| 1. |
- Eriksson Bergström, Sofia, 1974-
(author)
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Rum, barn och pedagoger : Om möjligheter och begränsningar i förskolans fysiska miljö
- 2013
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In this thesis the relationship between the physical environment of preschool, children and preschool teachers is studied. Children participate in preschool from an early age and thus are expected to find themselves within an institutional framework (Eilard & Tallberg Broman, 2011) early in life. Today preschool as an institution can be seen as a place where childhood to a great extent is spent and created (Halldén, 2007e). The physical environment of preschool can consequently be regarded as a structure within which childhood is institutionalized (Kampmann, 2004). In general the thesis deals with how children are shaped by and shape the physical environment that they spend so much time in during early childhood. The purpose is clarified in the following questions: How does the physical environment of preschool structure and organise the activities of chil-dren? What activities are created in relation to the possibilities and limitations of the physical environment? In what way can the relationship between the invitations of the physical environment, the child’s scope for action, and preschool teachers be seen? To understand the empirical material in the thesis the concept of affordance (J.J.Gibson, 1986) and the activity theory (Leontiev, 1986; Engeström, 1987) has been used. The empirical evidence in the thesis is based on both video observations and interviews. The study was designed as a multiple case study (Stake, 1995), and three preschool classes each formed a case. The study was inspired by ethnography. The significance of seeing the environment as a set of affordances (J.J.Gibson, 1986) is that it, to a greater degree, can lead to children being allowed to discover the invitations to action there are and as a result freedom to act and negotiations can be created in both inside and outside environments. Through this way of thinking a free zone is created in an institutionalised childhood where children through their agency handle and redesign that which was intended to regulate and give structure. As a counterbalance to the institutionalisation of childhood this study contribute to an understanding of children’s individual and collective activities as a free zone in an otherwise controlled and regulated milieu. The contribution of this thesis consists of the study of the physical environment and the importance of the material in forming the child.
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| 2. |
- Thornberg, Fredrik, 1971-
(author)
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Kompetens i klassrumsbedömning – en studie av lärares reflektioner om videodokumenterad undervisning
- 2015
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- There is a tendency to view teachers´ assessment literacy from a deficit perspective, and teachers existing practices are rarely used as a source of knowledge about assessment. Instead of treating teachers as being to some extent experts on assessment, the domain of assessment literacy is primarily represented by viewing researchers as “experts”. In this study teachers´ assessment literacy is approached from an asset perspective. The knowledge and skills that teachers possess can contribute to the description and understanding of classroom assessment literacy.The overall aim of the study is to develop knowledge about teachers’ classroom assessment literacy. Studying teachers' collective reflections about assessment, in relation to video-recorded teaching situations, is used to approach the question of what classroom assessment and assessment literacy actually mean. Three primary schools and eleven teachers, heterogeneous regarding age, sex, education and experience, are involved in the study. The results indicate three themes to describe teachers´ classroom assessment literacy: focus on the intention of assessment, focus on the enactment of assessment and focus on the conclusion of assessment. The study shows that teachers have the competence to conduct and use assessment as an integral part of teaching. An overall conclusion is that assessment literate teachers invite students to share power and responsibility in assessment processes. The three themes can be seen as a process of developing, implementing and using assessments, which requires a holistic approach to learning, teaching and assessment.
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| 3. |
- Bergnell, Anneli
(author)
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Med kroppen som illustration : Hur förskolebarn prat-skapar naturvetenskap med hjälp av multimodala och kroppsförankrade förklaringar
- 2019
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The aim of this thesis is to combine three research areas, namely preschool, science and illustrations, in order to examine (a) how modes are combined when references to the body are made or the body as such are used to explain scientific concepts and phenomena in preschool science education, and (b) how do the children handle, explore, discuss and talk science when approaching multimodally illustrated scientific contents in the studied activities. Four studies were conducted, all of which were built on empirically generated questions and were theoretically grounded in cultural-historical and multimodal perspectives. Participants were preschool students, aged 4-6 years, from three preschool groups, as well as their teachers and two science centre guides. Specific focus was directed toward activities where adults and children use their bodies or refer to their bodies to illustrate scientific concepts, for example, “the water circle” in a board-and-dice-game (study I); “water has the power to lift,” in experiments relating to a life-jacket (study II); stability in a drama-play and related experiments (study III); and evaporation in embodied illustrations and hands-on activities (study IV). The empirical material consisted mainly of video recordings. A multimodal approach was adopted for the analyses.The results indicate that multimodal illustrations may be complicated for this target group. Difficulties were found to intensify, rather than decrease, by the fact that different modes and elements were often intricately combined in the same illustration, presumably with the intention of providing instruction as well as entertainment. From the four studies, it became evident that, even if the current natural science offered in preschool education often is conducted as “discovery learning”, the assumption that children can learn complex content without support cannot be left unquestioned. This thesis illustrates the crucial role played by a guiding teacher when it comes to concretizing abstract scientific phenomena for young children. A conscious introduction of bodily-based elements in multimodal illustrations may be useful on such occasions. However, even with such seemingly transparent components included, we cannot take adequate meaning-making for granted.
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| 4. |
- Hansson, Anneli, 1958-
(author)
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Arbete med skolutveckling - En potentiell gränszon mellan verksamheter? : Ett verksamhetsteoretiskt perspektiv på en svensk skolas arbete över tid med att verksamhetsintegrera IT
- 2013
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- I en skola som historiskt präglats av en differentierad arbetsorganisation och autonoma traditioner kan ett skolövergripande arbete med att verksamhetsintegrera informationsteknik antas ställa aktörerna inför en rad utmaningar som involverar både omskapande och nyskapande processer. Föreliggande studie utgör ett bidrag till att med en holistisk och verksamhetsteoretisk ansats utforska arbete med förändring, i detta fall ett arbete med att verksamhetsintegrera modern teknik, i skärningspunkten mellan en skolas arbete med att sprida och utveckla teknikbruk över skolan samt dess lärares arbete med pedagogisk praxisförändring. Studiens övergripande fråga löd: Hur kan arbete med skolutveckling förstås och förklaras i det potentiella spänningsfältet mellan arbete med skolförändring och lärares arbete med eller motstånd mot pedagogisk praxisförändring? Syftet var att utforska den förändringsprocess som uppstod när en skola satte i sikte att utveckla ”digitala” kompetenser och IT-stödd undervisning inom dess verksamhetsområde liksom att över tid följa lärare, IT-pedagoger och skolledare i detta arbete. Studien genomfördes över tre år mellan hösten 2008 och våren 2011 som en etnografiskt orienterad fallstudie vid en 7–9 skola i en mellanstor svensk stad. Dataproduktionen skedde genom närvaro vid skolan och på nätet genom deltagande och ickedeltagande observationer, genom informella samtal, semistrukturerade intervjuer, dokumentinsamling samt genom en enkät. Resultatet visar framför allt hur verksamhetsintegreringen av IT, bland de lärare som utforskar informationstekniken, i hög utsträckning motiveras av undervisningsrelaterade och elevutvecklande behov, medan arbetet med att leda skolans arbete med verksamhetsintegrering av IT i högre utsträckning motiveras av organisationsrelaterade behov, samt att dessa skilda motiv framträder på olika och systemiskt inkonsekvent sätt inom skolan. Utifrån studiens resultat formuleras tre interrelaterade utmaningar för skolutveckling. Dessa rör (a) praxis- och objektsförståelse, vilket uppfattas ha betydelse för möjligheter att åstadkomma gemensam riktning i ett kollektivt och flerstämmigt arbete, samt (b) förutsättningar för gränsöverskridande lärprocesser inom skolan mellan lärare sinsemellan liksom mellan lärare och skolledning jämte (c) processledarskap och dess förutsättningar.
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| 5. |
- Kristoffersson, Margaretha, 1950-
(author)
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Lokala styrelser med föräldramajoritet i grundskolan
- 2008
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This doctoral thesis consists of a thesis for a Licentiate degree (Kristoffersson, 2002. Föräldrainflytande i grundskolan. En studie av nio lokala styrelser med föräldramajoritet i grundskolan. [Parents involvement in compulsory school. A study of nine local boards with parents in majority in compulsory school]) and two articles (Kristoffersson, 2005. Parental involvement: Parents´ new role in Swedish schools; and Kristoffersson, 2007. The paradox of parental influence in Danish schools. A Swedish perspective). In this thesis my interest is particularly governance, management, communication and partnership. The research aimed comprehensively to describe the school boards and discuss the education policy behind the implementation of the boards. An additional aim were to see whose interests favoured in local school boards. I also wanted to study how comparative research in this case can be relevant to Swedish studies of local school boards. I used the frame factor theory, which aids the exploration of the correspondence relations between factors that affect local school boards. Governance and partnership are key concepts applied to the analysis of data. Critical analysis and discussions of these boards from a hermeneutic sign are included, which meant that I tried to understand the boards in their context. I used a case study method. Data were gathered through interviews, observations and analysis of documents (e.g., school board minutes). The results signify that different interests are not adequately balanced on the boards. Communication between the board and the parents not on the board was not satisfactory in many cases and such parents felt excluded from the board’s activity. The principal’s collaboration with the board’s chairperson was an important influence on the board. Evaluation, support and feedback of the board’s activity from the local school authority in the municipality were often neglected. The implementation of the boards related to the transferred welfare policy to more market-oriented political governance. The political governing of the school changed, and was influenced by neo-liberal trends where partnership had become the new prestige word. Parents are today seen as individual consumers in a market, whereas as board members they should make decisions that include all parents. Instead of increased parental influence in the schools, the effect of boards could be increased differences between pupils and between parents. This arose because parents are not a homogenous group. Social, cultural and economic conditions have an influence on parents’ activities. The state implementation of local school boards in Sweden and in many countries is, therefore, complex. This can be seen through the weak interest in the creation of boards, which also can be linked to the top-down character of the reform. This study is an example where global, national and local factors interact.
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| 6. |
- Rasmusson, Maria, 1973-
(author)
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Det digitala läsandet : Begrepp, processer och resultat
- 2014
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The aim of this doctoral dissertation project has been to investigate and describe the reading comprehension of digital texts related to the reading of traditional texts by gender differences, computer-game playing, and socioeconomic background factors. The dissertation is based on four studies. In the first study, the results from a reading comprehension test delivered on screen is compared to a test delivered on paper and administered to 235 Swedish students 14-15 years of age. The students managed the test in the paper mode slightly better than that in the screen mode. The difference was particularly evident for boys. The second study used Swedish data from the PISA 2009 survey in an analysis conducted with a structural equation modelling technique. A digital reading factor nested within the overall reading was identified. A gender difference in favour of boys was found in this factor. This difference was perfectly mediated by the larger amount of time that the boys spent on computer-game playing. The third study, conducted on Swedish and Norwegian PISA data from 2009, focussed on equity aspects in reading comprehension and indicated that the unique aspects of digital reading were not influenced by cultural capital, neither on the student nor on the school level, in contrast to what was the case for traditional reading comprehension. The fourth study, using qualitative data, aimed at exploring the abilities and skills important for digital reading. The analysis resulted in five categories: traditional literacy, multimodal literacy, pathfinding, IT abilities, and information abilities. Drawing on a mixed-methods approach, the overall conclusion drawn from the results of the four studies was that reading comprehension of digital texts has unique aspects in addition to those required for reading comprehension of traditional texts. Three other important conclusions were pointed out as well. The first was that reading comprehension is influenced by the context of the texts; the second was that particular skills and abilities are required for digital reading; and the third was that there seems to be less of an influence of background factors on the performance of digital reading compared to traditional reading among Swedish (and Norwegian) youth. The results are discussed in relation to a Dual Level Theory formulated by Leu et al., as well as the validity issues with an outset in Bachman’s conversation analysis. The implications for schooling have been considered.
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