| 1. |
- Pedersen, Helena, 1968-
(författare)
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The School and the Animal Other : An Ethnography of Human-Animal Relations in Education
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- How human-animal relations are expressed and negotiated has significance for the situation of animals in society and offers insights that contribute to our understanding of how we organize relations between humans as well. This critical ethnographic investigation is positioned at the intersection of education research and the interdisciplinary area of human-animal studies. It uses participant observation, interviews with students and teachers and critical discourse analyses of texts and other artefacts used in the schools investigated to contribute cross-curricular perspectives on how human-animal relations are configured in the daily activities of both vocational (animal caretaker) and university preparatory programs. Building on central ideas from the Frankfurt School, the study proposes a platform for a critical theory of human-animal relations in formal education that embraces species-inclusive versions of critical pedagogy as well as gender and postcolonial analyses. In this vein, the study explores how social processes and practices in and outside the classroom enable certain human as well as animal subject positions while disabling others. A primary question is how a species-discourse intersects with categories formed around conceptions of gender, race/ethnicity, and class. A variety of ascribed animal representations and positions embedded in these processes are identified.The study argues that human-animal relations are characterized by indeterminacy and contradiction. While the school may educate to achieve improved conditions for animals inhuman society, it is at the same time involved in a process of social and cultural reproduction that normalizes the accessibility of animal bodies for human purposes. At the heart of this reproduction process lies boundary work around the animal as “other”. Such conceptualizations at times conflict with the views of animals that students bring with them to school and they therefore receive guidance about the “appropriate” position of animals in society; guidance that at the same time allows students to keep intact a sense of self as caring and moral actors toward animals. The school has a repertoire of concrete strategies for achieving this, and the effects of these strategies are identified as key components in a hidden curriculum of human-animal relations. The analyses show that these effects constitute a shared frame of reference of commonsense knowledge about animals in which contradictions embedded in human-animal relations can be comfortably accommodated. In addition, analytical tools borrowed from postcolonial theory are proposed that contribute to understanding the operations of hegemonic discourses of human-animal relations in the classroom as well as the effects generated by resistance to these discourses.
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| 2. |
- Lindahl, Britt
(författare)
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Lust att lära naturvetenskap och teknik? : en longitudinell studie om vägen till gymnasiet
- 2003
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of the study was to follow a group of pupils from the age of twelve until they leave lower secondary school at the age of sixteen to describe and analyse how their attitudes towards and interest in science and technology develop and change but also how this and other factors such as ability, understanding of scientific concepts, gender and home background influenced their choice for upper secondary school. The sample consists of 80 pupils, the whole age group in a school. Data was collected using observations, interviews and questionnaires. The analysis built on the theory of planned behaviour and conceptions research. Many pupils have a positive attitude towards science but often a more positive attitude towards other subjects. They have duties to their parents but these are not strongly expressed. Their self-efficacy for science follows the same pattern as their attitude; they think they are good in science but not as good as in other subjects. For most pupils it seems as if attitude together with self-efficacy are the strongest determinant for their choice. These determinants are influenced by different factors. Girls and boys perceive science teaching differently but it seems as if the boys are on their way to developing the same critical attitude as the girls have had since long ago. The social background is important as many of the pupils who choose science are from well educated homes but even this group is loosing interest. Good ability is a necessary factor but does not guarantee science will be chosen. Neither has good conceptual understanding a crucial importance but on the other hand there are many pupils who say that they would not choose science as they do not understand science in the way it is taught. Another finding is that many pupils even at Grade 5 have an idea of their future career which later on is the same as their choice for upper secondary. If science shall have a chance in their lives the pupils must have a positive experience of science from the beginning of primary school through all years. Once they have lost their interest it is very difficult to get them back. The competition for their attention is intensive and the older they get the more difficult it will be to catch their interest and allegiance.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Asp, Margareta, 1958-
(författare)
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Vila och lärande om vila. En studie på livsvärldsfenomenologisk grund
- 2002
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Avhandlingsarbetets syfte var att utifrån människors levda erfarenheter av vila, utveckla en tentativ teori om vila och om lärande avseende vila. Den kunskapen har utgjort grund för att beskriva hur förutsättningar för lärande avseende vila kan skapas. En modell för lärande avseede vila har utvecklats, i vilken en ömsesidighet mellan innehåll, lärande och förutsättningar för lärande beaktas. Studien genomfördes med en livsvärldsfenomenologisk ansats och med intervju som datainsamlingsmetod. Analysen genomfördes enligt en beskivande fenomenlogisk metodologi, i syfte att beskriva fenomenets generella struktur En generell struktur av fenomenet vila, implicerar en dualitet mellan vila och icke-vila. Essensen i vila utgörs av en harmoni i vilja, känsla och handling Vilan gestaltas i och med att en inre verklighet avseende behov och längtan överensstämmer med den yttre verklighetens beskaffenhet. Till vilans essens relateras innebördselementen: vilorytm i livet, stämningar av skönhet och trevnad, bejakad utan bedömning, frihet från bekymmer och tvång, samvaro med gemensamt intresse, att dröja, lustfylld stimulans och lustfylld utmaning. Essensen i icke- vila är disharmoni i vilja, känsla och handling. Upplevelsen av disharmoni tär på krafterna och blir allt påtagligare ju längre icke-vilan pågår. Att lära sig vila innebär att bli medveten om sitt behov av att ha en livsrytm som ger utrymme för vila, att tillåta sig att leva i en sådan rytm och att finna eller skapa källor där kraft kan hämtas. Modellen för lärande avseende vila består av tre dimensioner: lärande om vila, lärande i vila och lärande genom vila. Lärande om vila kan relateras till idëer om livsvärld, levd kropp, tid och rum, cirkularitet och intentionalitet. Lärande genom vila kan relateras till hälsa och lärande i vila kan relateras till etiska och estetiska aspekter.
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
- Emilson, Anette, 1964-
(författare)
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Det önskvärda barnet : Fostran uttryckt i vardagliga kommunikationshandlingar mellan lärare och barn i förskolan
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this research is to acquire knowledge about fostering young children, as expressed in everyday interactions between teachers and children in Swedish preschools. The three empirical studies in this doctoral thesis investigated partly specific democratic values such as participation and influence and partly the values that teachers explicitly or implicitly encourage and how these values are communicated to children. The thesis takes a critical approach in order to also acquire knowledge about important fostering aspects that can move hierarchal power structures towards a fostering of values characterized by intersubjectivity. In order to understand the interactions, the concepts of communicative and strategic action (Habermas, 1984) are used, as well as strong and weak classification and framing (Bernstein, 2000). Preschool fostering is also analyzed from a double perspective, with a starting-point in Habermas’ (1984, 1995a) concepts of the system and the life-world. The fieldwork took place with three different groups of toddlers in Swedish preschools. Forty-six children (aged 1 to 3 years) participated, as well as their ten teachers. The data consisted of videotaped observations of teacher and child interactions. The first study investigated how a toddler’s participation can be understood in two kinds of educational activities where the degree of teacher control differs. The results showed how strong classification and framing risk restricting children’s participation and how a weak classification and framing can promote children’s opportunities to participate on their own terms. Important issues for children’s participation were found to be a participant teacher who creates meaningful contexts, where teacher control is about being emotionally present, supportive and responsive. The purpose of the second study was to investigate how very young children can exert an influence in circle-time situations in relation to teacher control. The results showed that the children do, in fact, make choices, mostly based on several fixed alternatives, and that they do take the initiative, sometimes to express an opinion or a right, sometimes to express what they want to do in circle time. It was also found that the influence young children are able to exert varies with the control the teacher exercises. It is evident that strong teacher control is maintained in different ways and that strong control does not necessarily limit children’s influence; it depends on the nature of the control. Children’s influence increases when the teacher’s control over the what and how aspects of communications is weak, and is characterized by closeness to the child’s life-world and a communicative approach. The third study examined the values that teachers explicitly or implicitly encourage and how these values are communicated to children. The analyses resulted in ten specific values embedded in value dimensions of discipline, caring and democracy. These, in turn, can be divided into different social orientations – both collective and individualistic. The values are communicated differently and the what aspect of the communication (the value) is interrelated with the how aspect of the communication; how teachers communicate influences and sometimes changes the communicated value. In order to change power structures in teacher and child interactions, three aspects of importance have been identified: teachers’ closeness to the child’s perspective, their emotional presence and playfulness. Theoretically, the aspects are within the framework of communicative action and contribute to the understanding of what the theory might mean in communication with the youngest children in the educational system.
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| 8. |
- Gustavsson, Susanne
(författare)
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Motstånd och mening : Innebörd i blivande lärares seminariesamtal
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Both historically and in our own time the teacher education has been discussed and changed to match current traditions and intentions. There is an ongoing debate about the scientifi c basis of teacher education and the relation to professional basis. The aim with this study is to develop understanding for student teachers’ introduction to education and profession. The study is carried out against the background of the provisions and assumptions that characterise an academic professional education, and in particular teacher education, such as the relationship between education and the profession, the scientifi c basis and professional basis, the fi eld-based and college-based educational practice. The point of departure is that teacher education cannot be dissociated from the practice and theory of the profession, and in addition that the expression of education must be understood through the student’s experience and interpretation. The overall aim of the study, starting out from the nature and objectives of the academic professional education, is to understand the field of tension expressed in this experience. During the study, dialogues with students were observed at an early stage in their education. These dialogues consisted of four authentic seminars and twenty-three subsequent stimulated recall-inspired interviews with individual students. Content of the dialogues and seminars are student teachers’ experiences from fi eld-based and college-based education. The method of the studyis based on critical hermeneutics with reference to Paul Ricoeur. The result shows the two roles of the student, as participant and as observer. The students also consider themselves as students and at the same time as future teachers. Fields of tension are identifi ed between what is recognisable and a talk of changes; between position and investigation; and between progression and process. Professional teachers do not seem as masters, they are instead objects for criticism. The early experience of the profession does not harmonise with the content of the education. Furthermore, the student appears to lack the tools to examine critically and understand both the content offered in the education and the theory and practice of the profession.
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| 9. |
- Hedberg, Berith
(författare)
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Decision Making and Communication : Aspects of Nursing Competence
- 2005
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The overall aim of this thesis is to understand the conditions and prerequisites of nurses’ decision making on nursing measures and their communication in multiparty talk, activities nurses manage in their work. By analysing both environmental elements in nursing practice and how experienced nurses manage decision-making processes, the intention has been to understand how nurses’ competence occurs and is expressed in nursing practice. A specific problem concerns the attention given to the patients’ right to participate in co-operative care planning meetings when decisions are made about their further care and how the conditions for patient involvement and influence become visible in multiparty talk. In the theoretical framework, it is argued that competence generally speaking concerns the individual’s potential capacity for action in relation to a certain task, situation and context. The expectations as regards nursing competence at work are expressed in work regulations and recommendations; however, the content of nursing education and practice constitutes powerful institutional frames, influencing how nurses are able to perform their tasks. The individual’s cognitive ability, the context-specific and collaborative knowledge, can be seen as additionally elements of nursing competence. The thesis is based on two different datasets which have generated four sub-studies. Studies I and II focus on the nurses’ decision-making process and the influence of the simultaneous presence of environmental elements. The empirical data consist of 30 hours of participant observation and inter-views with 6 experienced nurses at three different wards. Studies III and IV concern nurses involve-ment in a dynamic communicative process with co-workers, patients and, at times, their relatives including data from audio-recordings of 14 co-operative care planning sessions concerning stroke survivors. Throughout the four studies, a gap is visible between nurses’ decision making and communication in practice and the expectations of how nurses should manage these activities related to work regulations and the goals formulated in the nursing educational programs. How nurses make their decisions depends on their competence, the complexity of the task and how much they involve themselves in talk with others. The medical perspective dominates when nurses give priority to what should and can be done in nursing activities. As regards patients’ participation in co-operative care planning meetings, the professionals dominate the discourse space. The nurses never openly invited the patients to elicit their own perspective of their illness or care planning. The nurses mostly suggest-ed opinions or asked the patients to confirm these opinions. There is, however a hidden power agenda when patients and relatives try to reach a desired decision. The same phenomenon may occur when patients are in alliances with health care professionals. The above-mentioned issues are discussed in the light of nursing competence and the need for nurses to discuss what it means to be a nurse in relation to institutional frames of power relationships. If the official regulations and recommendations are to be satisfied, there is an urgent need for increased collaboration between nurses, the health care system and the nursing education programs.
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| 10. |
- Hellström Muhli, Ulla
(författare)
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Att överbrygga perspektiv : En studie av behovsbedömningssamtal inom äldreinriktat socialt arbete
- 2003
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of the study was to describe and analyse institutional practice in need assessment dialogues. The questions were: How are the dialogues structured? How is the professional dialogue content combined with: the institutional, traditional and personal perspectives? How are communicative problems solved?Mapping, assessing and deciding on social welfare or other aid measures for elderly people is one part of the concretisation of the elderly care policy in the encounter with the individual citizen. This concretisation is not just a simple transfer of political goals but, rather, contains implications for elderly care institutions as a whole, for elderly oriented social work and for processing. Examples of such implications are demands on knowledge growth in elderly oriented social work and demands on professional practice. The institutional actors, the case officers, serve an important purpose for the elderly in the encounter with elderly care. The need assessment dialogue between case officers and elderly persons is thus seen as a communicative activity or practice through which they (re)produce elderly care. It is this that the study attempts to give shape to.The project has its theoretical underpinning in social constructionism and in dialogism, which explain people’s everyday actions and interaction and how people make their knowledge and assumptions comprehensible. The social constructionist theory also explains how social institutions are created and maintained in people’s interaction in institutional talk.Data have been collected in the form of video recordings of 16 need assessment meetings and consist of about 12 hours of recorded need assessment dialogues. Content analyses of interactive courses of events in need assessment dialogues have been performed.The results show that phases constitute the structure of the dialogues and make them comprehensible. The phases serve different functions in the need assessment dialogues. The phase structure can be seen as a sub activity, which has specific aims and solves different tasks that are central to the case officer’s work. The phase structure consists of: opening, framing, mapping of needs, information and counselling, the turning-point in the dialogue and conclusion. A prominent feature of the study is the relationship between institutional order and professional practice. This relationship is the basis of different dilemmas in the encounter with the client. The key task facing the case officer is to bridge these dilemmas by means of different strategies. The case officer’s professional task in need assessments is not only to assess care requirements but also to make the institutional prerequisites of the aid measures comprehensible to the client and to transform care requirements into institutional abstractions. The knowledge contribution consists of an understanding of the complexity of the dialogue and how meaning and perspectives in the dialogue are produced interactively in different ways. An important knowledge contribution is the importance of communication in elderly oriented social work. This is a key factor in establishing a working relationship between the client and the case officer. It is also a key factor in the case officer’s professional practice.
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| 11. |
- Hjalmarsson, Marie, 1961-
(författare)
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Lojalitet och motstånd : anställdas agerande i ett föränderligt hemtjänstarbete
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis aims to shed light on the dynamics and the complexity in the relationship between power and resistance in labour, from an employee-perspective. This is done by describing and analyzing how a group of employees in municipal home help services interpret and make use of their possibilities to act in relation to a process of change, initiated by the management, involving new technology. Hand-held computers were implemented by the management and the home helps were supposed to use them to register their daily work performance. A theoretical framework based on power and resistance in accordance with Michel Foucault and Jon McKenzie, together with Ackroyd & Thompson’s concept of self-organization, is used. The study has an ethnographic approach. The empirical material is based on a combination of participant observation, interviews and document analysis. Two major periods of observations were conducted. The first period focused on understanding the work performance and its routines. During the second period, the use of (or rather attempts to use) the hand-held computers was in focus. The interviews with 11 home helps focused on the meaning and content of their work with regards to work performance, skills and knowledge, possibilities and limitations and their opinions of the ICT project. Five management representatives, a local councillor, a software consultant and a union representative were also interviewed in order to grasp a management perspective. The results show a pattern in the actions of the home helps. It is a rational way of acting where adaptability, responsibility and reliability permeate thoughts and actions. It functions as a premise for how the home helps interpret their possibilities to act at work. They address their loyalty in several directions: to the care recipients, but also to their colleagues, to the management and to the organization as such. This rationality of loyalty is reproduced by the home helps but also by the management. The home helps are to a certain extent aware of the loyalties in their actions and every so often they use them in a conscious way. They reflect on how strong the loyalty should be and towards whom or what it should be directed. The actions of the home helps at work in general and in relation to the ICT project in particular is characterised by loyalty and consent rather than by formal resistance. The home helps don’t show any formal resistance but they do self-organization. They strive towards a relative autonomy and to maintain their dignity. This way of acting is however related to the rationality of loyalty that has a regulating influence on their informal resistance. Despite the limited and informal character of the self-organization of the home helps, it can be considered subversive. It has a possibility of undermining the exercise of power and it creates an alternative professional identity to the one offered by the management
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| 12. |
- Hjalmarsson, Maria
(författare)
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Lärarprofessionens genusordning : En studie av lärares uppfattningar om arbetsuppgifter, kompetens och förväntningar
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis presents a study of the gender order of the teaching profession. It focuses on how teachers perceive meanings of the gender order in their work. It also focuses how the gender order is expressed in the interviewees’ understandings and interpretations of their assignment and work.The theoretical concept gender contract (Hirdmans, 1988, 2007) is used to interpret and analyse how teachers apprehend their work tasks and how these are carried out. Lindgrens (1985, 1999) studies of majority- and minority positions at a work place are relevant as that the amount of women and men in schools’ lower grades differ. The theoretical concept gender regime (Connell, 1996) is used to study how the overall gender order is expressed in different schools. Connell (1999) describe a hierarchy of masculinities which is used as a tool to understand how the male teachers reason about expectations from others.The thesis is primarily based on an interview study among fourteen teachers in grade three to five in an urban municipality. Some data from a questionnaire, answered by approximately 600 teachers who work with children 10-12 years old, are also included.Results show that social dimensions are intervened with pedagogic-didactic aspects, but at the same time talked about as disturbing teachers’ main assignment. Social dimensions are described as taking a lot of teachers’ time and energy, but also as “that all round”. Especially the male teachers discuss aspects as caring and relationships to pupils and describe these aspects as a source to challenge in work. From a gender perspective, it is interesting to note that it is mostly female coded aspects, i.e. relationships that are described as “that all around”. Contact with parents is highly emphasized and influenced by aspects of ethnicity. Several teachers state that norms in the pupils’ home environment and norms in school differ. Because of this, contact with parents includes dilemmas.Partly because of that, it can be hard to delimit the teacher role from the private role.Even if tasks related to social dimensions in work are described as “that all around”, the importance of the teachers’ social competence is emphasized. The teachers maintain that competence in work does not have anything to do with the gender of the teacher. Especially younger teachers tend to emphasize abilities and competences of the individual. At the same time, it seems that women and men partly handle different kinds of tasks and that certain tasks get gender coded, which corresponds to the regulations of the gender contract through which the gender order is established.Several male teachers state that they have worked as teachers for smaller groups of pupils with special needs, without having the relevant educational background. These men also told that they were recruited to handle instable groups of pupils. Thereby, they are expected to behave like “real men”, i.e. perform a hegemonic masculinity, and if they don’t they run a risk to be seen as unmanly. Feelings of shame are discussed only by male teachers. This shows that not only women but also men “suffer” of the gender order.The male teachers dwell upon strong expectations from parents to “uphold peace and quiet” in a way that female teachers don’t. However, when focusing the corresponding theme in the questionnaire, the picture changes. 91% (n=366) of the female teachers and 86% (n=235) of the male teachers feel to a high degree expectations from parents to “uphold peace and quiet”.
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| 13. |
- Holfve-Sabel, Mary-Anne
(författare)
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Attitudes towards Swedish comprehensive school : comparisons over time and between classrooms in grade 6
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The main aim of the study is to understand student attitudes towards different aspects of school using data from the late 1960s and 35 years later, and to analyze the impact both from teachers and students on classroom climate. Another important aim in order to accomplish this is to develop suitable instruments and methods. The starting point of the empirical work was a 40-item attitude questionnaire that was used in the Didactical Process Analysis (DPA) project conducted in Göteborg in the late... mer 1960s, which comprised 60 classrooms and 1600 grade 6 students. This attitude questionnaire was reanalyzed using two-level confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), the reanalysis resulting in seven factors describing differences in student attitudes within classrooms, three factors describing attitude differences between classrooms. The original 40-item questionnaire was expanded with 31 new items concerning school environment, teaching and interaction between the students, and between the teacher and the students. This instrument was administered to 78 classes, with the participation of 1696 students and 78 teachers in Göteborg. The first objective was to compare the attitudes of students now with the DPA investigation 35 years ago using identical items. The analysis focused both on item-level data and on factor scores computed from the two-level CFA model. The results showed a general improvement in attitudes. A differentiated picture was seen on the within-class level with significant changes in peer relational factors but not in school factors. The present curriculum with its focus on interaction aspects of learning may have implemented changes in relational patterns and created a more positive student attitude. On between-class level all three factors had increased their levels of attitudes, but the variation among classes was wide. The second objective was to analyze differences between the points of view of students and their teachers, and to analyze which factors explained classroom differences in attitudes. Differences in teacher-student perspectives were seen on item level. The students’ attitudes emphasized the importance of positive interaction with both teacher and peers. Teachers noted the level of work ambitions, stress and disturbance among students. The factors of most importance for classroom differences in attitudes concerning work atmosphere and social relations were a sensible management of deviancy, and creation of a safe and orderly environment.
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| 14. |
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| 15. |
- Johansson, Monica
(författare)
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Anpassning och motstånd : En etnografisk studie av gymnasieelevers institutionella identitetsskapande
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Nearly all pupils in Sweden continue their studies at upper secondary school. A central point of departure in this thesis is therefore to examine how the upper secondary school deals with its now both complex and difficult to interpret task of ”one school for all” and to describe and analyse the creation of identity for pupils within this institution. How the creation of identity occurs in different programmes during the pupils’ period of education is specifically studied with a theoretical starting point in Anthony Gidden’s structuration theory complemented with theories that concern pupil adaption and resistance. The study was conducted at a municipal upper secondary school and used critical ethnographic research and document analysis. The programmes that were included in the study are the individual programme, the health care programme and the technical programme. Five pupil groups were followed for three school years. The results show that the differentiation of pupils within the education system is strengthened in the everyday activities of the upper secondary school. At a general school level, an explicit pupil identity is sought after, but in the different programmes different possibilities for the pupils to achieve this are discerned. The pupils are faced with different demands and expectations depending on which upper secondary school programme they are studying at. This applies to both their performances and the social relations of the positioning processes involved in being a pupil. The creation of pupils' identities is formed and developed in different ways and can also be related to the prevalence of special support, as well as to gender, social background and ethnicity. During their education most pupils strive towards adapting to the pupil identity that the school, at a general level, seeks. But they do so with varying degrees of resistance. In the thesis, the results are discussed in relation to the increased marketisation of the education system where individual performance, control and the evaluation of pupils are becoming more and more central. There is a need to critically examine these questions since they have such significant consequences for the future of young people.
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| 16. |
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| 17. |
- Mattsson, Anita
(författare)
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Flexibel utbildning i praktiken : En fallstudie av pedagogiska processer i en distansutbildning med en öppen design för samarbetslärande
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this study is to examine the pedagogical processes that evolve in an "open" design for online learning realized in relation to a specific setting. The study describes and analyzes pedagogical activities in a distance education course in higher education that uses an asynchronous conference system for communication and interaction. The study's theoretical framework is based on the CSCL field, and a socio-cultural perspective, where the aim of the research is to create artefacts and environments that support meaning making in practice. The study was conducted in an authentic environment and can be described as an ethnographic exploratory case study. The analysis focuses on how the practice is established and constituted over time. The unit of analysis is ongoing interaction between nine groups of students and their teacher. Some overall patterns has been analysed and three models of division of labour emerged in the study. The produced assignments mirror the negotiations the groups’ members have in understanding how and when they will be working with the assignments. The course had a weak educational framing and the participants were responsible for their own learning. The teacher's instructions were intentionally broad and vague, an open design, which allowed the students to use their creativity in the work. Even if the teacher was responsible for monitoring the students' discussions, she did not participate because she thought it was too difficult to understand when her active participation supported the students and when it did not. The relations between and within the structuring resources were used in learning communities and the students acted in relation to them. To understand how to divide and allocate tasks, and how to solve problems, is not only done in relationships and people's thinking, but also implicit in learning communities. This means that teachers have to design courses in new ways. The requirements for participation, interaction, and communication, must be determined. The way in which an assignment is formulated structured the students' way to solve the assignments.
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| 18. |
- Nilsson, Lars-Erik, 1949-
(författare)
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"But can't you see they are lying" : student moral positions and ethical practices in the wake of technological change
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Today it is considered important that modern digital technology be implemented and that all citizens learn to use it. Students already use mobile phones, personal digital assistants, computers, and their applications to do much of their work. This includes searching for and retrieving information, and collaborating on assignments and writing. Recently, claims have been made in both the media and academic research that student technology use is an important factor underlying an increase in student attempts to deceive on exams and other graded work. For example, it is assumed that students sometimes use the Internet to download other people’s essays, then handing them in as their own, and to make patchwork compositions of other people’s texts using the copy and paste functions. Such claims, however, risk not considering other changes that have occurred, for example, changing forms of exams/assessed assignments. Accordingly, one aim of this thesis has been to go beyond the categorization of students as cheaters and their use of digital technology as the use of unauthorized aids when discussing student use of technology in exams/graded assignments, and consider what rights and duties and what other subject positions are being made available for them. Four studies have been conducted, the first into the work of high-school students on research reports and the other three into interaction in disciplinary inquiries. These studies illustrate how exams/graded assignments and assessment in general introduce dilemmas for students and how it is important to consider how these dilemmas are solved in practice before making assumptions about technology use as cheating. As a contribution to the debate about students’ moral values and their use of technology, this work has demonstrated the importance of distinguishing between actions and the meaning ascribed to them as acts. A general observation is that student use of technology is generally met with suspicion. Cheating functions as a device for making good texts appear as possible downloads, texts with uneven quality as possible patchwork, inadvertent textual overlaps (i.e., unintentional near reproduction of the wording of a source) as intentional plagiarism, and student references to technical problems as probable rationalizations. From a methodological perspective, the utility of investigating cheating as an interactional accomplishment is demonstrated. This approach has made it possible to investigate how students reason about using existing texts and asking others for help. As well, the application of a dynamic perspective on subjectivity has made a theoretical contribution. Through this perspective, it is possible to criticize the normalization of students as cheaters based on how they use technology. That their actions could as easily make other positions available to them is shown.
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| 19. |
- Nilsson, Lars-Erik
(författare)
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"But Can't You See They are Lying?" Student Moral Positions and Ethical Practices in the Wake of Technological Change
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Today it is considered important that modern digital technology be implemented and that all citizens learn to use it. Students already use mobile phones, personal digital assistants, computers, and their applications to do much of their work. This includes searching for and retrieving information, and collaborating on assignments and writing. Recently, claims have been made in both the media and academic research that student technology use is an important factor underlying an increase in student attempts to deceive on exams and other graded work. For example, it is assumed that students sometimes use the Internet to download other people’s essays, then handing them in as their own, and to make patchwork compositions of other people’s texts using the copy and paste functions. Such claims, however, risk not considering other changes that have occurred, for example, changing forms of exams/assessed assignments. Accordingly, one aim of this thesis has been to go beyond the categorization of students as cheaters and their use of digital technology as the use of unauthorized aids when discussing student use of technology in exams/graded assignments, and consider what rights and duties and what other subject positions are being made available for them. Four studies have been conducted, the first into the work of high-school students on research reports and the other three into interaction in disciplinary inquiries. These studies illustrate how exams/graded assignments and assessment in general introduce dilemmas for students and how it is important to consider how these dilemmas are solved in practice before making assumptions about technology use as cheating. As a contribution to the debate about students’ moral values and their use of technology, this work has demonstrated the importance of distinguishing between actions and the meaning ascribed to them as acts. A general observation is that student use of technology is generally met with suspicion. Cheating functions as a device for making good texts appear as possible downloads, texts with uneven quality as possible patchwork, inadvertent textual overlaps (i.e., unintentional near reproduction of the wording of a source) as intentional plagiarism, and student references to technical problems as probable rationalizations. From a methodological perspective, the utility of investigating cheating as an interactional accomplishment is demonstrated. This approach has made it possible to investigate how students reason about using existing texts and asking others for help. As well, the application of a dynamic perspective on subjectivity has made a theoretical contribution. Through this perspective, it is possible to criticize the normalization of students as cheaters based on how they use technology. That their actions could as easily make other positions available to them is shown.
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| 20. |
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| 21. |
- Ahlberg, Kristina, 1954
(författare)
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Synvändor : universitetsstudenters berättelser om kvalitativa förändringar av sätt att erfara situationers mening under utbildningspraktik
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The main purpose of this study has been to examine the questions: Do people experience view-turns? Can they describe them? What do the processes signify? A narrative method, with an open and dual-focussed interview question to students of medicine, nursing, occupational therapy and physiotherapy in their final term, was used to obtain accounts of university students? experiences of changing ways of experiencing during educational placement. The accounts revealed that all interviewed students except one had found it meaningful and possible to describe experienced processes of changing ways of experiencing. The accounts were analysed phenomenographically and two qualitatively different main categories were discerned, which were drawn directly from the students? descriptions: Addition of Something New, with subcategories Information and Result, and Restructuring of Awareness, with subcategories Figure/Ground, Difference/Similarity, Perspective and Whole/Part. Categorisation of the accounts was verified in a three-stage interjudge reliability test with three independent assessors. Significant difference between placing in the two main categories was found between accounts by students of medicine and those by students of nursing, occupational therapy and physiotherapy. Medical students? accounts were categorised predominantly as addition of something new, whilst accounts from nursing, occupational therapy and physiotherapy students were categorised almost exclusively as restructuring of awareness. This difference was elucidated by theoretical and historical connection to the Natural Attitude and the Philosophical Attitude described within early phenomenology. The described view-turns were theoretically elucidated with phenomenology, pragmatic meaning formation theory and gestalt theory. The theories, which each give a partial understanding of view-turns, all fail however to explain fully the findings of this study. Contradictions amongst the single-dimensional theoretical understandings offered are suggested to be reconciled through the variation theory of learning, by the premise of co-constitution of experiencing and the experienced. An element of contradiction is seen to be integral to dynamic processes of learning. The research question?s simultaneous focussing on two ways of experiencing something appears to have been decisive in revealing dynamic processes of changing ways of experiencing as well as way of experiencing.
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| 22. |
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| 23. |
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| 24. |
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| 25. |
- Bentley, Per Olof, 1945
(författare)
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Mathematics Teachers and Their Conceptual Models - A New Field of Research
- 2008
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Bok (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Swedish mathematics teachers’ knowledge for conceptual teaching is the issue of the present study. Anglo-American research in this field shows that teachers lack this particular knowledge to a high degree. The aim was to study firstly, a number of mathematics teachers’ conceptual understanding, secondly, their knowledge of pupils’ conceptual understanding, thirdly, a number of their pupils’ conceptual understanding and fourthly, to try to develop a comprehensive theory of conceptual understanding for school mathematics. The fourteen interviewed teachers were selected by means of theoretical sampling in order to reach theoretical saturation. The data were transcribed and analysed within an extended Phenomenographic framework. By comparing the teachers’ own understanding with their knowledge of pupils’ understanding of the concepts of variable and proportionality, the variation consisted in two principally dissimilar patterns. Characteristic of the first pattern was that the teachers’ own understanding coincided with their knowledge of pupils’ understanding. Typical of the second pattern was that the teachers not only exposed mathematically qualitatively well-developed ways of understanding the concepts but also an awareness of pupils’ less developed ways of understanding. In order to compare teachers’ predictions of pupils’ understanding of the two concepts, variable and proportionality some of the teachers and a number of their pupils were interviewed altogether 15 persons. The teachers’ predictions displayed a high precision. It was shown that a decisive influence on the pupils’ ways of understanding the fraction concept was exerted by the conceptual models of vulgar fractions applied by the teachers in their instructional practice. It was possible to characterise each individuals’ conceptual understanding by taking the descriptive categories on group-level as a point of departure and by using each individual’s data. Whether or not a certain way of understanding will be exposed is determined by the powerfulness of the experiment problem. The results suggest that not all teachers have the necessary knowledge for conceptual teaching. Subsequently, the aim is reached. With few exceptions, the categories of conceptual understanding are in harmony with research. Since conceptual models were proved to influence pupils’ conceptual understanding, it would be fruitful to study how teachers apply the models in their teaching and how they are understood by pupils. Therefore, there are reasons for putting forward the role of conceptual models in school mathematics as a new field of research.
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| 26. |
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| 27. |
- Berg, Christina, 1963
(författare)
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Influences on schoolchildren's dietary selection : focus on fat and fibre at breakfast
- 2002
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- One important aim of the Swedish Action Programme for Nutrition is to increase the consumption of dietary fibre and decrease fat intake. The currently available extensive range of fat-reduced and fibre-enriched foods makes these dietary practices possible, but also makes the selection of a health promoting diet more complex. This thesis aims to contribute to the understanding of psychosocial influences on schoolchildren?s food choice, with specific attention to fat and fibre content. The focus was on breakfast because typical Swedish breakfast foods are important sources of fat and fibre. The Theory of Planned Behaviour formed the theoretical basis of the studies. All pupils in the 5th, 7th and 9th grades in M?lndal municipality (N=1730) were asked to complete a questionnaire and a 7-day food record. Interviews were performed with 181 of those subjects. A picture-sort interview technique, the ?stacking box methodology?, was employed to describe perceptions and habitual choices. Assessing diets of children and adolescents is not an easy task. As in all dietary surveys, reporting and participation biases may exist. The present study using food records illustrates several such biases, which should be taken into consideration in the design, analysis and interpretation of future studies. The ?stacking box methodology? seems promising, and appeared to have some advantages compared to traditional methods. However, the two dietary assessment methods generally yielded similar results. Reduced-fat choices of milk and margarine were common, although a considerable number of subjects consumed full-fat products. When it comes to the consumption of bread and cereals, the low-fibre alternatives dominated. At the age of 11 as well as 15, children?s own attitudes and underlying beliefs were of importance for breakfast food choices, as was parental influence. Parents influenced food choice by controlling food availability, acting as models and encouraging the child to consume. The perceived parental norms supported dietary changes towards products with more fibre but not towards fat-reduced products. However, the perception of parents? own consumption seemed to favour consumption of fat-reduced milk. Participants? attitudes were associated with health beliefs as well as taste perceptions. In general, the results suggest that taste may be a barrier to the consumption of high-fibre products, while consumption of low-fat products appears to be impeded by health beliefs. Contrary to several other studies, the present results suggest that some aspects of young people?s dietary behaviour are related to their knowledge. Specifically, the choice of high-fibre products was associated with knowledge of fibre sources and the choice of fat-reduced milk products was associated with a positive attitude towards limited fat intake.
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| 28. |
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| 29. |
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| 30. |
- Björklund, Elisabeth, 1945-
(författare)
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Att erövra litteracitet : Små barns kommunikativa möten med berättande, bilder, text och tecken i förskolan
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is based on an ethnographic field study among a group of monolingual children from one and a half to three years old at a pre-school in a Swedish village. The primary aim of the study has been to gain knowledge about how young children conquer and express literacy in their everyday lives. One assumption was that children are active and competent in their search for meaning when dealing with texts, signs and images. A second aim has been to investigate whether children’s literacy could have an impact on the social and cultural context of pre-school.Research questions addressed in the study focus on children’s participation in literacy events and their actions in literacy practice. An additional question was whether children were contributing to literacy practice when interacting with other children in the group.The theoretical framework draws upon socio-cultural theory. The empirical material consists of video recordings and the focus of observation has been on children’s actions related to literacy, expressed as early literacy, including reading and writing as well as telling and retelling narratives, singing and other verbal and non verbal communication. In children’s literacy events and literacy practice the specific context was of central interest. All the material collected has been transcribed and transferred into text and constitutes the basis for analyzing what children are performing in actual events and practices. The guiding principle for description was at first to give a close reproduction of children’s verbal utterances and their acting linked to the concept of early literacy. Secondly, the aim was to describe and analyze whether the utterances and actions could be linked to the specific social and cultural context.The analysed material demonstrates how children participate and interact with each other while engaged in literacy and the material also displays the content of their communication. Two different kinds of literacy appear: one is narrative tellings and the other is reading and drawing/writing. A deeper analysis shows that children are building knowledge of telling and also creating a specific manifesto of literacy. The children also underline what they are doing through verbal expressions where they defined themselves as both readers and writers.The result gives a contribution to new knowledge and an understanding of early literacy among very young children as something they have created in pre-school as a social and cultural environment. Literacy in the studied group of children uncovers many more expressions, including several actions with regard to written material, than we usally relate to the youngest children in pre-school.
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| 31. |
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| 32. |
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| 33. |
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| 34. |
- Carlstedt, Berit
(författare)
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Cognitive abilities - aspects of structure, process and measurement
- 2000
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The overall purpose of the thesis is to describe the development of the Swedish system of measuring cognitive abilities applied at enlistment of conscripts. The Enlistment Battery has been used for more than fifty years to classify 18-year old men into military positions for their compulsory service. Throughout the years the batteries have been influenced by the changes in the factor analytically derived models of cognitive abilities. Seven earlier versions of the battery are presented, as well as a review of the development of the models of the structure of intelligence from Spearman to the Scandinavian hierarchical model of Undheim and Gustafsson that equalizes general ability and Fluid intelligence. This most recent theoretical development has strongly guided the design and evaluation of the latest version (1994) of the battery. The multivariate charac¬ter of cognitive ability, of tests and of test performance was acknowledged in the way that latent variable esti¬mates of general intelligence, Crystallized intelligence and General visualization (as nested factors) comprised the test results in the first computerized version. This is reported in the second study. The first study examines the construct validity of the preceding version. A confirmatory factor analysis approach was used in which the orthogonal hierarchical structure was confirmed. The two last studies are directed towards a theoretical deepening concerning aspects of test performance and test evaluation. The impact of item sequencing on the construct vali¬di¬ty of complex problem solving tests was investigated. It was found that item sequencing that appeared to increase the opportunity to learn throughout the test produced a better Fluid intelligence test than an item sequencing that implied less opportunity to learn. From earlier empirical studies and from theories of intellectual development it was assumed that cognitive abilities are more differentiated in high ability subjects than in low ability subjects. This was studied empirically for the enlistment population through a multi-group latent variable approach and was supported by the results in that the broad ability factors Crystallized intelligence and General visualization captured more variance on higher levels of general ability than on lower levels. Implications for future advance in cognitive testing are discussed regarding aspects as the impact of item sequencing effects on adaptive testing, and the opportunity to make use of the multi¬dimen¬sionality of tests and even of test items in test construction and evaluation.
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| 35. |
- Claesson, Silwa, 1947
(författare)
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Lärares levda kunskap
- 2004
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 36. |
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| 37. |
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| 38. |
- Dragemark Oscarson, Anne, 1953
(författare)
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Self-Assessment of Writing in Learning English as a Foreign Language. A Study at the Upper Secondary School Level
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The main aim of this study is to explore the role of self-assessment in EFL learning in developing lifelong language learning skills and in furthering the development of more comprehensive and thereby fairer assessment practices. The study explores how upper secondary school students perceived their own general and specific writing abilities in relation to syllabus goals and whether these perceptions are affected by self-assessment practices. It also explores students’ and teachers’ experiences of integrating self-assessment into everyday classroom practice. The study is based on the theory that metacognitive skills such as self-regulation and self-monitoring are important for the development of autonomous learning skills. Two teachers and four groups of Swedish upper secondary students participated in the study during one school year. Using grades, students self-assessed the results of two written assignments, namely a classroom writing assignment and a written test task. The classroom writing assignment was also analyzed linguistically by the researcher. The two teachers and eight student focus groups were interviewed about their experiences at the end of the study. The results of the study showed that at the group level students were well able to assess their general writing results in relation to the criterion (the teachers’ grades). At the individual level the results were more variable, partly depending on the type of writing activity assessed and on the amount of practice students had had of self-assessment. Students’ assessments of their writing ability in general showed a stronger relationship with teachers’ grades than did students’ assessments of their results in a particular classroom writing assignment. Students’ assessments tended to become more realistic with practice. The results also showed that the specific writing skills that students at upper secondary school focused on in their writing are spelling and grammar, rather than other skills such as sentence structure, vocabulary, paragraphing and punctuation skills. Students were self-critical with regard to these skills and tended to underestimate their performance in relation to the researchers’ assessment of the same. Students and teachers were positive to the incorporation of self-assessment activities in the EFL writing classroom and saw it as a transferable skill that underpins lifelong learning in other subject areas. The method used in a classroom assignment, where the writing process approach was coupled to self-assessment questions and non-corrective feedback from the teacher, was found to be a practical way of helping students become more aware of their language skills and language levels. Both teachers and students considered student self-assessments as contributing valuable additional information to ordinary tutoring and testing. The implications for EFL writing are that syllabus goals that encourage student responsibility and autonomy are viable and realistic, but students need to practice self-assessment, preferably from an early age, to become adept at employing the approach effectively on a regular basis.
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| 39. |
- Ekborg, Margareta
(författare)
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Naturvetenskaplig utbildning för hållbar utveckling? : en longitudinell studie av hur studenter på grundskollärarprogrammet utvecklar för miljöundervisning relevanta kunskaper i naturkunskap
- 2002
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this study the concept of sustainable development is discussed and what contribution a science teacher can make. Some scientific concepts relevant for environmental education are defined. To understand the concepts mean to be able to explain phenomena and to be able to use the conceptions as tools when discussing complex environmental issues. The ability to discuss complex issues is discussed. The aims of study were to study how student teachers in a programme oriented towards science for the first seven years in school develop scientific understanding and ability to discuss complex issues. Another aim was to relate the students’ experience of their own learning and the teaching to what they learn. Data were collected mainly by questionnaires and interviews. The whole student group answered questionnaires three times and about 15 students were interviewed three times. In the questionnaires the students answered questions about some ecological concepts. Their knowledge about causes and consequences of two global environmental issues were tested. They drew concept maps illustrating how complex they look upon an issue. In the interviews the students were asked about the teaching and their learning. They discussed a complex issue dealing with weather or not it is ethical to use surplus heat from a crematorium in the far heating system. The teachers were asked about the courses and about the students’ learning. Several learning projects could be identified. All the students had the intention to become teachers for young pupils. Parallel to this they wanted to pass the exams and to understand. Depending on the learning projects the students interpreted both the questions they were asked and the relevance of the contents in the science courses. This could explain why a majority of the students did not develop understanding of the investigated concepts. Most students did not use much science as a tool for decision-making when discussing the complex issue. There was a discrepancy between the students' learning projects and the teachers' learning projects for the students. When the students experienced this gap they went into rote learning to pass the exams. Those students whose learning project was to understand developed a better scientific understanding.
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| 40. |
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| 41. |
- Emanuelsson, Jonas, 1962
(författare)
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En fråga om frågor : hur lärares frågor i klassrummet gör det möjligt att få reda på elevernas sätt att förstå det som undervisningen behandlar i matematik och naturvetenskap
- 2001
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis reports results from a study that focuses on how teachers can learn about their students? learning in mathematics and science. Current perspectives on learning are positioned in terms of the acquisition and participation metaphor. A third metaphor, the constitutive metaphor, is proposed and elaborated as an alternative for the current study. The theoretical framework draws upon and tries to further inform phenomenography and the ?theory of variation?. The empirical material was generated from audio-taped classroom interactions and follow-up interviews. With the aid of concrete examples, teachers were probed on their understandings of selected parts of the interaction observed. The results are described in terms of variant and invariant aspects of possible learning objects for the teacher. I pay particular attention to what the students possibly focus upon, and how they deal with the focused content in three different zones ? the topical, the conceptual and the procedural zone. The outcome of the study is discussed in relation to teachers? knowledge. Pedagogical content knowing is scrutinised and a complementary perspective where teachers? knowledge is viewed as constituted by different contextualisations of the subject matter is used to illustrate the interdependency of content as a discipline, content as taught in school and content as understood by students. The result shows that teachers have, relatively speaking, small possibilities of making distinctions within the conceptual zone. In mathematics the topical zone dominates the interaction, in science the procedural. In other words, in mathematics the teachers mainly open for possibilities to learn, if their students remember facts and procedures; in science how they perform presentations and experiments. In both areas possibilities to make distinctions on qualities in how the students understand the content handled are rather small. The most important finding of the study is: In order to make distinctions in relations to other persons? ways of understanding something, this something must be kept invariant and acts of knowing must be allowed to vary in relation to the invariant object of knowing.
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| 42. |
- Eriksson, Anita
(författare)
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Om teori och praktik i lärarutbildning. En etnografisk och diskursanalytisk studie.
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis takes its point of departure in the discussion about theory and practice relationships in the 2001 Teacher Education Reform Act. In this reform a clear point is made concerning the connections between teacher education to research on the one hand and the teaching profession on the other, through an emphasised relationship between theoretical knowledge and practical experience. The main aim of the thesis is therefore to investigate how the theory and practice relationship appears within teacher education in educational conversations between students and between students and teacher educators. The intention is to record and analyse the content of these conversations in relation to formal policy texts and the content and organisation of the education as a whole and to try to understand more about how students in pre-service teacher education construct knowledge about their coming profession and what role conversations of the kinds focussed play in this process. The questions raised in the research are related to how theory and practice can be brought into a closer and more productive relationship, which is a key aim of teacher education since 2001 according to formal policy texts. The research has used a combination of ethnography and critical discourse analysis as a theoretical and methodological framework. Data production has been founded upon participant observation, interviews, field interviews and an analysis of policy and other texts about higher education in general and teacher education in particular. The field research has been conducted in a teacher education programme for the Swedish pre-school and early school years at one particular Swedish university. In the analysis of written policy the concepts of scientific foundations, proven experience, theory and practice were given particular attention and it was seen that these concepts are used and situated dualistically. Proven experience is the concept that seems to be most problematic of the four in so much that it is not defined in the policy documents and in texts about higher education there are several different definitions. Teacher educators predominantly use two teaching strategies to generate possibilities for students to couple theory and practice and construct professional knowledge. However, some differences were noted in the aims with conversations expressed by school/pre-school and university based teacher educators respectively. These differences created some difficulties for student teachers in constructing their professional knowledge. In their conversations students look for, compare, share, professionally relate, professionally ground, theoretically relate and theoretically ground and analyse content. Practical experience has been pointed out as important for connecting theory and practice and seems to be a precondition for students when they try to professionally ground literature and lecture content. The absence of such experiences made these activities more problematic. A performativity demand in relation to formal examination requirements tended to eclipse discussions about professional knowledge and to a certain extent this obstructed the realisations of the aims teacher educators have had.
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| 43. |
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| 44. |
- Eskilsson, Olle
(författare)
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En longitudinell studie av 10-12-åringars förståelse av materiens förändringar
- 2001
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The main aim of this study was to study young people’s ability to use science knowledge when talking about and explaining everyday phenomena involving transformations of matter. Pupils’ individual knowledge was studied both through their spontaneous explanations and through their explanations with appropriate help in discussions with me or with other pupils. The framework for learning in this study involved both pupils’ individual learning and their learning in a social context. In the project, pupils discussed everyday phenomena with peers and with me. The role of the discourse was stressed in the interviews as well as pupils’ use of parallel models of explanations. Data were gathered through four interviews with each one of 40 pupils from five classes during a longitudinal study over two years. The pupils were about 10 years old at the first interview. During the study three instructional units were carried out in the five classes. In the first instructional unit a basic particle model was introduced, to be used when discussing experimental situations during the instructional units. The development of the basic particle model was one of the themes during the instructional units. Other recurrent themes were states of matter, gases and chemical reactions. I decided not to introduce the concept of chemical reaction until the last instructional unit. Pupils’ statements in the interviews were categorised from these themes. The categorizations emanated from presented research on pupils’ conceptions of science but also from the statements of the actual group of pupils. The correctness of the science concepts used was also taken into account in the categorizations. Sometimes I altered a method used before and sometimes I developed a categorization for a special purpose in my study. An example of the category systems is the combined classification of pupils’ conceptions of the particle nature of matter that contains three perspectives: A/ the quality of pupils’ particle model as revealed during the interview B/ the nature of pupils’ use of the concept of molecule during the interview C/ the number of situations in the interview where pupils use the concept of molecule. The pupils did not replace their old models; they put for example a new particle model beside their old everyday model. Then they chose which model to use when they met new situations. Most of the pupils were able to use knowledge of science when talking about known everyday phenomena involving transformations of matter. Almost all of the pupils in the group developed their own thinking models during the project. Pupils’ growing ability to describe features of chemical reactions and the development of their own particle model could help them to understand for example the nature of chemical reactions.
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| 45. |
- Frank, Elisabeth
(författare)
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Läsförmågan bland 9-10-åringar. Betydelsen av skolklimat, hem- och skolsamverkan, lärarkompetens och elevers hembakgrund
- 2009
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Title: Reading skills among 9-10 year olds. The importance of school climate, collaboration between school and home, teacher competence and pupils’ home background Language: Swedish, with summary in English Keywords: PIRLS; reading achievement; school climate; safety; parental participation; collaboration; home and school partnership; teacher competence; two-level structural equation modeling ISBN: 978-91-7346-655-4 The main aim of the thesis is to acquire knowledge about conditions in the school and classroom context that are relevant to students’ reading skills. In focus are school and classroom climate and the collaboration between home and school. Also taken into account are the effects of students' home background and teacher competence. The data consists of the grade 3 sample from the Swedish participation in the PIRLS (Progress in Reading Literacy Study) study in 2001 conducted by IEA. The statistical method principally used was structural equation modeling (SEM) where theoretically grounded latent variable models were fitted to the data. The manifest variables used as indicators were selected from the teachers’, the schools’, students’ and the parents’ questionnaires. A standardized reading achievement score was used as an outcome variable. The study includes three broad steps. Based on a comparison of low and high performing classes, it identifies in the first step areas that seems to be important for achievement. In this step, a number of survey questions are also identified, which serve as indicators of the concepts identified in the next step. The second step consists of a literature review in which previous research and theory in selected problem areas are studied. Through theories and/or previous research, a number of concepts are identified whose relationship to reading achievement is examined in the next step. In the third and final step, a series of theoretically based structural equation models are fitted to the data. In the first stage, measurement models of broad constructs such as “parental participation” and ”safe climate” are identified and later included in a two-level structural model. These latent variables are related to achievement both at the individual and at the class level. The results indicate that safety as well as the collaboration between school and home play an important role in explaining differences in reading achievement between classes. Between students in classes safety also seems to be important for explaining reading skills, whilst the effect of parental participation at the individual level seems to be almost negligible. In the final analysis, the relationships between each construct and reading achievement were investigated in separate models where both teacher competence and student home background was included. It is shown that the positive effect that safety as well as parental participation had on achievement was dependent on student home background and teacher competence at the class level, but also to some extent at the individual level. The results also showed that teacher competence and student home background do not seem to be systematically related to each other. To summarise, it can be noted that there are differences between classes not only with respect to pupils’ home background and reading achievement. There are also differences in the form of climates that vary in safety but also in the extent to which the parents participate in schoolwork. It was clear that there were also differences as regards the teaching teacher’s competence. There are many indications that this competence includes not only promoting good reading skills but also creating a safe climate and positive collaboration between school and home.
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| 46. |
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| 47. |
- Grahn, Karin, 1974
(författare)
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Flickor och pojkar i idrottens läromedel. Konstruktioner av genus i ungdomstränarutbildningen
- 2008
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this thesis is to examine how gender is constructed in textbooks used to educate youth coaches in six different sports. Earlier research has given examples of how gender is constructed in different areas of sports, but there is a lack of knowledge about gender constructions in official texts produced by the different sports confederations. A theoretical framework based on theories of gender as social constructions is used. By looking at sports in terms of a gender order and the specific sports included in the study as gender regimes, the textbooks analysed are seen as producers of gender constructions. Relations between women and men and between different types of femininities and masculinities are important in the constructions. A text and discourse analysis was used in the research. In the first part of the study, the number of girls and boys are presented as well as how the texts, as parts of gender regimes, express gender. It also includes an analysis of gender labelling in the language of sports. The second part of the thesis explores what is written about youths in puberty and how the contents are framed by discourse types, genres and the style used to express knowledge. The result shows that gender is constructed both in terms of an equality discourse, where girls and boys are presented equally, and in terms of “the male norm”, where the male athlete is positioned as the general athlete. When not positioned as equal, women are positioned as excluded, different, a gender-specific subject or gender specific and thereby different. In descriptions of girls and boys in puberty, the results show a variety of ways of constructing boys and especially girls. The main picture, however, constructs girls as problematic in sports and boys as functional sport athletes. Yong women and active elite girls are also positioned in relation to a gender-specific female norm. In conclusion, many of the texts use gender-neutral expressions for athletes which can be seen as a potential challenge to the gender order in sports. But when gendered, athletes are constructed in a way that upholds the gender order both by a male norm and a female-specific norm. This construct boys and men as “the athlete” and girls and women as “female athletes”.
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| 48. |
- Granath, Gunilla, 1947
(författare)
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Milda makter! Utvecklingssamtal och loggböcker som disciplineringstekniker
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The title of this thesis indicates a Foucaultian perspective on power, regarding it as pluralistic and mobile; nobody owns the power, but it is voiced through and in social relations and positions. It also indicates that today’s disciplining techniques are understood to be pastoral and mild. Modern teachers seldom give orders they seem to talk or negotiate. Disciplining, in this case, would be seen as processes to exert influence on students: forming, guiding and developing. These techniques development talks and log books individualising and reflexive, point to new ways of disciplining that particularly seem to reflect the interplay and communication between students and teachers. In Sweden development talks became compulsory in 1994. Log books, generally introduced in the beginning of 1980, have step by step become common in Swedish schools up to year nine. This study has ethnographic features, but the main object of analysis is communication in texts and talk. I have analysed twelve development talks with twelve year old pupils (school year 6) and log books, written by fifteen year old students (school year 9), from two different schools. The results show that development talks and log books are important as educational tools for influencing and stabilising the individualisation of students and their approach to themselves, their schoolwork, their lives and their future. These tools shape "school selves" in varying, yet distinctly normative ways. The teacher’s gaze will, so to speak, be transformed into the student's own internalized watching gaze. The result or the learning which both development talks and log books mediate to students is a kind of reflexivity that might be compared with "double bookkeeping", that is, the gap between the things you find that you ought to be able to achieve and what you actually are able achieve. This "double bookkeeping" is to some extent based on certain conceptions of the world. That world could be summarized in the term "a culture of presentation" which will also lead to a particular outlook on people. According to that outlook the norm would be always to show off a competent self, even when it comes to weakness. You should at least know the noble art of presenting an attractive narrative about yourself.
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- Gustafsson, Karin, 1950, et al.
(författare)
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Barns skriftspråkande - att bli en skrivande och läsande person : Early childhood literacy : Becoming literate.
- 2005
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the knowledge of how early childhood literacy can be understood in pre-school and school, focusing on ages 1-8 years. We assume that children are competent and creative and generate meaning in the way they deal with text. Our research question in all the studies is: How should we as teachers in pre-school encourage, react to and contribute to developing early childhood literacy? The theoretical framework of our studies is an example of research inspired by action research. Our didactic starting-point is that children’s learning should be understood from the perspective of the learner. The data is analysed and discussed from the perspective of phenomenography and variation theory. We also apply a sociocultural perspective in order to see learning to express oneself in writing as a communicative process and in the light of social and cultural conditions for children’s knowledge and learning. In two of the empirical studies (I & II), the data were derived from interviews and writing tasks, in one of the studies (III) the data consisted of observations, while in the last study (IV), the data consisted of observations and interviews. The results of the four studies comprising our thesis show that children establish an understanding and an approach to literacy learning at an early age, and that this tends to be stable; in pre-school and school there are traditions and things that are taken for granted with regard to children’s literacy learning that should be rethought in order to realise the goals of the curricula; if pre-school and school fail to collaborate and if the teacher does not take the perspective of the learner/child in learning to express themselves in writing, the individual child will be affected negatively; it is a challenge for teachers in pre-school to create an environment that stimulates early childhood literacy, an environment with rich opportunities for functional literacy; it should be possible to utilise and develop the multimodal opportunities, such as pictures, colours, shapes, design etc. that have been a tradition in pre-school.
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