| 1. |
- Holm, Hampus, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Innovating literacy learning for 21st century teacher education
- 2023
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Ingår i: The future of teacher education. - Leiden ; Boston : Brill Academic Publishers. - 9789004678545 - 9789004678538 - 9789004678521 ; , s. 286-310
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Teaching training can lag changes in school and society. With the onset of ubiquitous writing and mobile devices, the literacies experiences of today’s school and teacher students are different to those of most teacher trainers. In this chapter, a sequence of case studies is presented linking the school student, the teacher education student, and the teacher educator to provide a multifaceted picture of literacies development. Two questionnaires answered by 71 and 39 upper secondary school students, respectively, provided a picture of literacies use in upper secondary school (Case Study 1). The written tasks and the post-writing interviews with three upper secondary school students highlighted the tensions between out-of-school ubiquitous literacies and the in-school academic writing demands (Case Study 2). The teacher education student participatory research case study with four students challenged perceptions of how teacher education students learn academic literacies, and of student resilience (Case Study 3). Together, the case studies showed a disconnection in school between school student contemporary ubiquitous literacies and school literacies expectations. Although finding ways to ameliorate this disconnection through innovative teacher education is important, finding ways to simultaneously strengthen student teachers’ learning autonomy, strengthen the sustainability of their teaching to keep abreast of ubiquitous literacies changes is central to make school inclusive and sustainable.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Lindström, Niclas, docent, 1974-
(författare)
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Att balansera uppdragen att förmedla och kritiskt granska värderingar : en empirisk fallstudie
- 2023. - 1
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Ingår i: Mellan kunskap och fostran. - Lund : Studentlitteratur AB. - 9789144167596 ; , s. 31-42
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- I det här kapitlet behandlas hur versamma lärare i samhällsorienterande ämnen (årskurs 7-9) tar sig an kontroversiella frågor, vilket aktualiserar balansgången mellan de potentiellt motstridiga uppdragen att förmedla och kritiskt granska värderingar.
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Lindström, Niclas, 1974-
(författare)
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Controversial Issues and their Role in RE
- 2020. - 10
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Ingår i: Conference proceedings. - Florence : Filodritto Editore. - 9788885813878 ; , s. 489-493
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In the non-confessional Swedish subject religious education (RE), teachers regularly address sensitive questions, e.g. concerning pupils’ convictions, which sometimes can be regarded as controversial issues (CI). Hence, the overall purpose of this paper is to present, analyze and discuss a minor web survey of which issues RE teachers in secondary school consider to be controversial and how they handle them in the classroom. I will discuss (a) if CI:s can be understood as topics that challenge or violate prevailing ideals, norms and values in a given context, as well as (b) if the teachers’ strategies tend to decrease or increase such value conflicts. Two theoretical assumptions are used in order to analyze the results: (1) A distinction between individualist values, predominant in secular societies, and collectivist values, predominant in religious societies. (2) That teachers' strategies for handling controversial issues, through routines and working methods, influence the values which are reproduced in education. This study indicates that the topics the participating RE teachers consider to be CI:s tend to defy individualist values. The study also show that a majority of the RE teachers stated that they handled CI:s by staying neutral or presenting a balanced point of view. This may be a way of socializing the pupils to embrace individualist values, are expected to make autonomous decisions and take responsibility for their choices. In the conclusion, it will be suggested, that the prevailing individualist perspective of Swedish RE may give a biased understanding on alternative point of views.
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| 6. |
- Lindström, Niclas, 1974-
(författare)
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Den nya syntesen och etik i undervisningen
- 2018
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Ingår i: Nordidactica. - Karlstad : CSD Karlstad. - 2000-9879. ; :2018:3, s. 27-43
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Researchers within the educational field usually acknowledge the idea that teaching is an essentially moral activity. Yet, they seem to have different opinions on how teachers are supposed to complete that task in their everyday pedagogical practice. Jonathan Haidt has conducted a series of international studies, during recent years, revealing how people in general tend to respond ethically to situations that evoke strong emotional reactions. Based on the results he has presented a theory, the New Syntheses, in which he claims to explain the difference between the dominating moral pedagogical models and develop new approaches to teaching ethics. The present paper is based on a survey of Swedish teacher students and religious education teachers for which we have borrowed two of Jonathan Haidts examples. We discuss the New Synthesis in relation to the results of the surveys and the ethical dimension of the teaching profession. We argue that these results indicate a need for teacher students and teachers to consciously reflect on their values and methods for approaching ethics in education.
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| 7. |
- Lindström, Niclas, docent, 1974-
(författare)
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Hur görs frågor kontroversiella?
- 2024. - 1
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Ingår i: Att undervisa om kontroversiella frågor. - Malmö : Gleerups Utbildning AB. - 9789151110844 ; , s. 67-78
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Lärare som undervisar i samhällsorienterade ämnen hanterar kontinuerligt kontroversiella frågor och konflikter som uppstår mellan individer eller grupper i skolan. Men vad eller vem är det egentligen som gör att frågor blir kontroversiella i klassrummet? Svaret på frågan är långt ifrån så självklart som det kan verka vid första anblick. I det här kapitlet görs ett försök att reda ut detta utifrån några praktiska exempel hämtade från studier i skolmiljö.
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- Lindström, Niclas, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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Lärares yrkesetik och etiskt resonerande
- 2018. - 1
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Ingår i: Läraren och yrkesetiken. - Lund : Studentlitteratur AB. - 9789144120881 ; , s. 59-81
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- En uppsättning yrkesetiska principer sätter ramar och ger riktlinjer för lärares verksamhet, men ofta är sådana principer i sig själva inte tillräckliga för att ge den vägledning som krävs för att lösa konkreta etiska problem. För det krävs också att läraren besitter färdigheter relevanta för att hantera etiska frågor, i synnerhet en förmåga till etiskt resonerande.
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| 10. |
- Lindström, Niclas, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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Moral Taste and Moral Education : An Interview Study
- 2021
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Ingår i: Abstract Book 23rd Annual International Conference on Education. - Aten : Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER). - 9789605984021 ; , s. 46-
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In recent research on moral psychology, the human consciousness has been compared to a tongue, with different taste buds, which together can cause a variety of sensations. According to this theory people, in general, have a preparedness to react to situations, which can provide opportunities or pose threats in a social context. Moral psychologist, Jonathan Haidt (2012, 2013), has described these receptors as pairs, for example: care/harm, justice/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, holiness/degradation, and liberty/oppression. Which of these foundations the individual develops a taste for depends, largely, on the social and cultural context (Graham, Haidt & RimmKaufman 2008). Hence, the choices teachers make of which issues to address and in what way can contribute to a learning environment that influences their pupils‘ moral outlook. The purpose of this study is to investigate which of these moral intuitions or taste preferences that teachers want to endorse and cultivate in their pedagogical practices. Against this background, a number of qualitative research interviews were conducted with experienced teachers in the non-confessional subject religious education (RE), who have a particular responsibility for moral education in the Swedish school system. The interviews were partly based on a modified version of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire, which was deliberately developed in order to determine the participants‘ moral taste, and the participants were asked to elaborate their answers (Graham, Haidt & Nosek, 2008). The results of our study indicate that the participants tended to favour care and justice over loyalty, authority and holiness. As one of the participants puts it: "many of my examples relate to the weak and vulnerable or the ones that are denied their rights in society… these pedagogical choices are based on the content of the curriculum but also mirror my own preferences". In this paper we will analyze the interviews with the RE teachers and critically discuss the consequences the moral foundations theory have for moral education.
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| 11. |
- Lindström, Niclas, docent, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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Moral Taste and Moral Education : An Interview Study
- 2022
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Ingår i: Athens Journal of Education. - Aten : Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER). - 2407-9898 .- 2241-7958. ; 9:3, s. 365-376
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In recent research on moral psychology, the human consciousness has been compared to a tongue, with different taste buds, which together can cause a variety of sensations. According to this theory, people in general have a preparedness to react to situations, which can provide opportunities or pose threats in a social context. Moral psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, has described these receptors as pairs, for example: care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion and sanctity/degradation. Which of these foundations the individual develops a taste for depends, largely, on the social and cultural context. Hence, the choices teachers make of which issues to address and in what way can contribute to a learning environment that influences their pupils’ moral outlook. The purpose of this study is to investigate which of these moral intuitions or taste preferences that teachers want to endorse and cultivate in their pedagogical practices. Against this background, a number of qualitative research interviews were conducted with experienced teachers in the non-confessional subject religious education (RE), who have a particular responsibility for moral education in the Swedish school system. The interviews were based on a modified version of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire, which was deliberately developed to determine the participants’ moral taste, and the participants were asked to elaborate their answers. The results indicate that the participants tended to favour harm and fairness over loyalty, authority and sanctity. As one of the participants puts it: “many of my examples relate to the weak and vulnerable or the ones that are denied their rights in society… these pedagogical choices are based on the content of the curriculum but also mirror my own preferences”. In this paper we analyse the interviews with the RE teachers and critically discuss the consequences the moral foundations theory has for moral education.
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| 12. |
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| 13. |
- Lindström, Niclas, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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On how RE Teachers Address the Sometimes-Conflicting Tasks of Conveying Basic Values and Tools for Critical Thinking
- 2020
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Ingår i: Abstract Book. - Athens : Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER). - 9789605983253 ; , s. 41-41
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- A recurring idea, among practitioners and researchers, is that “teaching is a moral endeavour” where any act can convey “moral meaning” and “influence students” (Hansen, 2001, 826; Bulloughs, 2010; Campbell, 2013). Some have even stated that “all that can be seen and heard in classrooms” can be of moral significance, including “events, actions and even aspects of the physical environment” (Jackson, Boostrom & Hansen, 1998). Yet, they seem to be divided on how teachers ought to treat ideals, norms and values in their pedagogical practices.Hence, a division is often made between character-based and reason-based approaches to moral or ethics education. The difference can, somewhat simplified, be described schematically by their respective emphasis on group or individual, emotion or reason, habituation or critical assessment of universal ethical principles (for a more elaborated account see: Kohlberg, 1966, 2; Carr, 1983, 39; Graham, Haidt & Rimm-Kaufman, 2008, 271, 275). Even if the approaches are often described as mutually exclusive alternatives teachers are, nevertheless, often expected to perform these tasks in their everyday practices (see SNAE 2011).Against this background, we have conducted qualitative research interviews, with religious education (RE) teachers, who are considered to have a particular responsibility for moral and ethics education in the Swedish school system (Almén, 2000; Hartman, 2008; Larsson, 2009; Franck & Löfstedt, 2015). Our overall aim of this paper is to investigate how they relate to the sometimes conflicting responsibilities to convey a set of basic values and contribute to the pupils’ abilities to critically examine ideals, norms and values. Our analysis of the results shows that RE teachers use different strategies to describe and motivate their pedagogical choices (Yin, 1994; Bryman, 2008). We will, for instance, distinguish between a casuist-, a rights-, and an existentialist oriented approach to moral and ethics education and perform a critical discussion of the results.
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| 14. |
- Lindström, Niclas, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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On how RE Teachers Address the Sometimes Conflicting Tasks of Conveying Fundamental Values and Facilitating Critical Thinking
- 2022
-
Ingår i: Athens Journal of Education. - : Athens Institute for Education and Research. - 2407-9898 .- 2241-7958. ; 9:1, s. 23-36
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Teachers in the non-confessional Swedish subject religious education have conflicting responsibilities to convey values and facilitate critical thinking. The research regarding these responsibilities has often been considered a theoretical problem and the discussion has concerned theoretical solutions. However, the problem is not only theoretical. It is in fact also a practical problem that many teachers frequently encounter. The overall aim of this paper is thus to draw attention to these conflicting responsibilities as a practical problem that teachers face and are expected to solve in their pedagogical practices. In line with this aim, a number of qualitative research interviews were conducted with experienced religious education teachers, who are considered to have a particular responsibility for moral education in the Swedish school system. The purpose of the interviews was to investigate how they relate to their sometimes conflicting responsibilities and consequently make an empirically informed contribution to the debate. This is an important task since there are no official guidelines on how teachers are to balance these responsibilities in their pedagogical practices.
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| 15. |
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| 16. |
- Lindström, Niclas, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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Reason and Emotion : How Teachers Respond to Ethical Problems
- 2018
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Ingår i: ATINER'S Conference Paper Series. - Athens : Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER). ; , s. 1-14
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Teachers frequently face ethical problems in their everyday practice – ranging from pedagogical choices affecting their pupils to pressing conflicts that need to be solved – and they are expected to respond to such problems in a professional manner. Given the centrality of the ethical dimension to the teaching profession, an important question is how teachers tend to approach such problems. While some studies have been carried out regarding how teachers in particular approach ethical problems, there are interesting studies revealing how people in general tend to respond ethically to situations involving ethical aspects that evoke strong emotional reactions. Aiming to fill parts of this gap, the present paper is based on a survey of Swedish teacher students and religious education (RE) teachers for which we have borrowed two examples from such general studies (carried out by Jonathan Haidt among others). These examples were chosen on the basis that one of them clearly represent a social taboo in a Swedish context while the other one does not. Letting the teacher students and RE teachers respond to both examples give us an indication of whether there is any significant difference in their approach to an example evoking a strong emotional reaction as opposed to a more neutral one. It is clear from our survey that there is such a difference: the respondents generally make rationally motivated judgments when confronted with the neutral example, while most of them seem to rely on gut feeling in the more provoking case. If these results can be taken as an indication of how teacher students and teachers tend to respond to real life situations, a provoking or emotionally laden context is likely to enhance the risk of making ethical choices which are not based on rational reasoning. We argue that these results emphasize the importance for teacher students as well as already practicing teachers to study, and cultivate the ability for, moral reasoning.
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| 17. |
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| 18. |
- Lindström, Niclas, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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Religionskunskap
- 2019. - 3
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Ingår i: Utbildningshistoria. - Lund : Studentlitteratur AB. - 9789144121192 ; , s. 263-276, s. 73-100
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 19. |
- Lindström, Niclas, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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School meals : bridging the gap between citizen expectation, procurement skills and legislation
- 2013. - 1
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Ingår i: Ethics of consumption. - Wageningen : Wageningen Academic Publishers. - 9789086862313 - 9789086867844 ; , s. 423-428
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Among others, Swedish citizens trust responsible authorities and legislation to ensure that producers manufacture food under reasonable conditions for both sentient beings and landscapes. Nevertheless many consumers are prepared to go much further and buy goods with e.g. fair-trade or ecological certificates. We believe that this trust is becoming increasingly compromised, and a closer study of what values influence purchase of food served in official institutions such as hospitals, preschools, and schools is important as individual choice according to certain certificates is very limited. This forthcoming study has two main aims. One is to examine inherent values in consumer expectations, policies and legislation regarding school meals through an ethical analysis of different aspects such as e.g. individual choice, public health, global justice, animal welfare and environmental sustainability. Another aim is to suggest a model for municipalities and the county councils to weigh these, sometimes conflicting, factors to one another in order to take reasonable ethical responsibility, live up to citizen expectations and meet national and international legislation regarding e.g. global justice, sustainability and animal welfare.
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| 20. |
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| 21. |
- Lindström, Niclas, docent, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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Three Approaches of How to Address Controversial Issues in Education
- 2022
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Ingår i: Abstract Book. - Athens : Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER). - 9789605984755 ; , s. 85-86
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- A recurring idea in the educational debate is that we live in a time of polarization, where people hold radically different beliefs, which makes it difficult for us to communicate with each other (e.g., Noddings & Brooks, 2017; Lukianoff & Haidt, 2018; Boghossian & Lindsey, 2019). It is, however, the teachers’ responsibility to address the controversial issues that tend to divide individuals or groups. Such issues may, for example, include moral dilemmas, extremism, terrorism, politics and religion (e.g. Moore & Kyser, 2014; Sjöborg, 2015; McDonough, 2016; Revell & Christopher, 2021). There is no generally accepted definition of controversial issues in the research literature. Most definitions, however, contain what we describe as emotional, cognitive and evaluative elements. Hence, controversial issues are matters about which individuals or groups tend to get upset and disagree, about which individuals or groups tend to hold conflicting explanations, and about which individuals or groups create solutions based on different values (e.g., Cooling, 2012; Hand, 2008; Ljunggren et al., 2015; Stradling, 1984; Lindström & Sullivan, 2021). Which aspects of controversial issues researchers emphasize seem to rely on a variety of factors, however, we argue that it depends on how they perceive the principal aim of education.In this paper, we will provide a division of three educational approaches to controversial issues, which are prevalent in the research literature and among teachers in their pedagogical practices. If the principal aim of education is:that students should develop without being disturbed by unsettling or threatening content, it is important that the teachers can create safe learning environments, which is characteristic of an emotional perspective of controversial issues (see: Stradling, 1984; Hickey, 2016; Cush, 2007; Lukianoff & Haidt, 2018 ).to develop the students’ ability to think and act rationally, they should be provided with opportunities to review arguments from different points of view and learn how to make well-grounded assessments, which is characteristic of a cognitive perspective of controversial issues (see: Hand, 2008; Boghossian & Lindsay, 2019).to contribute to the pupils’ ability to feel empathy, look beyond people´s differences and work for a fair community, they must be exposed to specific personal stories that can facilitate their understanding of others (see: Stradling, 1984; Cooling, 2012; Noddings & Brooks, 2017).In this paper, we will provide examples of these positions and discuss to which extent they are attainable and valuable ends to strive against in an educational practice.
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| 22. |
- Lindström, Niclas, docent, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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Two Educational Approaches to Moral Psychology: : Exploring the Possibilities of an Adaptive Attitude
- 2021
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Ingår i: 47th Annual Conference of the Association for Moral Education. - : Association for Moral Education.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The recent development within moral psychology has changed the understanding of how people, in general, make moral judgements. The results suggest that moral judgments involve two cognitive processes, intuitive responses and rational thinking, where the latter's significance has traditionally been overemphasized. The theory has been used to explain the differences between two of the main moral pedagogical models depending on which of these cognitive systems is emphasised. The proponents of character-based models emphasize the ability to feel empathy, solidarity and group affiliation whereas the proponents of reason-based models emphasize the ability to think rationally and apply normative principles (cf. Greene 2007, 63; Graham, Haidt & Rimm-Kaufman 2008, 271; Cushman & Young 2009, 18). Researchers have considered this a paradigm shift within moral psychology (Maxwell & Narvaez, 2013, 271), but educationalists' interest has so far been limited and often restricted to harsh critique. An interpretation, following Steutel and Carr (1999), could be that the “differences between conceptions of moral education are nothing if not philosophical” in combination with a reluctance to accept “modern psychological attempts to derive moral educational conclusions from quasi-empirical research” (p. 3). In this article, we analyse the critical approach to moral psychology raised by educationalists and propose an alternative where we believe moral psychology can inform moral education.In this paper, we will discuss two educational approaches to the new paradigm of moral psychology. Initially, we will consider the proponents of a critical approach, where the influence of moral psychology on educational practice, generally is dismissed because of semantic or methodological reasons (see: Musschenga, 2008, 2013; Kristjánsson, 2013, 2016; Maxwell & Narvaez, 2013; Haste, 2013). Then, we will consider an adaptive approach, where it is possible to explore both sematic and methodological issues in relation to the new paradigm in moral psychology (Norgren Hansson & Lindström, 2020). Finally, we discuss the limitations and benefits of a psychologically informed moral education and which consequences this would have on the pedagogical practice.
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| 23. |
- Lindström, Niclas, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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Using interactive tools and teaching methods to prepare teacher students for the task of conveying basic values
- 2016
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Ingår i: EDULEARN16 Proceedings. - Valencia : IATED Academy. - 9788460888604 ; , s. 7197-7201
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Generally, teachers are expected to convey certain basic values to their pupils in addition to the task of mediating knowledge. These values differ between different countries and may be either implicitly taken for granted within the educational system or explicitly established in regulatory documents. In light of this aspect of the teacher profession, we take it to be an important ingredient in the teacher education to prepare teacher students for the task of conveying such basic values. The present paper focuses on pedagogical challenges in relation to this task. In order to investigate the evaluative profiles of the teacher students and develop this aspect of the teacher education, we have worked according to a model with three distinct phases. (1) A survey was designed, using interactive tools and deliberately choosing questions in relation to (a) the task provided by The Swedish National Agency for Education (SNAE) of conveying a set of basic values, and (b) more extensive international studies. (2) Students were invited to answer the survey, where they received direct feedback, providing the basis for problematizing and discussing their evaluations in relation to alternative views. In addition their answers provided information for us to map their evaluative profile. (3) The evaluative profile wasin turn put in relation to the basic values of their future profession and international research. Hence the students were engaged in creating a substantial part of the study material of the course used as apoint of departure for critical analysis and discussion, making the students aware of their own evaluative profile and alternative points of view. We believe that such an increased awareness of one’s own evaluative profile is one prerequisite to develop a professional attitude to conveying both individual and social values in the teacher’s pedagogical practice and meet the requirements from SNAE and the challenges of evaluatively diverse teaching environments. In this paper we present our method and explain how it can be used as a general model for working with values in the teacher education.
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| 24. |
- Lindström, Niclas, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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Using interactive tools and teaching methods to prepare teacher students for the task of conveying basic values
- 2016
-
Ingår i: EDULEARN16 Proceedings. - Valencia : IATED Academy. - 9788460888604
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Generally, teachers are expected to convey certain basic values to their pupils in addition to the task of mediating knowledge. These values differ between different countries and may be either implicitly taken for granted within the educational system or explicitly established in regulatory documents. In Sweden the curriculum for the upper secondary school states that “[e]ach and everyone working in the school should… encourage respect for the intrinsic value of each person and the environment we all share […] this is to be achieved by nurturing in the individual a sense of justice, generosity, tolerance and responsibility” (The Swedish National Agency for Education (SNAE) 2012). In light of this aspect of the teacher profession, we take it to be an important ingredient in the teacher education to prepare teacher students for the task of conveying such basic values. The present paper focuses on challenges in relation to this task.As researchers and teachers in the Swedish teacher education we have had the opportunity to address the value-conveying task of the teacher profession in both research and education. In addressing this task, the typical evaluative profile of the teacher students has turned out to be an interesting challenge. According to previous studies, Swedes in general (Inglehart 2015) including Swedish teacher students (Authors 2016a), tend to embrace individualist values and reject more social values. This kind of individualist evaluative profile is potentially problematic in relation to the task of conveying basic values, since it typically comes with a tendency to view values as a private matter, something that the school should not interfere with (Authors 2016b).In order to investigate the evaluative profiles of the teacher students and develop this aspect of the teacher education, we have worked according to a model with three distinct phases.(1) A survey was constructed, using interactive tools such as Mentimeter and Lime Survey, deliberately choosing questions in relation to (a) the task provided by SNAE of conveying a set of basic values, and (b) relevant international studies (cf. Inglehart & Baker 2000). (2) Students were invited to answer the survey, where they received direct feedback, providing the basis for problematizing and discussing their evaluations in relation to alternative views. In addition their answers provided information for us to map their evaluative profile. (3) The evaluative profile was in turn put in relation to the basic values of their future profession and international research. Hence the students were engaged in creating a substantial part of the study material of the course, used as a point of departure for critical analysis and discussion, making the students aware of their own evaluative profile and alternative points of view. We believe that such an increased awareness of one’s own evaluative profile is one prerequisite to develop a professional attitude to conveying both individual and social values in the teacher’s pedagogical practice and meet the requirements from SNAE and the challenges of a multicultural teaching environment. Our teaching method has also resulted in research which has been used in order to further develop the content of the course (Authors 2016a; 2016b). In this paper we present our method and explain how it can be used as a general model for working with values in the teacher education.
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| 25. |
- Lindström, Niclas, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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Wayfinding Through Disrupting Controversies in the Religious Education Classroom: Teachers’ Views
- 2021
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Ingår i: Education in the North. - Aberdeen. - 0424-5512 .- 2398-0184. ; 28:1, s. 68-81
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Controversial issues are a teaching challenge that can either be accepted and pedagogically grasped by the teacher, or repressed. However, there is no generally accepted definition of ‘controversial issues’ in the literature. Most definitions contain behavioural, epistemic and political elements. Hence, controversial issues are topics about which individuals tend to disagree, about which individuals tend to hold conflicting explanations, and about which individuals create solutions based on different values (Cooling, 2012; Hand, 2008; Ljunggren et al., 2015; Stradling, 1984). We collected critical incidents (Flanagan, 1954) from teachers working in the north of Sweden in an Indigenous language zone. We found that the teachers do not consider an given issue as controversial per se, but rather they see controversiality as created in the specific classroom context. For example, one teacher expressed this as follows: “a controversial issue is created through the students in the classroom and what backgrounds they have.” Globalisation and refugee flows have created classrooms with students from the North and South allowing more issues to be perceived as controversial than earlier when school was more homogeneous. In this paper, we problematise the teachers’ construction of critical issue incidents.
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| 26. |
- Lindström, Niclas, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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Which values are reproduced within the swedish educational system?
- 2016
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Ingår i: Usuteaduslik Ajakiri / The Estonian Theological Journal. - Tartu : Estonian Theological Society. - 1406-6564. ; 69:1, s. 49-61
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Using the World Values Survey (WVS) as a background the paper discusses a tension between the general evaluative outlook of Swedish teacher students and the educational values established by The Swedish National Agency for Education (SNAE). According to the results from WVS, which maps evaluative differences between approximately 80 countries in the world, Sweden stands out as a country that rejects traditional values and embraces so called secular self-expression values. However, the values established by SNAE include both traditional values, such as “sharing a common cultural heritage”, and secular self-expression values, such as “individual freedom and integrity”. Against this background we conducted a survey of 179 Swedish teacher students in order to investigate the relation between their evaluative outlook and the values they are supposed to convey to their pupils as established by SNAE. The result of the survey indicates that these students do not differ in any significant respect from the Swedish population in general as regards secular vs traditional evaluations. The fact that the traditional values emphasized by SNAE seem to be scarcely represented among the teacher students, makes questionable whether they will be present in their future teaching. On the assumptions that there are important educational values among the traditional as well as the secular self-expression ones, and that values are reproduced within an educational system, we argue that there is reason to take the imbalance in the evaluative outlook of the students seriously.
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| 27. |
- Lindström, Stefan B, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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Computer-Aided Evaluation of Blood Vessel Geometry From Acoustic Images
- 2018
-
Ingår i: Journal of ultrasound in medicine. - : Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Inc.. - 0278-4297 .- 1550-9613. ; 37:4, s. 1025-1031
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A method for computer-aided assessment of blood vessel geometries based on shape-fitting algorithms from metric vision was evaluated. Acoustic images of cross sections of the radial artery and cephalic vein were acquired, and medical practitioners used a computer application to measure the wall thickness and nominal diameter of these blood vessels with a caliper method and the shape-fitting method. The methods performed equally well for wall thickness measurements. The shape-fitting method was preferable for measuring the diameter, since it reduced systematic errors by up to 63% in the case of the cephalic vein because of its eccentricity.
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| 28. |
- Norgren Hansson, Mimmi, 1989-
(författare)
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Berättelser om omsorg : omsorgsetikens kritiska potential i skolans värdeförmedlingsuppdrag
- 2024
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- From a care ethics perspective, this thesis aims to discuss and conceptualise children’s experiences of care in Swedish compulsory school. I initiate an ethical discussion focusing on the theoretical core of care ethics and exploring how the framework can be used and developed within the aforementioned educational context. The thesis consists of two empirical and two theoretical articles. In the empirical articles, a qualitative approach is employed to interview sixth-grade children about their experiences giving and receiving care within peer relationships in school. The theoretical articles explore the conditions of values education in Swedish schools and the application of the care ethics framework in the context of new moral psychological research. Article I, “Dissonance between liberal and conservative function: an analysis of values education in Swedish schools”, underscores the significance of contextualisation in analyses of values education, emphasising the intricate interplay between societal values and those imparted within educational contexts. It critically evaluates existing theoretical frameworks and approaches, highlighting the need to disentangle values from function and navigate dissonance within diverse value systems. In article II, “Caring narratives from Swedish compulsory school”, a care ethics perspective is employed to analyse caring narratives from pupils in sixth grade, revealing the dynamic roles of caregivers and recipients of care in shaping a reactive care narrative. Partiality’s pivotal role in care dynamics is explored in article III, “The partial care”, stressing its impact on peer relationships in school environments. Article IV, “What can Moral Psychology Contribute to the Understanding of an Ethics of Care?”, delves into recent developments in moral psychology, challenging the care ethics understanding of moral reasoning by acknowledging the connection between rapid emotional responses and deliberate rational thinking. It connects these psychological insights with the ethics of care, exploring the relationship between intuitive acts of natural care and deliberate choices of ethical care in a moral pedagogical context. In synthesising these themes, my thesis contributes to a relational understanding of values education and situates the ethics of care framework within the realm of education. It offers a novel perspective on the interrelationships between values education, critical Religious Education, and the feminist framework of care ethics, enriching the discourse within these subdisciplines.
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| 29. |
- Norgren-Hansson, Mimmi, 1989-, et al.
(författare)
-
Can Moral Psychology Inform Moral Education? : Some Critical Perspectives
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Conference Proceedings. - Florence : Filodritto Editore. - 9788885813878 ; , s. 475-480
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- As teachers we frequently face situations where we are expected to make moral judgements and act upon them as a part of our pedagogical practices. This is one reason why practitioners and researchers tend to agree on that teaching is an essentially moral practice. However, according to recent development within moral psychology, we often make judgements based on emotionally driven intuitions and afterwards make up reasons to explain them. This provides a challenge for the traditional views of moral education. Thus, the overall aim of this paper is to present and critically discuss what the new findings of moral psychology can contribute to moral education. Initially we will present the theory and argue why it seems to provide an important contribution to our understanding of the normative dimension of education. Finally, however, we will use philosophical method in order to critically examine of some of the core features of the model and discuss which consequences it has to, for instance, aspects of care which is inherent in an educational context.
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| 30. |
- Norgren-Hansson, Mimmi, 1989-, et al.
(författare)
-
What can Moral Psychology Contribute to the Understanding of an Ethics of Care?
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Teaching Ethics. - : Philosophy Documentation Center. - 1544-4031 .- 2154-0551. ; 20:1/2, s. 157-167
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The recent development within moral psychology has contributed to change the understanding of how people in general make moral judgements. The results suggest that moral judgements typically involve two cognitive processes, rapid emotional responses and slow acts of rational thinking, where the significance of the latter traditionally has been overemphasized. It is possible to argue that the division in moral psychology has a counterpart in an ethics of care which distinguishes between intuitive acts of natural care and deliberate choices of ethical care. The purpose of this paper is thus to discuss if and how the recent development within moral psychology can be used to understand an ethics of care as a moral pedagogical model. We will argue that the findings in moral psychology can contribute to the interpretation and application of an ethics of care which can benefit the understanding of both theories in an educational context.
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| 31. |
- Samuelsson, Lars, 1975-, et al.
(författare)
-
A Counterfactual Argument for Environmentalists to Endorse Non-Instrumental Value in Nature
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Abstract Book. - Aten : Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER). - 9789605984045 ; , s. 27-28
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Environmentalists care about nature. Often, they reason and act as if they consider nature to be valuable for its own sake, i.e., to have non-instrumental value (often referred to as intrinsic value). Yet, there is a rather widespread reluctance, even among environmentalists, to explicitly ascribe such value to nature. One important explanation for this is probably the thought that such value, at least when attached to nature, is mysterious in one way or another. Anthropocentrists within environmental ethics have argued that the idea of non-instrumental value in nature is problematic in various ways (see Samuelsson, 2010a, for references), and some so called environmental pragmatists have maintained that a focus on non-instrumental value in nature among environmentalists is counter-productive (see Samuelsson, 2010b, for a critical account of such environmental pragmatism). In addition, Bryan Norton‘s influential convergence hypothesis states that from a practical point of view it makes no or little difference whether we ascribe noninstrumental value to nature, given the depth and variety of instrumental value that it possesses (Norton, 1991, 237-43).Several environmental ethicists have provided replies to this pessimistic outlook on the prospects for non-instrumental value in nature (e.g., Callicott, 1995; McShane, 2007). In this paper we add to this list of replies by providing a counter-factual argument, applying to anyone who genuinely cares about nature, for ascribing non-instrumental value to it. Even if we accept, for the sake of argument, something like the convergence hypothesis, relying on nature‘s instrumental value for preservational purposes is risky business for environmentalists. We can easily imagine a scenario where some crucial instrumental value that is in fact (now) possessed by some preservation-worthy natural entity (such as a species or a diverse and unique ecosystem) is absent. Yet, even under such circumstances, environmentalists would generally want to preserve this entity. In other words, the convergence hypothesis can only be contingently true, and once we acknowledge this fact it becomes clear that giving up on the non-instrumental value of nature means losing an important source for providing arguments to the effect that we ought to preserve certain natural entities.In the paper we develop this argument, go through some possible replies to it and briefly consider the theoretical costs that might be involved in ascribing non-instrumental value to nature. We argue that with respect to most accounts of such value, whatever theoretical costs one might claim to be involved in ascribing such value to nature, these costs are not higher than the costs of ascribing it to anything else.
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| 32. |
- Samuelsson, Lars, 1975-, et al.
(författare)
-
A Counterfactual Argument for Environmentalists to Endorse Non-Instrumental Value in Nature
- 2021
-
Ingår i: ATINER'S Conference Paper Series. - Aten : Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER). ; , s. 1-15
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Environmentalists care about nature. Often, they reason and act as if they consider nature to be valuable for its own sake, i.e., to have non-instrumental value. Yet, there is a rather widespread reluctance, even among environmentalists, to explicitly ascribe such value to nature. One important explanation of this is probably the thought that it would be mysterious in one way or another if nature possessed such value. In addition, Bryan Norton’s influential convergence hypothesis states that, from a practical point of view, it makes no or little difference whether we ascribe non-instrumental value to nature, given the depth and variety of instrumental value that it possesses. In this paper we provide a counterfactual argument, applying to anyone who genuinely cares about nature, for endorsing non-instrumental value in it. Even if we accept, for the sake of argument, something like the convergence hypothesis, relying on nature’s instrumental value for preservational purposes is risky business for environmentalists. We also briefly consider the mysteriousness-objection to non-instrumental value in nature. We show that with respect to most accounts of non-instrumental value, there is nothing particularly mysterious about nature possessing such value.
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| 33. |
- Samuelsson, Lars, 1975-, et al.
(författare)
-
Ethics Teaching in Education for Sustainable Development
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Abstract Book. - Aten : Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER). - 9789605983253 ; , s. 53-54
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Education for sustainable development (ESD) is nowadays internationally regarded as an important aspect of the overall education of children and young people in the world (e.g., UNESCO, 2019, Education for sustainable development: Partners in action – Global action programme (GAP) key partners' report (2015-2018); https:// unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000368829). Importantly, it is included among the goals of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (goal 4; https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/). Besides its content – sustainable development – ESD is also characterized by its emphasis on interactive and participatory approaches to education: "Designing teaching and learning in an interactive, learner-centred way that enables exploratory, action oriented and transformative learning" (UNESCO, 2019, "What is education for sustainable development?"; https://en.unesco.org/the mes/education-sustainable-development/what-is-esd). In this paper, we show how both these aspects of ESD – its content and approach to education – reveal the importance of ethics teaching in ESD as well as provide challenges with respect to such teaching.Content: The object of ESD – the idea of sustainable development – is both normative and imprecise. It is normative because it is assumed that sustainable development is something that we ought to strive for. It is imprecise because the different concepts that together constitute the idea of sustainable development (such as 'needs', 'abilities' and 'the future'; see World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987, Our Common Future, Ch. 2, §1; https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/ content/ documents/5987our-common-future.pdf) can all be given different interpretations generating conflicting sustainability goals (weak or strong) (see, e.g., A. Dobson, 1998, Justice and the environment: Conceptions of environmental sustainability and theories of distributive justice, Oxford: Oxford University Press, Ch. 2). This means that ESD is never neutral. Instead it rests on implicit or explicit ethical assumptions. Hence, a comprehensive and reflective ESD requires that one reveals and discusses such assumptions.Approach: The kinds of interactive and participatory approaches to education that are assumed in ESD are, arguably, as such suitable for the task of revealing and discussing ethical assumptions. However, this requires that an appropriate approach to ethics education is incorporated within ESD. Two potential problems present themselves at this point: (1) the most common way of teaching ethics – a theory-based approach – seems ill suited for this task; (2) in the context of ESD we need an approach to ethics education that is available also to teachers who are not experienced within the field of ethics (since most teachers involved in ESD arguably belong to this group of teachers). The challenge, hence, is to find an approach to ethics teaching in ESD that is (1) suitable with respect to both its content and its approach to education, and (2) available also to teachers who are not experienced within the field of ethics. We suggest a certain methods-based approach to ethics education (that we have previously developed in detail) as a promising candidate for this task.
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| 34. |
- Samuelsson, Lars, 1975-, et al.
(författare)
-
Ethics Teaching in Education for Sustainable Development
- 2022
-
Ingår i: Athens Journal of Education. - Aten : Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER). - 2407-9898 .- 2241-7958. ; 9:2, s. 211-224
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Education for sustainable development (ESD) is nowadays internationally considered an important aspect of the overall education of children and young people in the world. It is included among the goals of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Besides its content – sustainable development – ESD is also characterized by its emphasis on a democratic and participatory educational procedure. In this paper, we show how both these aspects of ESD – its content and procedure – reveal the importance of bringing ethical considerations into ESD, as well as provide challenges for ethics teaching in ESD.
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| 35. |
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| 36. |
- Samuelsson, Lars, 1975-, et al.
(författare)
-
Internal vs External Impartiality and the Requirement of Universalizability
- 2022
-
Ingår i: 17th Annual International Conference on Philosophy 23-26 May 2022, Athens, Greece. - Athens : Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER). - 9789605984793 ; , s. 61-62
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In a seminal paper from 1998, Helga Kuhse, Peter Singer, and Maurice Rickard (hereafter referred to as KSR) defend impartial over partial moral reasoning, outlining these two kinds of moral reasoning, or perspectives, as follows:“Partial moral reasoning… involves judgments that emphasize personal relationships and attachments. These sorts of judgments and dispositions differ from impartialist judgments in that they favour people with whom we are personally connected over people with whom we are not. Impartialist reasoning, by contrast, … involves judgments and dispositions that are detached and do not favour personal attachments.” (H. Kuhse, P. Singer & M. Rickard, 1998, “Reconciling Impartial Morality and a Feminist Ethic of Care”, The Journal of Value Inquiry 32, p. 453.)In short and simplified, KSR’s argument for impartial morality looks as follows: (1) Either (a) morality is fundamentally divided into a partial type of morality and an impartial type of morality with no common ground, or (b) one of these two perspectives must be the most fundamental one, in terms of which the other one should be understood. (2) Option (a) would involve “a fairly radical and unsettling conclusion about morality” and should therefore be rejected. (3) The perspective we have reason to believe to be the most fundamental one is the perspective with the best explanatory power. (4) The impartial perspective is the perspective with the best explanatory power, since it best explains our widely held pre-theoretic moral intuitions and our empirically observed dispositions to approach moral problems. (5) Consequently, we have reason to believe the impartial perspective to be the most fundamental one, in terms of which the partial perspective should be understood. (pp. 457ff.)In this talk, we problematize this argument and distinguish between two different ways in which impartial moral reasoning can be understood. We refer to these as internal and external impartiality, respectively. Internal impartiality concerns the judgements and dispositions of the acting agent, while external impartiality concerns the judgements and dispositions of someone other than the acting agent, for instance an idealized hypothetical agent judging or responding to the judgements and dispositions of the acting agent. While KSR seem to be concerned with internal impartiality, we argue that external impartiality can do a better job with regards to both explanatory power and reconciling the partialist and the impartialist perspectives. First, we note that KSR’s argument rests on a false dichotomy. Besides the two alternatives in option (b) above, a third possibility is that the partial as well as the (internally) impartial perspective can be explained in terms of some other, even more fundamental component of sound moral reasoning. Second, we argue that there is indeed such a more fundamental component of sound moral reasoning, namely the widely accepted requirement of universalizability (see T. Jollimore, 2014, “Impartiality”, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), ed. E. N. Zalta.). Third, we explain how we take external impartiality to be related to the requirement of universalizability.
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| 37. |
- Samuelsson, Lars, 1975-, et al.
(författare)
-
Mastering methods for moral reasoning as a form of ethical competence : A methods-based approach to ethics education
- 2017
-
Ingår i: What may be learnt in ethics? Conference 11-13 December 2017. - Göteborg : Göteborgs universitet. ; , s. 16-16
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper focuses on an aspect of ethics rarely treated by scholars or in textbooks, namely the methods for reasoning by which one can arrive at justified moral decision. While these methods are rarely spelled out, they seem to be taken for granted in ethical debates and by scholars working within the field. We argue that the ability to master these methods is a clear candidate for ethical competence – a form of such competence which is both theoretically and practically useful in ethics education at various levels, particularly in comparison to standard theory-based accounts to ethics education. While others have criticized theory-based approaches to ethics education, the methods-based approach that we explore has not been suggested as an alternative. Hence, our research topic is methods for moral reasoning as a basis for ethical competence and ethics education. We have used two complementary methodological tools for arriving at our conclusion that mastering such methods is a form of ethical competence, useful in schools. We combine (1) personal substantial experiences from teaching ethics, in particular to teacher students, with (2) philosophical analysis of ethical debates and theories. By (1) we get important indications about the usefulness of a methods-based approach to ethics education. (2) helps us reveal what ethical debates and theories assume about requirements on moral reasoning. What emerges is a set of basic seemingly uncontroversial methods for moral reasoning, which can be roughly structured under the headings “information”, “vividness” and “coherence”. Hence analytical moral philosophy provides our main theoretical framework.
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| 38. |
- Samuelsson, Lars, 1975-, et al.
(författare)
-
On the Educational Task of Mediating Basic Values in an Individualist Society
- 2016
-
Ingår i: Education Abstracts. - Aten : Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER). - 9789605980481 ; , s. 127-128
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Besides the task of conveying information, methods and skills to their pupils, teachers are also expected to mediate certain basic values, which may differ between different societies. Depending on which country we look at, this latter task is either implicitly taken for granted within the educational system or explicitly established in regulatory documents. In Sweden, for instance, the curriculum for the upper secondary school states that "[e]ach and everyone working in the school should… encourage respect for the intrinsic value of each person and the environment we all share. […] In accordance with the ethics borne by Christian tradition and Western humanism, this is to be achieved by nurturing in the individual a sense of justice, generosity, tolerance and responsibility" (see http://www.skolverket.se/publikationer?id=2975; accessed 2015-10-14). In this paper we are interested in the educational task of mediating such basic values in societies imbued with individualist values and attitudes. As a background, and for illustrative purposes, we use the results from the recurring "World Values Survey" (WVS) which maps the evaluative profile of citizens in about 80 different countries worldwide (http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs.jsp; accessed 2015-10-14). It has become common practice to present the results from WVS along two value dimensions: traditional versus secular-rational values, and survival versus self-expression values (see e.g. R. Inglehart, 2006, "Mapping Global Values", in Y. Esmer & T. Pettersson (eds.) Measuring and Mapping Cultures: 25 Years of Comparative Values Surveys, Leiden: Brill.). In general, secular-rational and self-expression values are representative of an individualist evaluative outlook, whereas traditional and survival values are representative of a more collectivist evaluative outlook. Hence, it is possible to use the results from WVS to roughly categorize countries as more or less individualist (generally speaking). The results from WVS reveal that Sweden – which constitutes our example of an individualist society – stands out as remarkably individualist in this respect (see http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/ images/Cultural_map_WVS6_2015.jpg; accessed 2015-10-14). One important aspect of this individualist outlook is that values are commonly regarded as largely a private matter – something that should not be interfered with in the public sphere, e.g. in schools – a view often accompanied by a tendency to downplay the importance of ethical questions in general (see World Values Survey, Wave 6: 2010-2014; http://www.worldvalues survey.org/WVSOnline.jsp; accessed 2015- 10-14). Against this background we have investigated the evaluative outlook of 179 Swedish teacher students, using questions from WVS as a point of departure. The results indicate that these students do not differ to any significant degree from the Swedish population in general as regards their evaluative outlook, and yet they are supposed to mediate both individual and social basic values in their coming profession. The purpose of this paper is to make visible and problematize the tension between an individualist evaluative outlook – where one tends to diminish the importance of ethical questions and regard values as largely a private matter – and the ethical and educational task of mediating a set of basic values, and reveal some of the challenges that this tension poses for teachers and the educational system in general in more or less individualist societies.
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| 39. |
- Samuelsson, Lars, 1975-, et al.
(författare)
-
On the Educational Task of Mediating Basic Values in an Individualist Society
- 2017
-
Ingår i: Athens Journal of Education. - Athens : Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER). - 2407-9898. ; 4:2, s. 137-147
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Besides the task of conveying information, methods and skills to their pupils, teachers are also expected to mediate certain basic values. In this paper we are interested in the educational task of mediating such values in societies imbued with individualist values and attitudes. As a background we use the results from the recurring "World Values Survey" (WVS) which maps the evaluative profile of citizens in about 80 different countries worldwide. The results from WVS reveal that Swedes in general stand out as remarkably individualist with respect to their reported value judgements. Hence, Sweden constitutes our example of an individualist society, i.e., a society whose members to a large extent share an individualist evaluative profile. One important feature of such an individualist evaluative profile is a tendency to regard questions of value as largely a private matter and to downplay the importance of ethics in general. Against this background we investigated the evaluative outlook of 134 Swedish teacher students, using questions from WVS as a point of departure. The results indicate that these students do not differ to any significant degree from the Swedish population in general as regards their evaluative outlook, and yet they are supposed to mediate both individualist and social basic values in their coming profession. The purpose of this paper is to make visible and problematize the tension between an individualist evaluative profile and the educational task of mediating a set of basic values. This tension, it is argued, poses special challenges for teachers and the teacher education in societies on the individualist side of the scale.
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| 40. |
- Samuelsson, Lars, 1975-, et al.
(författare)
-
On the Educational Task of Mediating Basic Values in an Individualist Society
- 2016
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Besides the task of conveying information, methods and skills to their pupils, teachers are also expected to mediate certain basic values. In this paper we are interested in the educational task of mediating such values in societies imbued with individualist values and attitudes. As a background we use the results from the recurring "World Values Survey" (WVS) which maps the evaluative profile of citizens in about 80 different countries worldwide. The results from WVS reveal that Swedes in general stand out as remarkably individualist with respect to their reported value judgements. Hence, Sweden constitutes our example of an individualist society, i.e., a society whose members to a large extent share an individualist evaluative profile. One important feature of such an individualist evaluative profile is a tendency to regard questions of value as largely a private matter and to downplay the importance of ethics in general. Against this background we investigated the evaluative outlook of 134 Swedish teacher students, using questions from WVS as a point of departure. The results indicate that these students do not differ to any significant degree from the Swedish population in general as regards their evaluative outlook, and yet they are supposed to mediate both individualist and social basic values in their coming profession. The purpose of this paper is to make visible and problematize the tension between an individualist evaluative profile and the educational task of mediating a set of basic values. This tension, it is argued, poses special challenges for teachers and the teacher education in societies on the individualist side of the scale.
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| 41. |
- Samuelsson, Lars, 1975-, et al.
(författare)
-
On the Practical Goal of Ethics Education : Ethical Competence as the Ability to Master Methods for Moral Reasoning
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Teaching Philosophy. - : Philosophy Documentation Center. - 0145-5788 .- 2153-6619. ; 43:2, s. 157-178
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this paper we consider the ability to master a set of methods for moral reasoning as a form of ethical competence. These methods can be roughly assembled under the headings information, vividness, and coherence. We distinguish between the theoretical characterization of ethical competence and what we take to be its practical role and argue that the ability to master these methods fits the theoretical characterization of such competence as well as fulfils its practical role. An important upshot of this result is that these methods are suitable as a basis for ethics education at various levels, at least when the goal of such education is partly practical: to provide tools for reaching justified moral decisions. Consequently, we encourage ethics educators who teach ethics with this goal to design their educational approaches in such a way that these methods are taught and practiced.
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| 42. |
- Samuelsson, Lars, 1975-, et al.
(författare)
-
Online Surveillance and Education for Digital Competence
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Education Abstracts. - Aten : Athens Institute for Education and Research. - 9789605984021 ; , s. 57-58
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Digital competence has become increasingly important in modern societies. The possession of such competence is consequential to the ability to participate on equal terms as a citizen in a contemporary democracy. Hence, it is nowadays stressed as an important learning objective, more or less globally. For example, it is one of the eight key competences for lifelong learning identified by The European Parliament and The Council of the European Union (“Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2006 on key competences for lifelong learning”, OJ L 394, 20.12.2006, 10-18). Navigating in a digital world requires competences such as the ability to find relevant information through search engines and databases, but also to practice criticism of the sources. These competences receive increasing attention in schools. However, digitalization comes with downsides, one of them, arguably, being the facilitation of intrusive online surveillance. When we are online, we leave traces that provide useful information to companies and organizations, who can harvest our data for different purposes.While knowledge of this fact has become more widespread, it does not seem to get the attention that it arguably deserves in schools and teacher education. In Swedish teacher education, where we operate, privacy issues in relation to online activities have not found a pronounced place in the curriculum. Having knowledge or these issues is important to be able to make deliberate choices regarding one’s online activities – what information do I want to share, and with whom? For instance, is it worth giving away some of my personal information to get access to a certain social media platform?To be able to answer such questions autonomously and critically in a way that also influences one’s behavior, it is furthermore important to understand how people generally behave in relation to privacy and sharing information online. Quite extensive research has shown that people tend to behave in ways that do not mirror their own privacy concerns. While they report strong concern for their privacy, they behave online as if their privacy were not very important to them at all. This has become known as the “privacy paradox” (for an overview, see N. Gerber, P. Gerber & M. Volkamer, “Explaining the privacy paradox: A systematic review of literature investigating privacy attitude and behavior”, Computers & Security 77, 2018, 226-261).Within the framework of the research project “iAccept: Soft surveillance – between acceptance and resistance”, in which one of us participates, a questionnaire survey was conducted with 560 current and former Swedish student teachers, about their attitudes to privacy and surveillance and their online behavior. At large, their responses are in line with the privacy paradox. Partly based on this survey, we point to the importance of raising awareness of privacy issues in teacher education and schools. We argue that – like other aspects of digital competence – this aspect is also crucial to being a conscious citizen in a democratic society. Thus, it should constitute a natural part of education for digital competence.
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| 43. |
- Samuelsson, Lars, 1975-, et al.
(författare)
-
Online Surveillance and Education for Digital Competence
- 2022
-
Ingår i: Athens Journal of Education. - Aten : Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER). - 2407-9898 .- 2241-7958. ; 9:4, s. 545-557
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Digital competence has become increasingly important in modern societies and is today central to the possibility of participating on equal terms as a citizen in a contemporary democracy. Thus, it is now stressed as a crucial learning objective, nationally as well as internationally. One pervasive consequence of the digitalization of society is the facilitation of intrusive online surveillance: when we are online, we leave traces that provide useful information to companies, organizations, and individuals, who can collect, process, use, and share this information. The purpose of this article is to reveal the need for an increased awareness of the surveillance aspect of digitalization in teacher education and schools. The argument is partly based on a questionnaire survey with 560 current and former Swedish student teachers, about online behavior and privacy. The results indicate that Swedish teachers in general need to further their digital competence in order to be able to appropriately aid their pupils in developing digital literacy. Given that Swedish student teachers can be expected to possess a comparatively very high level of digital competence, we think it is safe to generalize this point to comprise teachers in many other countries as well. We argue that an awareness of the surveillance aspect of digitalization is crucial to being a cognizant citizen in a democratic society, and that it should therefore constitute a natural part of education for digital competence.
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| 44. |
- Samuelsson, Lars, 1975-, et al.
(författare)
-
Reason and Emotion : How Teachers Respond to Ethical Problems
- 2018
-
Ingår i: Abstract Book: 20th Annual International Conference on Education. - Athens : Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER). - 9789605981853 ; , s. 133-134
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Teachers frequently face ethical problems in their everyday practice, ranging from pedagogical choices affecting their pupils to pressing conflicts that need to be solved – e.g. conflicts between pupils, conflicts between colleagues, and conflicts between teachers and parents. In order to handle such problems, teachers need to be able to respond in a professional and thoughtful manner to the various ethical aspects involved.Given the centrality of the ethical dimension to the teaching profession, it is an important question how teachers tend to approach ethical problems within their profession. To the extent that teachers fail to approach such problems in a professional and thoughtful manner, this is an issue that should be brought to attention and considered by teachers and within the teacher education.Few studies have been carried out regarding how teachers tend to approach ethical problems in their profession. However, there are interesting international studies revealing how people in general tend to respond ethically to situations involving ethical aspects that evoke strong emotional reactions. Jonathan Haidt has constructed several more or less provoking examples involving social taboos, and investigated how people tend to react when confronted with them (Haidt, Koller & Dias, 1993).The present paper is based on a survey of Swedish teacher students for which we have borrowed two of Haidts examples. These examples were chosen on the basis that one of them clearly represents a social taboo in a Swedish context while the other does not. Hence, letting the teacher students respond to both these examples allows us to get an indication of whether there is any significant difference in their response to an example evoking a strong emotional reaction as opposed to a more neutral example.We present our investigation and discuss the results, which show that the respondents in the more neutral case generally seem to make motivated judgments and in the more provoking case generally seem to rely on gut feelings. If these results can be taken as an indication of how teacher students and teachers tend to respond to real life situations, we argue, they generally have good chances of approaching ethical problems in a professional way. However, a provoking or emotionally laden context enhances the risk of making ethical choices which are not based on professional reasoning.We argue that these results indicate a need for teachers and teacher students to consciously reflect on their values and methods for approaching ethical problems.
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| 45. |
- Samuelsson, Lars, 1975-, et al.
(författare)
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Studying the evaluative views of students as a tool for professional development of teacher educators
- 2021. - 1
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Ingår i: Exploring professional development opportunities for teacher educators. - London & New York : Routledge. - 9780367748913 - 9780367748890 - 9781003160052 ; , s. 195-211
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Alongside the task of conveying knowledge to their pupils, teachers are also expected to mediate certain values, educational as well as ethical or societal. This value-conveying aspect of the teaching profession provides the focus of this chapter, the aim of which is to highlight its importance and show why reflecting on it is helpful for the professional development of teacher educators. As teachers in Swedish teacher education, we have conducted surveys with our students to assess some of their evaluative views that are of educational relevance. The results of these surveys reveal a tension between some of the values typically held by our students and parts of the value-conveying task of Swedish teachers. This tension, together with a comparison between the students’ values and the values prevalent in other countries, has provided the basis for interesting and rewarding discussions with our students. In the present chapter we describe our work with the students and argue that a teacher educator’s awareness of their own evaluative views, as well as those of their students, is important for developing the ability to reflectively and critically convey values in their pedagogical practice. Thus, it is an important aspect of the professional development of teacher educators.
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| 46. |
- Samuelsson, Lars, 1975-, et al.
(författare)
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Teaching Ethics to Non-Philosophy Students
- 2017
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Ingår i: Abstract Book. - Aten : Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER). - 9789605981150 ; , s. 185-186
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- It is not only philosophy students who read ethics in universities and colleges. Nor are they the only ones who have reason to do so. Dealing with ethical issues is a central aspect of many professions, and hence e.g. teacher students, engineering students, police students, medicine students, social worker students and research students are commonly taught ethics within their educational programs, just to mention some.In this paper we address the question of how ethics is most appropriately taught to such “non-philosophy” student groups – on a general level, that is; of course there may be important differences between these various professions and areas of study, calling for partly different approaches to teaching ethics.The standard way to introduce ethics to non-philosophy students is doubtlessly to present and briefly explain a number of ethical theories (or kinds of theory), such as utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, virtue ethics and moral pluralism. And indeed, most introductory books to ethics adopt this approach, be it general introductions or introductions specialized towards a specific profession or subject matter.We refer to this approach as the “smorgasbord approach” to teaching ethics, due to the false impression that it is likely to make on non-philosophy students approaching ethics as an academic discipline for the first time. This approach invites the conception that adopting an ethical position is mainly a matter of simply choosing from this smorgasbord of different theories.We find this approach problematic for several reasons:To start with, it tends to misrepresent the field of ethics as well as ethical reasoning. These students generally lack the prerequisites required to critically examine and evaluate these theories, to understand the different motivations behind them, and to put them in context. Indeed, it is even difficult, given the usually quite limited time frame for such courses, to give the students an appropriate understanding of what these theories really are theories about. To get a thorough enough understanding of the field for it to be meaningful to focus on ethical theories in introducing non-philosophy students to ethics would require a much more comprehensive ethics education than what there is usually room for within the kinds of educational program mentioned above.Furthermore, the smorgasbord approach is likely to be infeasible. How is such an approach supposed to aid the students in practical decision-making – which, first and foremost, is the rational for having them take ethics courses in the first place? Which of these theories should they apply, and why? The different theories give different verdicts in most tricky cases, and these students lack the background knowledge required to critically choose between them. Nor is it obvious that it is desirable to choose one such theory and then apply it in one’s practical reasoning.In light of these problematic features of a smorgasbord approach to teaching ethics we suggest a methodology-based approach as a more fruitful alternative. Instead of presenting a list of theories this approach focuses on conveying basic methods for ethical reasoning. We argue that there is almost unanimous agreement among moral philosophers (at least within a broadly analytical tradition) as regards certain basic methods for ethical reasoning, even if these methods are rarely explicitly formulated. These methods can be summarized roughly under three main headings: information, vividness and coherence.The main purpose of this paper is to explain and defend the methodological approach to teaching ethics to non-philosophy students. In doing so we also consider and reply to some possible expected objections to this approach.Lastly we consider whether the approach should be complemented in some way. One useful complement, we think – if the time and space in the educational program in question allows it – is to bring up the question of character traits – what kind of person one should be.
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| 47. |
- Samuelsson, Lars, 1975-, et al.
(författare)
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Teaching Ethics to Non-Philosophy Students : A Methods-Based Approach
- 2017
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Ingår i: ATINER'S Conference Paper Series. - Athens : Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER). ; , s. 1-17
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Dealing with ethical issues is a central aspect of many professions. Consequently, ethics is taught to diverse student groups in universities and colleges, alongside philosophy students. In this paper, we address the question of how ethics is best taught to such “non-philosophy” student groups. The standard way of introducing ethics to non-philosophy students is to present them with a set of moral theories. We refer to this approach as the “smorgasbord approach”, due to the impression it is likely to make on non-philosophy students approaching ethics as an academic discipline for the first time. This approach invites the assumption that adopting an ethical position is mainly a matter of choosing from this smorgasbord of different theories. We argue that this approach is problematic for several reasons, both theoretical and practical, and we suggest a methodsbased approach – focusing on methods for moral reasoning – as a more fruitful alternative. The main purpose of this paper is to explain and defend this methods-based approach to teaching ethics to non-philosophy students. In so doing, we also consider and meet some expected objections to this approach.
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| 48. |
- Sullivan, Kirk P. H., 1965-, et al.
(författare)
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Lighting the fire : unleashing student agency in emergency remote teaching during the covid-19 pedagogical shift
- 2023
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Ingår i: Education in North. - : University of Aberdeen. - 0424-5512 .- 2398-0184. ; 30:2, s. 120-135
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper explores the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on university pedagogy and the lessons that can be learned from students who experienced emergency remote teaching. Unlike many countries, Sweden did not impose a lockdown or curfew, allowing students to gather in small groups on university campuses while receiving online instruction. This unique hybrid situation enhances the relevance of our findings for the post-pandemic context. Employing a participatory research methodology, we collaborated with first-year university teacher education students to co-construct their experiences as new students during COVID-19. Our research aimed to understand how the students' socio-cultural context and their university experiences influenced their learning and what insights these experiences provide regarding students' agency for learning. Through collaborative discussions and thematic analysis, we identified that students formed close-knit study groups, developed a strong sense of agency, became self-directed learners, and offered each other mutual support. Our conclusions highlight the resilience of students, the value of informal and spontaneous collaborative learning groups, the high degree of agency among students, and the potential benefits of a pedagogy that is less controlling and scaffolded, allowing for spontaneous, creative, and inquiry-directed learning. Future research could investigate whether collaborative learning groups are more effective with reduced mandatory lecture and seminar loads.
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