| 1. |
- Erlandsson, Magnus, et al.
(author)
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Edu-preneurial marketing to school leaders : strategies, stories and consequenses
- 2019
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In: NERA 2019 Abstract Book. ; , s. 187-188
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Research topic: New actors in the field of education – ‘edu-preneurs’ – now offer a multitude of products and services to schools: digital solutions, school development models, teaching material, conferences, professional development, etc. This paper is part of a larger study, of which the purpose is to explore under what conditions, in what forms and with which consequences these ‘edu-preneurial’ actors market, sell and implement their products and services in Swedish schools. Theoretical framework: Theoretically this project learns from earlier studies concerning neoliberal governing, the marketization of school and the ongoing blurring of boundaries between public and private sectors. Methodological design: The larger study is accomplished through interviews with school leaders as well as with edupreneurial companies. In this specific paper we study what happens inside school because of edupreneurial engagement. We analyse the total amount of marketing material sent via mail and e-mail (and collected in this research study) to 12 participating school leaders during 2018-2019 and our interviews with these school leaders about the collected material. In focus of the paper are the implications for school leaders and how they experience the impact of edu-preneurial actors; what areas and tasks are outsourced, why and how the school organization is affected in terms of administration, teaching and learning. We are also interested in the strategies and marketing of the edu-preneurs themselves and what messages they want to convey to school leaders. The data is analysed from the following questions: • Quantity and distribution. What is the extent of the collected material and how is it distributed between different schools? • Stories. What does the empirical data tell us about the Swedish schoolÅLs challenges and solutions? • Themes. Is every possible school issue addressed, is there something for everyone, or is it all about one dominant theme? Expected findings: The data collection is ongoing and the results to be presented will be preliminary. We expect to have results telling us about 1) the extent and content of the marketing material sent out to school leaders by edu-preneurial actors in the Swedish context, 2) what products and services school leaders buy and under what terms and conditions, and 3) what kind of impact these external actors and solutions have, for school leaders, staff, pupils, and school practice. Relevance: Previous research has studied these questions on a policy-level. This study explores the micro-level where the operationalisation of different policies can be observed. We assert that knowledge about the micro-level help us understand the effects of outsourcing essential parts of education to external actors. As edu-prenurial engagement in education is a global phenomenon this is of importance in our Nordic context. We conclude by discussing this in terms of what counts as valid knowledge, good teaching and effective learning.
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| 2. |
- Erlandsson, Magnus, et al.
(author)
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Inboxes and Outputs : Stories from edu-preneurial marketing to school leaders
- 2019
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In their Inboxes, Swedish school leaders are confronted with offers of a multitude of products and services awaiting their action: digital solutions, school development models, conferences, professional development, etc. These emails are the point of departure of this study, aiming to analyse what happens inside school because of edu-preneurial engagement. Our study is part of a larger research project aiming to explore under what conditions, in what forms and with which consequences ‘edu-preneurial’ actors market, sell and implement their products and services in Swedish schools. An underlying thesis is that external actors are part of translating educational policy as well as offering tools for implementation of these policies. While previous research has studied these questions on a policy-level (Simons, Lundahl & Serpieri 2013; Ball 2009), our study explores the micro-level where the operationalisation of policies can be observed. Theoretically this project learns from earlier studies concerning neoliberal governing (Rizvi and Lingard 2010), the marketization of school (Bunar and Ambrose 2016), and the ongoing blurring of boundaries between public and private sectors (Ball 2007). The collection of empirical data is ongoing and consists of audiotaped focus group interviews with twelve school leaders as well as all the marketing material sent via mail and e-mail to them and gathered for three weeks (for each school leader, covering the whole year together) in 2018-2019. The data is analysed from the following themes and questions: 1) Stories, themes and policy. What does the empirical data tell us about the Swedish school´s challenges and solutions? How does this story, according to school leaders, resonate with school leaders’ actual realities and with ongoing national educational policy changes? 2) Quantity and distribution. What is the extent of the collected material and how is it distributed between different schools? 3) Content, timing and motive. What products and services do the school leaders eventually buy, when and why? In this symposium we expect to present results from all three themes, all though putting an emphasis on the first one: the stories emerging from the collected marketing materials and the stories about these stories. We assert that researching the educational micro-level in this way contributes to the understanding about the effects of national policies and the impact of external actors in implementing policy. As edu-prenurial engagement in education is a global phenomenon this is of importance in our European context. References: Ball, S.J. 2007. Education Plc: Understanding private sector participation in public sector education. London: Routledge. Ball, S. (2009). Privatising education, privatising education policy, privatising educational research: network governance and the ‘competition state’, Journal of Education policy, 24(1), 83-99. Bunar, N., & Ambrose, A. (2016). Schools, choice and reputation: Local school markets and the distribution of symbolic capital in segregated cities. Research in Comparative and International Education, 1, 1-18. Rizvi, F., & Lingard, B. (2010). Globalizing education policy. London: Routledge. Simons, M., Lundahl, L., & Serpieri, R. (2013). The Governing of Education in Europe: Commercial Actors, Partnerships and Strategies. European Educational Research Journal, 12(4), 416-424.
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| 3. |
- Ideland, Malin, et al.
(author)
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Edu-preneurs in the welfare state. On how commercial actors make themselves indispensable through defining problems and offering solutions
- 2018
-
In: NERA abstract book. ; , s. 480-480
-
Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Research topic/aim: According to current debates, Swedish schools are experiencing severe problems: decreasing results in international large-scale assessments, increasing segregation, and not preparing students for job markets. This discourse has enabled an apparatus of commercial actors, ‘edu-preneurs’, offering solutions. This paper explores what happens when governing and practicing of education becomes distributed on commercial actors. The aim is to shed light on how educational policy is moved, translated, and fixed in entanglements of public and private rationalities and what this means for understandings of knowledge, teaching, and learning. Theoretical framework: We understand this growing apparatus of edu-preneurs as a result of that a shift in the responsibility of Swedish schooling is taking place (Ball, 2009). ‘Statework’, in terms of educational governance, is now carried out through an assemblage of public and private actors. This shift is understood in a historical context of neoliberalism. With Ball’s (2009) words we can call it a ‘recalibration of the state’, through which the organization of public institutions has changed – but also the meanings and practices of schooling as well as possible subjectivities for teachers and students. Methodological design: Empirically, the paper illuminates what we call the public/private statework through entering three different policy fields: research-based education, digitalization, and entrepreneurship. The data consist of a nethographical mapping of edu-preneurial companies and a close-up analysis of how three companies make themselves up as normalized educational actors. The analysis employs actor-network theory to explore of how the idea of schooling is constructed on the edu-preneurs’ websites through, formulating problems and solutions and enrolling a range of actors into the governing and practices of education. Findings and conclusions: The edu-preneurs made up themselves as taken for granted as actors, first, as defining problems: the Swedish school system is in crisis and in need for help. This is done through explicitly relating to a narrative of teaching as outdated, educational research as ‘fuzzy’ and unpractical, and schools distanced from ‘reality’ and the labour market. In the companies’ solution to this problem, they become important actors through talking about structured work, practical solutions, and modern (digital) ways of teaching. They enrol ‘friends’ into the assemblage in the shapes of education superstars, partner companies, technological devices, and policy bodies. We suggest that the companies translate the idea of schooling and carry with them epistemic implications, as well as a cultivation of desirable subjectivities. Understandings of what is useful ‘research’ as well as ‘important knowledge’ are claimed and limited. Teacher subjectivity is characterized as flexible and effective and the student subjectivity as entrepreneurial. The ideas of what knowledge is, and how teaching and learning should ‘happen’, privilege ‘business-like’ methods. Relevance to Nordic educational research: The Swedish case is interesting in a wider Nordic context since it sheds light on on-going processes in the Nordic countries through which the welfare state is transformed into a market. References: Ball, S. J. (2009). Privatising education, privatising education policy, privatising educational research: network governance and the ‘competition state’, Journal of Educational Policy, 24(1), 83-99.
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| 4. |
- Ideland, Malin, et al.
(author)
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Helping hands? : Exploring school’s external actor-networks
- 2016
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- During the last decade, the “failure” of the Swedish educational system has been frequently reported in the public debate. Due to this, a large edu-political apparatus has been implemented in a tremendous pace, for instance teacher legitimation and new curricula. Aside from these politically organized reforms, we can see a growing apparatus of “helping” actors, changing the educational landscape in Sweden as well in Europe. On the international arena McKinsey & Company, the OECD and Pearson Education are examples of big international edu-business, influencing national school systems all over the world (Gorur, 2011; Tröhler, 2009). Meanwhile, there is an emerging field of “helping” actors on a national level, for instance The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise´s (CSE) and private companies’ support of the teacher education Teach for Sweden, learning game developers, companies organizing and assessing schools, homework companies, teaching materials developed by Non Governmental Organizations. These actors come into being in a discourse of knowledge-based economy (Ball, 2012; Lawn & Grek, 2012) and a school crisis. School’s failure becomes translated into an underused potential to foster employable, internationally competitive and flexible citizens, inviting different actors, often lacking formal educational expertise, to “help”. The discourse of a Swedish schools crisis has come into being through a set of neoliberal ideals shaping common sense ways of imagining and practicing schooling (Rizvi & Lingard, 2010; Savage et al, 2013), such as “transparent” testing and rankings (Ball, 2012; Connell, 2013) with certain implications on educational system as well as other sectors of society, producing strategies, activities as well as subjectivities (Simons & Masschelein, 2008; Popkewitz, 2011; Serder & Ideland, 2015). As well, in the heart of neoliberalism lies the idea that individuals are free, but also obliged, to create their life trajectories through informed choices and life-long learning (Kaščák & Pupala, 2011). This opens up for edu-business activities also in students’ leisure time. In a recently started project we study “helping” actors and practices on a national level to show a Swedish example of the current transformation of education in Europe. We look at the phenomenon as an actor-network unfolding outside the formal edu-political systems, in a myriad of connections (Fenwick, 2011). The marketisation of education and the impact of knowledge economy have been extensively studied on a macro-level, with a neoliberal agenda pointed out and criticised for everything from school profits to emerging poverty (Connell, 2013). Here we leave the well-studied macro-level for near-sighted investigations of how the educational crisis in the knowledge economy unfolds in an unruly landscape outside formal educational systems. The purpose of the overall project is to study with what aims, under what conditions, in what forms and with which consequences non-educational actors engage in Swedish schools. This will be done through exploring enactments and negotiations of the discourse of Swedish school in crisis in and through contexts and activities outside the formal edu-political system. However, this specific paper presents results from the first part of the project, a pre-study in the shape of a network analysis built on netographic and ethnographic investigations of different actors in the external network. The questions are: How are edu-political discourses translated and materialised through different practices and negotiations in the network? What kinds of different actors are trying to “help” Swedish school and how are they linked to each other? What kinds of problems are they offering solutions to and with which means? In what ways do they legitimate their “help”? The study contributes to the understanding of politically un-governed enactments of the well-described marketisation of school, how the marketization in combination with an experienced crisis open up for new actions and actors.
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| 5. |
- Jobér, Anna, et al.
(author)
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Doing democracy. Research Perspectives on Risks and Responsibilities within a Marketised Education. PART 1
- 2019
-
Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Description of the symposium A general aim for school systems around the world is to prepare future citizens to participate in and contribute to society. In most western countries, this is upheld and developed within notions and practices of democracy and citizenship. Consequently, there is a close relationship between education and democracy. In times of increased global movements and diversity among students, issues of democracy therefore gain further attention, becoming a high-stake concept, recently seen in for example the new OECD framework on Global competence. At the same time, marketisation and privatisation of education rapidly change the foundations of schooling (Ball, 2009; Rizvi, & Lingard, 2010). This could be understood as parts of global transformations and trends that in many cases are supported by neoliberal visions, visions that reshape educational systems (Beach, 2010; Popkewitz, 2008). This rearrangement influences all parts of schooling and creates consequences on many levels. To name a few, the rearrangement involves profitable businesses, competitive and governing structures, digitalisation, rearranging of decision-making and responsibility, and renegotiation of discourses, positions and processes (Ball, 2009; Bunar, & Ambrose, 2016; Dovemark & Erixon Arreman, 2017; Verger, Lubienski, & Steiner-Khamsi, 2016). Furthermore, new ways of acting and communicating can be seen when policy actors, private companies, NGOs, school leaders, researchers, and lobby groups collaborate in entangled networks resulting in blurring boundaries and interwoven practices (Ball, 2018; Simons, Lundahl, & Serpieri, 2013). This in turn impacts on accountability, risk-taking, responsibility and transparency. Thus, educational spaces become fundamentally transformed and issues of democracy, societal problems, citizenship, accessibility and the like need to be renegotiated in relation to a changed educational landscape. This symposium will illuminate and discuss these changes and their consequences. For example, what happens with decision-making processes, accessibility, diversity, and political actions? What logics becomes changed, manifested or inscribed? What can be marketed, and becomes possible to sell? Could one say that citizenship and democracy have become commodities, something to trade? These questions will be addressed at the symposium alongside the discussion of the role of educational research. We stress that researchers’ engagement in education are of great importance in our European context and have the possibility to affect schools, national and international policy-makers, so called edu-preneurs and all actors involved in education. The symposium consists of contributions representing a wide range of perspectives and approaches taken by researchers from Sweden, Finland, Norway, New Zealand, and Brazil. Consequently, the symposium will mirror a variety of national and educational contexts all with the dual focus on the theme of the symposium and the theme of the conference. Many of the researchers in the symposium belong to a newly formed network called Researchers on education and marketization (the REM network) founded within the Swedish research project Education Inc. The network now consists of nineteen researchers from three countries and eight universities that in different ways problematise and scrutinise marketisation and education and the urgent and necessary issues that evolves in when education becomes marketised and new logics change the conditions for schooling. The symposium has two parts. The first part starts with an introduction given by Anna Jobér, coordinator and co-founder of the REM network followed by presentation of six papers in two sessions. They are arranged in order to give a thought-proving and interesting symposium regarding the variety of research project, methodological and theoretical perspectives as well as cultural contexts. Finally, the symposium is wrapped up by a discussant, Professor Marie Brennan https://www.vu.edu.au/contact-us/marie-brennan.
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| 6. |
- Jobér, Anna, et al.
(author)
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Good Intentions and Altruistic Objectives : Observing ‘Edu-preneurs’ at a School Fair
- 2018
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Background: As an answer to a discourse on a Swedish school in crisis a large edu-political apparatus has been implemented. Arguments on e.g. decreasing results, segregation, and equal opportunities has reinforced a number of actors to enter the educational field – actors here called “edu-preneurs” (Rönnberg, 2017). The actors offer a multitude of products and services and essential parts of everyday schooling thus become outsourced on external actors using education as an arena to reach the core of the society – the children. This process, nurtured by political reforms such as the possibility to profit on public funds (Jober, submitted) has “re-calibrated” the Swedish school – from a government-dominated and unified educational system to an unruly free market (Ball, 2009; Hamilton, 2011). This market and its edu-preneurs will be investigated in the project ‘Education Inc.’, funded by the Swedish Research Council (Ideland, Axelsson, Jobér & Serder, 2016). The project aims to study how private actors and logics change the conditions for what counts as good education. Three forms of commodification of education, outlined by Molnar (2006), will be studied: (1) actors selling to schools; (2) actors selling in schools; and (3) actors buying for schools. In order to create a baseline for the Education Inc. project this paper describes one the first sub studies. This sub study aims to scrutinise foremost actors selling toschool when presenting themselves and engage with the school community at a school fair. Research Questions: The overarching aims of the Education Inc. project is to study under what conditions, in what forms and with which consequences ‘edu-preneurial’ actors engage in Swedish schools. This particular sub study focus on with what objectives do edu-preneurial companies, NGOs and their employees engage in Swedish school. Objectives: The aim of this sub study is to conceptualise and analyse processes on how good intentions and altruistic objectives are used as arguments to justify actors’ place in education. An earlier pre-study (Jobér, submitted) showed that tutoring companies, actors in the educational market, used arguments regarding children with special needs to justify their presence and actions. This pre-study raised a number of questions: Will the companies, whatever good intentions, overlook profit? Are arguments regarding children with special needs used as a lever for businesses to survive and profit rather than to help? Similar has been showed elsewhere (Dovemark & Erixon Arreman, 2017), therefore we claim there is a risk that actors in the educational market will not consider all children as profitable enough. There is therefore a need to scrutinize if money spent (through public funds) will increase profits and exclusion rather than to support inclusion, and in addition, if students with low exchange value fit into a neoliberal market. Theoretical framework: We argue that processes in Sweden, which is a traditionally strong and well-trusted welfare state, have become entangled with neoliberal rationalities (see e.g. Dahlstedt, 2009) and that ways of imagine and practice schooling today are shaped by neoliberal logics (Rizvi & Lingard, 2010). The neoliberal state has opened up for a commodification of education (Steiner-Khamsi, 2016) and educational reforms become a way to make up a specific kind of subjectivity (Ong, 2007). The marketization of education is thus not only about earning money, but also about making up meanings and practices of schooling and a certain kind of ideal citizen (Olmedo, Bailey & Ball 2013). This is what Ong (2007) conceptualizes as a neoliberalism which concerns how possible and desirable subjectivities are produced. The questions are what kind of objectives the actors put forward and how this correspond with what kind of desirable subjects that are produced in this neoliberal logic. Method: The sub study presented here will take a closer look at the actors selling to school when they attend a large school fair, SETT, which will take place in Sweden in April. In a pre-study to the larger ‘Education Inc.’ project this kind of educational ‘trade fairs’ has been identified as one of the spaces where policy becomes translated and turned into business ideas (Ideland et al, 2006). Observations will take place at this fair by four researchers. The observations will be written down using an observation scheme. The observations will also include photographs of the showcases and the messages that can be found there. In addition the research team will gather advertisement such as flyers and follow ongoing twitter flows. These data will be reflected on within the research group and finally analysed employing an analytical framework developed from the work by Callon (1986, used by, e.g., Hamilton 2011). The aim with this analysis is to more carefully explore how a problem is articulated through the actors and their relationships i.e. the problematisation moment in Callons work (1986). Callon proposes that translation of actions and actors analytically can be studied as four different moments: Problematization, Interessement, Enrolment, and Mobilization. It is the first step, the problematization moment and how a problem is articulated through the actors and their relationship that is in focus here. The problematization is the moment when actors (such as those the selling to schools at the school fair) or clusters of actors articulate a problem. It often involves a focus on a particular goal or a problem to be solved where the actors locate themselves as gatekeepers and problem solvers. Within the problematisation moment, the analysis can show what problems actors enhance (for example, in schools or in society), how do they want to solve these problems, and the argument that makes them indispensable to the problem and action. With this framework we can thus scrutinise with what kind of intentions and objectives these actors engage in Swedish school. Expected Outcomes: The hypothesis is that the observations conducted at this school fair and its following analyses will give insights in with what objectives and intention edu-preneurial companies, NGOs and their employees engage in Swedish school. Building on a pre-study (Jobér, submitted) and earlier research (e.g. Dovemark & Erixon Arreman) the hypothesis is also that the actors will bring forward a number of altruistic arguments. These might regard supporting the society to decrease widening socioeconomic gaps, including children with special needs, opening possibilities to equal opportunities for all, and reaching out to students living in rural areas of Sweden. However, as shown in above earlier studies, these are complicated arguments, given for example that a number of initiatives in the educational market, such as private tutoring, is not used at all by those with low incomes (Björkman, 2014, 21 November). There are reasons to believe that the expected outcomes from this pre-study not only will show what kind of altruistic objectives the actors use to justify their presence but also bring forward initial data that in forthcoming studies can be used to identify if the actors in educational market desire profits rather than inclusion and equal opportunities for all. References: Ball, S. (2009). Privatising education, privatising education policy, privatising educational research: network governance and the ‘competition state’, Journal of Education policy, 24(1), 83-99. Callon, M. (1986). Elements of a sociology of translation: Domestication of the Scallops and the Fishermen of St Brieuc Bay. In J. Law (Ed.), Power, Action and Belief: A New Sociology of Knowledge? London: Routledge, pp 196-233. Clarke, J. (2002). A new kind of symmetry: Actor-network theories and the new literacy studies. Studies in the Education of Adults, 34(2), 107-122. Dahlstedt, M. (2009). Governing by partnerships: dilemmas in Swedish education policy at the turn of the millennium, Journal of Education Policy, 24(6), 787–801. Dovemark, M. & Erixon Arreman, I. (2017). The implications of school marketisation for students enrolled on introductory programmes in Swedish upper secondary education. Education, Citizenship and Social Justice, 12(1), 1–14. Hamilton, M. (2011). Unruly Practices: What a sociology of translations can offer to educational policy analysis. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 43(1), 55–75. Ideland, M., Axelsson, T., Jobér, A. & Serder, M. (2016) Helping hands? Exploring school’s external actor-networks. Paper accepted for ECER, Dublin, August 2016. Jobér, A. (submitted). How to become Indispensable: Tutoring Businesses in the Education Landscape. Submitted to Special Issue of Discourse titled Politics by Other Means: STS and Research in Education. Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Molnar, A. (2006). The Commercial Transformation of Public Education, Journal of Education Policy, 21(5), 621-640. Olmedo, A., Bailey, P. L., and Ball, S. J. (2013). To Infinity and Beyond…: heterarchical governance, the Teach For All network in Europe and the making of profits and minds. European Educational Research Journal, 12(4), 492–512. Ong, A. (2007). Neoliberalism as a mobile technology. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 32(1), 3-8. Rizvi, F. & Lingard, B. (2010). Globalizing education policy. London: Routledge. Rönnberg, L. (2017). From national policy-making to global edu-business: Swedish edupreneurs on the move. Journal of Education Policy, 32(2), 234–249. Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2016). Standards are good (for) business: standardised comparison and the private sector in education. Globalisation, Societies and Education 14(2).
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| 7. |
- Jobér, Anna, 1975-, et al.
(author)
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Helping hands? Exploring “policy retailers” in an unruly and unruled educational landscape.
- 2016
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Other publication (pop. science, debate, etc.)abstract
- The project aims to understand under what conditions, in what forms and with which consequences non-educational actors engage in schools. It explores how a discourse of Swedish school’s failure is translated in and through different contexts and activities outside the formal edu-political system; “school’s external actor-network”. We ask what it means that parts of education are distributed to diverse actors on a non-regulated, unruly market.
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| 8. |
- Lundahl, Christian, Professor, 1972-, et al.
(author)
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“I have read some articles on the subject” : selective truths in the education debate
- 2019
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of post-truths – or, rather, a version that we call selective truths – in educational debate. Specifically, we look at how references to PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) and/or to educational research are used as arguments for various reforms. We investigate this in two sets of data: press media and Parliamentary debates between 2000 and 2018. Our main findings are (1) that educational research has become less interesting to public debate, only to be replaced with references to PISA; (2) that, PISA is referred to, for almost any educational cause, in a highly selective way.
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| 9. |
- Lundahl, Christian, 1972-, et al.
(author)
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“I have read some articles on the subject” – selective truths in the education debate
- 2018
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of post-truths – or, rather, a version that we call selective truths – in educational debate. Specifically, we look at how references to PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) and/or to educational research are used as arguments for various reforms. We investigate this in two sets of data: press media and Parliamentary debates between 2000 and 2018. Our main findings are (1) that educational research has become less interesting to public debate, only to be replaced with references to PISA; (2) that, PISA is referred to, for almost any educational cause, in a highly selective way.
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| 10. |
- Lundahl, Christian, 1972-, et al.
(author)
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Making Post-Truth Happen? : An ANT-Analysis of Media Events on Educational Research
- 2017
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this paper, we will look at three different media events in Sweden, in which educational researchers shared their results and conclusions on 1) the PISA assessments, 2) the Swedish grading system, 3) the teacher training program. In these three occasions a surprisingly animated discussion took part between researchers, politicians, teachers and the public opinion. In many cases the educational researchers where accused of having it wrong and facts put forward even got ridiculed. Of course, it is a sign of a sound and vital society not just to uncritically accept facts and information produced by the research community, but when anecdotic evidence and common sense opinions seemingly are given the same weight in the public debate the legitimacy of research is at risk.In our paper, we will conduct a media analysis based on three traditional newspapers publication and online comments to our three media events. We will also investigate 20 of the most influential educational blogs for the same events. Departing from the notion of Niclas Luhmann that Mass media do not just depict social reality, but in a real sense produce it: ‘What we know about the world we live in we know through mass media’ (Luhmann 2009, p. 9) we will conduct an actor network theory analysis in which the techniques of linking and liking are treated as important for the production of the world as the facts and anecdotes (cf Latour 1987). The networks that are produced are considered not “as metaphors, but as socio-material performances that enact reality” (Fenwick 2010). We will firstly investigate if research comments on PISA and national assessments are discussed in a primarily positive way, a primarily negative (or seemingly falsifying) way or in a neutral or ambivalent way (see further Waldow 2017). Secondly, we will look at how these references are interlinked in the social media web. The paper will illustrate how in a post truth society scientific facts are re-negotiated in a manner in which ordinary techniques of producing valid knowledge (theory, research method, analysis, claims) doesn’t count in what makes valid knowledge in the eyes of the public.
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| 11. |
- Løken, Marianne, et al.
(author)
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In-Between Chapter: Troubling the Social : Entanglement, Agency, and the Body in Science Education
- 2017
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In: Cultural, Social, and Political Perspectives in Science Education. - Cham : Springer. - 9783319611914 ; , s. 133-137
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Book chapter (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This introduction to the “social” in science education that is troubled in the following texts will be based on our own experiences of adopting various socio-material theories in research. These experiences have brought us to recognize the challenges that emerge and which we wish to address in this in-between chapter.
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| 12. |
- Osborne, Jonathan, et al.
(author)
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Invited Symposium: The PISA Science Assessments and the Implications for Science Education : Uses and Abuses
- 2015
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In: Proceedings of ESERA 2015. - 9789515115416 ; , s. 1-15
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In 2015, science will be the major focus of PISA. Consequently, the framework for the science assessment was rewritten in 2012. This symposium will begin with a presentation of that framework by Jonathan Osborne, the chair of the science expert group who will provide an explanation of the changes and possible improvements from the 2006 framework. In addition in 2015, all of the assessments will be undertaken on a computer-based platform that has consequences for the form and type of testing. This presentation will be followed by three presentations that take a critical look at the major social and political impact that PISA is having on education systems, schools and the learning of science. Svein Sjøberg will argue that PISA should be seen in a political and cultural context, and as an instrument of power. He will claim that PISA has led to a global race, and that many countries use PISA to legitimize neoliberal school reforms that are detrimental to the values usually promoted by educators. In contrast, Magnus Oskarsson and Margareta Serder will look at the effects of PISA in one country – Sweden. Oskarsson will argue that the PISA results provide one external indicator and measure of the performance of the system. In Sweden performance has declined significantly in comparison to other countries and the divergence between high and low performers increased. As such it provides a useful contrast to internal measures which portray a different picture. Finally, Serder will finish by presenting a study that has explored how groups of 15 year-old students from an average comprehensive school interpret the PISA items and construct responses. Her findings cast doubts on the validity and comparability across countries.
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| 13. |
- Osborne, Jonathan, et al.
(author)
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The PISA Science Assessment for 2015 and the Implications for Science Education : Uses and Abuses
- 2017
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In: COGNITIVE AND AFFECTIVE ASPECTS IN SCIENCE EDUCATION RESEARCH. - Cham : Springer. - 9783319586854 ; , s. 191-203
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Science is the major focus of PISA in 2015. Hence this chapter seeks to explore the positive and negative aspects of the PISA assessments. The chapter begins with a description of the new framework used for the science assessment in 2015. This provides an explanation of the changes and possible improvements from the 2006 framework. There then follow three contributions that explore the major social and political impact that PISA is having on education systems, schools and the learning of science going from the global to the local. Beginning with the global, the first argues that PISA should be seen in a political and cultural context, and as an instrument of power in that PISA has led to a global race in education, and is being used to legitimize neoliberal school reforms that are detrimental to the values usually promoted by educators in many countries. The next two contributions are drawn from an exploration of the effects of PISA in one country – Sweden. Taking a systemic view, the first argues that the PISA results provide a much needed external indicator and measure of the performance of the system in any one country showing how educational attainment has declined significantly in comparison to other countries and, in addition, exposing the increasing divergence between high and low performers. Such data provides a useful contrast to internal measures which may offer a different picture. The final contribution draws on a study that has explored how groups of 15-year-old students from an average comprehensive school interpret the PISA items and construct responses. The findings from this work cast doubt on the validity and comparability of the results between countries. The primary goal of this paper is to explore what PISA offers and to raise questions about its value for researchers and educators.
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| 14. |
- Osborne, Jonathan, et al.
(author)
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The PISA Science Assessments and the Implications for Science Education : Uses and Abuses
- 2017
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In: Cognitive and Affective Aspects in Science Education Research. - Cham : Springer. - 9783319586847 - 9783319586854 ; , s. 191-203
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Book chapter (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Science is the major focus of PISA in 2015. Hence this chapter seeks to explore the positive and negative aspects of the PISA assessments. The chapter begins with a description of the new framework used for the science assessment in 2015. This provides an explanation of the changes and possible improvements from the 2006 framework. There then follow three contributions that explore the major social and political impact that PISA is having on education systems, schools and the learning of science going from the global to the local. Beginning with the global, the first argues that PISA should be seen in a political and cultural context, and as an instrument of power in that PISA has led to a global race in education, and is being used to legitimize neoliberal school reforms that are detrimental to the values usually promoted by educators in many countries. The next two contributions are drawn from an exploration of the effects of PISA in one country – Sweden. Taking a systemic view, the first argues that the PISA results provide a much needed external indicator and measure of the performance of the system in any one country showing how educational attainment has declined significantly in comparison to other countries and, in addition, exposing the increasing divergence between high and low performers. Such data provides a useful contrast to internal measures which may offer a different picture. The final contribution draws on a study that has explored how groups of 15-year-old students from an average comprehensive school interpret the PISA items and construct responses. The findings from this work cast doubt on the validity and comparability of the results between countries. The primary goal of this paper is to explore what PISA offers and to raise questions about its value for researchers and educators.
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| 15. |
- Serder, Margareta
(author)
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Apollons röst
- 2017
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In: Bortom PISA. - : Natur & Kultur. - 9789127817630 ; , s. 81-101
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Book chapter (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Hur kan vi, i termer av vetenskapsparadigm och kunskapsdiskurser, förstå OECD:s position och det faktum att organisationen med en sådan självklarhet yttrar sig om vilka kunskaper dagens femtonåringar behöver i framtiden? Och på vilka antaganden bygger organisationen sina slutsatser om vilka av världens skolsystem som bäst förbereder sina ungdomar för denna framtid? Det här kapitlet tar sin utgångspunkt i metaforen om PISA som ett modernt delfiskt orakel: som någon som oberoende och neutralt uppfattas kunna ge svar på nästan allt.
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| 16. |
- Serder, Margareta, Universitetslektor i utbildningsvetenskap, 1971-
(author)
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Detecting Student Performance in Large-Scale Assessments
- 2018
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In: International Large-Scale Assessments in Education. - : Bloomsbury Academic. - 9781350023604 ; , s. 69-84
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Book chapter (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This book explores the often controversial international large-scale assessments (ILSAs) in education and offers research-based accounts of international testing as a social practice. Assessment exercises, such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), produce comparable international statistics and rankings on educational performance, and are influential practices that shape educational policy on a global scale. The chapters in this volume, written by expert researchers in the field, take the reader behind the scenes to document a broad range of ILSA practices - from the recruitment of countries into ILSAs, to the production and performance of large-scale testing, and the management, media reception and use of test data. Based on data that is only available to expert researchers with inside access, the international case study material includes examples from Australia, Ecuador, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Russia, Scotland, Slovenia, Sweden, the UK and the USA. The volume provides important insights for teachers, researchers and policy-makers who use and study assessment data and who wish to evaluate its significance for educational policy and practice.
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| 17. |
- Serder, Margareta, et al.
(author)
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Language Games and Meaning as Used in Student Encounters With Scientific Literacy Test Items
- 2016
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In: Science Education. - Hoboken, NJ : John Wiley & Sons. - 0036-8326 .- 1098-237X. ; 100:2, s. 321-343
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Previous research in science education has suggested that difficulties among students learning science relate to challenges in framing its discourse. This article examines the role that language plays in a scientific literacy test for which everyday life is an augmented aspect. Video-recorded data was collected in four ninth-grade science classes in a Swedish compulsory school as small groups of students discussed and collaboratively solved Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) science test items. The theoretical framework assumes sociocultural perspectives as well as that of Wittgenstein's later works on language. The study involves an analysis of students’ meaning making of specific words that occur in the test and the various language games to which these words contribute. Specifically, we analyzed the students’ use of four different words: reference, constant, pattern, and factor. We found that the students use these words in everyday or mathematical language games; for example, understanding the word “pattern” as a mathematical regularity rather than a result of a scientific experiment. The results were analyzed in relation to the specific illustrations and wording that contextualize the items. We argue that a crucial part of being scientifically literate is privileging science content over other possible disciplines and contexts and ignoring the everyday perspective.
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| 18. |
- Serder, Margareta
(author)
-
Möten med PISA : kunskapsmätning som samspel mellan elever och provuppgifter i och om naturvetenskap
- 2015
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis explores the standardized assessment of students’ scientific literacy by studying test items, frameworks and result reports from the international comparative study Programme for International Student Assessment, PISA. My research concerns the negative trend observed for Swedish students’ results in science reported in international comparisons since 2000. In this thesis, PISA is considered as a specific kind of practice that acts through a certain rationality, which frames how the measurement is constructed and interpreted. The overall aim is to highlight the epistemological and ontological assumptions that are embedded in the assessment of students’ scientific literacy by PISA. Data was constructed by video documentation of collaborative encounters between 21 groups of 15-year-old students and eleven selected items from the PISA scientific literacy assessment. This method enabled an analysis of the students’ reasoning and the difficulties that arose in these encounters. I also conducted a text analysis of selected frameworks and reports produced under the PISA label, analyzing how science and student performance are discursively constructed in these documents. In this thesis, I examine the similarities and differences between two theoretical approaches: one sociocultural and one sociomaterial. Both are used to explore the embedded assumptions of the PISA scientific literacy assessment. The sociocultural perspective focuses on the students’ situated meaning making as they solve the test questions. The sociomaterial perspective finds inspiration in science and technology studies, and takes a performative stance on scientific practice. This thesis has been formed as a hybrid of a compilation thesis and a monograph. It comprises three articles in English, published or still in the process of publication. The measured knowledge in and about science in PISA are based on onto-epistemological assumptions that are connected to science traditions which are mainly monologistic and representational, whereas this thesis proposes a dialogistic and performative stance. One identified assumption is that language is a neutral transmitter of information, which can be unambiguously communicated and translated without losing or gaining new meanings. Another is the assumption of a single unambiguous, primary frame for interpretation of the test questions, and a third that in PISA, science is assumed to be a socially and culturally neutral object for learning. It appears crucial that the students are able, and motivated, to discern and privilege the scientific perspectives and interpretations while engaging with the complexity of the tasks. My analysis suggests that framing the tasks within fictive, everyday situations, as is significant for PISA, contributes to this complexity. Further, the image of science as portrayed in the test items that were studied, risk reproducing stereotypical images of science and scientifically literate people. To PISA, students are mirrors of the school system and even future society. In the analysis of PISA documents, low performers appeared as threats to future society, due to the risk that they would become ineffective citizens. Meanwhile, other studies assert that standardized comparison is a practice that, when frequently repeated, contributes to lower results and an increasing disillusion of low achievers. It is proposed that PISA, rather than to be seen as a knowledge measurement, should be regarded a knowledge actor.
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| 19. |
- Serder, Margareta, et al.
(author)
-
PISA : problemet med en metaundersøgelse
- 2015
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In: Læring, dannelse og udvikling. - : Hans Reitzels Forlag. - 9788741258089 ; , s. 123-150
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Book chapter (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Dette kapitel skal handle om en test, der gives en halv million 15-årige hvert tredje år verden over for at få et standardiseret billede af, hvor meget de kan på bestemte fagområder, uanset hvilken undervisning de har modtaget. Det handler om Programme for International Student Assessment – forkortet PISA. I dette kapitel fokuserer vi på en konsekvens af PISA, nemlig at PISA kan siges at påvirke, hvad der anses for vigtige færdigheder – definitionen på den rigtige og vigtige viden i vores samfund.Sigtet er at analysere og diskutere de inhærente begrænsninger i det videnssyn, PISA repræsenterer – hvad sker der, når indholdet af netop dette videnssyn bliver det vigtigste? Hvad bliver valgt fra? Og hvilke elever skal defineres som vellykkede? Derudover er det hensigten at diskutere, hvordan elevers 'mangelfulde kundskaber inden for naturvidenskab', som ofte optræder i debatten om PISA-resultater i for eksempel Sverige og Danmark, kan anskues som produkter af PISA-målingen selv. Vores tese er, at de manglende kundskaber ikke er et givet forhold, men noget, der skabes i selve idéen om en global elevvurdering, en metaundersøgelse. De empiriske eksempler, vi anvender, er PISA's rammeformulering, løsrevne PISA-spørgsmål samt diskussioner mellem elever, der diskuterer og besvarer PISA-spørgsmål i grupper.
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| 20. |
- Serder, Margareta, et al.
(author)
-
PISA truth effects : the construction of low performance
- 2016
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In: Discourse. Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education. - : Taylor & Francis. - 0159-6306 .- 1469-3739. ; 37:3, s. 341-357
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This article seeks to unpack the taken-for-granted notion of low performance, arguing that performance and competency are not a given categories; rather they are “objects-for-thought” that receive their discursive and material contours through a chain of translations. As suggested previously by Gorur, PISA is analyzed through the lens of Latourian Science and Technology Studies. The arguments in this article are based on an analysis of situations constructed to observe how performance is enacted in socio-material practice, as 15-year-old students collaboratively solve PISA scientific-literacy items. As background a text analysis, concerning how scientific literacy and performance are discursively constructed in various PISA materials, is reported. We suggest the notion of ‘competency’ be linked to the historical event of trying to start to detect it and argue that PISA results are products of the situated adjustments that are enacted by students and items created in the very moments of scientific measurement.
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| 21. |
- Serder, Margareta, et al.
(author)
-
“Why bother so incredibly much?” : student perspectives on PISA science assignments
- 2015
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In: Cultural Studies of Science Education. - : Springer. - 1871-1502 .- 1871-1510. ; 10, s. 833-853
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Storskaliga kunskapsmätningar, såsom Programme for International Assessment, PISA, spelar en allt större roll i vår tids skolpraktik och skolpolitik. Samtidigt ifrågasätter alltfler forskare mätningarnas validitet, reliabilitet och i vilken utsträckning de utgör trovärdiga representationer av elevers kunskaper. I ljuset av sådana kritiska röster utgår denna artikel från ett sociokulturellt perspektiv med syftet att undersöka mötet mellan elever och de provfrågor i naturvetenskap som deras kunskaper utvärderas utifrån. I studien är det av särskilt intresse att undersöka hur elever hanterar uppgifter som beskriver ”situationer från verkliga livet” (real-life situations) vilka vanligtvis presenteras som relevanta för att kunna mäta elevernas naturvetenskapliga allmänbildning. I enlighet med vår ansats har vi närmat oss elevernas meningskapande av naturvetenskap så som den framträder i uppgifterna. Ett viktigt fokus i studien är att undersöka situationer när elever samarbetar med PISA-uppgifter i små grupper, vilket möjliggör för oss att studera mötet mellan elev och prov in action. Datamaterialet består av videoinspelningar av 71 svenska 15-åringar som arbetar med tre frisläppta uppgifter från PISAs naturvetenskapliga del. Analysen visar att de ”situationer från verkliga livet” som beskrivs i provet framstår som problematiska eftersom eleverna positionerar sig gentemot de fiktiva elever som framträder i provtexterna. Det är framförallt de fiktiva elevernas användning av ett naturvetenskapligt och akademiskt språkbruk som skapar avstånd och motstånd till uppgifterna. Användningen av ett strikt naturvetenskapligt språk och vetenskapliga metoder i vardagliga situationer får de fiktiva eleverna i uppgifterna att framstå som ”små vetenskapsmän” och stereotyper i den naturvetenskapliga kulturen. Vi drar slutsatsen att denna typ av uppgifter egentligen riskerar att utgöra implicita mätningar av kulturell samstämmighet. Även om förståelse av den naturvetenskapliga kulturen är ett viktigt mål för skolans naturvetenskapsundervisning i sig, så blir det problematiskt att resultaten från OECD endast kommuniceras som ”elevers kunskap i naturvetenskap”. Denna studie, i likhet med flera andra, manar till försiktighet när det gäller att tolka resultaten från PISA-mätningarna och betonar att förståelsen av elevers “kunskaper” i naturvetenskap är betydligt mer komplex än vad som vanligtvis kommuniceras i dessa mätningar.
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| 22. |
- Törnroos, Raja, et al.
(author)
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Engagemang, autonomi och kontroll
- 2017. - 1
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In: Undersöka och utveckla undervisning. - : Studentlitteratur AB. - 9789144114170 ; , s. 173-189
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Book chapter (other academic/artistic)
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