| 1. |
- Manni, Annika, 1971-
(författare)
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Känsla, förståelse och värdering : elevers meningsskapande i skolaktiviteter om miljö-och hållbarhetsfrågor
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis focuses on young students’ experiences and meaning-making processes in school practices within environmental and sustainability education. Earlier research has shown this to be an area of complexity; besides a transdisciplinary perspective requiring relational thinking, it also involves conflicting interests as well as emotions and values. With a certain interest in emotions being part of learning as a meaning-making process, this thesis aims to investigate the character of experiencing, and the function of aesthetic experience in environmental and sustainability education. Through a mixed-methods approach a comprehensive questionnaire was used in the first study, and a more in-depth case study investigated the most important findings from the questionnaire even further in the second one by using multiple data. 209 students, age 10-12, from six different schools in Sweden answered the questionnaire. One class in grade six participated in the case study during four months, where both in- and out-of-door activities were studied. Both qualitative content analyses, and quantitative statistics were used to analyze the material from the two studies. Furthermore, John Dewey’s theoretical perspectives and neo-Aristotelian philosophers, mainly Martha Nussbaum, guided the interpretations of the empirical results. The main findings show that young students’ experiences in environmental and sustainability education are characterized by relational understandings both within and among ecologic, economic and social aspects, but also that perceived school activities of a value-laden and more cognitive kind correlated. The results further show that aesthetic experiences function as links in the transactional and continuous processes of meaning making. Furthermore, of importance for students’ meaning making and formation of values in environmental and sustainability were also prior experiences, encounters with outdoor environments and artifacts (both natural and digital), social interactions and felt independence. A holistic picture of understanding, emotions and values hence appear as an intertwined unity in students’ written responses, action and talk. A conclusion suggests that contributing to students’ possibilities of making meaning in environmental and sustainability issues requires openness to personal emotions and values as a starting point. Activities allowing for social interaction, independence, and relevant contextual encounters should also be considered in the pedagogical practice of environmental and sustainability education.
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| 2. |
- Nyström, Eva, 1958-
(författare)
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Talking and taking positions : An encounter between action rsearch and the gendered and racialised discourses of school science
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis concerns processes of power relations in and about the science classroom. It draws on action research involving science and mathematics teachers in the Swedish upper secondary school (for students between 16 and 19 years). For the analysis, feminist post-structuralism, gender, and discourse theories (e.g. Butler and Foucault) are combined with critical action research methodology (e.g. Carr and Kemmis) and discourse analysis (e.g. Wetherell and Hall). The aim of the study is to make visible processes of inequality and to investigate how these are constructed in ‘talk’ or discourse about teaching and learning. The study grew out of teachers’ actions/small-scale projects in their own classrooms and so the study also investigates if and how action research can contribute to making visible, challenging and changing unequal practices and discourses of dominance. The first part of the thesis deals with this process and the analysis suggests that post-structural critiques of language and discourse are helpful in enabling actions to challenge inequities in the science classroom that currently exist. Five different articles constitute the second part of the thesis, two of which explore and survey research literature and argue for a need for more studies which investigate critically how science is shaped by specific social, cultural and historical contexts. Additionally, it is argued that it is important to focus not only on measuring differences among students but also on investigating how difference is constructed and how inequities can be challenged. The experiences and bodily feelings of what ‘race’ can do to gender (and vice versa) in a specific situation are recounted and examined in the third article which also invites different positions and complexity into the research field. The next two articles investigate how power and knowledge are produced, resisted and challenged in teacher and student talk within the action research project. The analysis draws on different discourses in contemporary Swedish society; for example a science discourse which produces school science (and its teachers and students) as high status, a gender equality discourse, a gender difference discourse, and an immigrant discourse which produces ‘immigrant students’ as problematic. Analysis of teacher talk reveals, for example, that long-established hierarchies and taken-for-granted values of school subjects in relation to gender reproduce advantage for some teachers but not for others, that teachers participate in the gendering of science subjects, and that changes in the teaching of science are resisted. Also students are located inside and outside the discourses they draw on, which qualifies or disqualifies them as ‘proper’ science students. Different borders are highlighted to show how students attach meaning to gender, social class, and ethnicity in different situations. Sometimes borders are produced inside bodies (the notion of the gendered brain, for example) and sometimes between cultures or according to family background. Resistance to dominant discourses is also visible in students’ talk and the ways in which teachers and students reproduce borders and exclusion in the science classroom through their practices. The analysis points out the need to initiate new research which can deconstruct among others, discourses of femininity and masculinity, the ‘immigrant student’ and school science.
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| 3. |
- Persson, Helena, 1967-
(författare)
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Lärares intentioner och kunskapsfokus vid ämnesintegrerad naturvetenskaplig undervisning i skolår 7-9
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- De naturvetenskapliga ämnena i svenska skolan kan undervisas som separata ämnen i kemi, biologi och fysik, men också ämnesintegrerat, d.v.s. tillsammans eller med andra skolämnen. Både internationella och svenska studier visar att begreppet ämnesintegrering är mångfasetterat och saknar enhetlig definition. Avhandlingens syfte är att öka kunskaperna om ämnesintegrerad naturvetenskaplig undervisning och den består av fyra delstudier. För att ta reda på mer om hur yrkesverksamma lärare beskriver och genomför sådan undervisning intervjuades fem lärare som enligt egen utsago undervisar ämnesintegrerat i skolår 7 till 9 (13-16 år). Den andra studien presenterar två av dessa lärares intentioner med ämnesintegrerad naturvetenskap och hur dessa intentioner visar sig i klassrummet. Studien baseras på intervjuer och klassrumsobservationer som analyserats med intentionell analys. Syftet med den tredje studien är att undersöka vilken typ av kunskap, och vilket innehåll som är framträdande i de två lärarnas arbete med ämnesintegrerad naturvetenskaplig undervisning. Också relationen mellan den kunskapsbetoning som läraren säger att de vill ha i sin undervisning och den kunskapsbetoning som kommer till uttryck i undervisningen har undersökts. Som analysverktyg har Bloom’s reviderade taxonomi använts. Syftet med den fjärde studien är att undersöka elevernas syn på ämnesintegrerad undervisning i naturvetenskapliga ämnen. Analysen baseras på data som samlats in genom gruppintervjuer med elever, elevenkät och klassrumsobservationer. Lärarnas syfte med att organisera undervisningen ämnesintegrerat är att eleverna ska få en helhetssyn på det naturvetenskapliga innehållet, och att de ska kunna tillämpa sina kunskaper och se relevansen av dem i sina vardagliga liv. Ett annat skäl är att lärarna själva tycker att det är ett mer stimulerande sätt att arbeta på. Resultatet visar att ämnesintegrerad naturvetenskaplig undervisning är viktig för att ge en helhetssyn, men inte så nödvändig för att knyta undervisningen till elevernas vardag. I undervisningssituationen blev yttre faktorer viktigare än vad lärarna hade uttryckt som viktiga faktorer för deras val att ämnesintegrera och påverkade dem så att de ändrade sin undervisning. Lärarnas syfte med kunskapsbetoningen stämde väl överens med aktiviteterna i klassrummet. Vissa sammanhang undervisades ämnesspecifikt och andra sammanhang ämnesintegrerat. I de ämnesintegrerade sammanhangen fanns en större tonvikt på fakta- och begreppskunskap på en högre processdimension, t.ex. att eleverna skulle analysera och värdera information och göra val, ställningstaganden och mindre betoning på att minnas. Enligt elevernas upplevelser är undervisningens innehåll viktigare för att skapa ett intresse än undervisningens organisation. Det är viktigare att undervisningen är relaterad till deras vardag och att kunskaperna är användbara, än om den är ämnesintegrerad eller inte. Överlag uppskattar flickorna den ämnesintegrerade undervisningen mer än pojkarna. Pojkarna tycker att den är mer ansträngande att arbeta ämnesintegrerat och tror dessutom att de får mindre begreppskunskaper med den ämnesintegrerade naturvetenskapliga undervisningen.
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| 4. |
- Varg, Lina, 1976-
(författare)
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Fröken är lik sin fröken : om vad som påverkar lärares didaktiska vägval och formar NO-undervisningen på mellanstadiet
- 2024
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is about the pedagogical considerations and decisions that upper primary school teachers (students age 10-12) engage with as they plan and conduct teaching in science class. It is also about the factors that have an impact on these considerations and decisions. Science education in upper primary school has been neglected in Sweden and internationally, in both research and development efforts. These years are important because children of upper primary school age are often interested in science, yet they are challenged by for example the presence of more abstract concepts in grade 4 which might negatively affect their science interest. Sociocultural perspectives, curriculum theory, and science didactics are the theoretical points of departure and have guided the planning and implementation of my research as well as the analytical process. By conducting three qualitative studies, consisting of interviews, classroom observations, document reviews, and a practice-based research and development project, I gathered useful and diverse empirical data to enable exploration of current upper primary school science education. 14 teachers were interviewed, an intrinsic case study of one grade six science class’ work on a whole topic (seven weeks) was conducted, and curriculum and planning documents from one teacher were gathered. In addition four science teachers from different grade levels (4-6 and 7-9) were invited and participated in pedagogical discussions to contribute knowledge about teachers’ collaboration on didactical questions related to continuity in science education. I used qualitative thematic and content analysis to analyze the empirical material from the three studies. The results show that upper primary school teachers place a lot of effort and time into planning and conducting a varied science instruction. They also express and show a great deal of care for and encouragement of their students in science class. In terms of factors that have an impact on the pedagogical considerations and decisions of teachers in upper primary school science, all three studies shared the main results. The following aspects were prominent in terms of the teachers’ views and actions: the view of science as a set of static and irrefutable facts, a high regard for the factual content of science curriculum, and varied views of the purpose of practical work in science education. In comparison with previous research, the findings presented in this thesis suggest that teaching practices in upper primary school are often in line with an academic tradition and a view of science as authoritative. Further, the finding that many of the participating teachers often refer to the extensive core content found in science curriculum and emphasize the pressure that this places on them, implies that the purpose of qualification is predominant in their view of the purpose of science education.
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| 5. |
- Andersson, Johanna, 1972-
(författare)
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Barns teckningar som utgångspunkt i det naturvetenskapliga samtalet
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Barns föreställningar utgör en viktig del i deras begreppsbildning inom naturvetenskap vilket betonas inom konstruktivismen. I denna avhandling utgör en socialkonstruktivistisk syn på lärande det teoretiska ramverket. Det övergripande syftet med avhandlingen är att i samtal med barn i åldrarna 4–13 år och med utgångspunkt i deras teckningar, utveckla kunskap om de föreställningar de ger uttryck för inom fyra naturvetenskapliga områden: värme, blandning, människokroppen och vad som är levande/inte levande. Två forskningsfrågor behandlas i avhandlingen: Vilka föreställningar ger barn uttryck för i teckningar och i samtal om naturvetenskapliga fenomen? Vilka metodologiska förutsättningar och utmaningar finns det när det gäller att använda teckningar som utgångspunkt och som meningsskapande redskap för att fånga barns föreställningar? En multimodal metod bestående av teckningar, samtal och barnens aktivitet användes vid datainsamlingen, vilket är i linje med ett socialsemiotiskt perspektiv.Avhandlingen består av fyra studier. Resultatet i de två första studierna visar att barns föreställningar om blandningar var något mer utvecklade än vad som visats i tidigare studier, medan deras föreställningar gällande värme överensstämde med vad som tidigare rapporterats.Den tredje studien visar att barnen känner till fler organ i människokroppen och visar, till skillnad från vad som framkommit i tidigare forskning, förmåga att rita kopplingar mellan organen. I den fjärde studien talar en majoritet av barnen om död som en motsats till liv och några ritade att det som inte lever tidigare har levt. Barn som är medvetna om mikroskopiska objekt klassificerar dem som levande. Förklaringarna visar på en inkonsekvens i barnens resonemang om växter lever eller inte.Metodologiskt framkom att barns föreställningar med fördel fångas genom deras egna teckningar tillsammans med deras förklaringar av dessa. Teckningarna fungerar även som hjälpmedel för att föra fram och delge olika resonemang. I avhandlingen diskuteras barns lösningar på rittekninska problem som de mötte vid sidan av den naturvetenskapliga uppgiften. I studien om människokroppen handlar dessa problem om svårigheten i att överföra den tredimensionella människokroppen till två dimensioner. En annan svårighet var att kroppens organ, skelett, muskler och vävnader ligger ovanpå varandra. Där använde barnen strategin att rita röntgenbilder för att visa det som ligger dolt. Barn i olika åldrar löste ofta dessa rittekniska problem på ett mycket kreativt sätt i kombination med deras muntliga/skriftliga kommentarer. Förutom teckningarnas betydelse diskuteras skillnaden mellan kontextualiserade och dekontextualiserade uppgifter. De olika områdena som studerats i avhandlingens artiklar befinner sig på olika abstraktionsnivåer vilket påverkar barnens föreställningar och hur detta uttrycks in bilder. Naturvetenskap innefattar olika dimensioner där det handlar om att både lära sig strukturell och processuell kunskap. Den multimodala metoden gav barnen hjälp med att samla, strukturera och uttrycka sina tankar
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| 6. |
- Areljung, Sofie, 1983-
(författare)
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Utanför experimentlådan : kunskapsproduktion, tid och materia i förskolans naturvetenskapsundervisning
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this thesis is to contribute knowledge on conditions for science teaching in preschool. While Swedish preschool practices commonly build on children’s subjective experiences, scientific knowledge production is often associated with objectivity and detachedness. Seen from that perspective, tensions may occur when the knowledge cultures of preschool and science meet, as when science teaching is implemented in preschool. This thesis seeks to explore issues that are crucial for teachers to negotiate when they implement science teaching in preschool.The thesis includes five articles that build on empirical data in the form of teachers’ talk (interviews, focus group discussion, project meetings) and observation data from preschool practice. The data analyses draw on various theoretical perspectives, including communities of practice and feminist critique of science as well as theoretical concepts connected to framing and agential realism.The main result is that it is crucial, to teachers’ implementation of science teaching in preschool, that science content is open to children’s contributions. Further, the results show that teachers integrate several different forms of knowledge production when working with science content in practice. For example, observations and systematic investigations are combined with imagination and children’s bodily experiences. This goes against the presumed tensions between the knowledge cultures of preschool and science. However, tensions between the knowledge cultures are indicated by teachers’ unwillingness to interfere with children’s investigative processes or ideas about science content by relating children’s ideas to scientific explanatory models. Seen from a teacher’s perspective, it appears to be unproblematic to leave children’s ideas about science content unresolved, compared to leaving children’s ideas about social relations and other content unresolved.Drawing on the results, I discuss teaching beyond the limited material and temporal dimensions of the science box, which emerges as a metaphor when teachers describe a way of teaching that they are not comfortable with. Further, I suggest that the concept working theories, which addresses children’s tentative ideas about relations in their surrounding world, be introduced in preschool science teaching, to ease the perceived conflict between children’s ideas about science and scientific explanatory models.
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| 7. |
- Bossér, Ulrika, 1976-
(författare)
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Exploring the complexities of integrating socioscientific issues in science teaching
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Socioscientific issues, SSI, can briefly be described as societal issues in which science plays a role. Dealing with SSI in science education is a means to prepare and empower students for active and responsible participation in a complex, democratic society. The implementation of SSI-based teaching calls for classroom practices in which scientific evidence alongside for example social and ethical perspectives are considered. Discourse-based teaching activities are emphasized as a means to provide opportunities for students to practice negotiations of SSI and explore diverse viewpoints on the issues. Dealing with SSI in science teaching is recognized as a challenging task for science teachers. This thesis aims to provide knowledge to support the implementation of SSI-based science teaching. Three studies involving two upper secondary school science teachers are performed to achieve this aim. The first study makes use of video-stimulated discussions to investigate the two teachers’reflections on their classroom practices while they implement SSI throughout an academic year. The second study utilizes the concept positioning as a tool to identify and describe the ways in which one teacher’s interactions with students during group work make available different parts for the students to play as participants, when dealing with SSI in the classroom. The third study makes use of the concept communicative approach to investigate how the two teachers’ management of classroom discussions sets conditions for the consideration of multiple perspectives relevant to SSI, including the students’ viewpoints. The results provide knowledge useful when making considerations about the design and enactment of teaching activities in relation to specific educational goals. The results suggest that a specific challenge with designing and enacting SSI-based teaching activities is to balance between controlling and directing the teaching activities to promote specific learning goals and providing space for students’ participation and perspectives. The results of employing the analytical tools elucidate how this challenge can play out in classroom practice and contribute with knowledge of the ways in which teachers’ discursive practices play a role in addressing this challenge. Strategies to support teachers’ implementation of SSI-based teaching that take account of teachers’ existing practices are discussed.
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| 8. |
- Engvall, Sara, 1984-
(författare)
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Opening the black box of mathematics teachers’ professional growth : a study of the process of teacher learning
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- There is a lot of research done on professional development programs for teachers, especially with a focus on different characteristics of the program and whether it makes teachers change their teaching practice to such an extent that it enhances student achievement. However, there is not much research done on the learning process. As long as we do not open the black box of teacher learning it is difficult to say anything about what characteristics in a professional development program actually are important for teachers to learn, develop and grow as professionals.The aim of the thesis is to better understand the process of teacher learning while participating in aprofessional development program. The focus is on different aspects of the process of teacher professional growth, as well as on external factors that have an impact on the process of learning. The participants are secondary school teachers that participated in a professional development program in formative assessment. The data have been collected during and after the professional development program took place. Different types of data have been used in this thesis; teacher interviews, classroom observations and questionnaires, and have been collected over a time period of two and a half years. In two of the included papers the studies focus on four mathematics teachers, and the learning process is explored from two different perspectives: how the professional growth can develop, and how their testing of formative assessment activities relates to their understanding of formative assessment. In one of the papers all secondary school teachers are included and a comparison in expectancy of being able to use high quality formative assessment after the professional development program between the mathematics teachers and the other teachers were conducted. In the fourth paper focus is on all mathematics teachers in the study and their motivation are investigated over a time period of two years.The four papers take different perspectives to explore the professional growth for teachers while participating in a professional development program in formative assessment. The results show the complexity of teacher learning and indicate that large-scale implementations risk being inefficient and not reach the intended goals.
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| 9. |
- Flodin, Veronica S., 1960-
(författare)
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En didaktisk studie av kunskapsinnehåll i biologi på universitetet : Med genbegreppet som exempel
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is about knowing in biology in higher education and research. The gene concept is used as an example of knowledge content that is common to both biological research and education. The purpose is to study how knowing about the gene is expressed in different forms of knowledge contexts at the university. This is important to study in order to understand documented learning problems regarding the gene concept but also to better understand the relation between knowledge in research and teaching. Knowledge has to be transformed to become an educational content, a process that is of special interest within the field of Didaktik. The thesis is based on three qualitative case studies. Study I is an analysis of a textbook in biology. The purpose is to examine the content as presented to the students to see how its structure may contribute to the problems students have. How does the gene concept function as a scientific representation and at the same time as an object for learning in a biology college textbook? A phenomenographic approach is used to study implicit variation in gene concept use when the textbook treats different sub disciplines. The results show conceptual differences between them. The different categories of the gene found–as a trait, an information structure, an actor in the cell, a regulator in embryonic development or as a marker for evolutionary change–mean that we deal with different phenomena. The gene as an object is ascribed different functions and furthermore these functions are intermingled in the textbook. Since, in the textbook, these conceptual differences are not articulated, they likely are a source of confusion when learning about genes. Study II examines the gene concept use in a scientific context, as exemplified by five research articles from a scientific journal. Using an adaptation of Hirst’s criteria for forms of knowledge, the study characterizes how the scientific contexts for the gene concept use vary. What kinds of different gene concept use in these contexts can be discerned? When comparing the articles, it becomes evident that the gene concept is used to answer different kinds of questions. The meanings of the gene concept are connected to various knowledge projects, their purposes and the methods used. Shifts of methodologies and questions entail a concept that escapes single definitions and “slides around” in meanings. These contextual transformations and associated content leaps are here referred to as epistemic drift. Study III follows an integrative research project in biology. What are the characteristic content conditions for knowledge development? What different ways in using the gene concept can be distinguished? By using the analytic methodology developed in study II, the scientific contexts are categorized according to their knowledge project, methods used and conceptual contexts. The results show that the gene concept meanings and the content vary in focus, are more or less explicitly formulated, or possible to formulate, and consist of different skills. One didactic conclusion is that by being more overt about the conditions for problem solving within a specific subdisciplin (i.e. fruitful questions to ask, knowledge needed to answer them, and methods available), students may be given opportunities to get a broader perspective on what it means to know biology.
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| 10. |
- Hedefalk, Maria
(författare)
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Förskola för hållbar utveckling : Förutsättningar för barns utveckling av handlingskompetens för hållbar utveckling
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The overall aim of the thesis is to contribute with knowledge about the conditions for preschool children’s meaning making with regard to sustainable development. With a focus on critical actions, the thesis explores how education is executed and how a critical action may be conducted in a preschool practice.Different teaching situations in preschool have been analysed in order to determine how and which actions are privileged in the various situations, what the consequences of these actions are, and what kind of conditions that enable children to develop critical action competence.The results show that teachers affect children’s meaning making by directing actions toward a specific learning content. The conditions in which children learn action competences for sustainable development may be affected by which actions are privileged or excluded in the situation. The analyses of conditions for children to act critically in this thesis are when:the teacher aims the attention towards a pluralistic teaching content, where the content consists of value judgments.variations of views are highlighted – by the help of other children or from example different viewpoints in a book.children have the courage or/and feel safe expressing contradicting views.Although the situations in which children act critically are few and far between in the empirical material, they do exist and are important to highlight, especially as few other studies explore what meaning making processes look like when critical actions are privileged. The thesis therefore contributes to the research by providing analyses of situations in which children act critically in preschool.
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