| 1. |
- Andersson, Pernilla, 1969-
(författare)
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The Responsible Business Person : Studies of business education for sustainability
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Calls for the inclusion of sustainable development in the business curriculum have increased significantly in the wake of the financial crisis and increased concerns around climate change. This has led to the appearance of new initiatives and the development of new teaching approaches. This thesis explores business education at the upper secondary school level in Sweden following the inclusion of the concept of sustainable development in the curriculum. Drawing on poststructuralist discourse theory, the overarching purpose is to identify the roles of a responsible business person that are articulated in business education and to discuss how these roles could enable students to address sustainability issues. The thesis consists of four studies, based on textbook analyses, teacher interviews and classroom observations. Three categories of roles have been identified, implying that a business person is expected to either adapt to, add or create ethical values. These three categories are compared with the roles indicated in the environmental discourses constructed by Dryzek and the responsibility regimes developed by Pellizzoni. Drawing on Dryzek’s and Pellizzoni’s reasoning about which qualities are important for addressing sustainability issues, it is concluded that the roles identified in the studies could mean that students are unequipped (the adapting role), ill-equipped (the adding role) or better equipped (the creating role) to address uncertain and complex sustainability issues. The articles include empirical examples that illustrate how and in which situations specific roles are articulated, privileged or taken up. The examples also indicate how the scope for business students’ subjectivities are facilitated or hampered. It is suggested that the illustrative empirical examples could be used for critical reflection in order to enhance students’capabilities of addressing uncertain and complex sustainability issues and to improve educational quality in terms of scope for subjectivity.
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| 2. |
- Sundström Sjödin, Elin, 1972-
(författare)
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Where is the critical in literacy? : Tracing performances of literature reading, readers and non-readers in educational practice
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In many instances in society, educational and other, literature reading is emphasised as something that develops persons in positive ways. The present thesis explores this claim in relation to literature reading in educational practices. By tracing how values and critical aspects of reading are enacted, the purpose is both to problematize taken-for-granted truth claims about literature reading and to develop an understanding of the elements involved when reading, readers and critical aspects of reading are created. The studies focus on different educational practices; a teacher’s narrative about grading, information brochures about reading to children and the policy and practice of a reading project at special residential homes for detained youth in Sweden. In these practices, the thesis explores where and when the critical takes place, in what constellations and with what consequences. The thesis draws on critical literacy, where reading is regarded as taking action and having self-empowering potential. However, with help of a pragmatic and material semiotic approach, the investigations steps away from what is taken for granted about reading and about what critical means, and instead reading, readers and the critical are analysed as transactional effects.The studies show how students can be placed at risk by rationales for reading literature that construct and establish them as lacking of culture or as literacy inadequate. The thesis further shows that the critical in literacy can be ambivalent as well as multiple, and it can be enacted by both human, discursive and material actors.
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| 3. |
- Fagerström, Jonathan, 1984-
(författare)
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Fine particle emissions and slag formation in fixed-bed biomass combustion : aspects of fuel engineering
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- There is a consensus worldwide that the share of renewable energy sources should be increased to mitigate climate change. The strive to increase the renewable energy fraction can partly be met by an increased utilization of different biomass feedstocks. Many of the "new" feedstocks puts stress on certain challenges such as air pollution emissions and operation stability of the combustion process. The overall objective was to investigate, evaluate, and explain the effects of fuel design and combustion control - fuel engineering - as primary measures for control of slag formation, deposit formation, and fine particle emissions during biomass combustion in small and medium scale fixed-bed appliances. The work in this thesis can be outlined as having two main focus areas, one more applied regarding fuel engineering measures and one more fundamental regarding the time-resolved release of ash forming elements, with particular focus on potassium.The overall conclusion related to the abatement of particle emissions and slag formation, is that the release of fine particle and deposit forming matter can be controlled simultaneously as the slag formation during fixed-bed biomass combustion. The methodology is in this perspective denoted “fuel engineering” and is based on a combined approach including both fuel design and process control measures. The studies on time-resolved potassium release showed that a Macro-TG reactor with single pellet experiments was a valuable tool for studying ash transformation along the fuel conversion. The combination of dedicated release determinations based on accurate mass balance considerations and ICP analysis, with phase composition characterization by XRD, is important for the understanding of potassium release in general and time-resolved data in particular. For wood, the results presented in this work supports the potassium release mechanism from "char-K" but questions the previously suggested release mechanism from decomposition of K-carbonates. For straw, the present data support the idea that the major part of the potassium release is attributed to volatilization of KCl. To further explore the detailed mechanisms, the novel approach developed and applied in this work should be complemented with other experimental and analytical techniques.The research in this thesis has explored some of the challenges related to the combined phenomena of fuel conversion and ash transformation during thermochemical conversion of biomass, and has contributed with novel methods and approaches that have gained new knowledge to be used for the development of more effective bioenergy systems.
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| 4. |
- Larsson, Christina, 1956-
(författare)
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Att lära genom improvisation : en didaktisk studie i grundskolans musikundervisning
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In the growing field of research on improvisation, it is argued that improvisation should be at the core of music education, and in many curricula improvisation is in fact emphasized. However, in general music education, as well as research, improvisation is still overlooked. There seem to be a discursive gap between ‘everyday’ and artistic perceptions of improvisation and the way it is perceived didactically. Improvisation is also a creative music activity form and as such it cannot have prescribed outcomes. Yet, the current goal- and result driven schooling system focuses on achieving prescribed knowledge requirements. This situation constitutes an educational paradox. Through a systematic literature review, interviews with teachers and a practice-based study, this thesis explores the conditions and the role of improvisation in general music education. The theoretical perspective is based on Dewey’s pragmatist philosophy, and his concepts of aesthetic experience and transaction. Results show that improvisation is conceptualised in a continuum between structure and freedom and that teachers’ didactical approaches to improvisation can be oriented towards the process, the subject or Bildung. However, teachers’ perceptions of improvisation as related to jazz and blues sometimes present a hindrance. Combining a practical epistemology analysis with Dewey´s concept of the esthetic event (Dewey´s spelling) provides new insights into the process and content of aesthetic meaning-making. Improvising pupils who have an aesthetic experience can develop expressivity, agency and responsivity (EAR) as well as aspects of embodied, cognitive and ethical knowledge. The transactional perspective and 5 concepts developed here provide new insights in how to understand improvisation in education: as ethically co-creative action, co-learning action, explorative action, a space for imagination and emotional engagement and finally a room for subjectification. This implies a negotiated role for the teacher as co-player. A practical aesthetic analysis (PESA) is suggested which emphasises the specific nature of the aesthetic experience.
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| 5. |
- Tryggvason, Ásgeir, 1983-
(författare)
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Om det politiska i samhällskunskap : Agonism, populism och didaktik
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Democratic education can be seen as being constituted by a political dimension in two senses. In one sense, democratic education is political because it has a politically formulated goal to educate citizens. In another sense, the practice of democratic education is in itself political, in that it constitutes a space in which students encounter different visions of and opinions about what society should be like. In the intersection of these two meanings of “the political” we find the teacher. How can teachers navigate and approach “the political” in their classrooms? Which conceptions of conflicts, emotions and identities are useful when approaching the political as an educational problem?This thesis formulates an agonistic perspective on the political in social science education. In four articles, the thesis explores agonism and populism in relation to social science education. In focus are questions about the role that emotions, conflicts and identities should play in democratic education. Three of the four articles are theoretical investigations into the problems and potentialities of agonism and populism. The fourth article is empirically based on interviews with social science teachers and classroom observations. By synthesizing the results from these four articles, an agonistic perspective on the political in social science education is formulated. The agonistic perspective consists of four concepts: political emotions, hegemony, political presence and simplification. With these concepts, the agonistic perspective provides a theoretically informed starting point for teachers to reflect on and approach “the political” in social science education.
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| 6. |
- Caiman, Cecilia, 1972-
(författare)
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Naturvetenskap i tillblivelse : Barns meningsskapande kring biologisk mångfald och en hållbar framtid
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The objective of this thesis is to analyze children’s meaning making processes in science related to environment and sustainability at the pre-school level. This thesis examines an approach to early childhood education which is conceptualized by an explorative as well as a listening approach that specifically addresses children’s questions. The purpose is to create knowledge on how the processes develop and what specific science related content that emerges. All studies are based on a Deweyan pragmatic perspective. Study 1 “logs in” to the debate on children’s possibilities to become “agents for change” and contributing to positive changes for the environment. The results reveal that the children’s positive and negative aesthetic utterances have significance for how the process develops and is being fulfilled. The contextual aspects are imperative both for the content and for the choices the children make along the course of actions. Study 2 examines children exploring animals in a pre-school project concerning biodiversity. Initially, the results reveal that the organisms’ appearances and movements received morphological and physiological explanations. Further on, knowledge was gained in a manner which has similarities to ecological and evolutionary ways of explaining biological phenomena. Study 3 takes departure from the discussion on the fact that sustainability related problems often are unstructured, multifaceted and conceptualized as “wicked”. The study examines how the process of imagination comes into play when children explore a sustainability related problem that is important to them. The results reveal that creative solutions come into existence when blending various experiences. Study 4 investigates how children raise and answer science related questions by non-verbal actions. The results expose that non-verbal actions serve as inquiry, comparative systematics, visualization, question-generators as well as a public and self-reflective communication.
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| 7. |
- Mogren, Anna
(författare)
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Implementering av lärande för hållbar utveckling : En studie av rektors förståelse av kvalitet i skolans organisation
- 2017
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Student outcomes of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is reported to be weak and empirical studies investigating the underlying causes have been called for. School organization is pointed out as essential, which highlights the role of school leaders in realizing ESD. This study aims to identify characteristic features of ESD active school organizations, by investigating how school leaders maintain high quality in their organizations. ESD is thus studied from an internal organizational perspective. Fourteen school leaders at ten upper secondary schools, active in ESD implementation, were interviewed and qualitative data quantified. A special focus was on school leaders’ transformative statements, in response to earlier criticism that ESD implementation has been too structural. Results consist of 26 identified quality criteria. By means of cluster analysis, the quality criteria were merged into four principal quality criteria: collaborative interaction and school development, student-centred education, cooperation with local society and proactive leadership and continuity. The school leaders’ quality strategies were identified through correlation analysis of their principal quality criteria. The quality strategies reveal a difference in the schools’ internal or external focus. An analysis of the school leaders’ quality statements in relation to their quality strategy implementation indicates that ESD to a large degree is introduced from a transformative perspective. One school in the study stands out as highly transformation-oriented, and has a quality strategy combining an internal and external focus, thus making it a possible benchmark for successful ESD-implementation. The study contributes a suggestion on how a progression of ESD implementation can take place and as well as possible obstacles.
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| 8. |
- Mårdh, Andreas, 1987-
(författare)
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Om historieämnets politiska dimension : diskursiva logiker i didaktisk praktik
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Today, history education is often a contested issue over which political frontiers are drawn between adversaries advocating fundamentally different visions of what constitutes a desirable curriculum and, by extension, a desirable society. At present, this dimension is in need of increased attention, considering that populist rhetoric has gained a foothold in mainstream politics and that history, as a school subject, continues to serve the purpose of constituting “the people”, often in national and ethnic terms. Against this background, the aim of this thesis is to comprehensively grasp the political dimension of history education by conducting methodological, empirical and theoretical investigations.The thesis draws on the pragmatist philosophy of democratic education as well as on post-structuralist theories of history, antagonism and populism. Methodologically, the thesis make use of the logics of critical explanation framework (LCE) to empirically explore how history classroom practices as well as contemporary right-wing populist discourse operate.The results show that the LCE methodology constitutes a viable analytical vocabulary for generating knowledge of the political dimension of history education. Furthermore, the thesis offers empirical knowledge about how and why practices of history education are interchangeably politicised and rendered stable by teachers, students and members of the public. Theoretically, populism, as a discursive logic, is criticised and then reconceptualised into an educative mode by which history teaching practices can be enacted. Collectively, the results provide a comprehensive understanding of the political dimension of history education.
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| 9. |
- Teledahl, Anna, 1972-
(författare)
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Knowledge and writing in school mathematics : a communicational approach
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is about young students’ writing in school mathematics and the ways in which this writing is designed, interpreted and understood. Students’ communication can act as a source from which teachers can make inferences regarding students’ mathematical knowledge and understanding. In mathematics education previous research indicates that teachers assume that the process of interpreting and judging students’ writing is unproblematic. The relationship between what students’ write, and what they know or understand, is theoretical as well as empirical. In an era of increased focus on assessment and measurement in education it is necessary for teachers to know more about the relationship between communication and achievement. To add to this knowledge, the thesis has adopted a broad approach, and the thesis consists of four studies. The aim of these studies is to reach a deep understanding of writing in school mathematics. Such an understanding is dependent on examining different aspects of writing. The four studies together examine how the concept of communication is described in authoritative texts, how students’ writing is viewed by teachers and how students make use of different communicational resources in their writing. The results of the four studies indicate that students’ writing is more complex than is acknowledged by teachers and authoritative texts in mathematics education. Results point to a sophistication in students’ approach to the merging of the two functions of writing, writing for oneself and writing for others. Results also suggest that students attend, to various extents, to questions regarding how, what and for whom they are writing in school mathematics. The relationship between writing and achievement is dependent on students’ ability to have their writing reflect their knowledge and on teachers’ thorough knowledge of the different features of writing and their awareness of its complexity. From a communicational perspective the ability to communicate [in writing] in mathematics can and should be distinguished from other mathematical abilities. By acknowledging that mathematical communication integrates mathematical language and natural language, teachers have an opportunity to turn writing in mathematics into an object of learning. This offers teachers the potential to add to their assessment literacy and offers students the potential to develop their communicational ability in order to write in a way that better reflects their mathematical knowledge.
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| 10. |
- Erixon, Eva-Lena, 1968-
(författare)
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Matematiklärares kompetensutveckling online : policy, diskurs och meningsskapande
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Different forms of professional development online are becoming increasingly common for teachers and the aim of the thesis is to contribute knowledge about online professional development for mathematics teachers and the relationship between professional development, educational policy, and mathematics teaching practice. In the thesis, professional development refers to organized professional development in terms of university courses.The thesis consists of four studies, each of which has been presented in the form of an article. The four studies together explore transnational and national policy discourses, meaning-making activities that can be distinguished in online professional development, discourses pertaining to mathematics teaching in the classroom and in the subsequent seminar discussions in the course, and teachers’ experience of professional development online. The different arenas have been explored using the concept of discourse with reference to Fairclough, Gee, and Sfard. The term ”discourse” refers primarily to communication and language in use.The result of the studies indicates that the participants have not been offered enough opportunities to reflect on how or whether the use of several concepts and everyday life connections really deepened the students’ understanding of the mathematical content. Moreover, the analysis of the interviews with the participants shows that it was difficult for them to deepen their reflections in the synchronous communication online. There is a lack of reciprocal participation and reflection in the conversation and it is hard for the participants to get an idea of how the others respond to their messages. When a participant has completed his or her message the next speaker continues with a new message and as a result, the communication often takes a new direction instead of allowing in-depth reflection.
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