Doctoral Theses / Doktorsavhandlingar Institutionen för didaktik och pedagogisk profession

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Toward an Animal Standpoint in School? Critical Animal Pedagogy as Sustainability Education.
(Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 2025-08-29) Kallaste Håkansson, Jonna
The overall aim of this thesis is to explore how critical animal pedagogies (CAP) can contribute to environmental and sustainability education (ESE) by addressing, challenging, and transforming current exploitative human-animal relations and their social, ethical, and environmental ramifications. It explores questions critical to subject matter education and contributes to ongoing debates regarding how nonhuman animals and human-animal relations can be introduced and addressed in ESE. It does so by exploring the potential of CAP to address, disturb, and disrupt exploitative human-animal relations and enable a re-thinking and re-learning of how to live together with other species. The project was carried out as a feminist activist ethnography, in which teachers, students, animal rights activists, and scholars collaborated by discussing, developing, and introducing CAP in Years 1-3 in two Swedish upper secondary schools. Theoretically, the thesis takes its point of departure in critical animal studies and its subfield CAP, or more specifically animal standpoint theory, reading these with and through feminist affect theory, feminist philosophy, educational philosophy, and poststructuralist theory and pedagogy. Starting from this theoretical framework, the thesis is concerned with the didactical conditions upper secondary education provides for working with CAP and how this context, particularly in ESE teaching, informs and possibly transforms what CAP is and can achieve. It explores the (im)possibility for nonhuman animals to emerge and be responded to as subjects and what human-animal relations are enabled or disabled. As such, this thesis contributes ethnographic fieldwork that provides insights into what happens when an openly normative and critical pedagogy standing in solidarity with nonhuman animals is introduced within ESE in upper secondary school. It analyzes possibilities for interspecies sustainability and justice to be envisioned and enacted and questions a sharp division between normative and pluralistic approaches in ESE. The thesis makes visible how an imagined human collective unwilling to change puts boundaries in place for how ethical human-animal relations that can be imagined. It also acknowledges openings in critically addressing animal exploitation within ESE. Drawing upon the overall insights from the project, the thesis argues for the importance of creating space for taking an animal standpoint in ESE and addresses the risks of reproducing and reinforcing speciesism and anthropocentrism if such a standpoint cannot be taken. It acknowledges the potential in engaging with animal rights material, learning more about other species, and asking students to start from the perspective of nonhuman animals. The thesis shows how CAP can contribute to ESE by increasing student engagement and enable critical reflections through engaging with interspecies sustainability.
Att kommunicera historia. Språkliga resurser och kunskapserbjudanden i högstadiets historieundervisning
(2025-08-22) Rahm, Jessica
The overarching aim of this thesis is to deepen the understanding of how substantive historical knowledge is communicated to lower secondary students and what knowledge-building opportunities this communication affords. The thesis explores classroom practice, with a particular focus on how three history teachers organize their instruction and use subject-specific language, particularly first-order concepts, during teacher-led whole-class interactions to support students’ substantive knowledge. Grounded in the view that language plays a crucial role in the construction and communication of knowledge, the thesis draws on social semiotic theory, Legitimation Code Theory (LCT), and history education theory to guide the analysis and interpretation of data. The thesis comprises three sub-studies based on ethnographic fieldwork, including classroom observations and video recordings generated in three linguistically diverse classrooms in Grades 7 and 8 in a Swedish school setting. The findings indicate that teacher-led instruction and whole-class teaching serve as central arenas for introducing, consolidating, and reviewing substantive knowledge. Moreover, the results show that teachers employ various first-order concepts in diverse ways, integrating new knowledge with students’ prior experiences. This integration may enhance students’ opportunities for cumulative knowledge-building. The shifts in how these concepts are employed both in general terms and within specific historical contexts, offer students deeper conceptual understanding of subject-specific language. Furthermore, the teachers’ use of first-order concepts to make comparisons between historical contexts emphasizes connections across time. This indicates that first-order concepts serve as temporal bridges, enabling conceptual understanding and historical thinking. The findings suggest that teachers’ proficiency in using such concepts is crucial for fostering knowledge-building. However, the study also identifies a need for a pedagogical metalanguage that can make the function and use of first-order concepts explicit and accessible to all students.
Educational work beyond carceral logics—Stereoscopic engagements with educational philosophy and abolitionism
(2025-06-13) O'Neill, Maggie
Schools are often burdened with solving societal problems. The way in which these problems are defined by society influences the approaches taken to address them and informs how the work and purpose of schools is understood. In Sweden, one such problem that has received increasing attention in recent years is crime. This dissertation addresses the educational implications of such developments. Framing schools in relation to crime is made possible through carceral logics, which are the taken-for-granted ways of thinking that criminalization, the police, and criminal justice are reasonable solutions to societal issues. The work of this dissertation can be understood as paying attention to the conditions under which education may or may not happen within and beyond carceral logics. This dissertation takes its starting point in the assumption that, if we are concerned about the educational potential of schools, we need to be able to account for the educational implications of and beyond carceral logics within schools. Using a stereoscopic approach that considers both educational philosophy and abolitionism, this dissertation explores the educational implications of and beyond carceral logics within schools through educational-philosophical inquiry. This dissertation argues that educational possibilities are limited in a school of crime prevention and police involvement and proposes how education could be made possible through educational work beyond crime prevention and police involvement. Furthermore, this dissertation imagines practices beyond carceral logics in schools and discusses new possibilities for educational work. The overall contribution of this dissertation offers an argument for what might be educationally lost when the school is framed in relation to crime and imagines beyond the societal demands such a framing imposes. Ultimately, the arguments in this dissertation are discussed through a theorization of educational work beyond carceral logics.
Vad är viktig historia? Att utforska, problematisera, utveckla och synliggöra tankeredskapet historisk signifikans
(2025-05-23) Sjölund Åhsberg, Cathrine
Vad är viktig, eller signifikant, historia, hur avgörs det och av vem? Att synliggöra hur elever resonerar om signifikant historia ger värdefulla insikter i deras historiska tänkande. Trots detta är tankeredskapet historisk signifikans relativt outforskat i en svensk grundskolekontext. Avhandlingen syftar till att utforska, problematisera, utveckla och synliggöra historisk signifikans ur ett elevperspektiv. När mellanstadieelever i avhandlingen resonerar kring historisk signifikans gör de det utifrån olika, och ibland oväntade perspektiv vilket ger en mångfacetterad och delvis ny bild av tankeredskapet. Denna komplexitet utgör avhandlingens intresseområde och undersöks både genom elevers resonemang och genom en fördjupad analys av historisk signifikans som epistemiskt koncept. Avhandlingen består av en kappa och fyra delstudier. Artikel 1, en systematisk narrativ forskningsöversikt, och artikel 2, en teorisyntes, kartlägger och analyserar forskningsområdet och konceptet historisk signifikans. Kartläggningarna utgör en bakgrund till de två studier som bygger på fokusgruppsintervjuer. Artikel 3 undersöker hur mellanstadieelever resonerar om historisk signifikans och artikel 4 fördjupar delar av dessa resultat genom att utforska och definiera två nya kriterier, etisk och affektiv signifikans, i relation till historisk empati. Resultaten visar tre återkommande mönster i elevernas resonemang: de resonerar om en officiell och symboliskt signifikant historia om Sverige, om historisk relevans kopplad till elevnära och aktuell historia, samt om mörk och tyst(ad) signifikant historia med etiska dimensioner. Två motstridiga narrativa mallar tydliggör hur eleverna tolkar och formar sitt historiska tänkande. Sammantaget synliggör elevernas resonemang vilken historia som upplevs ges utrymme i historieundervisningen och vilka perspektiv som utelämnas. Den teoretiska kartläggningen, som resulterar i två kartor över teoretiska ramverk och kriterier, introducerar nya begrepp, synliggör tre befintliga epistemiska dimensioner av historisk signifikans samt pekar på glapp och förskjutningar i forskningsfältet. Sammantaget bidrar avhandlingen till att synliggöra tankeredskapet både i relation till historiedidaktisk forskning och undervisning, samtidigt som introduktionen av en etisk dimension bidrar till att vidareutveckla förståelsen av historisk signifikans.
Att lära om statisk och dynamisk proportionalitet - En studie av den didaktiska transpositionen av svenska matematikuppgifter med proportionalitet
(2024-11-12) Lundberg, Anna L. V.
The purpose of this study is to shed light on how static and dynamic proportionality is treated by authors of teaching materials, on national tests and by teachers and students in the classroom, as well as how students encounter mathematics tasks where proportional reasoning is an option. The research is based on two sets of empirical data. In concrete terms, the thesis includes three studies examining three themes that relate to proportionality in classroom interaction and in texts. The first study analyses how proportionality is presented in some Swedish textbooks, in curricular texts and national course tests in mathematics for students in upper secondary school. The second study is a case study of how a teacher instructs and explains a task in a class in Grade 6, where proportional reasoning is a possible solution technique. Finally, the third study concerns how students in Grade 6 handle proportional reasoning when they encounter a patterning task involving proportional relationships. The analyses of textbooks and national course tests show that proportionality is handled differently in these two settings in the context of “Mathematics A” at the upper secondary school. About a quarter of the tasks in the textbooks and the national course tests involved proportionality tasks of one specific kind (missing value). Other types of proportionality tasks were infrequent. The results of the classroom studies show that students are able to engage in early forms of proportional reasoning before being taught about proportionality as a mathematical concept. The concept of learning trajectory is used to identify situations in the learning process during instruction where students meet obstacles and need scaffolding and teacher support. It is shown how a teacher dealing with a mathematical task involving mixtures of liquids encounters a task that has the possibility of making proportional reasoning visible for the students, and how she struggles to make the modelling required intelligible to herself and to the students. The instructional strategy of using everyday problems as a basis for learning implies that the initial modelling phase becomes crucial, and the students have to be aware of the conditions and limitations under which proportional reasoning is applicable. In conclusion, students engage in early forms of proportional reasoning well ahead of formal instruction. The difficulties they experience as they are to develop their proficiency, and where they require support from the teacher, concern how to model the familiar, everyday situations they encounter in exercises in mathematically precise and productive ways. In addition, in textbooks and national course tests proportionality is presented in a standardized, and rather simplified, form, and it is not sufficiently connected to the various areas of mathematics teaching and learning where it is applicable
Reading and learning from civics textbooks: exploring challenges and opportunities from students’ and teachers’ perspectives
(2024-09-06) Rinnemaa, Pantea
Textbooks in civics are one of the main sources of knowledge and a primary instructional tool for teaching civics in Swedish compulsory schools. Given the importance of civics texts for students’ knowledge construction and their development into active and informed citizens in a democracy, developing reading abilities is key, particularly considering the dense, abstract, and discipline-specific nature of civics texts. L2 students, with diverse linguistic and educational backgrounds, represent over 26% of the student population in Swedish compulsory schools. Despite this, research on L2 students’ difficulties in relation to reading and understanding civics textbook texts is limited. Moreover, in studies focusing on L2 students’ civics learning, teachers’ perspectives often dominate over those of the students. This thesis aims to explore possible sources of difficulties that L2 students encounter in comprehending Grade 9 civics textbook texts, focusing on the students’ perspectives. It also investigates resources that L2 students and their civics teachers perceive as useful for enhancing comprehension of civics texts. To closely study the complexities of challenges with civics texts, a four-field model has been constructed and serves as the theoretical framework and analytical tool with which the data in each of the four studies in the thesis are analyzed. This model illustrates four key components and their interplay with each other. These are: a) literacy abilities, b) disciplinary literacy abilities, c) prior knowledge, and d) content-area knowledge. The four studies collectively explore L2 students’ civics learning from various perspectives. The first study is a thematic literature review, examining how components a–d interact in teachers’ descriptions across the ten reviewed studies. The second study employs think-aloud sessions with eighteen L2 students to understand their perceptions of challenges and opportunities with civics texts. In the third study, individual semi-structured interviews with the L2 students’ civics teachers are conducted. In the fourth study, data from think-aloud sessions are revisited, focusing on L2 students’ use of prior knowledge when engaging with civics texts.
Mellan osynlighet och avvikelse – nyanlända elever med kort skolbakgrund i grundskolans senare årskurser
(2023-12-22) Brännström, Malin
The education of newly arrived students in Swedish schools has garnered increased attention in research, media, and policy discussions in the last couple of decades. This doctoral thesis explores the educational situation for a subgroup of these students, namely newly arrived students in the later grades (6-9) of compulsory school with limited educational experience. The dissertation investigates how newly arrived students with limited educational backgrounds are positioned, and whether and how they are established as a distinct group with particular needs. The four articles included in this dissertation explore whether and how the educational backgrounds of newly arrived students are made significant within educational practices, how students and teachers navigate potential discrepancies between student needs and educational practices and what is thereby made (im)possible in the school’s work with newly arrived students with a limited school background. The material was produced through ethnographic fieldwork in the later grades (6-9) at three compulsory schools and through the analysis of policy texts. The material was analyzed using analytical tools from theories of normalization (e.g., Foucault, 1987; 1998; Butler, 2004; 2009) and stigma (Goffman, 1990), and critical perspectives on age (Ambjörnsson & Jönsson, 2010) and race (Bonilla-Silva, 2015). The findings show that the positioning of newly arrived students with limited school background is complex: on the one hand, they are seen as challenging the education system, having both comprehensive and specific needs. On the other hand, these students tended to be obscured within the broader category of newly arrived students, thus primarily positioned as “slow” or “weak” Swedish learners. Students’ educational experiences are thus both acknowledged and made invisible. The findings further indicate a connection between the obscuring of educational background and a silence regarding subject knowledge that permeates parts of the analyzed material. This silence meant that when newly arrived students with limited schooling and their needs were discussed, it was common that other discourses, such as culture, cognitive ability, and inclusion, were articulated and dominated the conversation. In the thesis, it is argued that the utilization of a knowledge discourse can contribute to a demystification of newly arrived students with limited school background.
Differentiation, didactics and inequality: How rich and poor populations are educated for sustainability
(2023-10-06) Bylund, Linus
The world is facing pressing challenges arising from human activities, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and depletion of resources. To meet these challenges, UNESCO has launched three initiatives on education for sustainable development (ESD) over the course of the past two decades. These educational initiatives have been global in their scope and the ambition with UNESCO’s work is to engage humanity collectively in a common endeavor for a just and sustainable future. However, this compilation thesis critically examines the viability of implementing ESD in an equal and just manner in a world marked by staggering inequality. It can be questioned whether all of humanity is addressed in a just and equal way or whether ESD is rather adapted and differentiated to “suit” rich and poor populations’ perceived lives and lifestyles. The thesis takes a starting point in these queries by exploring and problematizing how educational differentiation, didactics and inequality are interlaced in ESD. Drawing on Foucauldian biopolitical theory, the thesis thus aims to explore and problematize educational differentiation between rich and poor populations in the global implementation of ESD from a didactical perspective. This is done through a problematization of educational differentiation through the didactic who?-question, understood as a governing tool that can accommodate difference and diversity among students, but also a tool that carries the risk of perpetuating societal inequalities. Furthermore, the thesis empirically explores how different student populations are separated and constructed as in need of different interventions in global ESD policy, and how a global ESD programme is locally adapted to students’ lives and lifestyles in schools in different contexts in Rwanda, Sweden, South Africa and Uganda. Ultimately, the thesis locates “problems” associated with biopolitical differentiation in ESD and elaborates on potential didactical responses to such problems.
Skolförändring, reformer och professionella villkor - en etnografisk studie
(2023-08-25) Karlsson, Mikael R
This is a dissertation primarily built on ethnographic methodology. It examines how teachers and principals react to and handle change. The overall aim of the study is to investigate how general and specific changes have influenced the organization of power and relationships in the institutional practice of secondary schools, and how teachers and principals react to and reason about the consequences of these changes. Specifically, the dissertation addresses four sub-questions: How do teachers driving a local change process handle criticism and resistance from their colleagues? How does the implementation of a career reform affect the school's administrative logic and teachers' influence over the institutional practice? How does the implementation of a reform aimed at rewarding particularly skilled teachers affect the school's administrative logic and teachers' professional identity? How do larger societal changes in the welfare sector over the past three decades manifest in value changes in local school practices? The findings connect the reactions that arise and the strategies formulated at the micro-level to the transformation of Swedish welfare society in general and the education system in particular over the past three decades.
Teaching and learning mathematics with integrated small-group discussions. A learning study about scaling geometric figures
(2022-11-09) Svanteson Wester, Jenny
The aim of this thesis is to contribute to a deeper understanding of the relationship between teaching and student learning in mathematics when small-group discussions are used in teaching. This thesis focuses on student learning of specific subject matter when small group discussions are used in whole-class teaching. The data analysed was generated in a learning study about enlarging and reducing two- dimensional geometric figures in Grade 8. The learning study involved four cycles, and five classes and three teachers participated. The data consist of 10 video- recorded lessons and 33 video-recorded small-group discussions. Variation theory was the theoretical framework used to analyse the data. Results show that the use of small-group discussions as a planned and integrated part of whole class teaching can contribute to widening the space of learning and increase students’ opportunities to learn what was intended during the lesson. In the study it was found that the small-group discussions solely did not provide sufficient opportunities for students to learn what was intended. Instead, lessons with pre- planned tasks for small-group discussion integrated in whole-class discussions, seems to provide more powerful learning opportunities in relation to what was intended to be compared to lessons with a less systematic use of small-group discussions. In the small-group discussions different ways of experiencing the object of learning were made possible to explore and in the subsequent whole- class discussions those different ways of experiencing were further explored. The results show that teachers benefit from listening to small-group discussions and when students report on such discussions. It was shown that teachers’ insights about the students’ ways of experiencing the object of learning were vital for enacting whole-class teaching with small-group discussions in a powerful way. The teachers changed their teaching in response to what they noticed about what could be critical for student learning about the object of learning. The result of this study suggests that it is not a matter of whether small-group discussions should be used or not, but how small-group discussions can be used during whole class teaching to support student learning of an intended object of learning in mathematics for the whole class.
Som att hålla tiden i sin hand – Didaktiskt perspektiv på muntligt berättande
(2022-08-19) Henricsson, Ola
Storytelling is deeply interwoven with the act of teaching and learning. Teachers tell stories and anecdotes within their everyday teaching practice. Previous research on teachers’ storytelling in the interdisciplinary field of educational science has focused mainly on language development, literacy, and students’ learning from social, historical and psychological perspectives. In this thesis, the main interest is in the teachers’ perspective and their lived experience of telling stories in teaching situations. The overall aim of this thesis is to describe the pedagogical implications of teachers’ oral storytelling. Storytelling is contextualized within the framework of teaching - which in turn is understood and discussed within the continental European tradition of didaktik. From this tradition, the concept pedagogical tact is used to illuminate teachers’ storytelling at the intersection of theory and practice. The empirical data is derived from interviews and video observations. The interviews are contextualized and exemplified through both a Swedish and an Indian context. The analysis of the interviews and observations is based on a phenomenological analysis of storytelling which implies a perspective that sees storytelling as embodied. Four studies were carried out and the findings are presented in four papers. Overall, the results show that teachers’ storytelling is an everyday phenomenon, both spontaneous and prepared, closely intertwined with their relationship to their students and the content. Since teachers’ experiences of storytelling appear from the data to be spontaneous and reciprocal, such as listening to the listeners, it is suggested here that the pedagogical actions of the teachers can be described as a pedagogical tact – a tact of telling. Another important result which appears in this thesis is the importance of taking the lived body into account in teachers’ storytelling, and this aspect constitutes a contribution to research on teachers’ storytelling. Thus, the teachers’ experience of and knowledge about storytelling and didaktik are crucial for how their students experience the content. Storytelling as teaching is not completely possible to predict and consequently impossible to fully measure and control. With today’s increased demands for students’ performance to be measurable, teaching that does not lead to measurable results can therefore be seen as carrying a risk of failure. From a continental European didaktik perspective, teachers’ storytelling is, on the contrary, seen as important and as an opportunity - a way of teaching that enables students and teachers to create meanings in relation to content.
Epistemic beliefs and conceptions of competence in education for sustainable development
(2022-01-07) Grice, Marie
Education for sustainable development (ESD) raises critical questions regarding what knowledge should be taught and what the learning outcomes should be. The aim of this thesis is to explore epistemological, ethical and critical dimensions of ESD. There are two empirical sites. One is a transdisciplinary educational project with upper-secondary Swedish students (n=208) from 16 different schools, the other involves teachers (n=158) at a large Swedish upper-secondary school implementing ESD. The research design is emergent, combining empirical and theoretical studies. A questionnaire instrument to explore students’ epistemic beliefs (personal theories of knowledge and knowing) was constructed. Exploratory factor analysis identified five dimensions: transdisciplinary, certain, quick, collaborative, and simple knowledge. These showed predictive power in a multiple regression analysis. Another instrument was constructed to examine teachers’ ESD competences. Four dimensions were identified. Wicked sustainability challenges require the individual, education and society to adopt new ways of thinking, learning and acting. Calls for transformation, supported by supranational organizations, have contributed to an increased focus globally on competence-oriented knowledge in curricula. Ethical competence, action readiness, and normative competence are nested concepts explored theoretically in this thesis. Philosophizing with is a central method, which invites epistemology as a voice into the analysis. Transdisciplinary and pluralistic ESD allow for ethical issues to surface in the classroom. It is theorized that an ESD teacher needs to be both morally sensitive and ready to transform didactics in the teacher-learner nexus. One conclusion is that students’ sophisticated epistemic beliefs may be important antecedents in transdisciplinary ESD. Another is that the element of action in the conceptualization of competence remains a critical aspect for educational research and practice.
Seeing the parts, understanding the whole - A technology education perspective on teaching and learning in processes of analysing and designing programmed technological solutions
(2021-08-17) Cederqvist, Anne-Marie
Analysing and designing Programmed Technological Solutions (PTS) has been introduced as a part of technology education in an effort to bring elements of programming into the curriculum for compulsory school, in order to develop pupils’ understanding of how PTS work and are controlled by programming. However, what an appropriate understanding entails at this level remains to be articulated, particularly how this understanding looks from a pupil’s perspective. Such descriptions are paramount for allowing teachers to make pedagogical decisions on what specifically is to be addressed in the classroom. The challenges are increased by a dependency on programming materials, which give a structure to teaching and learning that is not necessarily in line with pedagogical needs. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to identify key elements that are important to address in teaching and learning technology in the processes of analysing and designing PTS. The knowledge domain of PTS, in relation to technological literacy, frames the results from three phenomenographic studies that investigate the ways pupils (aged 10-14) experience PTS when analysing and designing PTS in the contexts of the BBC micro:bit material and PTS from everyday life. The results show that understanding programming concepts and how to produce code are key elements, and most importantly, that there are other key elements embedded in the processes that it is necessary to direct attention to. These are: knowledge related to the dual nature of PTS; knowledge related to the programming material used in the processes; the relevance structures provided by the contexts in terms of experienced partwhole structure of PTS; and the use of systems thinking to discern the partwhole structure of PTS. Together these direct attention to the structural and functional nature of PTS, which must be understood in order to understand how PTS can be controlled by programming. Thus, these key elements are important to consider in pedagogical practice in order to promote learning with regard to PTS.
Samtal om undervisning i naturvetenskap - Ämnesdidaktisk kollegial utveckling i lärarutbildning och lärarprofession
(2020-08-28) Sjöberg, Marlene
The overall aim in this thesis is to explore professional conversations about science teaching experiences, both in an educational setting with student teachers, and in a local professional development project with a science teacher team, regarding possibilities for developing professional knowledge in a collegial setting. Two empirical studies were conducted. Study 1, focusing on student teachers’ conversations in the educational setting of a one-year complementary teacher education program for student teachers with an academic degree in science, technology and/or mathematics. The empirical material was collected from non-compulsory additional meetings involving three to six student teachers, which were audio-recorded. In Study 2, the empirical setting was a collaboration with a science teacher team and researchers in a two-year project for local professional development, in which four science teachers at a lower secondary school met for teaching planning once a week. Study 2 includes four of these meetings, which were audio-recorded, at which the science teachers focused on both designing and following up on a summative test in the eighth grade involving the human body. Both studies were designed to establish reflective conversations about science teaching and student learning, including considerations for teaching a specific science topic, based on teaching experiences in science classrooms. A phenomenographic approach was used to identify qualitative differences in the conversations. In addition, the content of the student teachers’ reflective conversations about teaching experiences was further investigated in terms of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). The findings show how professional conversations about science teaching experiences for teaching build on two central and interdependent dimensions: the qualitative content of the discussion, and the establishment of a common object of discussion. Collegial development of professional knowledge for science teaching by way of conversations requires contemporaneity and interplay in both dimensions of the conversation. The varying character of discussions when it comes to the interplay between their central dimensions implies varying possibilities for learning and development, for both individuals and their colleagues. This thesis highlights challenges in establishing structured and reflective conversations based on science teaching experiences, which implies the importance of offering student teachers possibilities to participate in conversations, with the aim of preparing them for future professional development. In the context of teachers’ professional development, the contemporaneity in complex content and interaction needs to be considered and not taken for granted, in order to contribute to the possibilities for developing professional knowledge in a collegial setting for teaching science.
The concept concept in mathematics education: A concept analysis
(2020-08-21) Wedman, Lotta
The notion concept is used in different ways within the field of mathematics education. The aim of this study is to carry out a concept analysis of the notion concept, within some frequently used frameworks describing conceptual understanding. Building on a philosophical literature review resulting in distinctions that can be used for interpreting views on concept, the study addresses the question: Which views on concept may be found in texts using the chosen frameworks, from the perspective of the distinctions mental versus non-mental, intersubjective versus subjective and molecular versus holistic? The design involves a literature review in mathematics education, resulting in a selection of texts. Views on concept, and to some extent on concept image, conception, and schema, are then interpreted with the help of indicators, and represented in 3D matrices. There are two categories of views on concept within the texts: a mental and intersubjective category, and a non-mental and intersubjective category. One difference between the views is whether conceptual structures have molecular or holistic features. Concerning the notions concept image, conception, and schema, there are generally three different views: an individual view and two culturally dependent views. The different views are sometimes combined. One result is findings regarding how language is used within the texts, where non-mental and mental arenas, and terms and meanings of terms, are not always distinguished. The main contribution of the study is to deepen the understanding of views on the notion concept and how terminology is used in mathematics education. This opens the way for a discussion of how the terminology mentioned above may be used coherently within the field of mathematics education.
Reconfiguring Environmental Sustainability in Early Childhood Education: a Post-anthropocentric Approach
(2020-04-01) Weldemariam, Kassahun
The purpose of this dissertation is twofold. First, it explores how the notion of sustainability is conceptualized within early childhood education discourses and how it is manifested in early childhood curricula. Second, the dissertation examines post-anthropocentric possibilities of sustainability within early childhood education. A major finding of the two studies, relating to the first purpose, is that early childhood education tends to have an anthropocentric bias and over-emphasizes the importance of children’s agency in enhancing their potential to contribute to sustainability. Using this finding as a backdrop, the major finding of the two subsequent studies, relating to the second purpose, is that post-anthropocentric analysis can help to challenge these shortcomings and offer the emergence of a different sustainability ethos. In doing so, sustainability is reconceptualized as a generative concept that opens up possibilities for children to learn-with, become-with and be/become affected by non-humans, i.e. other species and non-human forces. Specific posthuman concepts such as assemblage, distributed agency and becoming-with are used as thinking tools. Systematic literature review and curricula content analysis are employed as methods for study one and study two respectively. Study three and study four draw ideas from post-qualitative inquiry which employ concepts that allow to experimentally engage with the world and think with/become-with data. The latter two studies empirically demonstrate emerging possibilities of learning for sustainability with the non-human others/material forces and other species. In the end, the dissertation highlights that post-humanist and new materialist perspectives can provide a post-anthropocentric conceptualisation of sustainability, which paves the way for a more relational ontology, one that could in turn create a pedagogical practice supporting sustainability.
Didactical Considerations in the Digitalized Classroom
(2020-03-24) Kjellsdotter, Anne
The interest in this doctoral thesis is how information and communication technologies (ICT) impact on classroom interaction and may challenge and transform teaching and learning. A reason for considering this as a field of investigation is grounded in the fact that in Sweden, digital tools and they are considered a natural part of elementary education. A lot is expected from ICT in education and the ongoing debate is based on the premise that they will be a catalyst to create change. The aim here is to explore in what way the use of ICT may affect the interaction between subject content, teachers and learners. Two theoretical approaches: the sociocultural perspective on learning (Säljö, 2000; Vygotsky, 1986; Wertch, 1998) and the tradition of Didaktik (Hopmann, 1999; 2007; Klafki, 1995; 2000) are used to answer the study’s overall aim and the different aspects of the research questions. The ambition is to contribute to the field of ‘didactics and ICT’ and also to the ongoing debate about ‘digital competencies’ in the twenty-first century. The empirical data is derived from a case study in a primary school. Ethnographic techniques were used in order to collect the data during a period of four years. The research questions have been explored through different analytical lenses and the findings are presented in four papers. The main findings of the study highlight relations between the subject content and the digital tools and challenges notions about what to teach, which affects possibilities for and limitations in how pupils interact with ICT but also the distinguishing features of the pupils’ final outcomes. This opens the way for a discussion about teaching the subject content in relation to the digital affordances, the understanding of pupils’ meaning-making in connection with the premises of digital school tasks, and what competencies are important in the digitalized classroom.
Att urskilja grafiska aspekter av derivata – hur elevernas möjligheter påverkas av innehållets behandling i undervisningen
(2020-02-19) Ryberg, Ulf
The aim of this thesis is to investigate in what ways students’ opportunities to discern graphical aspects of the concept of derivative can be related to the design of instruction. The thesis is based on two empirical studies that together included 144 Swedish upper-secondary students who were enrolled in the course in which the derivative is first introduced. Study 1 was conducted in natural settings and involved collaboration between researchers and teachers. The study generated three different 120-min lesson designs, all of which concerned the same mathematical content, the relationship between a graph and its derivative graph. The designs were equivalent regarding organization and teaching methods. However, the content was handled differently during instruction. Design 1 used multiple representations and graphs of polynomial functions. Design 2 restricted instructions to fewer representations but used a broader variety of graphs. Design 3 was a hybrid of Designs 1 and 2 and contained limited variation regarding both representations and graphs. The results of the study, which were based mainly on qualitative data consisting of observations and students’ explanations on posttest questions, suggested that Design 2 offered the best opportunities to discern graphical aspects of the derivative. The results of Study 1 were further tested in Study 2 wherein Design 1 and a slightly modified Design 2 were implemented in more controlled experimental conditions. Quantitative as well as qualitative data were collected. Statistical analyses of quantitative data showed that the students who participated in Design 2 performed significantly higher posttest scores. However, further analyses also showed that the effect of Design 2 was dependent of students’ prior knowledge. For students with less prior knowledge, the design was not a significant predictor in relation to the posttest. The results of the statistical analyses were strengthened by qualitative data. Analyses of student interviews suggested that Design 2 offered better opportunities to discern graphical aspects of the derivative. However, in line with the quantitative data, the interviews suggested that to what extent discernment took place was dependent of students’ prior knowledge. Overall, the results of the studies highlight the importance of examining how the handling of the content may affect students’ learning of mathematics. In particular, they challenge the assumption that the use of multiple representations is always beneficial and suggest that how to use representations during instruction concerned with the derivative is an important topic for further investigation, both with regard to practice and research.
Estetiska erfarenheter i naturmöten. En fenomenologisk studie av upplevelser av skog, växtlighet och undervisning
(2020-01-08) Häggström, Margaretha
In a period of accelerated environmental change, a focus on how humans build embodied relationships with the more-than-human world is a critical arena for pedagogical work. The aim of this thesis is to elucidate people’s lived experiences of being in the forest. The research is directed at aesthetic experiences, as sensuous experiences, of encounters with trees. The work is based on phenomenology and analyzed through hermeneutic phenomenology. This doctoral thesis is part of the research project Beyond Plant Blindness: Seeing the importance of plants for a sustainable world (The Swedish Research Council, dnr 2013-2014) and entails a two-part study; one part conducted with adults who have a habit of being-in-the forest and the other based in two primary school classes, using an outdoor pedagogy approach. The studies are presented through five articles. Article one frames an aesthetic and ethical perspective on art-based environmental education and sustainability and aims to link ethics, aesthetical environmental education and didactics with a phenomenological approach. In this way it serves as the theoretical background for the empirical work to come. Data for article two were collected using a questionnaire placed on a tree located in a specific forest setting over the course of a year. The results highlight the intersubjectivity and historicity of people's connections to a forest environment, and reveal that the experience of ‘being’ or ‘doing’ in a forest produces a larger, more nuanced, response than simply the experience in itself. Data for article three were collected using “walk and talk” interviews. Analysis reveals that (a) childhood experiences seem to play a crucial role in adult experiences of forests; (b) place-identity and sense of belonging are significant elements in how the participants define themselves; (c) being-in-the-forest is connected to an active, exploring and moving body, and that the connection with the more-than-human world of the case study forest is deeply anchored, as part of the human body. This relationship appears to be shaped through a process of constructing and reconstructing memories, practice and selfhood, and can, it seems, last a lifetime. Article three and five builds on action research with two teachers, who planned and designed a Storyline with the aim of giving their students opportunities to discover the intrinsic value of plants, by meeting with trees and slowly becoming trees. In a post-humanist sense, this approach rejects the notion of human as an ontological given, disembodied and separate from the kingdom of plants. Students de-homogenized plants by transforming themselves into trees, thus an inverted anthropomorphization was implemented. This second part of the thesis contributes new perspectives on the emerging relationship between young students and trees initiated through authentic meetings in which such relationships developed. Thus, the result can be used in didactical discussions on concrete, pedagogical and philosophical levels. In the long term, such relationships could have a positive impact on human connections to plants, the basis of much of life on Earth.
Vad händer i lärares kollegiala samtalspraktik? En studie av mötet mellan en nationell kompetensutvecklingsinsats och en lokal fortbildningspraktik.
(2019-09-20) Sülau, Veronica
This thesis explores teachers' professional learning practices; how they are expressed within a national continuing professional development (CPD) programme and how they are formed and shaped by the site in which they are enacted. The aim of this research has been to create an understanding of the significance of the site in the implementation of a professional development initiative and the resulting practices. In this study, the site was viewed as the integration of a national CPD programme, The Boost for Mathematics, and a local school context, Frida Education. The unit of analysis was the practice that unfolded in this meeting, namely the collegial conversation practice. The overall purpose thus strived to understand this professional learning practice from a relational perspective. The empirical data has been analysed through the theory of practice architectures in order to identify, understand and describe the relationships between the collegial conversation practice and the practice architectures that keep it in place. The relational perspective also explored how the participants, through their actions, influence and shape the practice and its practice architectures. A further aim of the study has been to investigate how the practice architectures influence the content of the collegial conversation and in what way they enable or constrain the practice to reach its goal. The study was designed as a case study, the case being an independent school company with four schools in four Swedish municipalities. All mathematics teachers at the four schools participated in the government financed CPD program The Boost for Mathematics, based on collegial learning, over two years. Data was collected during three years and consisted of audio recordings and observations of collegial conversations, documentation from collegial meetings and teachers' individual reflections. The results show that there is tension in the integration of the national and the local practice, which influences what happens in the collegial conversation practice and to what extent the goal of the practice can be reached. In this study, three components of the practice architectures have emerged as especially important in terms of what holds the collegial conversation practice in place; the way in which the school group organizes and implements the CPD programme, the content of the CPD programme and the organizational culture of the school group. The results also show how the participants, through their actions and by being innovative and creative in relation to the practice architectures, can transform these and create new practices. This thesis highlights the complexity that professional development work entails. The results of this thesis contribute to the professional development literature, encouraging such educational work where account is taken to the local context. Top-down national initiatives need to be negotiated in interaction with the local practice, where practitioners are given the opportunity to be involved and are given access to adapting the work according to local conditions and needs.

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