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- Holmgren, Karoline, 1970-
(författare)
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Mål, matematik och mening : om identitet i mötet med gymnasieskolans yrkesprogram
- 2024
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Obtaining a final diploma is an important prerequisite for young people to avoid unemployment and exclusion. Therefore, it is worrying that every year a large group of vocational students in Sweden complete their education without obtaining a final diploma. A national survey shows that the biggest obstacle to achieving a final diploma is the compulsory mathematics course.The aim of this thesis is therefore to contribute knowledge about vocational students’ encounters with upper secondary school, with a particular focus on the mathematics course and students’ ability to achieve the goals. Central to the thesis is students’ identity formation in the environment that the upper secondary school’s vocational education entails. The thesis presents two studies that build on each other: The first study examines school staff’s descriptions of what may affects vocational students’ goal fulfillment in mathematics to provide a broad and comprehensive picture from several different school actors (teachers, student health and principals). Based on the results the second study examines vocational students’ own stories with a special focus on students’ identity formation, analyzing their narratives based on four dimensions; personal-, social-, subject- and professional dimension.Overall, the results of the two studies show that other aspects than just subject-didactic factors seem to play an important role in vocational students’ goal fulfillment in mathematics. The identity formation invocational students’ encounters with upper secondary school seems to be one such aspect: Mathematics failures during former school, the importance of vocational students’ sense of belonging together as well as discourses in school and society about vocational education, vocational students, and the subject of mathematics, have a significant impact on students’ identity formation. Being a student in upper secondary vocational education encompasses a web of relationships and connections between personal identity, social identity, subject identity, and professional identity, which means that learning as well as development takes place in all these four dimensions. Therefore, social and emotional processes as well as vocational students’ identity formation should not be forgotten in the discussion about how vocational students’ goal fulfillment in mathematics can be improved. Conclusions that can be drawn are that if school difficulties arise, i.e. that vocational students are at risk of not reaching the goals, supportive efforts should focus on all four dimensions of vocational student identity.
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