
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- To enter higher education means making new experiences and develop newunderstanding within a knowledge field. The situation could also entail, for thestudent, an entirely different self-understanding. This licentiate thesis deals withthis kind of learning process.The overall aim of this licentiate thesis is to analyze what an art teachers education,founded on contemporary conceptual art, can offer in terms of transformativelearning. The point of departure is adults learning processes as renegotiations ofprevious interpretations which can be transformed to new understanding. The studyanalyzes what aspects of transformative learning are reflected in students' texts andimages, produced as part of the studied course. The licentiate thesis also discussespossibilities and constraints of this learning process. The study was conducted as acase study based on a hermeneutic approach. Material was collected from thecourse blog which consisted of students' texts and images.The study results show a transformative learning process which students experiencedas emotionally tumultuous because their self-image, as future art teachers, isrenegotiated. The situation contains a dimension of learning which I call "twistingand turning" in which new understanding is being formed. This situation requires aself-reflexive creative approach. The result generates questions about therelationship between the content of the education (what) and the learner (who) in anart teachers education founded on a non-traditional base. This applies above all ineducations that challenge students' prior understanding of a field. One could alsoask how adult learning is staged as relearning in higher education. The studydevelops a concept of reflexive creativity which contains a more abstract level thanjust problem solving. The idea of reflexive turn in art education, based onconceptually contemporary art, is also discussed.
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