Didactics for life?

• Drawing upon ethnographic fieldwork, this article explores how the national value system is organized in a Swedish compulsory school. With a starting point in ethnographic data, combined with video recordings in a 5th form class in a compulsory school in Malmö. Combining critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2010) with childhood sociology (Lee, 2001; James & Prout, 1997) I analyze local interpretations of the value system, when organized within the non-mandatory school subject Life Competence Education (Löf, 2011). A common feature in this subject is the ambition to establish a feeling of companionship and to strengthen togetherness among children through the teaching of this subject. In the task of strengthening togetherness within groups of children, the establishment of common values becomes central. In order to see how the teacher socializes children into discourses of companionship, I specifically emphasize which values are established in the drama exercises: Which is the view on children, teaching and learning permeating the work? What childhood is constituted through teaching? The results point out that the values and norms that are constructed in the local school practices, claimed to be part of the value system, are based on teacher’s own interpretations of what children need.

Keyword

Life Competence Education

Childhood

Value system

Didactics

Ethnography

Teacher

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)