Disciplinary Literacy and English-Medium Instruction 

In this keynote, I will discuss the concept of disciplinary literacy (Airey, 2011a; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2012) and its usefulness in highlighting issues for consideration when embarking on English-medium instruction. For the purposes of the presentation, I will be using the following definition of disciplinary literacy:The ability to appropriately participate in the communicative practices of a discipline. (Airey, 2011a) I have earlier suggested that the goal of all university teaching is the production of disciplinary literate graduates (Airey, 2011b), but what specifically does being disciplinary literate entail in an EMI setting? Here, I will propose three distinct aspects of disciplinary literacy that I suggest require consideration when embarking on EMI. The first of these aspects is the particular knowledge structure of the discipline at hand (Bernstein, 1999), which has been shown to affect disciplinary attitudes to language use (Airey, 2012; Kuteeva & Airey, 2014). The second aspect of note is the importance of semiotic resource systems other than language (such as mathematics, sketches, diagrams, graphs, gestures, hands-on work with physical tools, etc) in the creation of disciplinary knowledge (Kress, 2009; Airey & Linder 2009). The degree of reliance on these other resource systems necessarily affects the role played by language in the discipline. Finally, I suggest that disciplinary literacy is developed to function within three specific sites: the academy, society and the workplace. This can be conceptualised in terms of a disciplinary literacy triangle (Airey & Larsson, 2018; Airey, 2020). Different disciplines place different emphasis on these three sites, however, it is highly unlikely that the same emphasis needs to be given to each site across different languages (L1 and English for example). I finish the presentation by proposing a disciplinary literacy discussion matrix (Airey, 2011b; 2020) as heuristic tool for disciplinary needs analysis in EMI. 

References

Airey, J. (2011a). Initiating collaboration in higher education: Disciplinary literacy and the scholarship of teaching and learning 57-65.

Airey, J. (2011b). The disciplinary literacy discussion matrix: A heuristic tool for initiating collaboration in higher education. Across the disciplines, 8(3), 1-9.

Airey, J. (2012). I don’t teach language. The linguistic attitudes of physics lecturers in Sweden. AILA Review, 25(25), 64-79.

Airey, J. (2020). The content lecturer and English-medium instruction (EMI): epilogue to the special issue on EMI in higher education. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 23(3), 340-346.

Airey, J., & Larsson, J. (2018). Developing students’ disciplinary literacy? The case of university physics. In Global developments in literacy research for science education (pp. 357-376). Springer, Cham.

Airey, J., & Linder, C. (2009). A disciplinary discourse perspective on university science learning: Achieving fluency in a critical constellation of modes. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 46(1), 27-49.

Bernstein, B. (1999). Vertical and horizontal discourse: An essay. In Education and society (pp. 53-73). Routledge.Kress, G. (2009). Multimodality: A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. Routledge.

Kuteeva, M., & Airey, J. (2014). Disciplinary differences in the use of English in higher education: Reflections on recent language policy developments. Higher education, 67(5), 533-549.

Thinking About English-Medium Instruction: Do We Need Everything Everywhere All at Once? 

Around the world, more and more university courses are being taught in English. Although there are sound economic, social and political reasons for this trend, many questions remain about the pedagogical effects of EMI at university level: How can teachers be prepared for EMI teaching? Will students cope? Are some forms of teaching less suited to EMI? Do different disciplines have different needs? Etc. etc.  In this workshop, I present some of the research I have carried out in Sweden that addresses these questions and make a number of recommendations.  I finish the workshop by proposing a disciplinary literacy discussion matrix (Airey, 2011) as a tool for carrying out disciplinary needs analysis for EMI.  

References

Airey, J. (2011). The disciplinary literacy discussion matrix: A heuristic tool for initiating collaboration in higher education. Across the disciplines, 8(3), 1-9.

As disciplines, undergraduate physics and chemistry leverage a particularly wide range of semiotic systems (modes) in order to create and communicate their scientific meanings. Examples of the different semiotic systems employed are: spoken and written language, mathematics, chemical formulae, graphs, diagrams, sketches, computer simulations, hands-on work with experimental apparatus, computer simulations, etc. Individual semiotic resources within this range of semiotic systems are coordinated in specific constellations (Airey & Linder, 2009) in order to mediate scientific knowledge. In this Swedish Research Council project, we are interested in the representation of scientific phenomena that cannot be seen. The question we pose is: How is scientific knowledge mediated when we cannot directly interact with the phenomena in question through our senses?  We adopt a social semiotic approach (Airey & Linder, 2017; van Leeuwen, 2005), to investigate the ways in which two phenomena—electromagnetic fields and chemical bonds—are presented in undergraduate textbooks. To do this we carried out a semiotic audit (Airey & Erikson, 2019) of eight textbooks (four in each discipline). We note that the individual resources used have a mixture of affordances—whilst the majority retain high disciplinary affordance, others are unpacked (Patron et al. 2021) providing higher pedagogical affordance. We discuss the ways in which the resources have been combined and orchestrated (Bezemer & Jewitt, 2010) in order to attempt to make visible that which is invisible, and identify a number of potential problems. In earlier work, Volkwyn et al. (2019) demonstrated how experimental work with physics devices can make the Earth’s magnetic field accessible to students through chains of transduction. Thus, we propose that encouraging transductions across the semiotic resource systems provided in textbooks may help students to experience the invisible.

References

Airey, J. (2006). Physics students' experiences of the disciplinary discourse encountered in lectures in English and Swedish (Licentiate dissertation, Department of Physics, Uppsala University).

Airey, J. (2009). Science, language, and literacy: Case studies of learning in Swedish university physics (Doctoral dissertation, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis).

Airey, J. (2015). Social Semiotics in Higher Education: Examples from teaching and learning in undergraduate physics. In In: SACF Singapore-Sweden Excellence Seminars, Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research in   Higher Education (STINT) , 2015 (pp. 103). 

Airey, J., & Eriksson, U. (2019). Unpacking the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram: A social semiotic analysis of the disciplinary and pedagogical affordances of a central resource in astronomy. Designs for Learning, 11(1), 99-107.

Goodwin, C. (2015). Professional vision. In Aufmerksamkeit: Geschichte-Theorie-Empirie (pp. 387-425). Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.

O’Halloran, K. (2007). Mathematical and scientific forms of knowledge: A systemic functional multimodal grammatical approach. language, Knowledge and pedagogy: functional linguistic and sociological perspective, 205-236.

Patron, E. (2022). Exploring the role that visual representations play when teaching and learning chemical bonding: An approach built on social semiotics and phenomenography(Doctoral dissertation, Linnaeus University Press).

On the foundation of Multiliteracies presented by The New London Group (Cazden m.fl.1996) that calls for recognising students’ multilingualism and multimodality, this study seeks to explore what beliefs in-service teachers in linguistically diverse classrooms express about usage of multimodal resources for meaning making. This study strives in particular at understanding whether teachers view such usage as beneficial for multilingual students’ learn­ing. In addition, this longitudinal qualitative study inspired of both intervention studies and design-based studies seeks to understand the connections between teachers’ beliefs and professional develop­ment programs. My data consists of six teachers’ beliefs expressed in reflections and in their reported teaching during a year of professional develop­ment. Through content analysis, the results show that all teachers view usage of multimodal meaning making resources as giving extended learning opportunities. Five of the teachers also see extended participation through this usage. A significant result is that the teachers view multimodal meaning making as scaffolding, rather than recognizing multimodal resources as an insepar­­­able part of all communication. Accordingly, the implicit meaning making through multimodal resources for scaffolding understanding seems to be more implemented in their teaching design than explicit teaching of multimodal usage for functional communicative purpose. However, four of the teachers aims at building explicit awareness of multimodal choices and its effects through their teaching design. These results show inter­connections between the professional development to both content and form.

In this chapter I discuss how the concept of taste for science may be used for analysing science learning as situated in a social and cultural context. The concept of taste is grounded in pragmatism research and the works of Pierre Bourdieu and was originally developed as an action-oriented methodology for studying how students’ interest in science transforms through classroom talk and action. Through empirical examples coming from previous classroom studies, this chapter demonstrates how taste can be used for exploring how norms, aesthetics and cognition are transacted when students learn science. As argued in this chapter, the methodology may therefore serve as a tool for studying norms, feelings and emotions as intertwined with, rather than separated from, cognition.

Denna studie fokuserar hur praktiknära forskning kan bidra till att utveckla lärarprofessionens kunskapsbas; genom att undersöka vilka slags kunskapspro-dukter som genereras i didaktisk undervisningsutvecklande forskning där lärare och forskare arbetar tillsammans. Datamaterialet består av vetenskapligt publice-rade artiklar från forskningsmiljön Stockholm Teaching & Learning Studies (STLS). Genom en innehållsanalys har fyra (i−iv) kategorier av kunskapsprodukter identi-fierats: (i) Beskrivningar av kunnanden, (ii) Undervisningsdesign, (iii) Didaktiska exempeloch (iv) Metodologiska redskap. Beskrivningar av kunnandensynliggör vad som kännetecknar kunnanden inom olika ämnesområden. Undervisningsdesign preciserar relationer mellan undervisningens utformning och elevers lärande. Didaktiska exempel innefattar rika beskrivningar av undervisning och elevers lärande som grund för didaktisk reflektion. Metodologiska redskap fokuserar på att kombinera och pröva metoder för planering och analys av undervisning. Resultatet kan ses som en typologi över vilka olika slags kunskaper som praktiknära forskning kan bidra med.

During a relatively short period of time, programming has been implemented in the national curriculum of the compulsory school in Sweden. Since 2018, programming is a new content in the technology subject and the research field has discussed some of the challenges teachers and students, who generally have little experiences of programming, face when programming is introduced in teaching. In this study, we have explored what strategies lower secondary school students (ages 13–15) use when they are programming a robot to follow a curved line in technology education class. Data consists of screen recorded films when students are pair programming a robot. Student talks were transcribed verbatim and analysed using Practical Epistemological Analysis. The analysis revealed three different strategies that the students used when programming the robot: (1) sensor—follow the line, searching for a code that automatically would make the robot to follow the route, (2) sensor—wheels, using codes to create a feedback system between sensor and wheels, and (3) rotations—degrees–wheels, using the position of the robot to stepwise fine tune the movement of the wheels. In line with previous research, the students in our study spent much time discussing, testing, and debugging their code, and our findings contribute by showing how these discussions were aligned with the strategy used. Depending on the strategy, students actively looked for and tested codes affecting different aspects of the sensor-wheel system, such as for example sensor input, power, rotations or turning. Implications for teaching is discussed. 

The aim of the licentiate thesis is to examined a specific structural model in order to support students' exploration of relationships between numbers in additive structures even when negative numbers is included. One intention is that the finding should qualify the teaching and constitute a support when plan and implement teaching regarding equations with additive structure based on algebraic teaching as an alternative to primarily finding a solution with support of rules and procedures. During the study, the students' experiences of the phenomenon relationships between quantities was examined, categorized and described. In the study it was also examined whether and, if so, in what ways a specific structural model was used by students during the work of exploring the structure of equations.

Students from grades 3, 8 and 9 participated in semi-structured interviews and in research lessons. Three groups of teachers and two researchers planned, conducted and revised the research lessons based on the learning study approach.

Phenomenography was the theoretical approach for the initial semi-structured interviews. Variation theory and learning activity were the theoretical frameworks for the research lessons where Davydov's curriculum was a source of inspiration.

In order to achieve the aim, the following research questions were formulated:

1) What different ways of experiencing the phenomenon of relationships between quantities can be discerned in student interviews?

2) In what ways do students use a specific structural model to explore equations?

The first research question is answered in Article 1, which shows that students experience relationships between quantities as something to be calculated or something to be related. The second research question is answered in Article 2, which shows that students used the specific structural model examined in the study as a form to fill in alternatively as a learning model and a tool to identify the part-whole structure between numbers in an equation and to choose appropriate operation to find the unknown number.

The findings show the possibility, but also the challenge, of introducing an algebraic teaching with a focus on analysis and theoretical reasoning also for students with experiences from an alternative background.

The aim of the article is to highlight whether, and if so in what ways, a selected model can constitute support when students explore mathematical structures in equations. The article is based on an empirical research study where students explored mathematical structures with support by the model, which is intended to visualize structures. Teachers and researchers worked in a collaborative and interventional study in iterative processes. A total of 149 students from compulsory school grades 3, 8 and 9 participated in video recorded research lessons based on the research approach learning study. The lessons were designed with inspiration from the framework of learning activity and the students were challenged in a theoretical work. The analysis was performed on the basis of a thematic approach and two qualitatively different core themes were identified: Template respectively Learning model. In the analysis, it emerged that the teaching has to be challenging enough for the students to find the model meaningful. The teaching needs to enable students to discern relationships between all numbers in an equation, where the relationships can be described as a part-whole structure.

The article examines how students in Swedish upper secondary apprenticeship education contribute to the shaping of their education through their choices and actions in relation to work-based learning. Activity theory and the notion of interacting activity systems was used to emphasise the students’ perspective as active subjects. Data was collected through observations and interviews with 15 students in their second year of an apprenticeship. An initial qualitative content analysis revealed a pattern of actions that related to both school and work. The result of this analysis was further elaborated with activity theoretical concepts. Thereby dominating rules/norms and tools they made use of, contributed to identifying three potential objects for students’ actions: grades in vocational subjects, development of vocational skills, and inclusion in the workplace community. Depending on what objects the students held as superior and subordinate different outcomes could be achieved – an upper secondary vocational degree, development of vocational skills, and/or being employed while studying. One object did not necessarily exclude the others. It is concluded that the multiple expectations from students, school, and workplaces that coexist in relation to work-based learning need to be continuously communicated among all participants to strengthen the students’ possibility to achieve their desired educational outcome.

In this instrumental exploratory case study, students on the second largest programme in upper secondary school in Sweden, the Business Management and Economics Programme, were interviewed about what obstacles they believe they encountered when studying the second mathematics course. A first level of analysis, using a constant comparison method, resulted in 19 different obstacles. The seven obstacles that were uttered by the highest proportion of students were: new content, more difficult, more work needed, new tests, faster pace, online school and problems prioritising. In a second level of analysis, an axial coding, the codes were grouped into five larger categories: advanced mathematics, managing workload, novel teaching, emotion and assessment. The category that were uttered by the highest proportion of students was advanced mathematics which contained the obstacles new content, more difficult and faster pace. This study offers a base of knowledge about what obstacles students themselves express that they experience and the character of these obstacles. 

Det finns många olika aktörer som engagerar sig i skolans undervisning i naturvetenskap och teknik – inte minst från industrin. I denna artikel presenterar vi resultat från vårt forskningsprojekt som visar att detta kan innebära intressekonflikter mellan privata och allmänna intressen. Vi presenterar även ett ramverk från samma projekt som kan fungera som stöd för lärare för att göra didaktiska överväganden kring denna typ av undervisningsresurser.

This article reports from a study of what messages concerning industry–society–environment are communicated to secondary students when they participate in webinars with representatives from the petrochemical industry. The webinars are conceptualised as part of an arena for governing science education and the messages as companion meanings. Empirically, the study is set in a context of online webinars on the topic of careers in the petrochemical industry. The webinars target students across the European Union (EU). The analysis reveals two main themes of companion meanings concerning what relations between industry–society–environment are communicated: a) the petrochemical industry as safeguarding modern life, and b) the petrochemical industry as essential for the solving of environmental problems. The companion meanings conveyed are not at all neutral but instead a means to influence the attitudes and choices of young people. The themes are discussed in relation to the overall democracy and citizenship aims of education. That the webinars claim to address the topic of careers and that they are part of an initiative sanctioned by a governmental authority (the EU) might contribute to teachers and students lowering their guard in relation to potentially biased messages. 

Dansdidaktik kan utgå ifrån att dans är ett sätt att skapa rörelsemedvetenhet och koreografier, men också en möjlighet att dela med sig av kunskap, fantasier, traditioner och livet i stort. Forskning visar hur dans kan skapa meningsfullhet, ökad rörelsemedvetenhet, självkänsla och gruppsammanhållning för elever.

This paper argues that the Queering the Science Museum tour series (2018) provides an example of a conceptual pathway for translating queer tour guiding approaches found in socio-historical and arts museums into STEMM spaces. I use participatory methods and qualitative and quantitative participant data to reflect on my work on the tours in the context of wider practices of tour-guided interventions. I highlight how the Queering the Science Museum tours, at the Science Museum, London, moved beyond existing models of queer engagement in socio-historic and arts museums by introducing an explicitly critically queer approach to science and technology, which has the potential to expand the possibility of queer interventions in museums generally. I close by examining the limitations of tour-as-intervention for change within the museum, while exposing the tensions around how resolving such issues would challenge queer theory’s call for rejecting the making of queer ‘normal’ within displays.

On July 20, 2021, Sotheby’s, the storied centuries-old auction house, promised collectors the Moon—or at least the chance to bid on items involved in getting there. Among the eighty-seven lots up for sale was an Apollo Guidance Computer. This metallic box, designed by MIT’s Instrument Laboratory and produced by Raytheon starting in 1966, was an essential tool for navigating the lunar surface and an important forerunner of modern computing. Sotheby’s estimated that this celebrated artifact—frequently studied not only in space history but also in the history of technology—would fetch between $200,000 and $300,000 USD. But when the auctioneer’s hammer hit the lectern, the price had skyrocketed to $746,000 USD. Other items on the block that day included a lunar surface checklist used by Neil Armstrong (sold for $63,000 USD) and Richard Feynman’s personal notes from the Challenger disaster investigation (sold for $44,100 USD). In case there was any doubt, Sotheby’s...

The aim of this licentiate thesis is to explore the sociomaterial relationality of music composition education with digital hardware/software and its outcomes. Two studies were conducted interleaved as original articles in the thesis. Article 1 explores learning in creational processes involving digital actants and two composers of contemporary art music. The posthumanist concept of the cyborg is enacted as a signifier for learning and becoming in relation with material actants. An interview with a composer and music application creator is analysed through a constructed posthumanist narrative entangled with the researcher’s narrative of a music creation process involving the app. Also, the app’s meaning-making capacities are entangled in the narrative. Results show that alignments between human and nonhuman actants constitute a part of learning in music composing practices. Artefacts move from being evident and present to becoming transparent and in a background relation during a learning process.

In article 2 a composing assignment conducted in four year 9 classes in a Swedish compulsory school is explored. Employing the posthumanist concept compositionism as a research approach, educational activities are composed into assemblages of actants performing the outcomes of the activities. Results bring the human/nonhuman actants as hybrid originators of outcomes to the fore. Learning with digital actants also showed to be hardware/software specific when past experiences of music composing were limited, with the risk of reducing pupils to intermediaries of information between functions in the digital software.

In the summarising parts of this compilation thesis, a background of the research field of didaktik and subject didaktik is delineated. Also, the distinction between didactics and didaktik is discussed and the reason for employing the Swedish/German spelling is explicated. Furthermore, a background of composing and music creation as subject matter in the Swedish school system is drawn. Theoretical and methodological approaches are further developed in the summarising parts. Posthumanism as theoretical onset has a profound impact on understandings of relationality within educational activities and on how materiality is affecting learning. Methodological approaches are actuated in relation to the research material to find new meanings of sociomaterial relationality in music education.

As one outcome of reading the results from the studies through posthumanism, the tentative term postdidaktik is proposed and discussed. Following the ontological turn of posthumanism that re-entangles human with nature and matter, postdidaktik becomes an implication for understanding learning in sociomaterial relationality. This also affects an understanding of didaktik as lesson planning, enactment, and analysis. The practical employment of postdidaktik is thus further delineated and proposed for further research.

This article aims to explore the sociomaterial relational activities within digital music composition education via the posthumanist concepts compositionism and assemblage. The study is an attempt at a nonlinear and non-reductivist understanding of educational activities where matter, nature and culture shape performative practices. Engaging with Latour and Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and its onto-epistemological manifest as compositionism the explorations also find impetus from posthumanist thinking, Barad’s intra-action, Haraway’s becoming-with and post-qualitative inquiry. Four year 9 classes in a Swedish compulsory school took part in the composing activity and the research intervention. During a four-week participation period the music composition lessons were video-recorded. Sociomaterial transcriptions of the recorded lessons were transformed into assemblage compositions to explore the outcomes and becomings that emerged. What these sociomaterial compositions brings to the fore is the hybridity of digital music composition outcomes in learning activities. 

Digital technology for musical purposes creates new means for embodiment and expressions of music. The aim of this article is to explore a non-linear digital music composition application in relation to two composers active in the field of contemporary art music. Drawing on the posthumanist ontological turn the study offers a sociomaterial understanding of learning practices. The empirical material consists partly of an interview with Jesper Nordin, a composer and music/composition application creator who is active in the contemporary art music field. In addition, the author’s own a/r/tographical exploration together with the iPad application called Gestrument, for compositional purposes constitutes a part of the material. The generated material was analysed through a posthumanist narrative, constructed and presented as entangled stories of learning/becoming in relation with the digital actant Gestrument, with human and nonhuman actants in a wider sense. The results introduce a discussion on the implications a posthumanist sociomaterial understanding can have for music education practices. For example, the composition here becomes relata, it is diffracted to multiple becomings in relation to different interpreters, musicians, traditions, compositions and so forth. When employed for the purpose of composition as an activity within music education, digital hardware/software can offer multiple ways of intra-acting with music, other ways than via common musical instruments, and by that differentiate the process of conceptualizing subjective ideas in multiple directions, emphasizing diffraction and relationality. In this understanding of music creation as relational and fluid, the employment of specific digital actants seems to help corroborate modes of conceptualizing music, but also act as a partner of renewal as well as a sounding board for musical ideas.

De nationella proven i matematik 1a och 1b konstrueras och utvecklas, på uppdrag av Skolverket, av PRIM-gruppen vid Stockholms universitet. I denna rapport presenteras en sammanställning och diskussion av resultaten för de nationella proven i matematik 1a och 1b som gavs vårterminen 2022.

Det huvudsakliga syftet med rapporten är att redovisa och diskutera resultaten från genomförandet av dessa prov utifrån den revidering av ämnesplanen som genomförts. Resultatredovisningen från vårterminens nationella prov i matematik 1a och 1b kommer från PRIM-gruppens urvalsinsamling och bestod av lärarenkäter och inrapporterade resultat på uppgiftsnivå från ett slumpmässigt urval elever. PRIM-gruppens urvalsinsamling för matematik 1a omfattade vårterminen 2022 elever från olika yrkesprogram och för matematik 1b elever från samhällsvetenskapsprogrammet, ekonomiprogrammet, estetiska programmet och humanistiska programmet.

Skolverket genomför enbart insamling av provbetyg på nationella prov för elevers avslutande matematikkurs i gymnasieskolan det vill säga för elever från de olika yrkesprogrammen som slutfört matematik 1a och för elever från estetiska och humanistiska programmet som slutfört matematik 1b. Resultaten från lärarenkäterna och elevresultaten på uppgiftsnivå är viktiga källor för analys och utvecklingen av de nationella proven. För matematik 1a bestod insamlingen från vårterminen 2022 av resultat från ca 600 lärare och ca 4 000 elever (ca 1 600 flickor respektive ca 2 400 pojkar) och för matematik 1b ca 550 lärare och ca 4 300 elever (ca 2 600 flickor respektive ca 1 700 pojkar).

Resultatrapporten är uppdelad i två delrapporter. Detta är den andra delrapporten och den består av analyser av elevers prestationer på ett urval av uppgifter utifrån ett antal elevarbeten. Den första delrapporten innehåller resultat från prov och lärarenkäter. 

Barns möte med skolan innebär också ett möte mellan det vardagsspråk barnen blivit kompetenta språkbrukare i och skolspråket som de kan vara mer eller mindre främmande inför. Eftersom språket är människans viktigaste redskap för meningsskapande och skolans ämnen konstitueras av språket kommer eleverna under skolåren behöva bli medvetna om att olika sammanhang i skolan kräver olika språkbruk. I detta forskningsprojekt studeras språkets roll för utvecklingen av naturvetenskapligt lärande. Syftet med studien är att på makro- och mikronivå undersöka hur lärare ämnesmässigt och språkligt stöttar yngre (6-10 år) andraspråksutveckling i skolans naturvetenskapliga ämnen och vilken betydelse denna stöttning har för elevernas språk- och kunskapsutveckling i naturvetenskap. Med makronivå avses de stöttande aktiviteter läraren redan från början planerat och integrerat i undervisningen och med mikronivå avses den mer spontana interaktion som uppstår mellan lärare-elev och elev-elev under dessa aktiviteter. Projektet löper under två år där det första året (ht 08-vt09) är ett forskningsår då material samlas in i olika klasser från förskoleklass till årskurs 4. Datainsamlingen består av observationer när barn deltar i naturvetenskapliga aktiviteter i klassrummet, ljud- och videoinspelningar. fotografier, samtal med lärare och elever samt insamling av lärarplaneringar, elevarbeten och läromedelstexter. Under det andra året (ht09-vt10) möts deltagande lärare från insamlingsåret och forskarna i en aktiionsforskningsgrupp. Denna fas innebär att det insamlade materialet presenteras för lärarna och att analysen av stöttningen ur makro- och mikroperspektiv återkopplas och diskuteras. Resultatet av denna analys och diskussion förväntas leda till en uppsättning "mer framgångsrika" sätt att stötta elevers utveckling i de naturvetenskapliga ämnena som lärarna i denna fas prövar i sina respektive elevgrupper. Genom interaktionen i aktionsforskningsgruppen planerar varje lärare nya aktiviteter i sin elevgrupp, observerar och reflekterar över skeendet samt återför sina reflektioner till gruppen. Forskarna medverkar även detta andra år ute i klasserna med ytterligare materialinsamlingar för att dokumentera utvecklingen. I presentationen ges exempel på hur lärare och elever konstruerar mening under lektioner i naturvetenskap. Det insamlade materialet kommer att analyseras med utgångspunkt i Hallidays (1975) registervariabler field, tenor och mode kopplat till praktiska epistemologier (Wickman & Östman, 2002) och lärares epistemologiska drag (moves) (Lidar, Lundqvist & Östman, 2005) samt jämföras med Lemkes tematiska mönster (1990).

Denna studie syftar till att upptäcka mellanstadieelevers läsengagemang av skönlitteratur i svenskundervisningen. Studiens fokus ligger på lärares erfarenheter av och elevers inställning till läsning utifrån ett genusperspektiv. Vidare uppmärksammas lärares val av metoder i undervisningen för att skapa engagemang i läsningen. Studiens teoretiska utgångspunkter är en kombination av Reading Engagement Theory (Guthrie m.fl., 1996) och Expectancy Value Theory (Kuhn m.fl., 2022) som erhåller kunskaper om faktorer som påverkar läsengagemang. En ytterligare teoretisk utgångspunkt är teorin om lärarkognition (Öztürk, 2021) som berör hur lärares värderingar, kunskaper, tänkande och erfarenheter påverkar deras didaktiska arbete. Insamlade data består av enkätsvar från 65 mellanstadieelever och transkriberingar från semistrukturerade intervjuer med tre svensklärare på mellanstadiet. Studiens kvantitativa data presenteras i form av diagram. Den kvalitativa datan analyseras genom en teoridriven tematisk analys. Resultatet i studien visar inga större skillnader i flickors och pojkars läsning. Däremot uppger lärarna att eleverna generellt läser mindre i böcker idag än för några år sedan. Vidare visar resultatet att samtliga lärare arbetar aktivt med att skapa läsengagemang, där exempelvis konsten att välja rätt bok och uppmuntrande samtal om läsning ingår. Emellertid påverkas lärarnas arbetsmetoder och val av böcker av deras tidigare erfarenheter och kunskaper. En slutsats i studien är att flickors och pojkars läsengagemang inte skiljer sig lika mycket som tidigare studier inom området antyder men att flickor och pojkar läser i skilda sammanhang och för olika syften. En ytterligare slutsats är att de under de senaste åren skett en förskjutning från läsning i böcker till läsning på digitala plattformar.

I denna studie analyseras fem högstadielärares uppfattningar om grammatikundervisning i engelska. Syftet är att undersöka och belysa lärarnas syn på grammatikundervisning och deras uppfattning om styrdokumentens påverkan.

Fem halvstrukturerade intervjuer har genomförts. Ansatsen har varit att analysera materialet utifrån en fenomenologisk ansats och tolka resultatet med hjälp av relevanta etablerade teorier och begrepp sprungna ur forskning om språkundervisning och språkinlärning.

Det insamlade och analyserade materialet består av intervjuer och en genomgång av gällande styrdokument för engelska på högstadiet. Resultatet visar att uppfattningar om, och omfattning av, grammatikundervisning skiljer sig åt mellan de intervjuade lärarna.

Studien söker ingen generaliserbarhet, främst på grund av studiens omfattning men även dess fenomenologiska ingång. Vidare redovisar studien att styrdokumenten lämnar stort utrymme för lärarnas egna tolkningar av grammatikens roll i engelskundervisningen. Det kan förklara orsaken till de många olika undervisningssätt och metoder som de intervjuade lärarna i denna studie använder sig av. Vidare kan konstateras att lärarnas personliga inställning till grammatik förefaller ha relativt stor betydelse för vilket utrymme den ges i undervisningen och hur undervisningen utformas.

This review provides an account of salient research topics in current Swedish research in the field of foreign language (FL) education, with the aim of making locally published work available outside Sweden. A corpus of work on English and other FLs published between 2012 and 2021 has been scrutinized. Focus has been placed on research conducted and disseminated in Sweden, in some cases adding international publications, in order to portray the work in a wider context. Research on FL learning, teaching, and assessment is reviewed in light of recent policy changes as well as a changing linguistic situation characterized by a plethora of languages spoken in society, among which Swedish as majority language and English as lingua franca share indisputable sovereignty, but where a newly-born interest in the role of other background languages than Swedish can be discerned. The study ends with a discussion of trends observed in the reviewed material and considerations in view of future research.

I den här uppsatsen undersöks pedagogiskt drama som del av Språkintroduktionsprogrammet ur ett elevperspektiv. Målet med undersökningen är att bidra till mer empirisk kunskap om användandet av drama i andraspråksundervisning. Studien har en etnografisk ansats och bygger på deltagande observationer samt intervjuer med elever. Undersökningen utgår från ett sociokulturellt och multimodalt perspektiv (Cope & Kalantzis, 2009) på andraspråksinlärning. Vidare appliceras transformativ multilitteracitetspedagogik (Cummins 2009) med fokus på begreppet identitetstext vilket rör möjligheter för elever att använda sina egna erfarenheter i undervisning (Cummins 2006; 2009). Slutligen anläggs ett rumsligt perspektiv (Sheehy & Leander, 2004), och teatern, där dramaundervisningen sker, ses utifrån rumslig teori som ett materiellt, socialt och symboliskt rum. Resultaten visar att det finns elever som upplever en ökad möjlighet till kommunikation under dramaundervisningen, att eleverna kan stötta varandra och att stora möjligheter till situerat och multimodalt lärande finns på teatern. Dessa elever upplever också större möjligheter till att kunna uttrycka sig själva, bli lyssnade på och slappna av. Vissa elever upplever dock dramaundervisningen som för lekfull och oseriös samt ser tiden på teatern som slöseri med tid. De upplever att tiden bättre hade kunnat användas till klassrumsundervisning. Det framkommer genom intervjuerna att teatern materiellt och socialt utgör ett friare rum för eleverna, men att eleverna attribuerar olika symboliska värden till denna frihet och teatern, vilket kan kopplas till hur de upplever dramaundervisningen.

The objective of this study has been to investigate the beliefs of Swedish middle school teachers in supporting the development of students’ reading comprehension of literature. The study is based on two central research questions that include what motivates teachers in choosing literature for reading comprehension instruction as well as considerations of reading strategy instruction aimed towards developing the reading comprehension of Swedish middle school students in grades 4 – 6. The theoretical basis of the study is grounded in teacher cognition regarding teachers’ beliefs in addition to reader-response theory as it relates to methods of literature reading comprehension instruction. The study method consists of directed qualitative content analysis of semi-structured interviews with six teachers alongside document analysis of teaching materials used by the informants. Teachers were selected to emulate a representative sample of the teacher population with a variation in professional experience. The results show a consensus among teachers in the literature selection criteria that involve appropriate language complexity in addition to opportunities for students to appeal to and identify with familiar thematic content. Furthermore, personal experiences and interests influence teachers in the literature selection process. Moreover, the results indicate that the teachers make use of a content-focused approach and that reading strategies are applied to a varying extent in reference to influential instructional models, professional experience as well as school structures. The teachers convey insecurities in providing adequate equal support for students, which demonstrates a need for improved structural professional development. Suggestions for future research in reading strategies instruction development are also discussed.

Drawing on autobiographical essays written by master's students in mathematics preparing to become teachers, we investigate what mathematical identity these students articulate and how. By means of a discursive thematic analysis centered on the notion of ascesis, we show that the participants' identity revolves around a characterization of mathematics as a challenging, useful, and comforting activity or knowledge, which is however regarded negatively by others. Indeed, mathematics is described as a uniquely challenging activity which requires an increasingly demanding self-discipline. Moreover, mathematics is depicted as a variously useful form of knowledge which is additionally capable to offer comfort to those who engage with it. However, the participants often remark that other people regard mathematics negatively, a fact explained by stressing others' inability or unwillingness to understand or appreciate mathematics' inherent positive features. This sets the boundary of an ideal club of math enthusiasts whose elitist membership is regulated in terms of acceptance or refusal of its constitutive values. Belonging to the club as well as proselytizing in order to recruit new members appears to be central to the participants' mathematical identity.

Breaking the class ceiling? A case study of a university mathematics student from a non-academic background. In this paper we report from a case study of a student from non-academic background, who has continued on to study mathematics in higher education. Bourdieu’s concepts of capital, habitus, and field were used to analyse the student’s trajectory into university mathematics, with a particular focus on mathematics specific capital. Data was collected through classroom observations and three semi-structured interviews, over a period of three years. The analysis showed how the student acquired mathematics capital by acting as an informal teaching assistant, thus receiving recognition from both peers and teachers for his mathematical abilities. The longitudinal interviews also demonstrated how the student has continuously been able to expand his social capital related to mathematics and science. We argue that it is important for higher education researchers and teachers to consider disciplinary specific capital, and also to provide students with opportunities to acquire such capital.

This study aims to investigate the role of metaphor in the teaching and learning of mathematics. Two different studies help to fulfil this aim.

The first study involves a configurative literature review of empirical mathematics education research where two interpretations of the metaphor concept are applied: conceptual metaphor and extraneous metaphor, with the purpose of distinguishing patterns in metaphor concept use. The analysis found explicit, vague, or absent theoretical definitions of the metaphor concept as well as several metaphor examples, and generated three categories of concept use: 1) Conceptual metaphor, 2) Extraneous metaphor, and 3) Potentially conceptual/extraneous. The review stresses the need for a theoretical and empirical distinction between different types of metaphors, to sharpen the analytical tools available to researchers and, by extension, to more clearly highlight the specific function of metaphor in teachers’ classroom work.

The second study examines the presence of three conceptual metaphors as the basis for rational numbers as fractions in Swedish textbooks for years 1–3 and which aspects of fractions are distinguished in the student responses required in these books. The results are related to process-object theory (Sfard, 1991), intending to discern the different degrees of reification of the mathematical objects that hypothetically have the opportunity to develop with the help of these metaphors. The results show, in three of the book series, an abundance of labelling exercises related to the metaphor Arithmetic is object construction, mainly with images of geometric shapes. One book series reversely introduces fractions with The measuring stick metaphor and Arithmetic is motion along a path, with representations of number lines in focus. All in all, there is a significant variation between the textbooks, which could have consequences for instruction.

This thesis shows the importance of theoretically distinguishing conceptual metaphor from extraneous metaphor, and of understanding their different roles in a teaching and learning context. The thesis also shows how the conceptual metaphors underlying the mathematical concepts describe different aspects of these concepts and that several conceptual metaphors need to be taken into account, together with a consideration of different degrees of reification of the mathematical objects. In addition, the thesis shows that metaphors, as they are understood in Conceptual metaphor theory, point to similar conceptual and discursive processes that can be found in Sfard’s (1991, 2008) more established theories on mathematical conceptualisation.

In this review, metaphor is seen as an essential phenomenon for conceptualisation in mathematical teaching and learning. The aim of this review is to discern some patterns in concept use concerning metaphor, within 25 empirical mathematics education research papers, guided by two perspectives on metaphor; conceptual metaphor and extraneous metaphor. The analysis found explicit, vague or absent theoretical definitions of the metaphor concept as well as several metaphor examples, generating three categories of concept use; conceptual metaphor, extraneous metaphor, and potentially conceptual/extraneous. The review stresses the need for a theoretical and empirical distinction between different types of metaphors, in order to sharpen the analytical tools available to researchers and, by extension, to more clearly highlight the specific function of metaphor in teachers’ classroom work.

This study examines the presence of three conceptual metaphors for fractions – The measuring stick metaphor, Arithmetic is motion along a path, and Arithmetic is object construction – in four common and popular Swedish mathematics textbook series for years 1–3. I analyse the introduction of fractions and the kinds of tasks students are given in these books. The results show an abundance of labelling exercises related to Arithmetic is object construction, with representations of geometric shapes, in three of the book series. One book series reversely introduces fractions with The measuring stick metaphor and Arithmetic is motion along a path, with a focus on number line representations. The consequences of these variations in fraction introduction and treatment are discussed in relation to previous research and to process-object theories.

Att utveckla elevers förmåga att skapa texter är ett område som av tradition kopplas till svenskämnet. Samtidigt vet vi att elever skapar olika former av text i de flesta av skolans ämnen. Forskning har också visat att elever utvecklar såväl förmågan att skapa funktionella texter som ämneskunskaper genom att få arbeta med text i skolans olika ämnen på ett meningsfullt sätt.

Textskapande i grundskolan beskriver ett perspektiv på textskapande som har fokus på texters funktion. I boken visar författarna hur textundervisningen kan organiseras i klassrummet och hur läraren kan stötta eleverna i arbetsprocessen. Med hjälp av tankar och modeller som utgår från forskning och beprövad erfarenhet presenterar de förhållningssätt som låter lärare skapa en funktionell skrivundervisning tillsammans med sina elever. En sådan undervisning är inriktad på elevernas möjlighet att kommunicera erfarenheter i de texter som de skapar och därmed utveckla sin identitet som kunnig.

Boken riktar sig till såväl studenter inom lärarutbildningen som till lärare i grundskolans olika årskurser och ämnen.

This article takes its point of departure in the recommendations by the Council of Europe, and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) that recommend that European states should offer education about religions for all school students, regardless of religious or non-religious background. Sweden is one of the countries that provides such education through a compulsory non-denominational religion education (RE) school subject. The compulsory nature of the school subject is possible as long as the teaching is both ‘objective and pluralistic’. In this article, the concept of objectivity but also neutrality is discussed, using the Swedish school subject as an example. The argument pursued is that RE in Sweden, although presented as objective and neutral, also can be understood as ‘marinated’ in Lutheran Protestantism. In the end, the protestant taste of the Swedish non-denominational and compulsory RE is used as a call for further awareness of how the religious history of a given country affects not only education but also the way people perceive the phenomena called religion. These are important perspectives not only for RE teachers who are demanded to teach in a neutral and objective manner, but perhaps also for lawyers?

This thesis explores obstacles to students’ learning of the limit of a function as students learn the concept in post-compulsory schools in two culturally different contexts, namely Sweden and Ethiopia. The study investigates obstacles to students’ learning of the intuitive limit concept (the limit concept that is based on the intuitive definition) taught in upper secondary schools of these two contexts and characterises the nature of these obstacles. Additionally, the study compares the obstacles identified in the two contexts.

The study uses a collective instrumental case study approach. Data were collected through teacher interviews before and after lessons, lesson observations, student group interviews, and analysis of textbooks and official documents such as curricula and syllabi.

The study employed an eclectic conceptual framework that considers the mathematical content, the didactical aspects (teaching) and the students. The study identifies three main categories of obstacles: epistemological obstacles (EOs) arising from the nature of the mathematical concept of limit and other concepts important in limits, didactical obstacles (DOs) arising from teaching practices, and cognitive obstacles (COs) arising from incompatibilities between what is encountered in the lessons and students’ previous knowledge. Within each category, the study lists specific obstacles within each case and then compares and contrasts these. The analysis reveals the dependence of some obstacles on the culture of teaching and the context, particularly DOs and COs. The study also highlights the interplay between different specific obstacles and how the presence of one obstacle can contribute to the occurrence of another. Some of the interplays between some of the specific obstacles seem more common in one of the contexts than the other. For example, in the Swedish case, it was more common that the didactical choices acted on the epistemological obstacles in such a way that didactical obstacles were generated, which then played a role in the occurrence of some cognitive obstacles. This was summarised symbolically as EO→D→DO→CO. On the contrary, in the Ethiopian case, it was more common that the didactical choices impacted on how students understood an idea, which then resulted in the occurrence of cognitive obstacles. This was summarised symbolically as EO→D→C→CO. Thus, the study finds that EOs can be reinforced by the didactical choices reflected in the teaching. Furthermore, the specific EO can have different sources and triggers in the two contexts.

Considering two culturally different contexts, this study sheds light on the obstacles to students’ understanding of the limit of a function in their learning of the concept. It highlights the influence of the culture of teaching and the context dependence of obstacles, providing insights into how the nature of the concept, teaching practices, and students’ prior knowledge impact on their learning. The study’s findings contribute to filling the gap in previous research of a lack of evidence concerning the interplay between the three forms of obstacles, the role of teaching culture and context on the occurrence of obstacles, and classroom-based comparative studies on the teaching and learning of the limit concept and calculus. The result of the study may also contribute to informing teaching practice and to the development of teaching strategies and curriculum design for improving students’ understanding of the limit concept and other mathematical concepts in general.

De senaste kursplanerna i bild i Lgr11 och Lgr22 betonar ämnets betydelse för elevernas deltagande i samhället och den roll bilder spelar i vardagen. Förändringen i kursplanen gör bildämnet till ett mer samhällsorienterat kommunikationsämne, från att tidigare varit konstbetonat. Men forskning visar att det finns en skillnad mellan lärarnas intentioner och elevernas förståelse av bildundervisning.

Most salient financial literacy frameworks and curricula mainly focus on teaching and learning of simple money management. However, the financial demands placed on individuals today include much more complicated matters, such as buying a home and saving for retirement. Furthermore, financial literacy gives rise to normative questions such as what responsibility should be placed on individuals. In educational terms, this creates an alignment problem where the hopes and expectations placed in financial literacy as mass-education is not met by desirable results. This article uses previous results and the construct of powerful knowledge to discuss how financial literacy education in upper secondary school can benefit from an incorporation into social studies, which is an existing school subject in many educational systems. Findings include that teachers can utilize their existing teaching competence to also teach financial literacy. However, to accomplish results, both curricula and syllabi must guide teachers to abandon the focus on money management to instead focus on teaching students concerning the financial, economic and political issues that affect personal finances, yet at the same time can be affected by democratic decisions. Implications for financial literacy teaching and learning are discussed using the concept Powerful Financial Literacy.

Purpose: To explore student’s understandings of financial literacy and economics issues with an aim to inform future teaching designs.

Design/methodology/approach: Phenomenography and variation theory has been used to analyze students’ understanding of a concept found in both financial and economic contexts, namely value.

Findings: Students need to discern that value is attributed, related to scarcity and to other values in order to elaborate their understanding. Thus, teaching also needs to address these issues.

Research implications: A social science framing of financial literacy and economics can facilitate a teaching that aims for the development of students’ critical thinking and future ability to make informed choices

Laborativa moment är centrala inslag i grundskolans och gymnasiets naturvetenskapliga undervisning. Denna artikel presenterar några exempel på aktiviteter inom forskningsplattformen Stockholm Teaching & Learning Studies, STLS.

Utbildningen ska vila på vetenskaplig grund, men vad innebär det i praktiken? På Kunskapsskolan i Norrköping har en struktur för forskningsmässiga undervisningsutvecklande projekt tagits fram och prövats. Denna struktur har etablerats genom ett långsiktigt projekt under namnet Didaktiskt djup. Kärnan i projektet har varit att varje ämneslag identifierat undervisningsutmaningar och därefter använt vetenskapliga metoder för att bättre förstå dessa utmaningar.  

I denna antologi, som består av fyra delar, presenteras först strukturen kring Didaktisk djup. I den andra delen presenteras respektive ämneslags identifierade undervisningsutmaningar och vad ämneslagen kommit fram till. I den tredje delen presenteras utmaningar och möjligheter, beskrivet av lärare, externa handledare och skolledning. I den fjärde och avslutande delen förs en diskussion kring centrala frågor som återkommit och behandlats under projektets gång. Det handlar om balansen mellan en smal forskningsfråga och det breda läraruppdraget och balansen mellan lärares individuella professionsutveckling och utvecklingen av den gemensamma professionens kunskapsbas. Förhoppningsvis kan detta bidra med perspektiv och bättre förutsättningar för den skola som vill utveckla undervisningen på vetenskaplig grund. 

In this article, we undertake a narrative analysis of social science teaching in Swedish upper secondary school as a case study. In doing so, we want to stress the need to pay attention to the contextual and situated limits and openings of the conceivable repertoire of legitimate stories of social science in the Swedish context and its related research. The students’ attempts at sense making and action in encounters with the subject matter content, approached in terms of emplotments, render visible to what extent and in what ways the students insert cultural narratives into the subject matter teaching repertoire through their own subject storytelling. Furthermore, it indicates the limits and openings of social science teaching as predetermined “truth telling”, that is, as already-established socio-political knowledge repertoires.

In focusing on students’ unique, situated and collective interweaving of their “own” experiences with established cultural and political knowledge repertoires, we wish to make a case for the potential to renew society and students’ ways of acting and being in this storytelling. If meagre attention is provided to this interweaving, we argue that there is a danger that the renewal of society and of social science education will get lost, or at least disturbed, in an undesirable way.

typer av representationer från den konkreta till mer abstrakta delar av kemi, öka studenternas kompetenser. Undervisningen med representationer på olika nivåer utgår från en makroskopisk verklighet som kan beskrivas på submikro- och symbolnivån. Dock saknas det verktyg för att bedöma elevernas förståelse och tolkning av denna typ av undervisning och detta är ett område där ytterligare forskning behövs. Denna studie undersöker huruvida Johnstones kemiska modeller förekommer i gymnasieelevers icke-styrda samtal. Studien är utförd på två grupper om fyra elever från kemi två på naturvetenskapliga programmet där de genomför en planerad laborationsövning. Elevernas samtal under övningen spelades in och transkriberades. Materialet analyserades med en tematisk analys för att undersöka hur Johnstones kemiska triangel manifesteras utifrån en observerad händelse. Händelsen handlade om en demonstration inom kemi av fenomenet reaktionshastighet och undersöktes med en praktisk laborationsövning, där man observerade en kemisk reaktion när en brustablett löstes upp i vatten vid två olika temperaturer. Det observerbara fenomenet var då en tablett som löste upp sig snabbare i den varma lösningen och syftet var att eleverna skulle förklara för varandra vad som hände. Resultaten visade att eleverna diskuterade händelsen samtidigt som de redogjorde utförligt utifrån deras kunskapsnivå och kunde också utveckla produktivt lärande kring reaktionshastigheten. Johnstones kemiska modell synliggjorde på ett enkelt och systematiskt sätt elevernas förståelse och därmed visar den potential till att vara ett betydelsefullt verktyg inom kemiundervisning och forskning. Med hjälp av verktyget kan lärare upptäcka vilka nivåer av kemisk kunskap som kommer till uttryck i samtal. Läraren kan då arbeta med olika typer av representationer för att hjälpa eleverna att bredda och fördjupa kunskapen om fenomenet. 

Detta inledande kapitel lyfter fram nya trender inom sociopolitisk forskning i matematikdidaktik. Den matematikundervisning som pågår i klassrum är alltid sammanflätad med olika samhälleliga fenomen, så som social kontext, normer och styrdokument, men också kollegor och media. Centrala problemställningar och forskningslitteratur i de sociopolitiska studierna i matematikdidaktik presenteras. Detta fungerar som en bakgrund för tematiseringen av boken och dess kapitel. 

The purpose of this study is to examine how three analysis tools used, i.e. practical epistemology analysis (PEA), systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and thematic patterns (TP), contribute to our knowledge of children's use of of language in relation to learning science. Learning science implies learning to distinguish between everyday use of langugage and the specific scientific language (Halliday & Martin, 1993; Lemke, 1990; Veel, 1997; Schleppegrell, 2004). An analysis of what children are afforded to learn in the discourse of science is hence of interest. A practical epistemology analysis takes its stance in Dewey, the later Wittgenstein and socio-cultural perspectives and implies that words get their meaning in use and action (Wickman & Östman, 2002; Wickman, 2004). Moreover, Dewey's (1938/1997) principal of continuity is essential for studying the direction learning takes. Systemic functional linguistics is concerned with language use in diverse cultural and social contexts (Halliday, 1985; Martin, 1992) focussing both system and text. The meaning system of language is seen as a potential enabling the analyst to consider texts in the light of linguistic choices. Studying thematic patterns involves understanding the relation between words in use (Lemke, 1990). We present results from a primary science class involved in hands-on inquiry in the unit "Soil". The results show how the children moved between everyday and scientific use of language. Mostly the discourse merged making the children's learning of the subject difficult.

The history of VET in the Nordic countries tends to either focus on education for male students only, or on the professional higher education for women such as nurses. Even in the 21st century, the 1970s are mentioned as the time when women entered the labor market as a consequence of societal industries (kindergartens, hospitals). The aim for this paper is to complement the existing picture of VET as a purely male form for education, related to agriculture, industry/technology, craft and trading. A further aim is to describe VET for women that was closely related to a labor market for women that developed in the early 20th century. The concept of TVET suggests an even closer association to male vocational education as T stands for technical. In parallel to VET for male student, women’s VET developed in the fields household, caring, textile work and trading. In these areas technical development was a central but not an obvious part of women´s vocational education. For instance, new technical inventions like kitchen equipment for commercial kitchen and food industry, as well as for private households required transformation of knowledge. Historically, women’s work in these areas contributed significantly to the production and economic development in the society, but also to women's access to participation in the public. However, while the history of VET and TVET for male students has received extensive attention in research within various disciplines, VET for female students is scarcely researched and the technical aspects even more so.

 In this paper we explore the Swedish umbrella concept domestic education as a point of departure for a discussion of the multiple vocations that this concept represented and thereby also hid. We focus on how the different vocational educations within this area contributed to qualifying women for a labor market in transition: through expansion, differentiation and specialization, intertwined with technical development. This is in line with how cultural historical activity theory emphasizes that changes in tools and rules contribute to changing societal activities over time. This development shows how female competence contributed to societal development during the 20th century. We also argue that education for women in the 1970s was a consequence of changed relations between individuals, families and society that can be identified through analyzing the VET for women in the early 20th century.