| 1. |
- Annerberg, Anna, 1972-
(författare)
-
Gymnasielärares skrivpraktiker : skrivande som professionell handling i en digitaliserad skola
- 2016
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this thesis is to contribute to deeper knowledge about the writing practices of teachers in upper secondary school. Schools are under constant pressure to respond to the needs and expectations of an ever-changing society and political intentions. A major factor in this change which is taking place in schools is digitalization. Another factor is the adoption of new governing principles for schools involving management by goals and results, which brings increased demands for written documentation of teachers' work.In order to describe and problematize this development the thesis is based on a combination of Critical Discourse Analysis and New Literacy (Clark and Ivanič, 1997). The theoretical framework rests upon an understanding of writing as social action and the idea that texts both affect and are affected by the social environment. The empirical study focuses on twelve teachers and their writing practices, analyzed during week-long field visits over three years. The teachers' talk about their writing is used together with analyses of texts and images to investigate parts of teachers' writing which, according to the teachers, are considered complex and problematic.The findings indicate significant differences between the writing practices of the individual teachers, where each teacher has his or her own system of texts fulfilling different purposes. Despite these differences it is still possible to identify recurrent themes in the discursive conditions for teachers' writing: efficiency, reuse, authority, audit, relationships to addressees, and room to maneuver. The study illustrates possible dilemmas for teachers' writing at the intersection of teachers' professional responsibility and demands for accountability.
|
|
| 2. |
- Bergstrand, Ulrika
(författare)
-
Styrning och re-kontextualisering av värden i utbildningspolicy på nationell och lokal nivå
- 2022
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this study, governing as re-contextualization of values in Swedish educational policy has been described and analyzed. Two levels have been central to the study: the national level, in the form of the Swedish Schools Inspectorate's (SSI) survey to school personnel, and the municipal level, examined by interviews with superintendents in sparsely populated and rural areas. Three qualitative content analyses were performed, in two of which Rokeach’s theory of values as desirable actions and goals was used. The results presented that the dominant policy goal and the value expressed was that schools should promote students' knowledge, which is in line with the values underlying the PISA survey. The SSI survey expressed that schools should be quality assured to enhance students' knowledge development. Desirable actions to achieve this were: the principals evaluating, the teachers adapting to individual students, strengthening an environment conducive to learning with codes of conduct, and the guardians being informed about their children’s development. However, the superintendents expressed a lack of competence and qualified teachers for equivalent assessments, a need to upskill teachers, and that the information to the guardians did not always reach them. The study also showed an expressed value to include all students in teaching, which is in line with the values underlying the Salamanca statement. The SSI survey expressed this value as the students' participation in individualized teaching, an increased efficiency in special support, a socialization through codes of conduct, and that the students should know their rights. The superintendents expressed this value as motivating students, particularly boys, to study, adapting education for students in need of special support, preventing violations of newcomers, addressing girls' mental health, and the strengthening of democratic attitudes. In summary, the study shows that the values at the national level promoted increased individual rights, while at the local level, the values were expressed as a need to increase democratic values. Nonetheless, the values underlying the education of democratic citizens in sparsely populated and rural areas cannot be considered a closed chapter, even though policies at the national level continue to emphasize the values of promoting students' development of knowledge and their individual rights.
|
|
| 3. |
- Börjesson, Mattias, 1978-
(författare)
-
Från likvärdighet till marknad : En studie av offentligt och privat inflytande över skolans styrning i svensk utbildningspolitik 1969-1999
- 2016
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- For most of the 20th century the dominant aim of Swedish educational policy was an integrated public school system under national state control. During the post-war era (1945–1989) this policy led to Sweden having one of the most centralized and integrated school systems in the world. In the 1980s and 1990s, however, there was a profound change in Swedish education policy towards decentralization, deregulation and marketization of the school system. The aim of this thesis is to provide a deeper understanding of the nature and causes of this shift in education policy. The thesis draws from a theoretical framework consisting of Critical Realism, curriculum theory and Neo-Marxism. From a Neo- Marxist perspective the configuration of state education policy is understood as a dominant education ideology. The empirical material consists of state policy documents which are understood as an expression of the dominant education ideology in society.The results indicate a shift in the dominant education ideology in Sweden between 1969 and – 1999: from an emphasis on state governance and goals of equivalence, equality and participation in the school system during the 1970s, towards increasing skepticism regarding state regulation and an emphasis on decentralization and aims to increase parental and pupil influence in the school system during the 1980s, to a dominance of private influence via school choice and competition in the school system during the 1990s. From a theoretical perspective consisting of Critical Realism and curriculum theory, this shift in education policy and restructuring of the school system is understood in relation to economic crises, a rightward shift in politics and the dominance of neoliberal ideas in Sweden during the 1980s and 1990s.
|
|
| 4. |
- Mickwitz, Larissa, 1969-
(författare)
-
En reformerad lärare : Konstruktionen av en professionell och betygssättande lärare i skolpolitik och skolpraktik
- 2015
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This doctoral thesis investigates the interrelatedness between school policy and practice. In the thesis, the construction of “the teacher” is analysed in school policy documents and teacher interviews. I am particularly interested in the relation between school policy and school practice in light of the two latest curriculum reforms 1994 and 2011 and the teacher accreditation registration reform of 2011. The analysis focuses on two topics: grading and the professional teacher. In fact, an analytic link is made between the emphasis on grading and the discursive construction of the teacher in Swedish education policy. The theoretical framework is positioned within institutional theory within which I combine curriculum theory and the sociological new institutionalism with discourse theory. The analyses of policy documents reveals three types of different discursive constructions of “the teacher”. In the period of deregulation and decentralization, a professional teacher is constructed and the need for an autonomous teacher for school quality is expressed. By the 1990s -2000s an unprofessional grading teacher is constructed. In the period signifying the teacher accreditation and registration reform, a quality assured teacher is constructed. It is a teacher who is formally authorized and in need of continuing evaluation. In the focus groups interviews teachers constructs two types of professionalism. One is in line with the professionalism articulated in the policy texts and is about control and formal regulation and the other is about autonomy. Furthermore, the teachers relate to grading and teachers' ability to act in accordance with their overall teaching assignment. Grading were often constructed opposed to teaching. Demands for documentation, quality reports or the requirement of teacher accreditation is described as institutional practices defined from above. These practices make it difficult for teachers to complete their teaching assignments. The study indicates that teachers' ability to operate in an increasingly regulatory schooling culture has, through the types of requirements for transparency in teachers’ work, resulted in the decline of autonomy in their professional practice.
|
|
| 5. |
- Vikström, Emma, 1987-
(författare)
-
Skapandet av den nya människan : Eugenik och pedagogik i Ellen Keys författarskap
- 2021
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The Swedish author and educator Ellen Key (1849–1926) became one of the most prominent writers on educational matters in Europe at the turn of the 20th century following the publication of The Century of the Child in 1900. It is less widely known, however, that the pioneer of progressive education and children’s rights also advocated the improvement of humanity through eugenics, and publicly endorsed the foundation of the Swedish Institute for Racial Biology in 1921. In previous research, Key’s stance on eugenics has been explained by her evolutionist worldview, influenced by her reading of scientists and philosophers such as Francis Galton (1822–1911) and Herbert Spencer (1820–1903). But can her support for eugenics solely be reduced to the influence of these and other authors? And what role did eugenics play in her educational thinking?These issues are addressed in this thesis, which aims to show how Key strived to create a new kind of human being by consolidating eugenics and education in her work. The analysis identifies several dichotomies that were vital to Key’s knowledge production on eugenics and education: evolution/degeneration; nature/nurture; body/soul; sense/sensibility; and individual/society. These concepts form the thematic structure of the thesis and point to a central finding; namely, that Key’s desire to dissolve such dichotomous thinking is a crucial component in understanding how she combined eugenics and education, as two means to the end of creating a new kind of human. The analysis also demonstrates that Key did not merely adopt the knowledge of others but developed her own ideas on eugenics that even induced two British eugenicists to consider the importance of love in human betterment. Finally, this study illustrates how eugenics was integrated into Key’s pedagogy as part of her educational aim, proposed learning content and ideas about socialisation. In conclusion, the thesis contributes to a discussion of the aim of the educational endeavour to create a better human and the use of pioneers in educational sciences today.
|
|
| 6. |
- Bagger, Anette, 1974-
(författare)
-
Prövningen av en skola för alla : nationella provet i matematik i det tredje skolåret
- 2015
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis presents the contribution to research that my doctoral education led to. My starting point was a large scale qualitative research project (here after called the VR-project) which reviewed the implementation of national tests in the third grade on the subject of mathematics. The VR-project investigated how the test affected the pupils with a special focus on pupils in need of special support. An urge to look further into issues concerning the support, the pupil in need and the test was revealed in he initial VR-project. These issues therefore constitutes the problem area of this thesis. The VR-project studied a total of 22 classrooms in two different municipalities' during 2010- 2012. The methodology used for this project was inspired by ethnography and discourse analysis. The raw data consisted of test instructions, video observations of the actual test subjects, interviews from teachers and pupils about the test, the support that was given throughout the testing as well as the observations and interviews of the pupils requiring special assistance. Activated discourses and positions of the participants were demarcated. The results revealed that a traditional testing discourse, a caring discourse and a competitive discourse are activated during the tests. The testing discourse is stable and traditional. Much of what was shown and said in classrooms, routines and rules regarding the test were repeated in all the schools and in all the classrooms. The discourse on support is affected by ambiguity, which is revealed especially when issues of pupils’ equity is put against the tests equality. This is connected to the teachers restricted agency to give support due to the teacher position as a test taker. The positions in need that are available to students are not the same in pupils, teachers and steering documents. The situation is especially troublesome for pupils that do not manage Swedish good enough to take the test and for pupils in need of special support. Some of the conclusions from this thesis is that the national test format: Disciplines not only the pupil, but also the teacher, the classroom and the school at large. Results indicate that the test:Activates a focus on achievementLeads attention away from learning Activates issues of accountability Influences pupils and teachers with stakes involvedBesides evaluating knowledge, the test disciplines not only the pupil, but also the teacher, the classroom and the school at large. Discussing the national test as an arena for equity might be a way towards attaining equality in education for all pupils.
|
|
| 7. |
- Folke-Fichtelius, Maria, 1952-
(författare)
-
Förskolans formande : Statlig reglering 1944–2008
- 2008
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Preschool is a central part of Swedish family life. The manner in which the state regulates preschool through laws, ordinances, and various kinds of written objectives has an impact on many people in the Swedish society. The thesis examines the development of preschool state regulation from the 1940s until 2008. The starting point of the study is a draft for a new Education Act, put forward in 2003, which proposed that preschool should be integrated into the school system as a new form of school. The purpose of the study is to generate knowledge about the state regulation of Swedish preschool, and how it has contributed to the shaping of preschool as a societal institution. Questions considered in the analysis are how regulation delimits preschool as a social category, what role this regulation assigns preschool in relation to other actors and societal institutions involved in early childhood education and care, and what principles this regulation is based on. The study has evolved within the research tradition of curriculum theory as developed in studies in educational politics. The analysis is carried out as a text analysis, where the concepts of boundary work, official classification and activity system serve as important analytical tools. Texts produced within the formal chain of decision and legislation: directives for committees, government white papers, ministerial task forces, bills, legislative texts etc., form the empirical foundation for the study. The analysis shows that economic as well as legal and ideological governing instruments are used in the shaping of the framework of preschool. These frameworks are indicated in the form of different boundary markers that delimit preschool as a specific category and arrange it in relation to other categories. The boundaries indicated by these boundary markers have been subject to extensive discussion during the formulation process. Through this boundary work, preschool has been constructed as a full time preschool, commissioned to provide both education and care. The boundaries of this commission are in some respects indistinct and contain several overlapping elements with regards to family, social services and school. At the same time, preschool holds a fixed core with more distinct boundaries, in the form of a part time public preschool delimited by time and age and regulated by far-reaching legislation regarding the rights of children to attend. Owing to this construction, preschool may balance several different and partly contradictory demands placed on it by other institutions and by different interest groups, while at the same time maintaining a core of identity of its own. In that sense, preschool may be described as a boundary object. Thus, when it is suggested that preschool should constitute a form of school and be placed in the more formal regulation structures of the school system, the balance of this construction is challenged.
|
|
| 8. |
- Karlsson, Håkan
(författare)
-
Pedagogiska identiteter : Fostran till entreprenörskap
- 2017
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this doctoral dissertation project has been to investigate and describe Entrepreneurship Education in one Swedish county, E‐county. The dissertation is based on five studies, four case studies and a minor follow‐up study. Together these studies constitute a multiple case study called The Main Study. The purpose of the study has been to investigate how European policy on entrepreneurship education has been reproduced and realized in different educational settings in E‐county, and the consequences this has had for fostering students and local identity building. The two first studies, cases A and B were carried out in three schools where three high school programs were studied, the Haircare program, a technical program and a social science program. The programs were chosen so that the whole range of highschool programs were represented; a practical program, a semi‐academic program and an academic program. The third case, C, contained the specific educational program ʺSummer Entrepreneur” which was developed in a local municipality in Ecounty, and had been spread throughout Sweden. The program was developed by local people within the framework of an educational concept that had been imported from Canada, “Open For Business“. The fourth study, case D, was carried out in the educational program Youth Enterprise in local high schools, including the so called “Practice school”. The fifth study was a minor study through interviews with representatives from the different educational programs. To enable methodical triangulation, studies A to D were carried out with interviews, questionnaires, observations and document analysis. The studies were based on theories of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship education and general education. The theoretical framework for analysis was based on Basil Bernstein’s (2000) theoretical concepts classification, framing, the pedagogic device and pedagogic identities. The major finding from the Main Study was that entrepreneurship education was already part of the educational programs studied for some time before it became part of the Swedish national curricula in 2011. Entrepreneurship had become an element in the fostering of local identities in E‐county. Since it has become a major element of the value base in the national curricula, it will probably be an important part in fostering and identity building in all Swedish schools in the future.
|
|
| 9. |
- Lundahl, Christian, Professor, 1972-
(författare)
-
Viljan att veta vad andra vet : Kunskapsbedömning i tidigmodern, modern och senmodern skola
- 2006
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis deals with knowledge assessment in education from a historical point of view. It considers both “internal” assessment, i.e. assessments occurring in everyday life in school, and “external” assessment, i.e. assessments from outside schooling, as well as policies of assessment. Special attention is given to dilemmas and conflicts between these perspectives. The aim of this thesis is to understand 1) historical and social conditions that form the knowledge of what others know, 2) how selective kinds of knowledge or ways to produce knowledge are spread and 3) how they might be challenged and reshaped.Part 1 argues, from a curriculum theory perspective, that assessments should be seen as part of the curriculum.Part 2 deals with assessment during pre-modernity, roughly between the 16th century and mid 18th century. Two traditions are explored: the tradition of early differential psychology, i.e. temperament theory, and the tradition of the grammar school (Läroverket).Part 3 deals with a period that was particularly important in terms of assessment in education in Sweden and the construction of the Swedish comprehensive school, i.e. the 1940s.Part 4 investigates a progressive and critical movement during the 1970s and 1980s and its relation to assessment matters. A final chapter in part 4 deals with recent changes in assessment policies in Sweden, the construction of an educational system that tried to establish a curriculum valid assessment culture in the early 1990s.The concluding argument is that if assessment is viewed in a historical perspective as re/production of knowledge and as part of the curriculum, it is possible to gain new kinds of knowledge that makes it easier to handle some “eternal” dilemmas in assessing student performances. Thereby we might strengthen teacher autonomy and skills in these matters.
|
|
| 10. |
- Mörtsell, Sara, 1982-
(författare)
-
Maintaining teaching : exploring te(a)ch-abilities with actor-network theory
- 2024
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thesis investigates everyday teaching with digital technology during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. The pandemic was one of the world’s largest disruptions to everyday education with both health and education at stake. With the pandemic control measures affecting upper secondary education in Sweden, gathering in the classroom cannot be taken for granted and digital technologies accelerated and intensified everyday practices. The aim is to explore the relation of teaching and digital technology. How can we understand the ways in which digital technology and teaching become jointly experimented with to cope with pandemic uncertainty?With an Actor-Network theory (ANT) approach, the thesis puts emphasis on how everyday teaching holds together at the pandemic intersection of routine and breakdown. The everyday teaching practices during the pandemic is an empirical focal point for inquiry into how they become enacted and, secondly, what the implications are for knowledge production when examining this novel educational practice with ANT’s relational materialism. To answer these questions, ethnographic methods are used with an upper secondary school in Sweden from May 2020 to June 2021. The fieldwork consists of empirical engagements in school visits, interviews, and online observations. In line with recent ANT scholarship, the methodological approach is articulated as a care-ful methodology. It implies tracing vulnerable and stable relations that enact sociomaterial practice and acknowledging cuts and becoming.The results show how a manifold of more-than-digital practices enact everyday teaching. The included studies in the thesis examine attendability and mundane rituals, lesson enactments of scheduling practices, and digital platforms that co-produce specific practices while obscuring others. Teaching in the pandemic challenges taken-for-granted notions of a rapid transition to distance and online teaching. By surfacing neglected aspects of everyday teaching with digital technology the thesis discusses how ‘digitalisation of teaching’ erases the local work of everyday teaching as an equipped practice. In conclusion, the proposal is made that maintaining teaching takes into account the materiality, abilities, care, and vulnerabilities that enact everyday teaching.
|
|
