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- Berggren, Jan, 1965-
(författare)
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Engelskundervisning i gymnasieskolan för mobilisering av ungdomars livschanser
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Berggren, Jan (2013). Engelskundervisning i gymnasieskolan för mobilisering av ungdomars livschanser. (English teaching in upper secondary school and mobilization of young people's life chances). Linnaeus University Dissertations No 156/2013, ISBN: 978-91-87427-64-0. Written in Swedish with a summary in English.English is a school subject which every Swedish upper secondary student is required to take. The selection and dissemination of knowledge among students attending upper secondary programmes carries the intention of social integration as well as specialization. The aim of this dissertation is then to show how perspectives on education in English elicited from teachers’ and students’ responses in interviews as well as Swedish education policy (SOU, directives, propositions) contribute to the conditions for the selection of knowledge and teaching, on and between programmes.Inspired by Basil Bernstein’s theories of educational sociology (1990, 2000) and Fairclough och Chouliaraki’s critical discourse analysis, CDA (1999), albeit adjusted to the aim of this study in pedagogics, the focus is on teachers’ and students’ views on teaching and knowledge in English classes on four vocational and academic programmes, establishing varying discourse practices on the different programmes. Moreover, perspectives on upper secondary teaching in Swedish education policy texts are analysed following the same methodology.Results indicate that education policy texts at the time of the interviews strive for adjustment of course content in English teaching to the programme (termed ‘infärgning’ in Swedish). Reflecting this trend in education policy, teachers and students on programmes speak of aspirations for English teaching as being either adapted for mainly academic purposes, or vocational and everyday-life purposes. On the basis of these aspirations it is argued that teachers and students establish either academically oriented discourse or vocational and everyday-life oriented discourse as the dominant pedagogical discourse on the individual programme. Thus, education policy as well as teachers and students reflect each other in striving for knowledge to be adapted for the programme. The two discourses contribute to a movement in favour of differences between programmes, though some of the vocational students complain on not being offered possibilities to analyse and discuss current problems in society. This is to say they complain that they do not receive an education in line with the academically oriented discourse, which is offered to students on academic programmes. At the same time, vocational students are dissatisfied in not gaining adequate knowledge in vocational English.Finally, these perspectives indicate discursive conditions for the selection of knowledge and the organization of teaching in English classes on different programmes. In the last chapter of the dissertation these varying perspectives on programmes concerning the selection of knowledge are analysed but now with a focus on the relationship between programmes. Consequences of the varying dominant pedagogical discourses on the programmes are discussed with regard to how they can be understood to mobilize life chances of young people differently, creating conditions for social integration and differentiation. Keywords: Selection of knowledge, upper secondary education, English, education policy, critical discourse analysis, sociology of education, social integration, social differentiation
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| 2. |
- Fonseca, Lars, 1963-
(författare)
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Det godkända fusket : Normförhandlingar i gymnasieskolans bedömningspraktiker
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Education on behalf of social trust constitutes a central theme in all societies. Different forms of cheating and fraud have a negative impact on the bonds of social trust. The purpose of the thesis is to increase understanding of the scope for learning about the individual-society relationship as it finds expression in pedagogical practices involving norms relating to cheating. The established norms concerning school cheating are identified in group-based discussions involving Upper Secondary students and teachers.Students ascribe each other roles on the basis of the perceived capacity to produce school results and thereby also to justify the need for school cheating. In the norm negotiations a significant tolerance is shown towards cheating which is adjudged to be necessary, provided that a hierarchic, fair distribution of grades can be retained.The teachers perceive expectations of acting for goal fulfilment, in the form of good student grades, as based on economic arguments. Good student grades imply satisfied customers in a market exposed to competition and a strong market value for the individual school. From a critical viewpoint these norms are related to the contemporary, dominant neo-liberal principles of commercialisation and individualisation in social organisation.The school actors perceive, in accordance with stratified norm theory, the norms from economic systems of conduct as more strongly conditioning on conduct than those norms from political-administrative or socio-cultural conduct systems. The teachers are aware of expectations, in hidden concert and consent with other school stakeholders, to offer social approval for student cheating and sympathetic marking concerning the lowest grade for passing i.e. violation of rules, where this is necessary to meet the economic as well as political-administrative objectives that have been established.To be part of pedagogic practices involving school cheating implies learning to uncouple rules and practice, law and morality. Such a double agenda is incompatible with norms and ideals in official curricula as well as being destructive of the bonds of social trust; it thereby functions as a hidden curriculum.
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| 3. |
- Sjöberg, Lena
(författare)
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Bäst i klassen? : Lärare och elever i svenska och europeiska policytexter
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis takes its departure in the recent criticism directed to the Swedish school system and its schools, teachers and pupils, but especially the epidemic of policies produced in order to develop and improve Swedish schools, in particular after the change of government in 2006. The general aim of this thesis is to study how teachers and pupils are represented, and thus constructed, regulated and positioned in a number of current key policy texts. The study also involves a discussion of the construction and regulation practices regarding the school, and its role in society. The main context for the study is policy texts and policy practices related to teacher education. Four studies form the cornerstone of the thesis. Through these policy texts different institutional practices are analyzed. These range from European union policy to examination data from a local teacher education institution in Sweden. A main source of inspiration to the theoretical framework of the study has been provided by the work of Michel Foucault. However, in addition to Foucault's constructionist and poststructural basis, theoretical and methodological approaches drawn from Norman Fairclough's critical discourse analysis, Mark Olssen's social-materialist analysis of policy and Stephen J Ball's policy sociology are also included. The first study examines the constructions and governing technologies in four policy texts within the European Union working programme 'Education 2010'. The second study takes a historical perspective in the construction of teachers and pupils, based on teacher education policy text since 1948, and how the ideal teacher, pupil and school are constructed and positioned genealogically. The third study explores the discursive notions of teacher professionalism and how the regulation of teachers operates through this and other discursive practices by the Swedish government and the Teacher union (Lärarförbundet) during two different time periods, 1995-2000 and 2007-2008. The final study examines student teachers' examination assignments, as a local policy practice, and how the student teachers position the ideal pupil and themselves as ideal teachers. It examines how different policy discourses operate in relation to positioning practices. The thesis shows that current neoliberal discourse order in educational policy today is partly challenged by neoconservative rationalities. Secondly, the thesis shows how each teacher and pupil is governed through several discourses, governing technologies and governing techniques, and how these three entities function relationally in the governing of the subject. In common for discourses, governing technologies and techniques are that they are often very 'seductively packaged', which implies that it is almost impossible to resist and oppose them. Finally I claim that the current discourse order, and its discourses, and governing technologies and techniques imply structural inequalities for teachers, but especially between different pupil groups
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