Nurturing Praxis: School-University Partnership in a Nordic Light

• This symposium is about school and professional development. Twelve different cases from the Nordic countries are presented in the perspective of ‘collaborative and action research’. All cases can be regarded as examples of how actors in schools (teachers, teacher-researchers, principals) deal with reforms or developmental challenges initiated from outside as well as in-side. The cases are about strengthening educational praxis (Kemmis & Smith 2008), through partnership between schools and universities. Partners from the schools work with students from different levels including preschools. The role of the university has been to facilitate and support educational change through a collaborative partnership. When analysing the cases of partnerships, we have asked if we might speak about a Nordic tradition in professional development. Our aim is to present a comprehensive framework for nurturing praxis, and to further reflect on lessons learned by relating them to the traditions of bildung and (folk) enlightenment as we have interpreted and understood them. Our ambition is to reflect upon the cases presented in terms of experiences, understandings and knowledge, or, in other words, in terms of “sayings”, “doings” and “relatings” in everyday practices (Kemmis & Grootenboer 2008) in schools, through the lenses of ‘collaborative and action re-search’. This is done in order to reflect upon what we would like to call ‘professional enligh-tenment’ and the ways in which it might be enhanced by reciprocal challenges to collaborati-ve arenas, such as action research. Our ambition is also to scrutinise some of the aspects pre-sented in different cases and to develop them further by relating them to the concept bildung and how, currently, it is conceptualised and used to understand praxis in the Nordic countries.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Pedagogik (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Pedagogy (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

action research

folk enlightenment

professional development

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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