Pedagogisk forskning i Sverige

Research literacy in practice:

Karin Stolpe — 2024-06-05

The Swedish Education Act states that education should be based on scientific grounding and proven experience. The basic idea is that teaching based on research will be both better and more effective. To be able to fulfil this, teachers need research literacy, an ability to understand, evaluate, and use research for practice. Earlier research has to a large extent focused on barriers and prerequisites for teachers’ utilisation of research for teaching. Scholars suggest that teachers need to take an active role in the process of integrate research and practice. However, the knowledge about what teachers need to know to fulfil this and what motivates them, is still sparse.

This paper aims to contribute knowledge on what aspects of research literacy appear when teachers talk about how they use research related to their teaching. Two research questions have been posed: 1) what motives do teach-ers have for reading research?, 2) which aspects of research literacy emerge when teachers talk about research use?

13 experienced teachers have been interviewed. They work at different levels in Swedish schools and teach different subjects. The research follows good research practice according to the Swedish Research Council. The audio recorded interviews have been transcribed and analysed using content analy-sis. The analysis was based on self-determination theory and research literacy.

The results indicate that intrinsic motivation is important for the partici-pating teachers’ research use. When they search for, read, and use research, the teachers appear to experience a sense of autonomy, competence and be-longing. Furthermore, there are indications that the sense of belonging is strengthened when teachers read and discuss research together with their colleagues. Their sense of competence is strengthened since they experience that reading research extends their vocabulary and helps them to put into words what happens in the classroom.

The results also show that another driving force for research engagement is altruistic motivation. The teachers describe that they read research to be able to make the best teaching for their students. The teachers want to be-come better and develop their competence because they meat students with different backgrounds and different prerequisites to learn.

In conclusion, different motives for using research leads to different active-ties connected to research literacy. On one hand, when teachers are intrinsic-cally motivated, they tend to search for, read, and use research for teaching. On the other hand, extrinsically motivated teachers tend to read research, but do not talk about that they use it.

The contribution of close-to-practice research to the knowledge base of the teacher profession

Per Anderhag — 2024-06-05

By examining what kind of knowledge products that are generated in researcher and teacher collaborative didactic research projects, this study presents and discusses examples of how close-to-practice research can contribute to the knowledge base of the teacher profession. The empirical data consists of published research articles from the research environment Stockholm Teaching & Learning Studies (STLS). Through a content analysis, four (i-iv) categories of knowledge products have been identified: (i) Learning objects, (ii) Teaching design, (iii) Didactic examples and (iv) Methodological tools for didactic research. Learning objects describes what characterizes a specific content knowledge in a specific context. Teaching design specifies relationships between the teaching and consequences for students' learning. Didactic examples include rich descriptions of teaching and students' learning as a basis for didactic reflection. Methodological tools for didactic research focus on combining and testing methods for planning and analysis of teaching. The result can be seen as a typology of the different types of knowledge that close-to-practice research can contribute to the teacher profession.

Discourses about knowledge in relation to Language Introduction Students

Erika Bomström Aho — 2024-06-05

The aim of this article is to shed light on discourses about Language Introduction students and their knowledge, more specifically on discourses that emerge in the speech of teachers working in the Language Introduction program. The program is one of five Introductory programs at upper secondary school in Sweden and accepts newly arrived students aged from 16 to 19. Studies have shown that teachers’ perceptions, beliefs, and experiences can influence to shape their classroom practice, and therefore they are important for students’ schooling and thus also important to investigate. Foucault’s perspective on discourse theory and analysis was chosen to Illuminate how teachers talk about instruction in the program and the knowledge they attribute to their students. The material in the study consists of interviews with 24 teachers at four different upper secondary schools. In the analysis, the two discourses knowledge and multilingualism which are made visible contain statements about knowledge, students’ backgrounds, knowledge heterogeneity, previous schooling and language. The results show that multilingualism is perceived as a resource on the individual level, but that in a school context it becomes an obstacle. In this way, the students are positioned as deficient both in terms of knowledge and language, especially students with little or no previous schooling.

Preschool Teachers’ Handling of Begging as a Social Phenomenon

Klara Dolk — 2024-06-05

In the last decade, thousands of commonly called “vulnerable EU citizens” have come to Western European countries, including Sweden. Many of them support themselves by begging, which has changed public space considerably. Poverty and social vulnerability have become visible in places they had not been visible in for a long time. This implies that many people, both adults and children, are confronted with poverty and social vulnerability on a regular basis. Many preschool children meet vulnerable EU citizens when they are out with their parents as well as with their preschool teachers.

Through examining the experiences and thoughts of preschool teachers on how to handle begging as a social phenomenon together with preschool children, the article intends to contribute to knowledge on how to address a sensitive and controversial issue in preschool. What do the experiences of preschool teachers in meeting begging together with children look like? Is begging an issue that is addressed by adults and children in preschool, and, if so, in which ways? Which pedagogical and ethical challenges arise when the issue is approached in a preschool context?

Begging is not criminalized in Sweden. It is not considered a threat to public order, safety, and health. Yet, previous research shows that encounters with people begging triggers many emotions, often negative and contradictory ones. How can this be reconciled with the “equal treatment” policies expected from Swedish preschools? Drawing inspiration from poststructuralist theory on education and ethics, I conceive these encounters as “meetings with the Other”, which do create tensions, but also possibilities.

The empirical material comes from ten focus group interviews with teachers from six Swedish preschools in different socio-demographic settings. The focus group interviews made it possible to document collective rather than individual processes of interpretation and sense-making. The material has been evaluated with the help of a reflexive thematic analysis.

Few of the interviewed preschool teachers has raised the issue of begging in conversation with preschool children, neither in connection with concrete encounters nor on other occasions. The teachers have also contended that it is not an issue raised by the children. There seem to be two possible explanations for this: One, people begging have become part of daily life, and today’s preschool children don’t know any other. Two, children learn from an early age that begging is nothing to be discussed, since both parents and preschool teachers often avoid the topic. The interviewed preschool teachers regarded begging to be a complicated and sensitive issue that was also considered as too political. Many of them, however, suggested that preschool children would have interesting things to say about the issue if adults felt comfortable raising it.

In order to outline both why the issue is avoided and how it could be addressed, the article looks at three of the most central pedagogical and ethical challenges related to encounters – real and imagined – with people begging: to avoid divisions between “us” and “them”; to negotiate asymmetric relationships of power; and to live up to perceived demands of political neutrality. The article relates these challenges to questions of human rights as well as “the Other”, “asymmetric ethics”, “the political”, and “conflictual consensus”.

The article argues that social justice is practiced in meetings with the Other. Social justice, therefore, is based on the choices and decisions we make in everyday encounters. These choices and decisions imply different forms of pedagogical and ethical challenges, but they also imply a potential for lived justice – even if incomplete.

Multilingualism as a conditional resource

Jenny Uddling — 2024-06-05

Today researchers and school authorities urge teachers to make use of students’ entire linguistic repertoires (Cummins, 2017; Garcia & Li Wei, 2014; Juvonen & Källkvist, 2021; Swedish National Agency for Education, 2022; Svensson et al., 2018), that is, students should be able to use and develop their different linguistic resources in school to strengthen their language, knowledge and identity development. This can be challenging, especially for teachers who are neither trained nor have experience of working with multilingual students. Numerous action research studies, such as Cummins and Early (2011), Lindgren et al. (2015), Lupsa (2022) and Wedin and Wessman (2017), have shown that a change to a more flexible use of students’ different linguistic resources in school takes time and makes demands on teachers, school leaders and school organisations. Earlier research also calls for further studies on middle school teachers’ reflections on multilingual teaching practices (Cunningham, 2019). This is particularly urgent in linguistically diverse classrooms, where several students speak languages other than the majority language. These students are more or less familiar with the language of instruction and, thus, risk lacking behind in their educational careers. The current paper answers the call by analyzing data collected during a municipality-initiated project with the double aim of researching and developing pedagogies for teaching.

The aim of this study is to investigate how two middle school teachers, who work in linguistically diverse classrooms, each talk about multilingual languaging in schoolwork before and after an intervention. The intervention aimed at supporting the teachers in utilizing the students’ multilingual resources in schoolwork to a greater extent. It included collaborative assignments, which students would complete at home in the language of their choice together with guardians. The intervention was carried out in two classrooms and lasted for 14 weeks. In this paper we analyze what the two teachers express in relation to multilingual languaging in the school context in individual semi-structured interviews with the teachers both before and after the intervention. The interview data is analyzed using qualitative content analysis and interpreted and discussed with Ruíz’ (1984) three different approaches to language and language use as problem, right and resource. The results of the study are further discussed on the basis of the concepts of epistemic justice (Fricker, 2007) and inclusive education (Ainscow & Messiou, 2018; Kugelmass, 2006). Our results show that both teachers moved to a more resource-oriented view (Ruiz, 1984) on multilingualism. The teachers’ changed approaches to multilingual languaging in schoolwork can be interpreted as an example of inclusive education (Ainscow & Messiou, 2018; Kugelmass, 2006). This has the potential of leading to an increased acknowledgement of the students and their guardians as knowledgeable and able individuals, thus approaching epistemic justice (Fricker, 2007). However, after the intervention, both teachers continue to regard multilingualism mainly as a conditional resource, something that can be used temporarily by those students who have not yet learned enough Swedish. Thus, the participating teachers in our study talk of multilingual languaging as a useful instrument towards the goal of a better command of the school language Swedish, rather than an ends in its’ own right (c.f. Cunningham, 2019). It is likely that a longer intervention could have yielded different results, since research finds that teachers’ change management takes time (Cummins & Early, 2011; Lindgren et al., 2015; Lupsa, 2022; Wedin &Wessman, 2017). However, we have shown how a short intervention can gradually be built up and to some extent influence teachers’ talk about multilingual languaging in school work. The intervention has also generated knowledge about what support teachers may need to utilize students’ multilingual repertoires in school work, such as working based on students’ different needs and conditions in linguistically diverse classrooms. Also, a deeper understanding of the relationship between Swedish and other languages in regular teaching could be enhanced. Further research is therefore needed on how teachers can be given support to make use of students’ linguistic resources in school work in linguistically diverse classrooms.

Teacher Education Research in Sweden and International Contexts:

Sverker Lindblad — 2024-06-05

Teacher education is vital to educational systems and is a recurrent theme in public discourses. Various stakeholders, including policymakers, national and international organisations, teacher students, and professional organisations express their aspirations and concerns regarding teacher education issues. Different interests are at work here, expecting teacher educations to manage and solve various problems in schooling and education, located in different societal contexts. They influence teacher education research, resulting in an increasing number of research problems and intellectual research approaches—consequently, teacher education research studies complex and diverse phenomena that organise a fragmented research field.

Given this complexity in teacher education research, it is important to get an overview of the field and its organisation in different contexts. Thus, this article aims to analyse the teacher education research field in Sweden and how it interacts with the international research community. We analysed conversations in teacher education research using bibliometric resources to fulfil this purpose. We did not work with citation impact measures. Instead, we identified how publications are linked to each other – or not – to understand how teacher education research organised itself in different networks as research fronts and intellectual traditions.

Data resources available in the ISI Web of Science database were combined with VOSviewer to analyse links between publications. In Web of Science, we identified in sum 23,886 publications out of which 358 had authors affiliated with Sweden.

We identified a massive expansion of publications with Swedish and international author affiliations. There was an Anglo Saxon dominance in terms of publications, journals, and university affiliations. Explorative cluster analyses of links between publications in terms of bibliographic coupling (using the same references) resulted in a set of research fronts working with different problems – such as teacher professionalization, educational change, digital competency, or subject didactics etc. – organized by conversations in various networks. Using co-citation analyses (co-occurrence of cited references) we identified different intellectual traditions – such as symbolic interactionism, pedagogical content knowledge, or critical discourse analysis – manifested in various networks.

Research with Swedish and international research affiliations was organised similarly and often linked to each other. But we also identified distinct networking in Sweden, such as subject matter didactics and policy analyses. Many research publications focused on problems in education and society to be dealt with by teacher education, making statements about change and reforms. In comparison, little research analysed existing teacher education designs and how they function in practice. Thus, change mattered most in teacher education research!

We concluded that teacher education research in Sweden is a fragmented field of study composed of distinct networks, often with solid links inside the networks, but little recognition of conversations outside these networks. To this is added that there is a strong interaction with the international research field, primarily referring to matters of educational change.

A last conclusion: this research has presented visual maps of teacher education research and how it is organized socially and intellectually as a fragmented research field. This fragmentation is due to the actual preconditions of teacher education in interaction with teacher education research. We argue that it is of vital importance for our research community to analyse how this fragmentation is working in different ways, what the grounds are for this, and to look for conversations that connect different networks!

Learning for social inclusion in working life and society

Viktor Vesterberg — 2024-06-05

Social inclusion and lifelong learning are two key areas for the European Union’s labour market-, education- and social political areas. The EU has been successful in spreading these policy concepts in the member states and thus in affecting the national politics in Sweden and other countries. In this article I interrogate how EU-funded social initiatives targeting marginalized EU-migrants in Sweden seek to achieve learning for social inclusion. Particularly it is initiatives funded by FEAD – Fund for European Aid to the most Deprived – that is analysed. FEAD funded welfare projects in Sweden during 2014-2020.

The analysis is inspired by Foucault and others who have elaborated on his thoughts about governmentality and power. I analyse how members of the target group are being governed, as learning subjects, towards social inclusion. Here, I shed light on the issues of what the target groups are seen in need to learn in order to become included. Learning is, from this perspective, a matter of governing. Learning has been thoroughly analysed with approaches inspired by Michel Foucault. Learning is a key policy concept in the EU, and EU citizens are constantly urged to understand themselves as active lifelong learners, not least by becoming employable, which is seen as a crucial step towards social inclusion. From a Foucauldian perspective learning and governing are both a matter of ‘conducting the conduct’ of oneself and others. In this case, the learning activities seek to govern the target group towards becoming socially included in society and on the labour market. Against this background, it is crucial to interrogate how the problems represented in policy are dealt with and understood by various actors engaged in social initiatives for inclusion. Therefore, I analyse both the major EU policy that governs FEAD activities in Sweden and the statements of people engaged in projects funded by FEAD.

The aim of the study is to contribute with knowledge about how possibilities and constraints are constructed in relation to how learning and social inclusion can be facilitated for marginalized groups. The study contributes with knowledge about how conditions for learning for inclusion are understood by welfare professionals. In the article I analyse how problem representations, challenges and opportunities for learning in EU-funded social initiatives in Sweden are formulated and the rationalities underpinning the governing of the target groups.

The empirical material consists of 16 qualitative interviews with people who, in various ways, are involved in the EU-funded initiatives, for instance project leaders, project coordinators and steering group members. The interviews were carried out in 2018 and 2019. During this period there were five FEAD-projects up and running. I have interviewed representatives from all five projects as well as from the FEAD headquarters in Sweden. In addition, the main policy guiding FEAD-funded activities in Sweden is analysed.

One of the main results of the study concerns the identification of two different learning rationalities: learning oriented towards the individual and learning oriented towards societal structures. The individually oriented learning rationality is concerned with the wellbeing of the induvial and focus on promoting a healthy lifestyle for the target group. The structurally oriented learning rationality is concerned with facilitating citizenship knowledge, knowledge about social rights and responsibilities in Sweden and in Europe. Through such focus, an increased awareness about civic issues, can strengthen the target groups participation in society.

Elevsynpunkter som grund för lärares kompetensutveckling

Marcus Samuelsson — 2024-06-05

Denna essä beskriver hur 8-, 11- och 14-åringar i Stockholm stad bedömt livet i skolan och kvaliteten på lärarnas arbete under 11 år. Skillnader i upplevelser bland elever i kommunala respektive fristående skolor skildras och jämförelser görs mellan utfallet för elevgrupper och år. I essän diskuteras också i vilken grad som ledningen för Stockholms skolväsende förmått att använda sig av sina egna brukarundersökningar där elever besvarat enkäter, som underlag för förbättringsåtgärder i kommunens skolor. Några alternativa vägar anges för hur kompetensutveckling bland lärare skulle kunnat komma till användning under det aktuella decenniet.

English summaries

2024-06-05