| 1. |
- Eilard, Angerd, 1962-
(författare)
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Modern, svensk och jämställd : om barn familj och omvärld i grundskolans läseböcker 1962-2007
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of the thesis has been to explore representations of gender, ethnicity and generation in school readers used in the Swedish compulsory school since 1962, to find which ’discourses’, linked to equal opportunities, integration/diversity and childhood, underlie these constructions, and in which ways they may have contributed to the (re)production of different gendered, ethnified and generation-specific subjects. The thesis was written within the frame of a Swedish national research project that explored late modern processes of changing sex- and gender orders in schools and education, particularly in multiethnic environments, which is why, the study is not limited exclusively to sex/gender. These aspects were instead considered in an intersectional perspective, in their interplay with dimensions such as ethnicity and generation. The adopted perspective combines a historical and a discourse analytical approach. This means that the reader texts have been viewed as social constructions in the historical context of their periods, shaped by norms, ideals and values prevailing at the time. One of the ambitions of the thesis has been to bring these texts to life, using a broad and varied theoretical frame, and also to let the texts speak for themselves as far as possible. The theoretical framework was therefore developed in the course of the analysis, in interaction with the analysed texts. The analysis incorporates structural and post-structural theoretical influences and concepts, including feminist and postcolonial notions. The basis is formed by critical multi-modal applied discourse analysis. By using discourse analysis, theory and method are considered as the same. The approach does not aim to produce a homogenous or general picture, but rather strives to highlight the heterogeneity of the texts and to make discursive changes visible. The mutual relationships and correspondence between the texts and their historical contexts has made this possible. More than 60 readers were examined. The process of reading involved two stages: an initial reading, searching for structures, followed by a deconstructive reading. The results are presented in five chapters, contextually linked to the corresponding national curriculum periods. The long period of time examined has meant that several shifts in discourses within the discourse orders in question could be described and elucidated. The thesis also clearly shows that the reader texts have become more heterogeneous and ambiguous over time, and how their subject constructions are characterized by a succession of older as well as more recent discursive fragments. Yet the most noticeable finding of the analysis is that the ’colonial white Western’ discourse remains comparatively unchanged throughout the period. It can be seen as the most stable and unchanging discourse order exhibited in the material, although a certain shift can be perceived in the most recent readers. The earliest readers set out in upper middle-class environments. As the policy of recognition and identities develops, the perspective turns towards solidarity, equal opportunities, and working-class views, in the 1970s and 1980s. By the turn of the millenium, the readers again depict what could be considered as a new middle-class perspective, developed through the emergence of discourses, and characterized by reversed generation hierarchies. The second very prominent discourse observed in the material is a ’hetero-normative discourse of difference’, that paradoxically has evolved within the discourse order of equal opportunities. On the one hand, contemporary readers appear to advocate equal opportunities. Girls and women are frequently positioned as strong individualists, compared to apparently softer boys and men. Nevertheless, a tendency of positioning the otherwise independent girl as a partner to the actual protagonist, the reader boy, can be noticed in the millennium readers. This is basically a question of a traditional hierarchy, where women are subordinated to men. The striking point is that the old nuclear family ideal has progressively been replaced by another ideal of heterosexual twosomeness. Subordination is therefore today a question of a more or less sexist Western discourse, highly influenced by a massmedial discourse. Possibly it could be argued that the displacement is partly also a matter of a reversed generation perspective. The earlier white middle-aged bourgeois patriarchal perspective is thus replaced by a white Western new middle-class teenage ideal, tracing its roots back to an originally masculine youth culture. In the couple relationship – by contrast to the family – contemporary, more individualized ideals are expressed.
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| 2. |
- Andersson, Cecilia, 1961-
(författare)
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Rådjur och raketer : Gatukonst som estetisk produktion och kreativ praktik i det offentliga rummet
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyse the visual expressions of Street Art that occurs in the public space, and by doing so, to study this specifi c practice, and also elucidate the relation between public space as a democratic idea, a place for freedom of speech and as a planned, aesthetically shaped place. The intention is to throw light upon a central part of many young peoples lives in a didactic aspect. In this thesis I discuss Street Art as an informal image making in public space that young people use as tools to make meaning, but also as a form of resistance. The methodologies used in the study are ethnography and visual ethnography, where observational studies of Street Art as practice, interviews and interpretation of photographs (my own, and my informants) are performed and analysed. Theoretically, the study has a didactic and semiotic approach but I also rely on Cultural Studies as a research fi eld in order to be able to pick up different kinds of theories. From three platforms; public space and public place and places for Street Art, aesthetic learning processes within this specifi c practice, and fi nally the expanded fi eld of Art and the similarities and differences between formal Art and Street Art I have outlined four themes; ephemerality, the criteria for Street Art practice, how the work is being done, as a collective and individual practice, the struggle of space in public space, and fi nally high and low in Art and culture. By describing and analysing this informal image making light is thrown upon the aesthetic learning process that occurs, the didactic aspect of this practice and the communication that the images articulate. As a result, the study shows that Street Art, in spite of its illegal mark, points out that it is an aesthetic production and a creative practice that consists of resistance, meaning making, achieving knowledge through practice, and above all a way to use the city, to become a part of the city. The thesis contributes with the suggestion that this informal aesthetic learning process is a way to form identity, make meaning, take part of public space, and through symbolic resistance demand ones rights of expression.
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| 3. |
- Björklund Boistrup, Lisa, 1960-
(författare)
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Assessment Discourses in Mathematics Classrooms : A Multimodal Social Semiotic Study
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This is a study of assessment in mathematics classrooms and assessment is here regarded as a concept with broad boundaries including e.g. diagnostic tests, portfolios, and acts in teacher-student communication. The study’s purpose is to analyse and understand assessment acts in discursive practices in mathematics classroom communication in terms of affordances for students’ active agency and learning. Five mathematics classrooms are visited and the main data consists of video-recordings and written classroom material. In the study, I examine assessment acts, focuses of assessment acts, and roles of semiotic resources (symbols, gestures, speech etc.). With these findings as a basis, four discourses of assessment in mathematics classrooms are construed. A main conclusion is how the construed discourses hold different affordances for students’ active agency and learning. One discourse, “Do it quick and do it right” has similarities to a traditional discourse of assessment described in previous research. In a second discourse, “Anything goes”, students’ performances that can be regarded as mathematically inappropriate are left unchallenged. In both these discourses the affordances for students’ active agency and learning of mathematics are considered low. In a third discourse, “Anything can be up for a discussion”, the focuses of assessment acts are mainly on mathematics processes and available semiotic resources are connected to these focuses. The fourth discourse, “Reasoning takes time”, takes it one step further with a lower pace and an emphasis on mathematics processes such as reasoning and problem-solving. In these two latter discourses the affordances for students’ active agency and learning of mathematics are high. I contend that there is positive power in an increased awareness of discourses like these. The four discourses of this study can be powerful in discussions about, understandings of, and positive changes in assessment practices in mathematics classrooms.
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| 4. |
- Insulander, Eva, 1972-
(författare)
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Tinget, rummet, besökaren : Om meningsskapande på museum
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The main purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyse how museum visitors engage with and make meaning from what is being offered to them in terms of the various resources made available in two exhibitions. Yet another purpose is to describe and analyse the design of these exhibitions. The empirical data stems from observational studies at the Museum of National Antiquities in Stockholm, and includes the investigation of two exhibitions: Prehistories I and II. Eight ‘visiting pairs’ were videotaped and the tapes were multimodally transcribed and analysed. Data also includes digital photos and maps produced by the visitors. In a comparative analysis, descriptions of the exhibitions and their analysis and the visitor study are discussed in relation to earlier research and to the issue of learning.A design-oriented and multimodal perspective on learning is used as a theoretical and methodological framework. The different visits are compared and the visitors’ responses are discussed as different forms of engagement. The results are interpreted within an institutional perspective connected to contemporary discourses within museum studies. The exhibitions are considered as an expression of the museums’ ambition to adjust to a pressure for change. Both exhibitions are, in a greater or less degree, considered as examples of ‘new’ exhibitions in that they rhetorically put forward visitors’ participation, cultural rights, post colonial perspectives and immaterial aspects of cultural heritage.The study presents learning as a social and sign-making activity. It stress how meaning-making and learning happens as a transformation in several steps. As visitors engage in different semiotic resources in the exhibitions’ design, they form new signs through their representations – as a ‘re-design’ of the exhibition – which in turn give them new possibilities for making meaning.
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| 5. |
- Jonsson, Olof Gustaf, 1954-
(författare)
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Bilden och texten : En studie av ljusets och seendets pedagogik
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thesis deals with a reading tradition that can be traced to medieval times, a tradition in which images and text, intertwined, convey the message to the reader. The strength of the coupling between image and text has varied over time. Initially closely interconnected, the connections between image and text were later separated. If text and image represent two diverse ways of organizing human memory, one serial and the other structural, we could say that the first focuses on reproduction and the other on detection. The relation between them is essential for pedagogical action as well as for pedagogical reflection. The aim of this work is to illustrate how this variation in strength changed the pedagogy and prevailing understanding of how images and texts are read. During the emergence of the Swedish elementary school, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, a form of education referred to as ‘visual experience-based teaching methods’ (åskådningsundervisning, Anschauungs-Unterricht) was introduced, a philosophy of education that revitalized traditions from the Middle Ages, with a strong coupling between image and text. The idea of using the image as a tool for education developed into the tradition of ‘school posters’ (skolplanscher), which were used in Swedish education up the implementation of the comprehensive school system in 1962. The development of visual argumentation expressed through the use of school posters is analyzed by tracing the development of the school posters in parallel with normative texts, such as curricula documents and protocols from the school inspectors and the Swedish parliament (Riksdag). The introduction of visual experience-based instruction in the Swedish elementary school in the curriculum (normalplan) of 1878 gave rise to a tension between the new method and the earlier tradition of how texts and even letters should be read. The new teaching method related to the senses, especially the visual faculty and the visual memory, and served as a tool to break up a strong literacy tradition. This had repercussions for the entire school system. The consequence of an altered basic content of the concept of reading also involved a transfer of the right of examination from the church to the community. With the implementation of the curriculum of 1919 the content of the visual experienced-based teaching methods was moved to a new subject called ‘local history’ (hembygdskunskap) which strongly reduced the linkage to the teaching of reading. The visual lines of this argumentation after the curriculum of 1919 are primarily structural in nature, expressed by using the perspectives in the image.
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| 6. |
- Wallsten, Barbara, 1979-
(författare)
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Pädagogische Bildtexte : Kontrastive Analysen von Bild-Text-Beziehungen in deutschen und schwedischen Geschichtslehrbüchern
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thesis examines captions in history textbooks. Captions can be described as short texts connected to images. They have a complex function involving highlighting information, and can be comments, interpretations or questions directly addressing the reader in terms of their nature. Captions in textbooks have a more or less enunciated didactic or educational aim. I call them educational captions. By using a triangulation of methods and theories, such as multimodal text analysis, linguistic comparative discourse analysis and systemic-functional grammar, this thesis explores how meaning and knowledge are discursively represented and conveyed by captions in history textbooks. The corpus consists of German and Swedish history textbooks for upper secondary school pupils. A total of 26 examples have been selected, taking into account various considerations regarding qualitative research, and have been analysed in detail. For the detailed analyses, a flowchart for processing the categories has been designed: presentation of the caption with its image, location within the textbook, image description, image-text-arrangement, processes, agency and grammatical metaphor, construction of subjects, recontextualization and (re)presentation of the historical event. The examples represent three historical events: The Berlin Blockade, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Fall of the Berlin Wall.The analyses show that the length of captions can differ a lot – they can consist of a name or be a longer text with a narrative character. The uses of history differ in German and Swedish textbooks. German captions treat the associated pictures like documents by using letters and numbers to describe them; moreover they provide information about time and place. In contrast, the Swedish ones are more narrative in nature. Subjects are constructed differently in the multimodal representations of the events, the most significant of which is the positive (re)presentation of the USA during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Berlin Blockade. First and foremost, meaning and knowledge are discursively represented and expressed by the selection of the image. This choice influences how the captions are formed and meanings conveyed. Iconic pictures representing a celebrating crowd on the Berlin Wall in front of the Brandenburg Gate serve to construct national identity, together with national symbols, in German textbooks, and captions reinforce this meaning potential. The captions demonstrate that their meaning potential lies within their function of being an interface in the multimodal composition of the textbook, and captions also indicate the different uses of history in the two different educational systems. Finally, their potential in constructing and transforming discursive knowledge and meanings is demonstrated.
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| 7. |
- Bronäs, Agneta, 1945-
(författare)
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Demokratins ansikte : en jämförande studie av demokratibilder i tyska och svenska samhällskunskapsböcker för gymnasiet
- 2000
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this dissertation is to compare German and Swedish textbooks in socialscience focused on how democracy takes form in the text. What kind ofrepresentations appears through texts and illustrations? What is said and how is itsaid? What is emphasized? What is excluded? How does the text present differentconcepts and relate them to democracy? The study also focuses on how knowledgeand learning is described and to whom the text is addressed.This dissertation has a semiotic-didactic perspective based on the dialogicalprinciple that emanates from Bakhtin’s theoretical perspective and Bakhtin’sthoughts of how to analyze texts.The empirical material consists of textbooks in social science, published since 1950.The study is restricted to books written for upper secondary school and books havebeen selected to achieve variation in the descriptions of democracy.The analysis has focused on themes and concepts appearing in the textbooks.Different themes appearing in the text are the basis for the creation of a time-line.Four different periods have been found in each country, but the division of time isslightly different.The dominant themes in German textbooks are “the good and the evil”, “thegood and bad democracy”, “action groups – to be or not to be” and “unity oreminance”. There is more than one theme in Swedish textbooks, but the mostdominant themes are “governing and obedience”, “governing and autonomy”, “theautonomous citizen”, and “governing or empowerment”.There are many representations of democracy in the textbooks and most of therepresentations are vague and full of contradictions. Some of the images evencontradict the official image of democracy. Citizens in German textbooks aredescribed as active, autonomous and responsible, but the only way to influencepoliticians is through participation in elections. Citizens described in Swedishtextbooks are portrayed as passive, ignorant and irresponsible, except when voting.The dominant view of knowledge and learning is reproductive. Knowledge isportrayed as monological and the students are expected to learn some basics facts,without being able to reflect and deliberate on issues. However, texts can be openand create opportunities for students to reflect and take a stance on their own. Anopen and dialogical text is more common in German textbooks than in Swedishtextbooks.
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| 8. |
- Falkevall, Björn, 1953-
(författare)
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Livsfrågor och religionskunskap : En belysning av ett centralt begrepp i svensk religionsdidaktik
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis focuses on “livsfrågor” (questions of life) a typical Swedish concept introduced in the RE syllabus in the curriculum for compulsory schools in 1969. The study poses three questions: what can qualify as a “livsfråga”, why are they regarded important, and how do they fit into teaching? The main purpose is to study differences of the concept in two materials. Primarily interviews with Teacher educators all over Sweden and, secondly in the R.E. syllabus for compulsory and secondary schools from 1962 until today. Finally, the two materials used, will be brought together, and foci are recognized with the help of a tool for thought. The study is using the concept dialogicity from Bachtin. Syllabus are viewed as compromises in accordance with a German tradition. In the syllabus, “livsfrågor” is one within many different words used with none what so ever stringency. It is not necessarily the most important term, as “livsåskådningsfrågor” (questions within philosophies of life) is often dominating in objectivities. Also “existential questions” etc is used. The relation between the words are never made clear. The syllabus are in one sense monologial as different meanings of the word are not made explicit, and other utterances are not invoked. In the interviews the dialogicity is more obvious. Philosophy is mentioned, eg.. Martin Buber, Viktor Frankl, theology (Paul Thillich), but also literature (Lars Gyllensten) and existentialism in a general sence. Other words are not as frequent – but “livsåskådningsfrågor” are of course mentioned, eg. Faith vs. knowledge. In the last chapter “livsfrågor” is problematized with the help of Andrew Wright and his three metanarrativies within the modern R.E. And the assumption, especially in the syllabus, of “livsfrågor”, as common between cultures and over time is problematized with the help of . feministic theory of knowledge.
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| 9. |
- Fors, Vaike, 1969-
(författare)
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The Missing Link in Learning in Science Centres
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Science centres have been identified as an important resource in encouraging teenagers to choose higher education in science and technology. This is of interest to society, since there seems to be a problem in getting sufficient numbers to do so. And accomplishing this is sometimes described as a fatal question for a nation’s future prosperity and development. Still, there is an international trend where teenagers fail to visit science centres. Through research, little is known about what is interesting or useful to the public, as well as how to reach those who are ‘unengaged’. Considering teenagers as exponents for what distinguishes today’s society makes their apparent unwillingness to participate in science centres interesting to study with regards to what culture, history and ideology these centres were initially produced. Hence, from this point of view, what is missing in science centres that would make them interesting for the young people of today? Many studies of learning in science centres have come to focus on visitors who visit voluntarily and how well the embedded messages in the exhibits have been acknowledged by these visitors. This study focuses instead on teenagers who are reluctant to participate in science centres, with their perspective of science centres as the point of departure, specifically what kind of social activities are formed in their encounters with science centre exhibits. This encounter is regarded as an encounter between the two different practices of the science centre and the teenagers. The applied theoretical perspective is mainly assembled from socio-cultural theories of learning. This research is a microanalytic study of five teenagers who were equipped with video cameras and asked to film a visit to the local science centre, Teknikens Hus. The films were later discussed in a focus-group interview consisting of the teenagers and the researcher. Visual ethnography provided the theoretical framework for this research design. The results showed that the teenagers want to use exhibits to have the authority of interpretations and the possibilities to contribute to the meaning of the activity. At the same time, they want to use the exhibits in a way that the activities become places for developing social identity. To negotiate the meaning of the exhibits there is a need for an openness that may be constrained by too inflexible and limiting exhibit designs. This pattern is described as two different forms of participation in the exhibits; ignoring or extending the intended meaning of the exhibits. Meaningfulness also demands a closeness created by connections between the exhibit and the user’s personal experiences. This pattern is described as two different ways in which the teenagers identified the exhibits; exhibits which they dissociated from or to which they had an ongoing relationship. Providing a space for negotiation seems crucial to inviting teenagers into opportunities of meaningful experiences, even more significant than any specific physical feature in the exhibit. The teenagers’ agenda, in which forming practices where they can express themselves and contribute to the meaning seem to be very important, appears not to be greatly enabled by science centre exhibits. In this situation they learn to not participate. Science and technology represented in this matter show a ‘ready-made’ world that they cannot change. The missing link in learning in science centres is here described as the part of the meaning making process where the teenagers get to re-negotiate the meaning of the activities in the centre and use the exhibits as tools to accomplish this.
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| 10. |
- Fransson, Göran
(författare)
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Att se varandra i handling : En jämförande studie av kommunikativa arenor och yrkesblivande för nyblivna fänrikar och lärare
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this thesis is to describe and analyse the process of professionalisation of newly commissioned second lieutenants and newly qualified school teachers. The professionalisation of these two occupational categories is examined from a comparative perspective and concentrates on the communicative conditions and institutional arenas that affect the professionalisation process.The theoretical framework of the thesis is comprised of communication theory and concepts of sense making found in institutional theory models. The empirical data was collected during the first year after second lieutenants received their officer’s commissions and teachers received their teaching credentials. Four second lieutenants and four teachers were interviewed three times during their first year of professional service. Some observations are also included in the thesis.The dissertation’s main conclusions are connected, in part, to issues of transparency in communicative conditions and, in part, to incentives connected to supervision, support and control. On the one hand, the commissioned officers’ and one of the teacher’s process of sensemaking appeared visible and collective in character, where the rules of conduct and meaning emerge clearly without ambiguity. On the other hand, the majority of the certified teachers’ process of sense making appeared private, concealed, inaccessible and diverse in character.It was observed that incentives for supervision, support and control are strong among commissioned officers because they are directly dependent on each other’s work. The same incentives are weaker among certified teachers because they are not as dependent on each other’s work. One conclusion to draw from this difference is that the professionalisation of commissioned officers is collective-oriented while the professionalisation of certified teachers is less so.
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