1. |
- Knutas, Agneta, 1955-
(author)
-
Mellan styrning och moral : berättelser om ett lärarlag
- 2008
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Earlier research on teacher teams has found that the dominant model for the governance of schools is a leadership dominated by a rational organization and an individual leadership model. It has also found that school managements interfere with teacher teams and their decisions. This study explores the tension between governance, in the context of the Swedish school system, and the moral principles of a teacher team. In an empirical study, a teacher team was followed at their weekly meetings. Inspired by Hannah Arendt’s political philosophy, parts of her theories of human action have been focused upon. Proceeding from the concept of ‘inter-est’, what principles are expressed in the actions of teachers in a team at the upper level of the nine year compulsory school? In the narratives used to present the empirical findings, figuration, action and webs of relationships say something about the team and their cooperation. The teachers in the study sometimes worry that their task is not a worthwhile one. They are also concerned about their scope to respond to each student’s uniqueness. One principle manifested in the inter-est emerging from the stories is that the team are striving to do their best. At other times, the teachers protest by refusing to take responsibility, revealing a principle of mistrust of the management’s ideas on cooperation with parents. When teachers discuss a theme of war and peace, the principle emerging is that they want to enable each student to perform their best. The results illustrate how management and organization work against variation and diversity. The teachers are concerned with their honour as teachers and protest against the local authority by not accepting the task handed to them. When the team discuss their resources, too, the management denies them their right to decide. Being part of a teacher team also involves consideration of the goals of the school. The narratives about this team and their protest at the school management and local authority interfering with their task, contribute to a possible discussion about the responsibilities of teachers from a moral perspective. The results demonstrate that the local authority and management hinder the creativity, imagination and judgement of teachers through the precedence they give to procedural rules.
|
|
2. |
- Tellgren, Britt, 1951-
(author)
-
Från samhällsmoder till forskarbehörig lärare : kontinuitet och förändring i en lokal förskollärarutbildning
- 2008
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- From Mother of Society to a Teacher Qualified for Post-graduate Studies – Continuity and Change in a Local Pre-school Education. The aim of this thesis is to throw light upon the basic values and representations of knowledge within a local female teacher education tradition and identify what kind of expectations are held of a pre-school teacher over time. The main question concerns central values and notions in a local pre-school teacher education regarding what is expected of a recognised pre-school teacher between the beginning of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century. A key interest is how these underlying values and notions are maintained and how they are transformed over time. Another interest is how these values and notions are maintained and transformed when they meet other teacher education traditions and when they are confronted with traditional academic values. The preschool teacher education is deeply rooted in a female tradition and the study presented here also focuses on the role that gender plays in the formation, changes and continuity of the central values in pre-school teacher education. The empirical sources include in-depth-interviews with 22 lecturers and supervisors from a local pre-school education in addition to document studies of selected materials from the archives of the Department of Education at Örebro University and at the Örebro University Library. The historical context and the dimension of time have been analysed using James Wertsch’s (2002) conception of voices of collective remembering in addition to the concepts of knowledge cultures (Englund & Linné 2005, Nerland 2008) and communities of practice (Lave and Wenger 2003). The results presented in this dissertation indicate that major shifts have occurred in the collective memory of the local pre-school teacher education during the 20th century and the first years of the 21st century. I have distinguished seven historical periodic themes in the analysis. These are: Mother of society – formation of a new female activity system (ca 1902–1942), All-round kindergarten leader (ca 1942–1963), Personality development and child observation (ca 1963–1972), Developmental psychology and dialogue pedagogy (ca 1972–1977), Education in a university setting and a citizen of society (ca 1977–1983), Reflective child pedagogue (ca 1982 1993) and Teacher of younger children – qualified for a research tradition (ca 2001– 2007).
|
|
3. |
- Öberg Tuleus, Marianne, 1955-
(author)
-
Lärarutbildning mellan det bekanta och det obekanta : en studie av lärares och lärarstudenters beskrivningar av levd erfarenhet i skola och högskola
- 2008
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Teacher education between familiarity and strangeness. An inquiry into the descriptions of lived experience told by teachers and student teachers in school and at the university. The aim of this dissertation is to study teacher education as lived experience with an overall ambition to contribute to a deeper understanding of teacher education as a complex phenomenon. A basic interest is to approach teacher education from a point of view where the lived experience of teachers and student teachers in school and on campus is brought into focus. The main question of the study is: what meanings of the phenomenon teacher education emerge, when teacher education is studied as lived experience? To empirically inquire into lived experience a hermeneutical phenomenological perspective is developed. This means a phenomenological understanding of the life-world as an intentional, lived and social world, and a hermeneutical openness to put repeated and confirmed experience into play to open for new experience. The choice of participant observation and conversational interviewing as research methods made it necessary to develop a methodological strategy involving a flexible position as well as a wakeful position. The results of the empirical study are presented in three in-betweens. Each of them focuses on a certain aspect of the life-world, as it emerges from the research question posed. The themes of unifying, modelling and of being market-oriented explore the meaning of teacher education as it comes forth between actor and institutional setting. Between actor and task, the meaning of teacher education takes shape in the lived situations of teachers and teacher students in school and on campus. When the meaning of the phenomenon teacher education unfolds between actor and actor, it is formed in the encounter with the “other”. So far, the results are consistent with earlier research on teacher education. To challenge familiar descriptions and to approach complexity, the results are put into play by the use of corporality, temporality and spatiality as existential themes. This leads to the conclusions that the meaning of the phenomenon teacher education transpires from male and female perspectives. This conclusion puts at risk the gender neutral description of women and men within teacher education as “teachers” and “students”. Secondly, the meaning of the phenomenon teacher education is intertwined with situations where personal and collective experience of teachers and student teachers is expressed in feelings of familiarity and strangeness. This means that the past in the sense of what “traditional” teacher education used to mean is challenged by transformation in terms of what teacher education could mean. Thirdly, the meaning of the phenomenon teacher education always includes different meanings as well as a prevailing meaning that is interacting with the institutional setting. This puts into play the assumption that traditions always stay the same, and that reproduction dominates transformation.
|
|
4. |
- Blomdahl, Eva, 1953-
(author)
-
Teknik i skolan : en studie av teknikundervisning för yngre skolbarn
- 2007
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The main purpose of this study is to find out how technology as a school subject is formed into pedagogical action. Issues addressed are: – How does teaching in the school subject of technology differ in terms of content and process? – How do frame factors influence teaching in technology? As analytic tools, concepts from philosophical thought on technology and education as well as frame factor theory are used to throw light on the way technology education takes shape in the practices of two primary school teachers. The philosophical concepts employed and developed have been inspired by the thinking of Martin Heidegger and John Dewey. These con-cepts are “place” and “shaping of technology,” where the shaping of tech-no¬logy involves the following phases: formulation of the assignment, analysis, visualization/construction and evaluation/reflection. The basic questions are investigated in two case studies over a period of one year. Data is collected based on ethnographic methods and consists of observations, video recordings, documentation in the form of teachers’ diaries as well as pupils’ work, taped interviews with pupils, and interviews with the two teachers both before and after the project was finished. The overall results of the study show that the two teachers, to a different degree, use place, e.g. they try to use the children’s own experiences and the surrounding environment as a starting point in their teaching. They try to organize their teaching as a process of knowledge construction instead of as a process of transmission. In that process, different forms of represen¬tation are used, such as sketches, model constructions and written docu¬mentation, with the element of model construction providing a common denominator given the availability of tools and material. Another similarity between the practices is that the children are given opportunities to work at problem solving in cases where there are no given solutions. However, they enter problems due to their own embodiment in a pedagogy of transmission, which results in the fact that the shaping of technology becomes difficult to organize. Strict borders between subjects, the fragmented timetable of the school, and the organization of the classroom space and scarce equipment and materials all influence the possibilities of teaching in technology.
|
|
5. |
- Lundahl, Christian, Professor, 1972-
(author)
-
Viljan att veta vad andra vet : Kunskapsbedömning i tidigmodern, modern och senmodern skola
- 2006
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis deals with knowledge assessment in education from a historical point of view. It considers both “internal” assessment, i.e. assessments occurring in everyday life in school, and “external” assessment, i.e. assessments from outside schooling, as well as policies of assessment. Special attention is given to dilemmas and conflicts between these perspectives. The aim of this thesis is to understand 1) historical and social conditions that form the knowledge of what others know, 2) how selective kinds of knowledge or ways to produce knowledge are spread and 3) how they might be challenged and reshaped.Part 1 argues, from a curriculum theory perspective, that assessments should be seen as part of the curriculum.Part 2 deals with assessment during pre-modernity, roughly between the 16th century and mid 18th century. Two traditions are explored: the tradition of early differential psychology, i.e. temperament theory, and the tradition of the grammar school (Läroverket).Part 3 deals with a period that was particularly important in terms of assessment in education in Sweden and the construction of the Swedish comprehensive school, i.e. the 1940s.Part 4 investigates a progressive and critical movement during the 1970s and 1980s and its relation to assessment matters. A final chapter in part 4 deals with recent changes in assessment policies in Sweden, the construction of an educational system that tried to establish a curriculum valid assessment culture in the early 1990s.The concluding argument is that if assessment is viewed in a historical perspective as re/production of knowledge and as part of the curriculum, it is possible to gain new kinds of knowledge that makes it easier to handle some “eternal” dilemmas in assessing student performances. Thereby we might strengthen teacher autonomy and skills in these matters.
|
|
6. |
- Sparrlöf, Göran
(author)
-
Vi manliga lärare : Folkskolans lärare och lärarinnor i kamp om löner och arbetsområden 1920-1963
- 2007
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Mellan 1920 och 1963 var den svenska folkskollärarkåren delad i ett manligt och ett kvinnligt folkskollärarförbund. Förhållandet mellan dessa var spänt och öppna konflikter förekom, men 1946 tystnade polemiken. I stället inledde förbunden ett samarbete, som slutligen resulterade i en sammanslagning. Avsikten med denna avhandling, som främst är skriven ur det manliga förbundets perspektiv, är att utreda varför lärarinnorna inledningsvis uppfattades som motståndare och varför de efter 1946 omtolkades till önskvärda samarbetspartners.Det använda källmaterialet utgörs i första hand av lärarförbundets tidningar samt av arkivmaterial från deras styrelser och kongresser. I dessa texter har tankar och föreställningar eftersökts, vilka kan ge förståelse för varför förbunden, och då främst det manliga,. Agerade så som de gjorde. Genom att anlägga ett konfliktperspektiv har det också varit möjligt att i den framförda polemiken och argumenteringen analysera fram olika framställningar om ”vi och dem”, det vill säga manliga och kvinnliga lärare. Centrala begrepp i framställningen är Pierre Bourdieus fält- och kapitelbegrepp samt genus och identitet. Vidare har de i sociologen Frank Parkin’s teori om social closure ingående begreppen stångning och inträngning kommit tillanvändning.Den viktigaste konfliktorsaken före 1946 var lönesystemet, som gav männen högre lön än kvinnorna. I försvaret av detta system utgick det manliga förbundet från föreställningen att männen i kraft av sitt kön representerade en överlägsen arbetskraft. Vidare ansåg sig de manliga lärarna behöva högre lön eftersom de var familjeförsörjare. Likalönen infördes emellertid och den var fullt genomförd 1942. Vidare argumenteras i avhandlingen för att den vid 1940-talets slut påbörjade enhetsskolreformen bidrog till att de manliga och kvinnliga folkskollärarförbunden började samarbeta med varandra. I den framväxande enhetsskolan, som i färdigt skicka kallades grundskolan, konkurrerade folkskollärarna med andra lärargrupper och arbetsområden och tjänsteunderlag. Det blev då viktigast att samarbeta än att hålla gamla motsättningar vid liv. Detta åtföljdes av en underförstådd genuskonstruktion i vilken den manliga och kvinnliga folkskollärarna hade samma kompetens. I slutkapitlet noteras att ojämlikheten mellan könen fanns kvar i den nya skolan, men att den hade tagit sig nya former.
|
|
7. |
- Widding, Ulrika, 1970-
(author)
-
Identitetsskapande i studentföreningen : Köns- och klasskonstruktioner i massuniversitetet
- 2006
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis deals with the construction of identity going on in Swedish students' societies, which is analyzed as an intersection of gender and social class. Theoretically, I draw on discourse analysis. Foucault's genealogical method is applied in order to understand how discourses of the past are active today in students' identity construction. The study is based on interviews with members of the board of three different societies. In all, 28 interviews were made. Furthermore texts and pictures from each society's homepage were examined. Overall, the study shows that two main discourses are activated in students' identity construction. The members of the male-dominated society belonging to the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Technology represent a specific form of masculine identity in accordance with medieval ideas of student life. Being a student means to be without responsibility, to drink and have fun, and women are constructed as 'the others'. The members see them-selves as rather ordinary men in the future. Women and men are active in equal numbers in the society of students belonging to the Faculty of Social Sciences. They activate the meritocratic discourse dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries as they construct themselves as future men in power with the right to speak. Women can however also represent this identity. In the society of students belonging to the Faculty of Medicine, women constitute the vast majority. They also activate the meritocratic discourse. However, they attach new meanings in accordance with the female symbolic gender to what should be regarded as merits: responsibility, respectability, care, and nicety. Thus, they represent a feminine identity, but the few male members do not adhere to these female symbolic norms. The society is an arena for the members' resistance against hegemonic discourses of gender and class that would confine them to subordinate positions in their future working-life. Each society provides valuable symbolic capital that might be important. Key words: class, discourse, gender, genealogy, ideal identity, identity construction, ideological dilemma, intersectionality, mass university, students' society, symbolic capital, the other.
|
|
8. |
- Skott, Pia, 1967-
(author)
-
Läroplan i rörelse : Det individuella programmet i möte mellan nationell utbildningspolitik och kommunal genomförandepraktik
- 2009
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis examines the activities within the Swedish steering system concerning upper secondary school. Sweden has a long history of shared responsibility between the state level of government and the municipalities, dating back to federal decisions concerning the establishment of a compulsory school system. By the early 1990s two parallel changes were taking place within the Swedish educational sector, one concerning the steering system which evolved towards deregulation and decentralization, and the other an extension of the compulsory school. A consequence of the latter change was that in practice upper secondary education became mandatory. The political aim was to realize the vision of “one school for all”. In this study the political vision and the larger question of how to turn it into reality (the differentiation question) is used to show how activities at national as well as the local level of the steering system are formed.
|
|