The aim of this thesis is to develop knowledge about what students actually learn in lower secondary school science, regardless of intentions and policies. This is conceptualized as a study of the lived curriculum. During the last decades, new ways of organizing classroom work have evolved in Sweden. Students are to an increasing extent expected to take responsibility for what, when, and how they study. The aim of this thesis is therefore delimited to the study of which lived curriculum is constituted in such an individually organized science classroom practice.

The theoretical foundation is a cultural-historical activity-theoretical perspective on human learning and development. The point of departure is that what we learn must be understood as an aspect of the activities we engage in. The research approach is ethnographic; field studies were conducted in two science classes, grades six and seven (ages 12 to 14 years old), in a Swedish midsized compulsory school during one school-year.

The first result is that two different practices are discerned in the studied science classroom. One classroom practice is a criteria-based practice, where students work individually with local school criteria determining what students must be able to do in order to get a pass or a pass with distinction in the natural science subjects. The other classroom practice is a laboratory practice, where students do laboratory experiments and write laboratory reports. The second result is that students, in both practices, participate in different actions; either production and reproduction of correct answers or development of conceptual relations. These actions correspond in varying degrees to different motives; as a consequence, different scientific formation is made possible in the two different actions. A third result is that classroom practice supports student participation in the action of reproducing correct answers; while participation in the development of conceptual relations is a more risky and uncertain endeavour. However, there is evidence that students’ ways of participating can change, to a more qualified, as conditions for work change.

A conclusion is that work in science classroom practice cannot, as suggested in previous research, be comprehended in terms of cultural border-crossings, between a culture of science and student cultures. Rather, work in science classroom practice must be conceptualized in terms of schooling.

The physicality of sports and outdoor life offers great opportunities for intensive experiences – participants ”feel” the happening in their bodies. As well as looking upon physical activity mainly as something instrumental, as for example in competitive sports and exercise culture, other aspects can also be central, for instance the pure joy of movement. The existential or expressive side of physical activity is examined in this doctoral thesis.

In order to study such experiential quality more thoroughly, the author’s attention turns to adventure sports participants, as they appear to have a capacity for becoming highly involved and seeking very intense experiences. Who is involved in adventure sports? Why are they engaged in a sport that demands such great hardships and risk-taking? What do they get out of it? The overall objective of the thesis is to shed light on adventure sports as a practice and to discuss the educational significance of flow and other experiential qualities in adventure sports and in schools.

The analyses are based on three empirical sub-studies. The first began with a questionnaire that 161 adventure sports participants responded to. This was followed by an interview study of eleven men and three women, all of whom had extensive experience in adventure sports. The categories of sport were evenly divided between climbing, off-piste skiing and hang gliding.

In the second sub-study a detailed investigation of climbing was carried out. A notable sportification has brought about a very clear and interesting change in parts of this activity. Six traditional/adventure climbers and six sport climbers were interviewed, of which half were men and half women. All the climbers were experienced and very much involved in their sport.

The aim of the third sub-study was to seek an answer as to whether pupils have experiences in their daily school life that are similar to those of adventure sports participants. An ESM (Experience Sampling Method) investigation was carried out with 60 pupils in compulsory school year nine (corresponding to UK schools’ year eleven) from four different schools. The pupils’ parents answered a special parent questionnaire including questions about academic and professional backgrounds, living conditions, habits, interests, attitudes and leisure time activities.

The results were analysed taking into consideration the phenomenological perspective and structuralistic or more correctly expressed the cultural sociological perspective. Mihály Csikszentmihályi’s theoretical argument on optimal experiences, which in turn is based on the flow concept, constitutes the phenomenological foundation. Pierre Bourdieu’s concept apparatus and theories were used to closely examine the participants’ backgrounds, life histories and current living situations.

The study shows that a preference for adventure sports is clearly linked to the participants’ backgrounds and earlier life experiences. A behavioural pattern is incorporated and developed into an embodied capacity to master a practice, a result of a long learning process. Participants were clearly concordant in these respects. Participants emphasise the abundant opportunities for intensive experiences that arise from adventure sports. It is a matter of something multidimentional: the active body, outdoor life in natural surroundings, exacting and clear goals, total focus, and about exercising control. This approach presents a model for identification of content qualities, which together create the dynamics that form the meaningful rewards that result from participation in adventure sports. The dimensions include flow experiences, but also go beyond them.

The deep sense of presence, the physical involvement, the fact that they can choose the path and increase the degree of difficulty themselves – and simultaneously counter this new challenge with increased capacity so that they are engaged at the ”right level” – also provide favourable conditions for a stimulating and successful learning experience.

The observation was made that it was primarily in the practical and aesthetic subjects that school pupils had the same deep feeling of presence together with a meaningful and pleasurable holistic experience as the adventure sports participants had. Here they were actively involved with their hands or with their whole bodies, and they could make their own choices and be in control of the activity, which for most pupils led to a strong feeling of satisfaction.

The purpose of the study can in greater detail be described as makingan analysis of the role of knowledge, as well as the assumptions inscribedin knowledge, in the practices of governing academic subjects liketeachers and researchers. The point of departure is the new concepts of theinteraction between individual freedoms and social norms that emergedrecently in the context of the political governance of higher education(Management). The study also includes genealogical analyses of how thenew forms of governance are related to historical imaginaries of the Academy(past times), and how such historical material is reproduced and operatesin today’s Swedish University settings.

The historical material consists of texts regarding the history of theUniversity, public material such as official reports of the State (SOU) andgovernment bills and it also includes reports from a national symposium onthe university in the middle of the 1980’s.

The empirical material consists of an impressionistic ethnographic fieldstudy from 10 meetings of the deans’ council in the second part of1998 (Study 1), 27 in depth interviews; 10 interviews with deans (Study 2),11 interviews with the members of the university board and finally 4 interviewswith external informants (Study 3).

The theoretical guidelines, along which this research is organised,are based on Michel Foucault´s notion of gouvernmentalité (governmentality),Nikolas Rose’s reflections regarding the emergence of new liberalrationalities of governing (advanced liberalism) and Judith Butler’s poststructuralfeminist perspective. This theoretical framework is used as apoint of departure to study how power and governance operate in thepractices of the deans’ council; how the assumptions and concepts of thedeans are inscribed in those practices where power and governance areexercised; how the deans construct themselves and each other and finallyhow the construction of identities in those practices are related to the forcesof power that operate inside and outside the university setting.

The self-governing practices of the deans’ council, that are part ofthe university’s governance policy, are understood by the actors as a movementtowards increased autonomy. A closer scrutiny of those practices,however, reveals that the new management discourse governs the practicesfrom behind, as it were. The activities of the university, it seems, arenow directed towards the aim of realizing the future needs of manpower insociety, preferably within the technological, scientific and medical sector.In order to ensure oneself about efficiency and quality, the previous confidencesystem is replaced by a quality follow-up (quality control) systemwith the starting point in an economic administrative thinking.

An important social aspect of sustainable development is that it offers children and youth opportunities for individual development based on influence and participation. Children’s possibilities to move around freely, to explore the natural and built environments, to meet others and to observe and try out roles in public places are all conditions for children’s participation. Two consequences of the intensified building and increased traffic now taking place in Swedish cities, particularly in inner city areas in the largest cities, are that children’s outdoor space has been reduced and children’s safe access to the outdoors is at risk. For children, having limited or no access to their nearby environment, important for their development in multiple ways, means they will have no environmental experiences of their own to communicate to others and on which to base their opinions. Our research projects show that traffic is the greatest obstacle to children’s independent mobility along with the lack of places for children to use.

Today’s society is subject to an increased importance of aesthetics and an increasing individualism. New trends are adopted early by young people, which make it interesting to focus on how identity is formed and meanings are constructed in a youth culture context and in relation to ongoing societal processes of change.

The purpose of this dissertation is to interpret and analyse the construction of meaning within the skateboard and snowboard communities in the social and cultural contexts. In particular, this dissertation is about the relationship between three levels, cultural, practice and individual. The title “Traces” alludes to four analytical themes taking different tracks in the book; consumption, gender, place and identity that are reflected in different chapters. However, the individual leaves traces in culture as culture does in the individual. Furthermore, skaters and snowboarders leave actual tracks in their local geography.

Theoretically the study has a culture analysis approach with a semiotic base where five theories are intertwined. Johan Fornäs contributes with his interpretation on culture as system of signs and signifying practices, Stuart Hall adds the concept of representations, Kirsten Drotner provides her argumentation regarding aesthetic practices whilst Ulf Hannerz enriches the dissertation with his discussion on transnational culture-flows and the social diffusion of culture. Roger Säljö proposes a socio-cultural perspective of learning where learning is about participation in knowledge and skills. The method used is ethnographical. The multifaceted empirical material, from field studies and interviews, Swedish skateboard and snowboard magazines between 1978 to 2002, skateboard and snowboard videos, press articles, and websites, has been triangulated. In addition, there are three personal albums of skateboarder, snowboarder and surfer Ants Neo.

The study shows that there are stereotyped notions about what boarding means and what it means to be a boarder. These notions both create and are created by the boarders themselves but are also used by advertisers for products not related to board sports at all. These notions, based as they are on ideas of resistance and radicalism, serve to emphasise that boarding is masculine. Resistance takes concrete form in its attitude to organized sports and to multinational brands and in the unusual use of places in the urban environment. To be a boarder is, apart form the boarding skills required, to be also part and parcel of these attitudes.

The study explains how meaning and identity are created through informal learning processes in youth culture contexts. In these group-forming processes, both the individual and the community are formulated in social, cultural and aesthetic terms.

Fågel, fisk eller förundran? A study of existential attitudes based on essays written in a multicultural upper secondary school for adults

The aim of this study is to survey and interpret outlooks on life as expressed in 175 essays written (1999-2001) in a multicultural Swedish suburb by adult students learning Swedish, Swedish as a Foreign Language, and Philosophy. What are the recurring themes in these essays? How do they reflect the fundamental existential problems of their authors?

The theoretical background rests on existential hermeneutics with Sartre (1943, 1946, 1984) as the most important philosophical source. Other sources are Ödman (1994) and Hellesnes (1989, 2000).

All-pervading themes are: God, Meaning of Life, Death, and The Soul. The various ways in which students describe their reflections are gathered in 11 categories on the subject of God, 13 on The Meaning of Life, and 9 on Death.

I examine expressions which come across as "extreme" ("existentialism", "determinism", "reason", and "emotion"). Most students, however, express contradictory views. I am, therefore, mainly concerned with contradiction, searching and testing different ideas. Active and passive strategies come to the fore in conflicts between experienced or imagined obstacles and the urge to develop.

I also seek to view the essays from a stricter Sartrian perspective, as opposed to the Sartrian-flavoured one in the earlier parts of the study. For this purpose, I rely on Sartre´s phenomenological ontology (1943), his thoughts on freedom and facticity, and other concepts, e.g. anguish.

The ontological conflict is examined from a broader perspective, viewing the texts in a socio-cultural context in which identity, religion, and language play important parts.

Finally, I discuss my results and try to state the ways in which my former understanding has changed and the surprises I have had.

The present study sought to illustrate how the way parents were viewed was expressed, and how it developed between 1957 and 1997, as seen from child-health-care recordcard material, a professional journal and public reports on instruction for parents. The study also describes and analyses the relationship between family and society during the same period. The starting point is the state´s intention to strengthen the social standing of children and support their parents in their task of upbringing. The material reveals a line of development in which during the first twenty years, parents were viewed with a certain distrust. The family was portrayed as a partly dangerous isolate while parents were described in long paragraphs as less than fully knowledgeable and aware, and in need of expert guidance. Hence attempts were made to usher the parents and their child onto the lighted stage of public concern. A generally directed parental training scheme run by the community was considered necessary and was, moreover, expected to be able to fashion the parents into more social-politically committed citizens. The goal was ultimately to promote democracy and equality. Hope lay in the inherent development potential parents are nevertheless considered to possess, and in the collective upbringing provided by public child care in pedagogically stimulating surroundings. From the end of the 1970s till the last year of the 1990s the perspective shifted toward greater reliance on parental competence. At the same time national control changed towards more decentralisation, which also affected the relation between family and society. Towards the end of the period under study parents were being viewed as adult and competent. Respect for parental autonomy and freedom of choice were now at the focal point of the state view. Parents had become customers in a market much reflecting the urge towards globalisation then making itself felt. The responsibility for support to parents shifted out to the local community which, through local mobilisation, was expected to be available with support and resources when parents themselves so wished. Instead of being governed by the state, parents, through selfgovernance, were to be responsible for choise of life-style, pre-school and school alike. Their task was, in harmony with the local community surrounding them and with the UN children´s convention, to act in their child´s best interests.

This thesis is the result of two studies concerning children’s independent mobility, which means the freedom for children to walk or bike on their own or together with friends but without being escorted by parents. The studies are accomplished in four different areas and are also searching for different environmental qualities. The areas differ concerning traffic planning and architecture but also concerning commercial and cultural choice. The aim is to understand and describe how places are constructed and designed when they are used and experienced in a positive – or a negative – way by children. I emphasize, that we – through the responses in meeting with other people – learn hidden and visible rules and also how to change perspective and roles. I therefore focus on the meeting between children and other people but also on meeting between children and places. The issue is: What do places look like – what qualities or qualifications – can be notified as important to children to perceive coherence that consequently make them learn to control their environment and develop to harmonious grown-ups. The main questions are: In what degree can children’s independent mobility be related to the planning and design in the four areas? Why do some neighbourhoods/places appear as more important to children than others, making children use them in a varied way? Is it possible to describe qualities in neighbourhoods in a way that can be interpreted as meaningful for children’s development?

In the first study 732 children in grade two and five in compulsory school, filled in a questionnaire and the questions focused on how they got to school, to friends, to activities etc. The results showed that in the area with more traffic than the other three areas, children were more often taken by car to school and to leisure activities. Even international research in the nineties did show that children had lost the accessibility to their neighbourhood. In the second study, 32 children in the same areas guided me around in their environment showing me the way to school and places they used to visit. At the same time they told me what they liked or disliked in their neighbourhood. Afterwards they were interviewed and they also had the opportunity to fill in so called “mobility maps”. The content in this text mainly focuses the second study. From the children’s statements, a summary of the most important differences looks as follows:

I The accessibility in neighbourhoods and places: i.e. children’s independent mobility – or if they had to be escorted by grown-ups – and if they could fiddle about.

II Children’s play and activities: i.e. if they had something to do, if they played in pairs or in groups and if play could take place without planning.

III Children’s experiences of places and people: i.e. if they had something to show me and to tell me, if there were any meetings with other persons, if the children talked about their own yard and appreciated green areas, if they had fun or not, if they were afraid being out and if they told me any memories from some places.

The theoretical framework is based on Johan Asplund’s theory on social responsivity and G. H. Mead’s theory on social relations and his view of the importance of objects. The study also is based on three different place theories as expressed by David Canter, Christian Norberg-Schulz and Clarence Crafoord and Asplund’s view of place and placelessness. This study has made it clear that everything children do in their neighbourhood can be related to concrete places and things but it differed concerning what and how they played, what they experienced and what the meetings looked like – if any.

Environmental qualities arise, as I have interpreted my results, when neighbourhoods and places are safe, when there are landmarks, places for meetings, possibility of orientation and sense of locality and when the places are varied and challenging. Conclusions are drawn regarding differences in social responsivity, if there is a sense of having a place of one’s own – that in the same time is shared by other people – and if places are responding. From these statements place identity can be seen as a merging of the qualities in places and the perceived sense of place as described above. To have opportunity to investigate the neighbourhood is also an important part of children’s informal learning. They learn how to read the surroundings and how to find the way in a town or in an environment. They get to know the neighbourhood and the world outside and so they also learn how to behave and how to control themselves and even the life. Results showed though that the children in the four areas made those experiences but, certainly, in different ways.

I denna rapport redovisas resultaten av en intervjustudie om elevers, lärares och studie- och yrkesvägledares föreställningar om området skola-arbetsliv. Det övergripande syftet med projektet har varit att ge bilder av hur man vid tre grundskolor i Stockholmsområdet arbetar med och önskar arbeta med frågor som rör området skola- arbetsliv. Projektet har initierats och finansierats av Skolverket och ska ses som en fortsättning på tre tidigare studier inom området som genomförts vid Lärarhögskolan i Stockholm med finansiering av Skolverket.

Syftet med denna rapport  har varit att sammanställa de kunskaper och erfarenheter som finns från den uppsökande studie- och yrkesvägledningen, beskriva vad som har fungerat och vilka förutsättningar som behövs för verksamheten. Rapporten strävar efter att ge svar på följande frågor: Hur arbetar studievägledarna med att genomföra uppdraget? Vad är centralt i arbetet och vad kan utvecklas? Hur samarbetar olika yrkesgrupper med studie- och yrkesvägledarna? Vad kan utvecklas? Vilka förutsättningar är av betydelse för att den uppsökande studievägledningen/AFSO ska fungera? Resultatet av den uppsökande studievägledningen/AFSO – Nås målen för verksamheten?

In the early 2000, increasingly more institutions regard their activities as pedagogical or educationaL The libraries, the museum, correction care and public health, to mention a few of these institutions, all of them tend to rely on the "pedagogical paradigm" when reasoning about their activities. Thus we seem to live in a society where increasingly more phenomena become codified as educational. This trend towards a society as school creates a broad surjdcefor the inscriptions of pedagogy and pedagogical technology. The purpose of this study is making a history of ihe present analysis of the emergence of to use a loose term the pedagogical paradigm. To highlight this change we have chosen four institutioal fields: The teacher's education, the people´s library, people´s health and correction care. The empirical sources are historical texts from the period I8OOs -2OOOs.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the relationship between school and working life in Tanzania; what goes on inside school in relation to what goes on outside. The focus is on vocational skills formation by which is understood the process whereby individuals develop skills necessary for everyday life and gainful employment. The form and content of vocational skills formation, that is, tasks, activities, tools and social organization in primary schooling and in the informal economy, were studied.

A total of 19 classes in four primary schools in Morogoro Municipality were observed in the school subject Stadi za Kazi (Vocational Skills): mat-weaving, clay-stove moulding, cake-baking, paper-bag-making, washing of woollen clothes, brick-making, setting out the foundation of a house and goat-raising. In addition the nine teachers of these classes were interviewed.

The out-of-school sub-study comprised observation of and interviews with artisan and apprentices intertwined in eight artisan communities within the following crafts and trades: basketry, carpentry, paper craft, radio repair, garages, mattress-making, charcoal stove-making and all around women’s group activities. Still-photography was an integrated part of the fieldwork in both settings, and the photos were used as basis for subsequent interviews.

The study has an ethnographic approach, indicating that it is not an ethnographic study as such but shares some of its considerations, such as, research practice which consists of observing, making sense in the field, using a variety of techniques and constructing texts. The theoretical framework that constitutes the tool for analysing the skills formation in both contexts is the situated model, “legitimate, peripheral participation in communities of practice”, outlined by Lave and Wenger (1991) and further developed by Wenger (1998).

The skills formation in the informal economy was embedded in special forms of apprenticeship. Common traits were: an apprenticeship scheme built on a mutual understanding, a non-fixed duration and skills formation determined by the work of the day rather than a built-in stepwise order, a low level of technology and a total absence of texts. Observing and doing were the common formation instruments and co-working, hand-on-hand and asking questions the “unique” instruments, that is, connected to specific crafts/trades.

In school pupils worked on tasks that belong to the household sphere rather than working life and these tasks were categorized as academic tasks, experimental tasks, simulation, and producing for exercise. Academic tasks comprised copying teacher’s notes on the blackboard; facts, functions, tools and composition of materials. Experimental tasks were tasks that aimed at changing a practice while, simulation was an operative model of out-of-school practice. Producing for exercise meant working with objects that were disposed of after completion. It is concluded that skills formation became vocational skills orientation. Some reason for this direction of skills formation were: it did not build upon experience gained outside school, the selected skills varied from one grade to another, depending on the preferences of the teacher, the professional background of the teachers, the crowded classes of a minimum of 40 pupils and a maximum of 200 in the urban schools, the lack of individuals practice owing to the lack of materials and other such factors.

The concluding chapter of the thesis discusses some aspects of the relationship between the two formation contexts. In general it is concluded that there was no relation in space and time. However, pupils and teachers brought tools and material from home to school and this relationship may be characterized as extensional, but of household chores. Here schooling is also revisited by a comparison with the “education for self-reliance” of the passed as well as current global trends. A new Nyereian vision is proposed to be built on diversity; schools may embrace many “school is work” communities and at the same time be a garage, a shop, a hairdressing salon, mobile-repair workshop and the like.

PAS (patientansvarig sjuksköterska) är en modell för hur själva omvårdnadsarbetet bedrivs, individanpassat till varje enskild patient. I Sverige används modellen på nästan samtliga hemodialysmottagningar.

Syftet med denna studie var att beskriva PAS:arnas uppfattningar om arbetsuppgifter och uppfattningar av upplevelser rörande PAS-rollen. Fenomenografi användes som analysmetod för att beskriva variationer av både arbetsuppgifter och upplevelser. Data insamlades genom semistrukturerade intervjuer. Intervjuerna genomfördes med PAS:ar från olika dialysmottagningar i Sverige.Sex beskrivningskategorier identifierades som beskrev uppfattningar av att vara PAS samt sex beskrivningskategorier om uppfattningar av hur det kan upplevas att vara PAS. Resultaten visade på både positiva och negativa uppfattningar som var relaterade till rollen som PAS. Studien visade att det som präglade PAS-rollen var det stora ansvar PAS tog för sina patienter, både inom och utanför avdelningen. Ansvaret och den stora mängd arbetsuppgifter PAS hade var förenat med uppfattningar att rollen som PAS kunde upplevas som negativt. Att utbilda patienter och närstående är en viktig uppgift inom sjuksköterskans ansvarsområde. Ett intressant fynd i aktuell studie var att endast en PAS uppfattade att utbilda som en av arbetsuppgifterna kopplade till rollen som PAS.

PAS:arna uppfattade att läkarens arbetsuppgifter hade företräde och detta var en orsak till varför PAS gav avkall på omvårdnadsuppgifter. Detta i kombination med otydlig arbetsbeskrivning ledde till psykisk stress och frustration. Det är av betydelse att sjuksköterskor utarbetar nationella samt lokala arbetsbeskrivningar för vad som skall ingå i rollen som PAS inom njurmedicin.

The purpose of the study has been, by adopting a view of life and a learning perspective, to reach an understanding of the way in which cancer patients in a palliative care context understand and cope with their existential life situation. I asked the following questions: 1) How does their personal view of life influence the patients’ understanding and coping with the illness and existential life situation? 2) What existential questions are central to the patients? 3) What is personal learning all about? 4) What prerequisites are important for fostering the patients’ personal learning? Interviews focusing on narratives were conducted with ten patients who have an incurable cancer disease. The interviews were taped and transcribed into texts. A hermeneutic method was applied to understand the content and import of the patients’ narratives. The results show that the patients achieve closure, which involves them making reassessments, adapting their life to the illness, being reconciled with themselves and with their relation to their surroundings. It is also about them wishing to bequeath a legacy and hand down desirable qualities, values and merits for future generations. Taking this view of life as their basis, the patients interpret their illness, existential questions and life situation, and structure their existence so as to make it comprehensible and meaningful. Life narratives can serve as a tool in enabling caregivers to identify patients’ existential questions, view of life, learning requirements and the way they make sense of things (”meaning-making”). By means of view of life support counselling caregivers can identify the patients’ personal ideas, values and support their needs. The patients can reach an awareness of their personal view of life. Reappraising and developing this can be viewed as a form of perspective shift or learning.

This investigation aims to describe, reflect on and increase understanding of the possibilities open to teachers of ethical aspects of technological progress. This discussion involves three questions: about the import of certain kinds of vocabulary, knowledge and professional ethical responsibility. The investigation is based on an interview study of 15 teachers of ‘Technology, human, society’. The approach is inspired by the later works of Ludwig Wittgenstein, according to which educational problems are solved through investigation of how our language works.This reminds us it seems unreasonable to believe we need any special words to pay attention to the ethical. Rather, that words may be used in any mode, ethical or non-ethical. The teachers give many examples of ethical problems and dilemmas that follow from progress in technology e.g. in warfare, the car industry and information technology. These cases do not involve a kind of knowledge: rather something similar to belief and faith. The teachers all agree that technicians and engineers need to take responsibility in their profession, though not as a role, but as a person. The possibility to act responsibly is, however, dependent on, or thwarted by the sur-rounding society; sometimes by a lack of knowledge and control. However, taking responsibility is not always to be in control. Discussions are important, the teachers say, but not everything is open for discussion. The teacher cannot act as an ethical expert: there is no such thing. She must act as a person using the foundation of her own experience. If the teacher is going to reach out to pupils, she must instil confidence, though not as a person who knows more professionally, but as someone who has something to say. The character of the education cannot be one of control, but of hope. A hope that one will awaken pupils’ consciences: to see the other, what the situation demands and what it would involve to do this or that.

Syftet med uppsatsen Om ledarskap i Reggio Emilia inspirerade nätverk – en fallstudie var att ta reda på vilket ledarskap som leder till ett nätverk som främjar det Reggio Emilia inspirerade arbetet i förskolorna. Min frågeställning för arbetet var ”Vilken inverkan har ledarskapet vid nätverksträffarna haft på de enskilda pedagogernas förmåga att reflektera tillsammans, genomföra dokumentationer och utforskande projekt”? För att få svar på frågeställningen så har jag studerat litteratur och deltagit vid 18 av 20 nätverksträffar i en kommundel under perioden augusti till december 2006 i fem olika nätverk och gjort observationer samt delat ut en enkät till alla deltagare med öppna och slutna frågor.

Jag kom fram till att ledarskapet och innehållet i de olika nätverken varierade och att det påverkades av ledarskapet. Pedagogerna reflekterade tillsammans på olika sätt. De som var ledare i nätverk hade valt det på grund av att de hade ett intresse av att leda nätverk. Dokumentationer genomfördes i några nätverk och utforskande projekt genomfördes inte i något nätverk.

Jag kom även fram till att ledarskapet i de Reggio Emilia inspirerade nätverken bör innehålla det förhållningssätt och de värderingar som finns i den Reggio Emilia inspirerade verksamheten. Organisationen bör bygga på frivillighet och kooperation, den gynnas av en teamorganisation där flera ledare är samordnande. Minst en person bör delta vid alla nätverksträffar, diskutera idéer och utveckling med förskolecheferna och se till att idéer genererar verklig förändring och utveckling av det Reggio Emilia inspirerade arbetet.

How has teachers’ work changed during the 20th century? This question is addressed in this dissertation that deals with two aspects of teachers’ work: moral education/discipline and care. The two aspects relate to two distinct, yet sometimes interconnected problems: the norm-breaking and the suffering child.

Drawing on a rich source of material, consisting of handbooks, magazines and journals for teachers, interviews, life histories, school memories, novels, commission reports etcetera, and theoretically interpreted within a frame of mentalities, modernity and institutional features of schooling, the process of change is described in terms of contrasts between “the past” and “the present” or between the modern and the late modern condition. The results are presented in two parts, dealing with discipline (part II) and care (part III).

Part II deals with changes in the meaning of discipline or moral education by focusing on the changes of what has been seen as a discipline problem, and the ways in which discipline problems can be counteracted. The question of the meanings of discipline problems is first illustrated by the “rise and fall” of the lying school child. The emphasis is on the ways in which the lie was held to be problematic in the early 20th century, but the fundamental aim is to understand the process of change whereby lies came to be seen as less important and dramatic as a problem for moral education. The meaning of discipline is further analysed in a study of conceptions of the school class. Contrasting the concept of bullying with the idea that the school class is characterised by a high level of solidarity (common in the first part of the 20th century), the changes of moral education are analysed. Further, the transformations of the school punishment are discussed, with a focus on ideas on the good punishment. After concluding the chapters on moral education, the focus shifts towards the teachers’ responsibility toward the suffering school child (part III). The point of departure here is that the problem of the suffering school child is not a self evident problem in the same way as the problem of the norm-breaking child. This means that the analysis of changes in caring relationships in schools has to focus on the ways in which suffering is made visible as a responsibility for the teachers. First there is an analysis of how the attitudes towards the value of being happy at school can shift historically, and how these changes can be related to shifting views on schooling as a phase of preparation. Further the process of making suffering visible is investigated. It is argued that contemporary teachers are both expected to and able to see the suffering of the child in a new way. Another chapter deals with school hygiene and “crisis pedagogy”. These are two different ways of speaking about what it means to work for wellbeing in schools that belong to two different historical time periods. The two projects are both about wellbeing, but the first had “sickness” as the fundamental concept, whereas the later has “sorrow” as its fundamental concept. The former is characterised by a belief in progress and segregation, whereas the latter is characterised by a belief in inclusion and close personal relationships.

In describing aspects of teachers work that have often been perceived as difficult to handle, the dissertation’s object, in the widest sense, is to give new perspectives on the meaning of working conditions, and by implication, the historical changes of these conditions. In an even more general sense the aim is to give new perspectives on schooling in late modern societies.

The context for this paper the research project”Communication and learning in sloyd practices”,funded by the Swedish Research Council.Within the project, we explore sloyd practicesfrom comprehensive school to higher education.In upper secondary education, which is the focusof this paper, the sloyd-related content can befound in various programmes. This paper is relatedto one of the subprojects, ”Sloyd in a changingworld”, with a general issue concerning whatkind of sloyd- and craft-related competence isin demand in society today. Here, the focus ison variations and similarities in content in twovocational programmes related to craft anddesign within Swedish upper secondary educationand the implications of these with regardsto competence. The data produced are based ongroup interviews, designed as three sequentialsessions for collective remembering (Middleton& Edwards, 1990). Activity theoretical aspectsinform the analysis of data. The schools represent different programmes but they all includetextile craft in the main vocational subject. Theidentified similarities and differences in what theteachers want their students to learn is discussedin relation to historically developed traditionsand how these shape the actions that frame thecontent, in order to achieve the sloyd- and craftrelatedcompetencies important for professionalor personal development.

The article describes the learning practices created by 12 vocational teachers from five programmes by the tasks they give their students to work with. 'Classroom tasks' were observed and analysed according to their content, their forms, and the tools used. Further, the texts used for/written in connection with the tasks were classified. Three types of tasks were identified: school tasks, simulation tasks and vocational tasks. Many tasks in all three categories required the students to read quite a lot. The texts the students were to read were of two kinds: school texts and vocational texts (manuals, handbooks etc.). Most of the texts were vocational and were part of the tools the students were supposed to use in their daily work. This indicates that vocational education is often assumed to be 'practical'--as opposed to 'theoretical' programmes that prepare for further studies--also increasingly rely on texts. The texts you read and how you read them are, however, specific for each vocational area. The different learning practices, represented by the tasks in this study, can be described as bridging from one social practice, that of the school, to another--that of the vocation.

What is the object of activity for teachers in vocational education, i.e. whatis the content that vocational teachers want their students to learn? Whatcan the answer indicate about vocational education as a social practice,compared to the social practice of apprenticeship? The article is based onsequential interviews with twelve teachers from five vocational programs.In the interviews, the teachers relate the content of vocational education tovocational knowing, but vocational knowing and knowing in school are notthe same thing. Vocational knowing is described as a situated judgement,consisting of a vocational language for the content of the vocation (tools,materials, methods, techniques, planning and ethics) and experience ofworking with these. Tacit knowing is essential in the interaction betweenthese two aspects. Knowing in school can be described as having developedthe abilities for further learning in different contexts. The main areaconcerns preparation for the vocation, whereas the others concern furtherlearning more specifically (in the vocation, in higher education and inretraining) and citizenship. The results are discussed in relation to learningand knowing in learning vs. in producing practices.

For almost 200 years the University College of Physical Education and Sports in Stockholm (former Royal Central Institute of Gymnastics; GCI later GIH; Stockholm College of Physical Education and Sports) has been educating PE teachers - and still does. In the very beginning and throughout the first 100 years, gymnastics was a major part of the studies at the institute, and also in ordinary schools. Early gymnastics were invented by Per Henrik Ling, the father of the Swedish Ling gymnastics, and later developed by his son, Hjalmar Ling. The part of the Ling system called pedagogical gymnastics, consisted of “daily gymnastic training exercises”, which showed how gymnastics should be taught and performed.

The aim of this thesis is to follow and describe gymnastics as a subject and its development at the PE teacher-training programme at GCI/GIH. Special attention is placed on the movement part without apparatus (the floor exercise) for male and female students. The time period studied is 1944 to 1992. The thesis consists of two separate empirical studies, with a shared interview study of 12 former teacher educators participating in both studies. Besides the above-mentioned interviews, the methods used are document analyses and visual analyses. Triangulation is used in order to follow the changes of the subject’s content, figuration and representation.

The first empirical study investigates the institution of gymnastics’- collective memory, its content and legitimacy. This is done by looking at what time was allotted to the subject in relation to other subjects, and also which concepts were used in relation to floor exercise. The interviews deal with the objectives of the subject and what kind of influences the former teacher educators came in contact with. From a semiotic approach, the second study deals with visual analyses of film sequences, with floor exercises performed by male and female students. (See enclosed CD). The film material comes from the Institute’s events. The content and composition of the film sequences are analysed, and the representation of the movements is interpreted by semiotic discourse analyses. The interview study deals with the former teacher educators’ pedagogical view of the formation of the gymnastics.

The results show that in 1944 the subject gymnastics took approximately 40% of the total study time. In 1992 the time allocated for gymnastics has been reduced to approximately 9%. From the 1940s to the 1970s, two separate gymnastics discourses existed, one male and one female, expressed in the movement content and in the figuration of movements. The male discourse was maintained almost intact, without any changes. The female discourse, on the other hand, was continually changed and developed over the actual period of time, strongly influenced by rhythmic and dance. When coeducation was implemented in the late 1970s, a new culture of body movements was developed – which was unisex. Between 1949 and1970 in the film material, the masculine discourse was represented by the body image of a systematically trained and disciplined body, executing corrective gymnastics exercises, according to an instrumental way of looking at physical training. The smooth, healthy looking young body image of a woman, executing rhythmical aesthetical gymnastics, according to existing values, characterised the feminine discourse. There seems to have been aesthetics fostering rationality that ruled the female gymnastics. In 1985 the representation of the body image changed, and focus on the performance of the movements disappeared. The objectives of the subject have changed from the collective, corrective and/or aesthetical form of gymnastics to a gymnastic discourse where the attention of simplifying the movements, the individual and the social climate in the group are central.

Finally, the findings show that four factors have influenced the changes and development of the subject and the teacher-training programme. Firstly, changes in society in terms of equality, gender roles and a changed role of the PE teacher. Secondly, the impact of the sport discourse outweighed the status of the gymnastics discourse and its legitimacy. The cultivating values, in terms of the aesthetical schooling for the female students, disappeared. Thirdly, the striving for research-related instructions in the teachertraining programme, (urged by the state from 1977) affected both time allotments for gymnastics and sports and the relation between theoretical and practical courses. Finally, over the years, the subject gymnastics has been strongly influenced by different scientific discourses: first the medical discourse, followed by the physiological discourse and from the1980s and on, by the social scientific (pedagogical) discourse.

In this study, I describe and analyze everyday talk about “special needs children” in the schools as the subject of conditioned negotiations in management meetings at the administrative level. The focus of the analysis is on the talk and interaction in the negotiation rounds that take place among meeting participants – particularly school superintendents and principals – in a continual negotiation from discovery of the problem until the administrative decision.

My theoretical premise is based on discourse analysis, meaning that talk and text are seen as part of the social practice in which language is used to carry out or accomplish something. In the everyday talk they produce, people create order, meaning, and context in their reality. People jointly construct the world through everyday conversation, which also has an impact on how the world can be understood by individuals.

The analytical point of departure is thus talk as action and interaction. I have applied a qualitative approach with tools from discourse analysis. I report and analyze conversation excerpts to show how the negotiation rounds ensue and how meeting participants process, negotiate, and renegotiate what they are talking about, what should be done about the matter at hand, and the import of the action. Order, meaning, and context are created in the meeting participants’ reality in the talk they produce and in the negotiation rounds. The study is a substudy of a research project “School management and administration as discourse and discursive practice – the leading words” (Sundgren, 2001), which is aimed at exploring the meaning of language as a tool for school management and administration in the political and administrative arenas.

Syftet med föreliggande kapitel är att, ur en genealogisk infallsvinkel, problematisera nutidens pedagogiska tänkande genom att studera hur detta spelar in i utbildningssystemet samt i några andra sociala diskurser och praktiker som inte betraktas som pedagogiska i traditionell mening. De områden som vi hämtar våra empiriska exempel från är, förutom lärarutbildning, folkhälsoarbete och brottsförebyggande arbete.

The main purpose of the thesis is: on the basis of an analysis and interpretation of Plato's Dialogues, to describe his personal characteristics in its relation to his pedagogic reality, and, on the basis of these descriptions, to analyse and interpret his teaching methods as a result of two different processes.

The scientific perspectives of the thesis are inspired by hermeneutic philosophy of history and especially by the theories of Paul Ricoeur and Hans-Georg Gadamer. Furthermore, the perspective is grounded on three concepts of pedagogics, by the help of which both explicit and implicit pedagogic processes are analysed. In order to interrelate the interpretations some analytical and interpretational models have been used, based on Ricoeur's mimesis concept and his theory of narrative identity.

The final interpretations maintain that a particular line runs through Plato's teaching, and that its goal is intellectual autonomy and a change in the pupil's whole view of the world, which implies a fusion between intellect and existential experience. This line shows that Plato teaches in both a sensual and spiritual dimension and that these processes, though contrasted, function in parallel. The goal of intellectual autonomy demonstrates how Plato breaks with his culture and by doing so recommends solitude - something quite revolutionary in an age when the group, a strong sense of community and of being one of Us sets its stamp on everyones mentality. An interpretation of the Symposium shows how any change in world view calls for a combination of existential experience and thought. The main principal features in Plato's teaching methods are presented as preparation, change, liberation and wisdom.

The Roma as a minority in the mainstream schools: from a threat to a hope for the future.

The purpose of this study is to investigate, describe and analyse how the relationship between the Romani minority and the Swedish majority has developed from the middle of the 20th century until the present time with regard to the school situation for the Roma. In order to discuss the changes in the relationship between the majority and the Romani minority, it has been important to analyse the concepts of culture and ethnicity, how these concepts have been used to define the Roma, and how, in turn, this definition has influenced how the Roma have been portrayed in the literature.

The study is based on three types of data: texts, interviews and observations, that have been organised to cover three different periods. Three autobiographies and two theses cover the first period, from the middle of the 20th century to the 1970s, when the Roma were allowed into schools. The interviews cover the second period, from the 1970s to the year 2000, when the Roma were recognized as a national minority. The participant observations and the interviews cover the third period that deals with the present and the future with regards to education of the Roma.

An interpretive hermeneutic approach has been used to analyse the data. The analysis takes the school as one order of discourse in which different discourses attempt to dominate. Both ethnicity and culture are discussed in relation to power relationship between the Roma and majority society. A “chain of consequences” approach has been used to analyse the situation of the Roma in schools, where one event in the chain results in certain consequences, for example the Romani child is present in school but without support from school or home. The consequence is school failure and marginalisation.

One of the main themes that emerge from this analysis, is how schools gradually transferred the responsibility for educating the Romani children to the families, thus abdicating their role as providers of academic development. The other theme is how the school took a deficit perspective in relation to the Romani families and, rather than taking responsibility for the education of the Romani children, they blamed the failures on the Romani group and its culture. The study concludes that the institutional discrimination of the Roma and the total exclusion of the Romani culture in school still has far reaching consequences. One of consequences is that, in order to be accepted in school, some of the Romani children begin to undercommunicate their ethnic identity. Since the recognition of the Roma as a national minority, there has been a remobilisation and revitalisation by the group and their demand for more inclusion in education. This thesis suggests an intercultural approach as an alternative i.e., a change of perspective and a revision of the image of Sweden as a monocultural and monolingual nation.

Profession and Existence. A Hermeneutical Study of Asymmetry and Reciprocity in Nurses Encounters with Severely Ill Patients

The purpose of this study is to investigate how nurses constitute themselves in encounters with severely ill suffering patients. The self is understood in existential meaning and it is described and analysed in the context of suffering by means of four research questions: How is the professional self constituted in 1) nurses concepts of being professional 2) nurses concepts of the other, the patient 3) nurses concepts of friendship and love in professional encounters 4) nurses concepts of the body? 14 registered nurses have been interviewed and the texts have been interpreted within a hermeneutic and existential framework, mainly influenced by Paul Ricoeur. When it comes to nurses’ concepts of being professional, the study indicates that there is a tension between the professional, the personal and the private fields of their lives. With the second research question the attention is focused on nurses’ images of patients. The interpretations here evolve in the tension found between nurses’ common concepts of professionalism and of being a patient, and their narrations of actual encounters with patients. The main themes when it comes to love, friendship and profession are proximity and distance and the tension between them. The meaning of the lived body in nurses’ narratives is captured in its most concrete appearance, as a touch.

The interpretations of the study are further discussed by means of three models for how nurses constitute themselves in the encounter with patients. The asymmetric relation between a nurse and a patient characterizes these models. The dissertation argues for a fourth model that emanates from the existential framework of the study and where the asymmetric character of the relation fades out and gives space for reciprocity in the professional encounter.

This dissertation consists of two parts, which are reported on separately, with a combined results discussion.

Part I

The first part consists of empirical studies reported in five scientific articles together with a theoretical and methodological framework. The aim of this work was to explore which aspects are most important regarding supervision of newly graduated chiropractors in Sweden and England. The aim was also to investigate expectations of new patients when consulting a chiropractor, and in a prospective study, assess whether these expectations are related to patient satisfaction or not. Data was collected with questionnaires containing open and closed questions. They were examined using descriptive statistics, interferential statistics, and content analysis.

The main results were that participants agreed that the most important aspect of the clinical activities was to have regular meetings between the chiropractor and the graduate and to explain the patient's problems to them. The most important characteristic to become a good supervisor was that the supervisor is willing to spend time and listen to the graduate throughout the postgraduate training period. It was emphasized that it is the human aspect and the personal relationship between the supervisor and the graduate are important during the graduate's 1-year postgraduate education at the chiropractic clinic.

There are conflicting views as to whether expectations play a role in patient satisfaction. A questionnaire was designed that could be used to identify expectations of patients and their treating chiropractors. Although chiropractors and patients have some common goals in relation to the therapeutic encounter, there is also a mismatch in certain areas. A higher proportion of patients had lesser expectations of the chiropractic treatment when compared to their treating chiropractors. The patients had stronger expectations of being given advice and exercises than the chiropractors. There was also a tendency for the patients to expect to get better faster than the chiropractors expected them to. It is possible that these differences in expectations between the groups influence the treatment and the outcome of the treatment negatively. In the prospective study it was revealed that patients who had their expectations fulfilled were more satisfied compared with those who did not. It therefore seems important for the practitioner to be aware of patients´ expectations and to consider them in his or her treatment plan. This emphasizes the importance of good communication between the chiropractor and their patients in order to increase patient satisfaction.

Part II

After the completion of my articles I realised that there were more to be said. In my results and interpretation of them I saw “signs” of something more. These signs pointed to the fact that professional learning takes place in the interaction between people and in reflection over our practical professional actions. This insight led me into the notion that “we know more than we can tell” and to theories of tacit knowledge, which subsequently made me expand my aim. The new aim centred on a definition of tacit chiropractic knowledge and to which extent this knowledge can be articulated. My interpretation of the results from part I together with new theories made me aware of the importance for graduates to reflect on and articulate their practical actions in examining and treating patients in a supervisory context. It also became clear that there is a parallel process between the supervisor, the graduate and his or her patients, in which the graduate takes over the supervisor’s attitudes and imposes them on his or her patients, which is important for the supervisor to be aware of and influences the graduates learning process. Furthermore, it is probably important for the supervisor to have certain personality traits in order to be a good supervisor. These include a humanistic perspective, empathy and the realisation that the graduate goes through different stages in his or her learning process. The results point towards the necessity to broaden competence for chiropractic supervisors through further education which will generate higher status for the chiropractic profession, better postgraduate education for new chiropractors and, as a consequence, better service for patients.

The study concerns the new educational activities that emerge within the deregulated school system at the beginning of the 21st century. Which ideas guide the work? How is the activity formed? What does one hope to achieve? The aim of the thesis is to explore these educational practices in one of the larges independent schools in Sweden – Kunskapsskolan.

The study was based upon a sociocultural perspective on learning and on twenty situated interviews with seven principals. Tools central for the activity in Kunskapsskolan were used as basis for the interviews. A qualitative analysis has been used; one of the methods for analysis applied is phenomenography.

The study shows how the school, with the help of centrally developed tools, organised the teaching and the environments for learning that were implemented in all schools of the company. Individually organised teaching is the foundation for all teaching, where the students are expected to be self-regulated and self-correcting and use the tools provided for their learning. With regards to the students’ learning, the teachers’ role is mainly related to individual tutorial conversations. Thereby the tools intended to create freedom and control for the students, also create problems and obstacles. Students who do not learn to use the tools have difficulties in managing their studies.

The new tools also affect the teachers’ work. In comparison with other schools, the teachers are expected to submit to the educational model and a centrally controlled planning. The teaching is centrally planned in subject specific stages or subject integrated courses. Teachers can influence the central planning by working collaboratively in teacher teams but not individually. The main commission of the teachers is to follow the educational model decided by the company.

In comparison with the traditional school, both teachers and students are given new roles. When learning is individually organised for the students, the teachers are expected to develop their knowledge collectively. According to the results, both students and teachers have different approaches to the system – they can submit to the system or approach it in a more independent and reflective way.

The role of principals in public education in Sweden has during the last decade been subjected to a number of reforms and structural changes that is without parallel in modern history. For example, the number of principals has doubled, the turnover is considerable and, while in the past being a principal has been an occupation for men, now women are in the majority. The limited Swedish research that has been carried out indicates that principals have multidimensional tasks that are often contradictory. In addition, principals find themselves in a situation where administration dominates at the cost of a more curriculum-based leadership. A majority of these research studies employ a macro-perspective that tends to marginalise the intentions of the actors and the impact of education as a socially-constructed sensemaking process.

This thesis examines the role of the principal. The theoretical framework employed in this study derives from social psychology. Within this framework the role of the principal is perceived to be constructed in the intersection of the different domains of public education. This role is then related to the notion of a public ethos based on sets of democratic values.

The empirical basis of the investigation is a case study of all principals and their superintendent (director of education) in a smaller Swedish municipality. Data was gathered in a number of interviews that extended over a school-year. The results, in short, suggest that the role of principals is being redefined and can in this process be interpreted with different emphases, that the different domains interpret the role of the principal from different rationalities and that goal-steering and related issues get treated more or less as symbolic rituals. These results are then discussed from the point of different discourses and sensemaking processes in education. It is concluded that the role of the principal is constructed in a discursive intersection. This discussion is then contrasted with a view where principals' emotional labour is highlighted and related to the primary processes of schooling and the societal functions of education.

The dissertation What to do and how to be reflects upon the professional skills needed by unit managers and nursing staff within the institutions of eldercare. Throughout the study, three conceptions are essential: formal education and training, professional skills, and individual competence. In order to understand the professional skills within its proper context, an activity perspective has been applied.

The study is based on empirical materials, historical and present national and municipal documents, interviews with and observations of unit managers as well as questionnaires filled in by nursing staff members.

A main result is the stress the respondents put on the importance of individual competence among unit managers and nursing staff members. “How to be” is more important than formal training and professional skills. To work with – and develop – individual competence therefore becomes momentous both to job activities and to education. The result shows a discrepancy between the way professional skills are discussed and the actual work performance. A lot of tasks carried out by unit managers and nursing stuff are never mentioned in connection with professional skills. The unit manager’s task is to lead both unit operations and staff work. Such responsibilities demand basic knowledge in social sciences, an overall understanding of the work activities from political management, job conditions and duties of the nursing staff.

The professional skills given priority are those present in organisations and leadership. Problematic are economic and budget tasks which may sometimes cause unit managers to give up their economic responsibility, favouring client – directed over economy – directed care.

The main task of the nursing staff is the care of elderly. It calls for social, caring, medical and housekeeping skills. For this one needs an upper secondary level education supplying the students with solid knowledge within social science as well as basic medicine and an overall understanding of the situation and needs of the elderly. Throughout the study, knowledge of the demented and of other mental disorders is emphasized as well as treatment of elderly persons suffering from those disorders. Units still have a long way to go before reaching the goal that every nursing staff member be given a formal education. Some municipalities already offer employees shorter nursing staff training. As to the rest, the educational development is neglected.