| 1. |
- Kirsten, Nils, 1981-
(författare)
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Kompetensutveckling som styrning : Om statliga insatser för lärares kompetensutveckling och hur de förhandlas i lärares lokala praktik
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Teachers’ professional development (PD) is currently promoted as an important element of the pursuit of improved school results by researchers, politicians, and international organizations. Policy actors argue that the quality of teaching is the factor within school systems with the greatest significance for students’ learning outcomes, and that PD is an important instrument for enhancing such quality. Teachers’ PD has also become a higher priority among policy makers due to decentralization reforms that have deprived states of many of the policy measures previously available to them. However, teachers’ PD has rarely been investigated as a policy instrument. This is unfortunate for several reasons, including that surrounding governance structures are important for the effects of PD, and that most of the PD in which teachers partake is initiated by actors such as states, municipalities, or school leadership. Based on these arguments, the aim of this thesis is to develop knowledge about how teachers’ PD functions as an instrument for governing teachers’ work. The dissertation explores this issue through a comparative investigation of state initiatives for teachers’ PD in Sweden during the period 1991-2015. The dissertation devotes special attention to one intervention, the Literacy Boost (in Swedish Läslyftet), by also investigating its enactment at six schools during the 2015/16 academic year. The thesis shows that the Swedish state’s spending for teachers’ PD and school development increased significantly during the investigated period, especially after 2007, and, likewise, that teachers’ participation in PD increased. Moreover, article I shows that school agencies, since 1991, increased their engagement in teachers’ PD, that PD prescriptions became more detailed, and that evaluations of local enactment were used in more comprehensive ways. Based on the local enactment of the Literacy Boost, articles II and III illuminated the difficulty of translating external and cross-curricular messages to teachers’ local practice. While the PD model’s form of governance effectively induced teachers to discuss and enact instructions in the PD material, enactments took the form of additional activities rather than being made coherent with teachers’ present subject teaching. Thus, articles II and III indicated that, in order for PD messages to contribute to teaching, governance should be more specific to teachers’ present practice. Lastly, the dissertation illuminates a paradox regarding state-initiated PD in decentralized school systems. Although decentralization increases the state’s incentives to engage in teachers’ PD, the state’s ability to adapt PD initiatives to local needs is limited by the principles of decentralization.
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| 2. |
- Paulsrud, David
(författare)
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Inkludering i skolan? : Mellan motstridig utbildningspolicy och en mångprofessionell undervisningspraktik
- 2024
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Although inclusive education has been a global political aim for decades, it seems to have been difficult to take substantial steps towards inclusion in teaching practice. While previous research shows that the recontextualization of inclusive education from policy to practice is complex and involves several aspects, studies rarely take more than one or a few of these aspects into account and tend to focus on either the policy level or the teaching of students with different needs in schools and classrooms. The aim of this thesis is to gain a broader understanding of these matters through three sub-studies analyzing Swedish national policies as well as teachers’ and special educators’ enactment of inclusive education in schools. Drawing on a multidimensional understanding of policy enactment, the studies make use of multiple analytical tools and procedures in order to take into account both discursive, interpretive and contextual aspects of enactment. The thesis shows that the recontextualization of inclusive education from policy to practice is associated with a number of dilemmas, which need to be resolved by local school actors. Firstly, Swedish education policies on differentiation, special education and inclusive education have been constructed over time as solutions to different problems, thus imposing conflicting demands on practitioners. Secondly, the analyses show how both policy documents and local school actors’ descriptions of their practice are largely shaped by discourses emphasizing student performance in relation to standardized goals, which constrain inclusive ambitions. Nevertheless, the findings present many examples of inclusive cooperative practices and creative classroom resolutions to dilemmas. In this regard, the thesis illuminates how the room for interpretation and action while enacting policy can differ between actors depending on their position in the local school organization, exposure to external policy demands and contextual constraints. By illustrating how local school actors navigate through conflicting demands by moving between discourses and practices that are inclusive in some aspects but not in others, the thesis contributes both empirically and theoretically to research on inclusive education and policy enactment.
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| 3. |
- Pettersson, Daniel, et al.
(författare)
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From role models to nations in need of advice : Norway and Sweden under the OECDs magnifying glass
- 2017
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Ingår i: Journal of education policy. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0268-0939 .- 1464-5106. ; 32:6, s. 721-744
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- By analysing five separate OECD reviews of evaluation and assessment practices with Norway and Sweden as cases, our study illustrates different ways in which a specific international educational reasoning is blended into more context-based national education policies and, as such, works in parallel with internal reforms and agendas. It is evident that an overarching narrative promotes the importance of coherent and integrated systems of evaluation and assessment in order to strengthen social and political endeavours for equity, quality and achievements. The parallel mix of OECD discourses and national discourses creates a combined narrative in which evaluations and assessments appear natural, self-evident and rational as well as highly adaptable to national settings. The study shows that national vertical and/or horizontal developments are intertwined with the OECD policy recommendations, which are quite general in character. In a continuing process of uploading and downloading, within different contexts, policies are elaborated and recontextualised. Evaluations and assessments are part of a contemporary rational paradigm for mapping and promoting performance in national educational systems – what we identify as a comparative curriculum code.
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| 4. |
- Wermke, Wieland, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Comparing principal autonomy in time and space: modeling school leaders' decision making and control
- 2022
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Ingår i: Journal of Curriculum Studies. - London : Informa UK Limited. - 0022-0272 .- 1366-5839. ; 54:6, s. 733-750
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article presents the development and application of a model that can be utilized to compare the autonomy of principals in various historical and national contexts. Drawing on former conceptual work on autonomy in education, the model conceptualizes principal autonomy as two-dimensional. The first dimension is the decision making expected from principals, manifested on a continuum of being restricted or extended. The second dimension is the control imposed on principals, also varying between a restricted or an extended nature. In relation to each other, restricted/extended decision making and control can result in four different governance configurations that impact principals’ work complexities. We apply the model for the description of the development of Swedish principals’ work conditions over time and for a comparison of the autonomy of Nordic principals. With this endeavour, we demonstrate how historical and nation-specific particularities in educational governance interact with limitations and opportunities of educational leadership. Moreover, we argue that a focus on the autonomy of various stakeholders in schools might be a fertile strategy for further understanding the confusing concept of school autonomy.
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