| 11. |
- Franzén, Karin
(författare)
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”Is i magen och ett varmt hjärta” : Konstruktionen av skolledarskap i ett könsperspektiv
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this thesis is to investigate the discursive construction of school leadership in a gender perspective and the meanings attached to school leadership. Theoretically, I draw on discourse analysis, and feminist poststructuralist theories have been my source of inspiration. Discourse, subjectivity, subject positions and power are key concepts applied to the analysis of the data. Four male and four female school leaders representing eight primary and secondary schools were interviewed. Furthermore, interviews were carried out with two teachers at each of these schools: in total nine female and seven male teachers were interviewed.The leaders and teachers talk about leadership in relation to four different arenas, which I have labelled the teachers’, the children’s, the parents’ and the societal arena respectively. Three main positions have been identified for the school leaders: (1) the supporter, (2) the manager and (3) the pedagogical leader. Most of the statements deal with the relation to the teachers, whereas the parents’ arena is not much talked about.As for gender, both male and female school leaders construct themselves as leaders in rather similar ways. Both men and women activate the three positions in similar ways. Women do not repeat the supporter position more often than men, and men do not position themselves as managers more frequently than women. This indicates that traditional gender discourses do not govern the school leaders’ talk about school leadership. For the position of pedagogical leader, some gender differences have been distinguished. The men position themselves as pedagogical leaders, whose mission it is to take the lead in pedagogical issues, whilst the women talk about the importance of evaluating and reflecting on their pedagogical leadership. Gender discourses seem to affect the way teachers construct school leadership, as male leaders who act as supporters are sometimes positioned as deviant. Instead, especially female teachers expect their male leader to act as a manager. Furthermore, the female teachers construct female school leaders as supporters to a higher extent than the male teachers.
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| 12. |
- Nilsson, Sofia, 1975-
(författare)
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Civil and Military Leadership Processes in Situations of Extreme Environmental Demands
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of the studies included in this thesis has been to develop the knowledge about civil and military leadership processes and the conditions for these in situations characterized by extreme environmental demands. The main part of the thesis is based upon empirical data gathered through semi-structured qualitative interviews with Swedish civil and military leaders. The studies, published in four articles, focused leadership during situations characterized by extreme environmental demands. The fourth article aimed at validating the theoretical model that was developed in study one. The thesis has pursued an integrated view in seeking to understand leadership and environment interactions during the conduct of international humanitarian aid and military peacekeeping operations. Hence it has been a matter of considering the individual leader in relation to the organisational and the external environment in order to study human adaption to meet the challenges and demands of disasters and conflicts. The results show that leadership during international humanitarian aid and military peacekeeping operations is a highly complex and demanding task. Premises for the processes involve a great number of environmental factors. In order to restore system balance within a larger system, there has to be congruence between individual appraisal of the organizational and the external environment to achieve successful task completion. Inconsistency among the environmental factors influencing leadership processes may evoke adaptional struggles characterized by both positive and negative stress responses that may affect performance and task completion. Reappraisal processes are shown to involve continuous assimilation processes of, and accommodation processes to, the environment, illustrating the shifting balances between environmental forces, organizational pressures, and individual initiative. The findings on stress responses are in line with earlier research, demonstrating that stress reactions exhibit great similarities regardless of hierarchical level while also indicating a double-edged pattern concerning the overall development of stress reactions. However, it does seems that hierarchical differences exist with regard to moral stress, while moral stress appears to lack the double-edged pattern since no positive reactions are reported even at moderate levels of stress impact. Taken together, future civil and military leaders need education in complex person-environment interactions in order to get a holistic picture of the underlying mechanisms, thus promoting the development of their adaptive capabilities. It is suggested that this thesis can be regarded as a context-specific contribution to complex system theory by providing insight into the organizational and external environmental factors/demands that influence civil and military leadership.
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| 13. |
- Skånfors, Lovisa, 1978-
(författare)
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Barns sociala vardagsliv i förskolan
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The overarching aim of the studies in this dissertation is to contribute knowledge about children’s shared social knowledge in their preschool peer cultures, regarding both content and how it is established and maintained.An ethnographic approach has been used to study the shared activities of children, aged 3-5, in the preschool. During 1 ½ years, one preschool setting was visited on a regular basis. One hundred hours of observation have been made and documented through video camera recordings and field notes. The theory of children’s peer cultures (Corsaro, 2005), positioning theory (Harré & Langenhove, 1999a) and social representation theory (Moscovici, 2001) have been used as theoretical tools in the analyses.The empirical results are presented in four articles (articles I-IV) and are all illustrations of the children’s shared social knowledge. The findings are that children’s shared social knowledge involves two main aspects of knowledge about relations; how to establish and maintain relations vis-à-vis various tokens or social resources (articles III and IV), and how to create distance to relations (articles I and II). Another find is that there seems to be a tension between the children’s social knowledge and the social norms explicitly formulated in the studied preschool context.
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| 14. |
- Thelander, Nina, 1962-
(författare)
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We are all the same, but... : Kenyan and Swedish school children's views on children's rights
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis presents a study on how school children in Kenya and Sweden express their views on children’s rights, in particular rights related to participation, non-discrimination, and education. The overall purpose was to explore the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, its claim to be universal and its relevance for children in various school and life contexts. Group interviews were conducted with 58 children, aged 12-15 years, from four schools, two schools from each country. The interviews were introduced with an exercise of nine articles from the UN Convention which the groups were asked to discuss and rank from the most to the least important. The aim of the exercise was to make the UN articles known to the children and to open up for a conversation about rights. The theoretical framing for the study is anchored in the tradition of sociology of childhood. Analyses of empirical data were based on the cultural politics of childhood, and the concepts vulnerability and separability. Accordingly, children are viewed as sharing the common experience of being children, but also as experiencing diverse everyday lives. They are regarded as social agents, whose voices carry perspectives important to be listened to. They are also looked upon as able to form and express their views and knowledge in relation to local economical, social and political conditions. The results showed that the children talked about themes and situations that were both common and diverse. They talked more about children’s needs than about children’s rights. Needs for ‘extended’ protection were particularly expressed, i.e. the importance of stable relationships with parents and other adults and peers. The study also showed that when issues on relationships with adults, participation and decision making were discussed, the children expressed experiences of being viewed as subordinated in a way that could be referred to as their inherent and structural vulnerability. A third important result showed that values and norms related to non-discrimination were largely produced and reproduced in peer-cultures. Finally, the children connected education to economical growth, for individuals as well as for societies. The overall conclusion from the study is that children view the UN Convention as a problem solver for children in exposed situations rather than as a document for their everyday life. From a child perspective, rights hold relational qualities, manifested in relationships with adults and peers. Furthermore, the study underlines that the young right holder is a ‘both-and’ child: both global and local, both being and becoming, and both dependent and independent.
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| 15. |
- Wester, Maria, 1960-
(författare)
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"Hålla ordning, men inte överordning" : Köns- och maktperspektiv på uppförandenormer i svenska klassrumskulturer
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this study is to describe and analyse norms of behaviour in rhetoric and practice in Swedish classroom cultures with the aid of theories of gender and power. The study is based on observations of and interviews with pupils and teachers in three ninth form classes. On the basis of the six themes of the thesis, common norms of behaviour are on the whole discernible. The relation between rhetoric and practice may be summarised in the following way: the pupils and teachers express a desire for order and clear rules that are followed. If the rules are not followed, the pupils demand consistent and motivated consequences. The study shows, however, the everyday life at school does not work in this way but that there is some discrepancy between practice and rhetoric. The values stated in the curriculum, for example respect, solidarity and taking responsibility, are expressed in both the pupils’ and the teachers’ rhetoric. The values are used to describe a certain action or to motivate the norms of behaviour that are described as desirable.
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| 16. |
- Berthén, Diana, 1956-
(författare)
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Förberedelse för särskildhet : Särskolans pedagogiska arbete i ett verksamhetsteoretiskt perspektiv
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Preparing for segregation. Educational work within the Swedish special school - an activity theoretical approachThis study aims at illuminating what is special about Särskolan’s pedagogical work. In Sweden schooling for children who are regarded intellectually disabled is organised in a special school, Särskolan, established during the late 1800s. Today Särskolan is organised in two forms, a training school and a compulsory särskola. The pedagogical work in Särskolan is commonly referred to as special and unique. However, what this special is has not previously been explored.The study is conducted within the tradition of cultural-historical activity theory. According to this tradition, personality, development and change is understood and explained in relation to various activity systems in which the individual is involved. Each activity is regarded as a historically developed, complex system of motive-driven, goal-orientated human actions that aim at finding solutions to a societal need. These theoretical assumptions have informed the design of the study of Särskolan as a historically developed activity.The study was carried out during the school year 2002–2003 in one training school classroom (grade 2–5) and one compulsory särskola classroom (K–4). Class-room observations and staff interviews were used for data production. The core of the analyses concerned what the teachers were trying to achieve. According to the theoretical assumption, the motive is expected to appear in the object of the activity, therefore the overall analysis focused on the object of the activity of teaching.One major result was that the teachers in the training school pursued preparations for daily life while in the compulsory särskola the pupils were prepared for teaching. With an activity theoretical approach to learning, the study further shows that the possibilities for pupils to learn – e.g. sign language in the training school or literacy in the compulsory särskola – were limited.The overall conclusion is that the special with the Särskola is that up-bringing and preparation dominate the activity. The emphasis on preparation seem to be related to the teachers’ conceptions of the pupils as being in need of a special kind of knowledge before they can be taught the knowledge referred to in the syllabuses.
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| 17. |
- Ericsson, Gunilla, 1952-
(författare)
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Ledares aktionslärande : Att styra och följa lärandeprocesser i arbetslivet
- 2007
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- AbstractThis study reports a project within which leaders in a local government administration develop their skills about and in action learning. The main focus is on the conditions that are needed in an action learning process. The aim is to analyse the working process, how the leaders make use of their own experiences from daily working life and put them into questions and actions, and finally, to question and analyse my own leading process as an action researcher.During nearly two years, the leaders taking part in the study and myself have been involved in a complex, social process where experiences from daily working life have put questions into actions and investigations.Results show that the leaders, through the working process, learned how to investigate, collect information and analyse data. Time and process were found to be key concepts in their action learning. Uncertainty characterised the leaders´ initially work while the enthusiasm and more initiative from their side appeared as the work proceeded. Through the process they had to deal and struggle with their staff’s notions about working conditions as well as their own leadership. Demands on responsibility for their own actions were mixed with a permitting atmosphere holding both laughing and testing of new ideas. Another result shows tensions within this learning process, on one hand, between the leaders who wanted to keep their agreed understanding and, on the other, my intentions to challenge their understandings. The variation and changing in interaction patterns over time between me and the leaders seem to be crucial to make this project the leaders´ own working process. My leadership changed from initially instructing, to coaching and finally to take a back seat. A main conclusion from the study is that designing adult education in a learning perspective, deals with working methods as well as content.Keywords: action learning, leadership, interaction, process, experiential learning, adult education
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| 18. |
- Henriksson, Carina
(författare)
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Living Away from Blessings : School Failure as Lived Experience
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation seeks to unveil and describe students’ experiences of school failure. Traditionally, research in the field has tended to approach school failure from a societal perspective, often construing school failure as a drop-out problem. Consequently, adults have been authorized to define how the notion of school failure is to be understood, and have usually attributed it to inadequate grades, and/or cognitive shortcomings on the part of the students. Moreover, scientific and governmental reports regularly provide us with statistics concerning drop-out rates. What these statistics do not tell us, however, is how the students themselves define and experience school failure. Parallel to the drop-out research, classroom research has traditionally focused on the teacher-student interaction, mainly from a “teacher-thinking” perspective. This dissertation offers an alternative understanding of the notion of school failure: it examines students’ lived experiences of school failure in the classroom. Former students in an individual program and inmates in juvenile institutions shared their lived experiences of a school failure. The students were asked to write down their recollections of a specific moment when they felt that they had failed in school. In addition to the written experiential accounts, the students’ experiences were explored further in interviews. The lived-experience descriptions show that the students view school failure as having little to do with cognitive inadequacy; rather, they understand school failure as a behavioral deficiency on their part. Thus, the center of attention is not on the student-learning perspective, but the student-teacher relationship. The phenomenological, thematic analyses show that the experience of school failure is a complex phenomenon that reaches far beyond grades and dropping out. The temporal, spatial, and relational dimensions of experiencing school failure include feelings of disappointment, non-recognition, loneliness, boredom, shame, marginalization, stigmatization, inferiority, and worthlessness. A subsidiary aim of the dissertation is to contribute to the development of the phenomenological research method “phenomenology of practice.” The method, developed by Max van Manen and inspired by the scholars of the Utrecht school, integrates phenomenology, hermeneutics, and semiotics. The “phenomenology of practice” approach, which aims to disclose taken-for-granted attitudes, and has proved beneficial for exploring practical, pedagogical issues, such as experiences of school failure.
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| 19. |
- Sandberg, Gunilla, 1954-
(författare)
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På väg in i skolan : Om villkor för olika barns delaktighet och skriftspråkslärande
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The start of school is an important period in life. For some children, it is critical and affects their first time in school. It might have great importance for their learning and well-being. The aim of this thesis is to deepen the understanding of how different children face the school, based on the conditions that have been set for participation and learning, with special regard to literacy. Attention will be given to the start of school as an important transition in life, literacy activities, and special support in preschool-class and first grade. Both children and teacher perspectives are considered.The theoretical framework is a dynamic and interactional perspective. This ethnographic study is inspired by the hermeneutic tradition. The empirical material has been collected through a case study at two schools, where two different groups of children have been observed from the latter part of preschool-class up until first grade. Furthermore, qualitative interviews have been held with special pedagogues at nine schools.The results show that the strive of teachers in preschool-class to create social security and ensuring close-knit group seem to have an impact on children during their entrance into school. Children appear well-prepared and comfortable in the school environment of first grade. Nevertheless, an organization that requires two transitions is inherently problematic, given the change in activities, roles and relations for children within one year.In terms of didactics, preschool-class and first-year class are weakly linked. There is no clear association between the reading and writing activities in the two forms of school, and there is no arena for teachers to develop a common ground for the didactic effort, a borderland. This can have consequences in terms of halting or interrupting children’s learning process. A well-developed special-pedagogical work strategy and careful surveying is made of children’s learning processes. But, with the cautious attitude shown, the support of individual children is not put into process until the spring of their first school year or later. The issues of when and how special support should be offered are tied to different dilemmas.
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| 20. |
- Styf, Maria, 1974-
(författare)
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Pedagogisk ledning för en pedagogisk verksamhet? : Om den kommunala förskolans ledningsstruktur
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is a total coverage survey of the municipal preschool management structure. In the late 90's the preschool in Sweden became the first step in the overall educational system. It became a pedagogical activity similar to school with respect to form and content. Although the focus was on education, political voices reclaimed the unique nature of preschool i.e. educare. It became a preschool in transition between its own tradition and modernization. The idea is that the educational management structure should support a pedagogical leadership that directs the pedagogical activity towards preschool objectives. The local authority sets the structure for management in pre-school; a municipality that in itself is an institution with its own goals and objectives. These objectives can place the municipalities in the cross pressure between their own objectives and the ones for preschool. The question in this respect is; How is the management structure formed and why? Is it a structure formed with the intention of creating educational management for the local preschool or are there other factors that guide the design? A framework based on the historical background of the preschools and theoretical terms such as steering, leading, management, pedagogical leadership, educational activity, etc. was constructed. Results are based on an online questionnaire survey. 180 municipalities out of 290 answered the questionnaire, which gives a response rate at 62 %. The response rate is evenly distributed across municipal categories, categories that the municipalities were aggregated into, formed by The Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions. The categories were handled as survey units, to support a part of the analysis and to allow a comparison between the municipalities by municipality size, both demographic and geographic. The material was analysed using the SPSS statistical program and compiled and reported with descriptive statistics. Descriptive statistics were used to demonstrate the material's characteristics and the central tendency. The results show that the municipalities’ structure of management is varied. Different municipal categories do not change this varied picture of the management landscape significantly. Although the management structure varies regarding how many levels with formal titles and which positions and functions they should have, there is a consistency in which title that the formal leader for the preschool have. The municipalities primarily utilisea principalship with mixed responsibility for both preschool and school. In light of these results, do municipalities mould a structure for the educational management for the pedagogical activities in preschool? Yes and no: the municipalities do not form a structure for preschool alone. Results show that the municipalities' main purpose is not to create a line of management specifically for the preschool. The municipalities form a management structure for educational purposes dealing with an educational activity from preschool to elementary school. The new Education Act (2010:800), is a step toward distinguishing preschool leadership from school leadership and turns the leadership of preschools into a title solely for the position and function of preschool educational activities.
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