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- Andreasson, Ingela, 1953, et al.
(author)
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Operationalizing equity : the complexities of equity in practice
- 2015
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In: Education, Citizenship and Social Justice. - : Sage Publications. - 1746-1979 .- 1746-1987. ; 10:3, s. 266-277
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The aim of this article is to offer some reflections on the relationship between meanings of equity at the national level and those working with these questions in local schools. We argue that meanings of equity at the national level are in strong contrast to the range complexity identified in local schools. The article draws from case study research, and the empirical data were gathered in seven schools, ranging from preschools to upper secondary schools. Our focus is on how issues of equity are interpreted and what challenges the schools face in relation to this. Our intention is to gain insights into processes where values of equity are negotiated, renegotiated and reshaped in daily contexts in schools. Our results convey a complex picture with a wide variation in how school staff interpret and work with fundamental values. This variation appears both within and between schools. An analysis of the variations resulted in three overarching themes: values as taken for granted, values as formalized and values as a pedagogical flow. These three themes are not exclusive or limited; instead, they should be seen as intertwined.
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| 2. |
- Assarson, Inger
(author)
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Att skapa mening i en skola för alla : Ett diskursanalytiskt förhållningssätt
- 2009
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In: Educare. - : Malmö högskola, Lärarutbildningen. - 1653-1868 .- 2004-5190. ; :4, s. 123-139
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The increasing assessments and competition between countries and schools have actualized a focus on how schools handle low achieving children. Different discourses claim their knowledge in order to find the best solution to how the country can compete successively. By using a discourse analytic approach it is possible to scrutinize the process of continuously shaped and reshaped varieties of explanation models and thought systems, constructed to make sense and meaning when teachers are talking about a school for all navigating amongst different discourses striving for hegemony. The analysis model is created with the intention of constituting a tool for the analysis of these processes and linguistic activities. The basic data for analysis includes transcriptions from group conversations with 17 teachers initiated by the reading of official texts where the challenge to educate for plurality is formulated. In an example of analysis it is shown how discourses intertwine in a process where pupils concerned as having attention disorders are discussed related to the construction of an educational setting.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Assarson, Inger, et al.
(author)
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Negotiating values in schools : an infinite complexity
- 2011
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Education always has been a main tool for adjusting citizens’ ways of thinking about the world. Although the importance of transmitting crucial values are not new its importance was emphasized in the Swedish curricula of 1994 in conjunction with the ideological collapse of communism in Eastern Europe that before the fall of the Berlin wall had served as an antitype for defining democracy. One of the aims in education has for the last decade been to foster homogeneity in a fragmented postmodern society. This has created an ethical moral order in schools around prevailing values. Our presentation is built on a project financed by the National Agency of Education during 2010 with the aim to scrutinize and problematize the work in schools with civil rights and values as equableness, democracy, participation and solidarity. The first part of the study consists in an analysis of official texts where fundamental values are given senses and meanings. In the selection of texts the aim was to find those documents central to how questions of values constitutes as well as are constituted by prevailing societal conditions and it’s social and discoursive context. The texts were supposed to provide information about the expected acts based on prescribed values. To understand senses and meanings in these texts it is important according to the Wittgenstein theory to be able to think beyond the limits of a phenomenon and in registering what is inside also reveal how the phenomenon is signified by exclusion of what cannot be comprised. In the analysis we have used the term cluster and scrutinized how they were constructed by connecting different signs to a nodal point. Thereby it emerged how significance was made in relation to signs of meaning as Democracy and influence, School as a social venue, Understanding the Other, Moral guidance and “Bildung” and teaching. Method The aim of the second part of the study was to analyze how these values were transmitted in schooling. Special interest was on how pupils’ behaviors were valued according to how norms were constructed, how veiled or visible strategies of rewarding were used and how routines and repeated acts expressed obvious, but still invisible interpretations of ethical standpoints. In the second part 7 school areas from preschool to grammar schools were visited during a week while pupils, teachers, welfare teams and parents were interviewed. Furthermore observations were made in classroom situations as well as in informal settings. Interviews and observations were documented by recordings and field notes and then turned into texts. Texts are according to Ricoeur a semiotic dimension recalling the process of references that has been interrupted from the act of discourses. In this respect to analyze means to unveil a structure of internal reliance that constitutes the static condition of a text. The screening during data collection was made by using important signs that emerged from the text analysis as participation, safety, equity, democratic conductivity. Expected Outcomes The second part of the study showed the importance of negotiating values continuously in order to avert oppression. Attitudes in the marginal of the tolerable emerged as threats against what is constructed in society as a canon of fundamental values. Especially teenagers were seen as provoking with attitudes of homophobia and xenophobia. It was a challenge for the adults in schools to keep the openness that contribute to the definition of democracy and simultaneously defend what is socially constructed as good. Among younger children this was unproblematic and education mostly focused on reliance in taken for granted principles. Social injustice and inequality in society turned out to have greater impact among older students. Here social class and the amount of cultural capital mattered most in grammar schools where students were divided into theoretical or vocational educational programs. The fostering of citizens proved to be a struggle towards harmony where antagonism was seen as destabilizing the canon of “taken for granted values” in human rights. Pupils were tutored into the right way of thinking by means of different governmentality strategies based on pastoral power.
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| 5. |
- Assarson, Inger, 1947-, et al.
(author)
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Skolvardagens komplexitet : En studie av värdegrundsarbetet i skolans praktik
- 2011
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Denna skrift bygger på en forskningsrapport från en studie som genomfördes under våren 2010 på uppdrag av Skolverket. Den utgör en del i ett stör‐re projekt för att stärka skolors arbete med värdegrunden. Studien fokuse‐rar de processer som ligger till grund för hur skolledning, lärare, föräldrar och elever bildar mening i de värden som utgör skolans värdegrund och hur arbetet med den gestaltar sig i några skolors verksamhet. I dessa processer tas grundläggande värderingar inte för givna utan blir föremål för förhand‐ling och omförhandling i relation till den dagliga verksamheten. En sådan förståelse av värdegrundsarbetet kan peka på möjligheter, men också visa på hotbilder i skapandet av en lärmiljö som motverkar kränkningar och marginalisering.
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
- Assarson, Inger
(author)
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Talet om en skola för alla : pedagogers meningskonstruktion i ett politiskt uppdrag
- 2007
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- En skola för alla, som skolpolitiskt mål, har formats i ett större socialt sammanhang där demokratisering och välfärdsstatens framväxt har varit viktiga inslag. Som retorik är dess funktion att samla olika gruppers förhoppningar i en gemensam strävan efter något som skulle kunna bli bättre. Svårigheten inträder när retorik förvandlas till mål för ett politiskt uppdrag. Den fråga jag ställer i avhandlingen är hur en grupp pedagoger gör ett sådant uppdrag begripligt och meningsfullt i förhållande till den vardag de befinner sig i. Avhandlingen ska ses mot bakgrund av de ofta oförenliga diskurser som interagerar och positionerar sig på den arena som präglar skolans verksamhet. Det är i ett sådant motstridigt sammanhang som skolans pedagoger förväntas utforma det politiska uppdraget, en skola för alla, såsom det uttrycks i styrdokumentens texter. Studien tar sin utgångspunkt i Laclaus och Mouffes diskursteorier och den politiska retorikens öppenhet för olika tolkningsmöjligheter. Den pedagogiska forskningen har genom post-strukturalismen fått nya förutsättningar att utvecklas som filosofisk vetenskap. Dessa nya förutsättningar har delvis sin grund i den mångfald av kulturpåverkan som förekommer i samhället och i den så kallade lingvistiska vändningens tilltro till språket. I analysen lyfter jag fram pedagogernas röster när de skapar mening i termer, eller tecken, som är gällande i retoriken om en skola för alla. Texterna som analyseras består att utskrifter från pedagogers samtal i grupper, från dagböcker och från samtal med pedagogerna enskilt omkring den dagliga verksamheten. De frågor som ställs i studien är: • Hur förhandlar och omförhandlar pedagoger mening i talet om en skola för alla? • Hur tillförs betydelser och hur byggs tankekedjor upp till diskurser och hur avgränsas dessa? • Hur hanteras rådande vetenskapliga och politiska diskurser? Pedagogernas tal diskuteras därefter utifrån begrepp, som är framträdande i retoriken om en skola för alla såsom likvärdighet, differentiering, särskilda behov och specialpedagogisk kompetens. Analysen visar hur idén om det förgivettagna goda blir utmanat när maktens makronivå, såsom den visar sig i skolans styrdokument, ges betydelser i mellanmänskliga språkliga handlingar på mikronivå. När pedagogerna skapar mening i en skola för alla relaterar de till sina egna mål och till att få verksamheten att fungera. Studien visar hur skolans försök att mäta det omätbara skapar svårigheter för pedagogerna. Vidare riskerar värdegrunden, i sin egenskap av kanon, att bli ett uttryck för symboliskt våld där andra sätt att tänka blir otänkbara. I sina försök att få verksamheten att fungera ger pedagogerna begrepp som rättvisa och särskilda behov mening, inte efter någon metafysiskt fastställd måttstock, utan efter de olika specifika situationer som uppstår just då i praxis. När pedagogerna skapar mening i den nya lärarrollen får begreppet extra-mamma stå som symbol för en person som kan hantera elevers känslor och personliga problem likaväl som dagliga konflikter med upprinnelse inte bara i skolans verksamhet, utan också i de sociala problem samhället står inför. Pedagogernas meningskonstruktioner ligger oftast utanför logiska rationella mönster och befintliga diskurser i det som är föränderligt och öppet för andra möjligheter. Intressant är hur alla i studien kommer att handla om fåtalet, om de elever, som lägger hinder i vägen för att uppnå helhet och harmoni. När en skola för alla blir en sluten totalitet, avgränsat från det, det inte är, riskerar retoriken om öppenhet och olikhet bli till slutenhet och likriktning. På så sätt kan den politiska retoriken om en skola för alla likställas med rättvisa, som i sin egenskap av begrepp inte får mening utan en metafysisk grund eller med demokrati som upphör i samma ögonblick som någon makt bestämmer dess absoluta innebörd.
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- Assarson, Inger, et al.
(author)
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Värdegrund och Specialpedagogik
- 2015
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In: Vägval i skolans historia. - : Föreningen Svensk undervisningshistoria. - 2002-0147. ; :1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)
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| 10. |
- Ohlsson, Lisbeth, et al.
(author)
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Schools´ efforts to create inclusive learning environments
- 2016
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The study is part of a three-year schoolimprovement program in Sweden on creating inclusive learning environments, comprising several organizational levels from policy and management level to classroom praxis (http://www.ifous.se/programomradenforskning/inkludering/). Research on inclusive education in an international context frequently focuses the placement of individual students, administrative and organizational problems and attitudes towards policy and steering documents (Forlin, Douglas & Hattie, 1996 ; Ainscow & Miles, 2008 ). Often, a praxis of exclusion is built into educational systems (Van de Putte & De Schauwer, 2013 ) where thinking of students in categories forces pedagogues into locked positions (Tetler, 2000 ). In school development, the formation of teachers into teams may play a central part as an improvement strategy (Nordholm and Blossing, 2014 ). The aim of the present study is to document and analyze the processes experienced by 32 school teams, chosen by their school leaders in 12 municipalities to implement the intentions to create inclusive learning environments in their schools. The research interest focuses how the informants describe pedagogical and didactic prerequisites and organizational conditions and how they acted when implementing inclusive learning environments in the local school context, their role and legitimacy, the support structures and the signs of change they have seen towards a more inclusive learning environment during the developmental program. The methodological approach is inspired by on Social Justice, Equality and Solidarity in Education PAPERS 157 going evaluation (Ahnberg, Lundgren, Messing & von Schantz Lundgren, 2010) as a way to contribute knowledge about longitudinal developmental processes in school development close to local school context and praxis. Group interviews with the members of the teams were conducted each year in a dialogic manner with the ambition to give continuous feed back to the school teams as a way to promote developmental learning during the program. Except for visits to the schools and interviews, the researchers took part in seminars within the program and collected written documentation from the schools. The research interest concerns intentions expressed by the teams in the beginning of the program, the processes during the implementation phases and a final evaluation after three years. Data was analyzed according to qualitative content analysis and contains a rich variety of experiences and thick descriptions from the participants. Significant shifts of perspectives during the three years appear in the findings displaying how school problems and student-perspectives were understood, how the concept of inclusion was interpreted and enacted, how the teachers used analysis and reflection to promote inclusive learning environments and how frustration and insecurity among staff was transferred into collegial cooperation. The main shifts can be described in terms of taking steps from ideology to implementation, from being stuck in locked group constellations to finding flexible solutions, from seeing the teacher as the carrier of problems to collegial professionalism, and from viewing the student as the carrier of problems to analysing difficulties on several levels. School development related to inclusive learning environment is a democratic issue relevant in a Nordic as well as a global educational context and the complexity of educational organisation on different levels (Scheerens, 2015).
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