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- Gustafson, Niklas, 1966-
(författare)
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Lärare i en ny tid : Om grundskollärares förhandlingar av professionella identiteter
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In the past two decades the Swedish compulsory school for students aged 7 to 16 has undergone major processes of reform and change. On a structural level these have ushered in a new era with a fundamentally changed assignment for the schools and its teachers. In this thesis, however, it is assumed that the teachers as individual actors and as groups have agency to accomplish change and alter structures. The thesis has been written within a several years’ interactive research project with teachers from three compulsory schools. Based on data created in the project on how new and changing groups and working groups within teachers’ work lead to an extended assignment, the study focuses teachers’ negotiation of professional identities regarding the entire work situation. Etienne Wenger’s (1998) social theory on identity, entitled “Communities of Practice”, is used to deepen the understanding of the data. In the framework of an interactive research project the overall aim of the thesis is to describe and analyze how teachers negotiate professional identities in compulsory school. The aim is also to describe and analyze teachers’ learning and development of knowledge in the project. The central research question is: How and about what do teachers negotiate professional identities in different communities of practice? By using the interactive research approach the goal has been to develop a democratic dialogue and learning processes together with the participating teachers. One ambition is to enhance the knowledge of teachers as co-researchers within research projects and as teacher-researchers at work in school. The fora of the interactive project were informal talks, dialogues for learning, individual interviews and focus groups. The results of the study show that teachers negotiate professional identities in a flexible expanding multimembership of communities of practice. As brokers of information and knowledge between and within communities of practice at school, and from various identity positions, the teachers negotiate overlapping identities. Memberships in communities for adults only are growing in relation to teachers’ work regarding the entire work situation. The study’s main conclusion is that teachers in the new era negotiate identities within a web of tensions between fragmentation and coherence of the complexity of the work in its entirety through the multimembership in communities of practice. The thesis proposes that an awareness of complexity is fundamental, and that such an understanding can be enhanced by the teachers by developing themselves as brokers and by their reification of boundary objects within a complex multimembership. Analysis of data shows that teachers in the interactive project have had the opportunity to further develop competences to negotiate identities as teacher-researchers at work in school. Data from the project are moreover analyzed within the context of globalized and diversified structural changes such as decentralization, economic transformations, cultural standardization, the individualized knowledge society and the reflective society. A conclusion is that teachers seem to operate within an increasing globalization of the teaching profession and towards identities as globalized teachers.
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| 2. |
- Persson, Ing-Marie, 1946-
(författare)
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Krislärande – konfliktfylld anpassning : Pedagogik för samverkan inför samhällskriser
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- A societal crisis is an emergency that affects many people and large parts of society, threatening life, health, safety and basic values. In a societal crisis, there is a need for coordination between various bodies in the society. Coordination in societal crises has previously been studied mainly from a management perspective. Learning perspectives have been studied to a lesser extent. The main purpose of this thesis is to increase knowledge about the conditions for developing consensus and establish a common understanding of synergy-effects, a surplus value, for knowledge meetings between individuals from different organizations when they cooperate in the emergency management system. The study seeks to understand to the following questions: 1) What images and ideas do participants bring into the coordination group about societal crisis, how have they developed and changed? 2) How do the participants act when they have different pictures and meet? 3) Can the basic ideas of the research circle be used for knowledge building at knowledge meetings in the emergency management-system? 4) Can the basic ideas of the research circle be used to develop consensus and establish a common understanding of synergy-effects before societal crises happen? The main study consists of three case studies in three different-sized municipalities. It is based on 36 semi-structured interviews with participants in local crisis management coordination groups, observations during exercises and meetings, document studies and an experiment with the so-called knowledge meeting. The results are compared with complementary studies from two knowledge meetings and two coordination exercises based on observation, questionnaires and evaluations. The individuals, organizations, and structures have been identified as frame factors for coordination groups. The results show that the participants have different images of societal crisis and that coordination is a time-consuming approach requiring cross-perspective learning, interaction, as well as dialogue and reflection skills. The participants eventually develop their crisis learning, i.e. conflict-filled adaptation. A system's opened nature is important for individual learning.
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| 3. |
- Olsson, Maria, 1961-
(författare)
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Lärares ledarskap som möjliggörande och begränsande i mötet med ’alla’ barn : En deltagarorienterad studie
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this thesis is to, based on teachers’ experiences, describe and analyse meanings of teachers’ leadership in general, and in relation to children in need of special support in particular. The study was carried out within the tradition of participatory-oriented research, a research circle. The dialogues in the circle were based on the participants’ questions, experiences, interests, and knowledge. The circle included a researcher and nine teachers from the following types of schools: preschool, preschool class, compulsory school, and compulsory school for pupils with learning disabilities.The study is based on an understanding of leadership as a relational practice. Leadership is practised in the interaction between teacher and child. Both parties exert influence over the practice of leadership. A central assumption in the study is that knowledge can develop through and in interactions between people, that knowledge and power are connected, and that knowledge and actions are intertwined. Another central assumption is that learning is a complex phenomenon.In the analysis of the research circle’s dialogues, the following meanings of teachers’ leadership emerge: to facilitate learning and discipline, and to promote different interests. The practice of leadership involves teachers handling complex situations in their interactions with ‘all’ children, i.e. children in need of special support and children without such needs. Leadership is practised between teachers and children, and the teachers have to consider the group of children as a collective in relation to the individual children. At the same time, the teachers have to consider their intentions versus what happens during the interactions. In addition, the teachers have to pay heed to the fact that their own actions and the children’s actions influence one another. Finally, the teachers have to consider the individual child’s ‘best interest’ in relation to the requirements of the policy documents. Furthermore, the results indicate that the practice of leadership is perceived as both unpredictable and, to some extent, predictable at the same time, which adds to the complexity of leadership. The teachers cannot know for sure what the children understand or if the children’s actions facilitate learning. However, the teachers can make certain assumptions about how to practice leadership in order to facilitate learning and discipline in children with different needs. The meanings of leadership were expressed in different ways in the circle’s dialogues; both as enabling and limiting in interactions with children in need of special support. One of the study’s conclusions is that leadership seems to be particularly complex in interactions with children in need of special support.The research circle’s dialogues served to promote a democratic knowledge process. The dialogues were characterised by respect for the participants’ different opinions; however, this does not mean that they were free from power structures.
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| 4. |
- von Schantz Lundgren, Inger, 1958-, et al.
(författare)
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Det är enklare i teorin...Om skolutveckling i praktiken : En fallstudie av ett skolutvecklingsprojekt i en gymnasieskola
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation is a case study dealing with a school development project that took place in an upper secondary school as a result of a merger of two schools with different cultures. The project used a method called “Frirumsmodellen” and was planned to be conducted in three steps. The first was to carry out a cultural analysis in order to map the preconditions to start a school development project. The second was to carry out concrete actions and finally study eventual effects from such activities by doing a second cultural analysis. My role was to be a supervisor in the school development work, but at the same time study how this work was conducted and its impact in the ordinary school day.The dissertation takes its departure in the fact that schools are political governed. The mission of schools is never neutral; it is always an expression of behind laying social forces, ideologies and ideals of the contemporary society. Of this reason, there is a close connection between the macro political level and the micro political level. Another point of departure is the transition from a modern to a post modern society that gives the character to the changes that take place in schools. Steering of schools has partly been treated as a technical implementation problem. Schools contain on going conflicts between different interest groups that, more or less regularly, end up in educational reforms. These reforms generate school development activities in the single school. Undoubtedly, this makes school development to a complex process.At a rather late stage of the study I decided not to fulfil my task to follow the original plan. I instead let the school development project as a model to be in focus. The over all purpose was formulated: How is it possible to understand what happened in the school development project in the Falkgymnasiet and why was it not possible to carry it out as it was said in the project plan? To interpret what took place during the project I did create an interpretation frame of implementation and complexity theory that also made it possible to critically scrutinise the “Frirumsmodellen”.Already in an early stage of the process it was obvious that the “Frirumsmodellen” did not supply any tools to use and it became disconnected from the project. The project in it selves was marginalised and made invisible. The headmaster used the situation to change things she thought were important to develop. As a result, things happened, but most of the involved people did not at first hand connect this to the project. It is, of course, difficult in detail to say what caused what. The complexity theory successively made the hidden patterns revealed, hidden unofficial potentates visible, as well as unpredictable conditions that generated reactions from the personnel in front of a development work. Together this was rather efficient obstacles for not changing this school.I also discuss school development and implementation problems on a general level, for example, the possibility to transform a top-down initiated project to be bottom-up driven and using project as a tool for school development work. It was obvious that headmasters and teachers must be prepared to handle the ideological dimensions of problems schools have to face. Consequently, development work is about making problems visible and to handle these in the intersection point between the intentions of educational policies, pedagogical researchers, school administrators, headmasters, teachers and pupils. The ideological dimension also contains an existential issue. Do I as a teacher share the intentions for the development work? If not, how must I act?
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