Supervision As Moral Activity

What is the relationship between supervision and morality? Or to be more precise: What role and function may morality have in supervision? This paper argues that framing this relationship as an issue of professional ethics is insufficient. Morality in supervision is not only a case of the supervisor’s professional ethics. An alternative conception, it is further argued, is supervision as a moral practice or activity. Such an understanding gives moral theory a more prominent place in supervision. The formulation of relevantmoral theory, however, cannot be outsourced to academics. It has to be a joint communicative enterprise between theory that is developed in practice and in an academic setting

On a math mission: The time and space compression of professional identity and values in prospective mathematics teachers’ stories

This article analyzes and discusses the professional values of prospective mathematics teachers. Theoretical approaches to the understanding of teachers’ professional values, such as critical mathematics education and relational perspectives, are well developed. Still, there are few empirical contributions to the field. Here, professional values are understood as interwoven with professional identity. The article raises the question of how prospective teachers construct their identity and values in time and space, and the analysis is based on data material from mathematics teacher students at two Norwegian teacher education institutions. The main finding is that the teacher students construct their professional identity and values in a compressed timespace. Their professional responsibility is located in and restricted to themselves and the relation to the individual student, not including concern for, for instance, social justice. The students do not express opposition to ideals of social justice, but it is beyond their constructed professional timespace identity, values and responsibility.publishedVersio

Learning mathematics through activities with robots

There are several countries that integrate programming into their mathematics curricula, thereby making robotics an interesting aspect of mathematics education. However, the benefits of using robotics for mathematics education are still unclear. This article addresses the use of mathematical tools with robot-based, problem-solving activities by discussing how mathematical tools are used in robot-based activities. This ethnographic intervention study took place in one secondary school in Norway as a part of an elective class in which videotaped data were gathered by observing the activity of groups of two or three students using Lego Mindstorm robots during an eight-week period. Through the use of activity system analysis in Cultural–Historical Activity Theory, we found that students used different kinds of mathematical tools. Furthermore, we found that mathematics can change its role from instrumental tool to object, that is, to an integrated aspect of the purpose of the activity.acceptedVersio

IKT i læringsrommet : IKT, lokal skolepraksis og globalisering

I denne boken rettes søkelyset mot informasjons- og kommunikasjonsteknologi (ikt) i grunnskolens ulike fag. Samtidig er ikt en kanal ”ut i verden”, og bruk av ikt i skolen har sammenheng med videre, globale fenomener. Artiklene i boken drøfter begge temaene. Bidragsyterne er ansatte ved Avdeling for lærerutdanning, Høgskolen i Østfold og har bakgrunn fra en rekke ulike fag. Artikkelsamlingen er kommet i stand som et resultat av et nettverksprosjekt kalt IKT i læringsrommet. Det at prosjektet har hatt en klar forankring i ulike fag betyr en vektlegging at ikt må forstås i spesifikke kontekster. Å bruke ikt i norsk innebærer andre spørsmål og praksiser enn ikt i matematikk eller historie. Tanken har vært at det er først i møte med fagenes spesifikke praksis at ikt kan få en meningsfylt rolle. På den andre side innebærer også ikt som fenomen en utfordring, det stiller nye spørsmål, til fagene. Samtidig som de fleste av prosjektene har hatt en klar praktisk orientering, har de mest lokale og spesielle tiltakene sammenhenger med hva som skjer ellers i verden. Ikt i sin egenart har et globalt preg: Det bidrar til menneskelig kommunikasjon på tvers av avstand og tid. Derfor har noen av artiklene satt fokus på de mer globale perspektivene ved ikt i skolen. De kommer mot slutten av denne boken

Bokmeldinger

Trond Eilliv Hauge: Å planlegge og designe undervisning. Cappelen Damm Akademisk 2018Anmeldt av Geir AfdalKristin Graff-Kallevåg og Tone Stangeland Kaufman (red.) (2018) Byggekloss-spiritualitet? En studie i spiritualitet i Den norske kirkes trosopplæring. Oslo: IKO-Forlaget.Anmeldt av Asbjørn Hirsc

Negotiating Purity and Impurity of Religion and Economy: An Empirical Contribution to Kathryn Tanner’s Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism

Kathryn Tanner’s book Christianity and the new Spirit of Capitalism generated an interesting debate about the relationship between Christianity and capitalism, as exemplified by the four review essays—by David Cloutier, Nicole M. Flores, Philip Goodchild, and John E. Thiel, respectively—published in Modern Theology in 2019. While the responses contain many interesting critical points, this article focuses on two particular trajectories in the debate that indirectly demand an empirical engagement with Tanner’s work. One strand of criticism charges that Tanner offers too generic examples of the economic reality that she examines, while her description of Christianity is too specific without being contextualized. The second strand argues that Tanner makes a dichotomy between a religious project and an economic project, which leads to the construction of a “pure” Christian conduct. This article continues this debate by fleshing out the issues of purity and impurity through an empirical study of two Christian networks, the Economy of Communion and Business as Mission. Using Bruno Latour’s account of modernization, the main finding is that the two logics, purity and impurity, continually configure the relationship between religion and economy. We further discuss these findings in relation to Tanner and her critics, and argue that theological ethical studies of the relationship between Christianity and economy would benefit from starting with empirical studies of the actual intertwining of religion and economy. Tanner convincingly argues that in order to challenge capitalism one has to work for structural, political changes and not only improve conditions within the economic system. However, this does not necessarily imply the use of pure and abstract normative principles. Normative ethical insights that are developed through analyses of everyday religious–economic practices may turn out to be as convincing

Læreres profesjonsetikk i fokus

Lærere og ledere i barnehage og skole har talt. Profesjonsetikk er særdeles viktig, og følgende begrunnelser blir gitt. For det først er profesjonsetikken viktig for å utvikle profesjonell refleksjon, for det andre for å begrunne profesjonelle handlinger, og sist, men ikke minst, for ansvarliggjøring i det offentlige rom

Learning and knowledge trajectories in congregations

»Verlaufskurven des Lernens und Wissens in Gemeinden«: Dieses Forschungsprojekt begleitete eine umfassende Initiative zur religiösen Bildung der Kirche von Norwegen. Es zielte einerseits darauf, anspruchsvolle pädagogische Theorien wie die soziokulturelle Entwicklungspsychologie (Lew Vygotskij) oder die Akteur-Netzwerk-Theorie (Bruno Latour) in die religionspädagogische Forschung zu integrieren. Andererseits wurden faktische Lernprozesse in Taufunterricht, Kirchenvorstand, Konfi-Teams oder Gottesdienstplanung eingehend untersucht. Die außertheologische Rezeption von ›LETRA‹ scheint erfolgreicher zu sein als seine innerkirchliche Wirkung

Modes of syncretism:notes on noncoherence

In this contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium “Fuzzy Studies,” the authors, all of whom work in the field of science, technology, and society, begin from the assumption that, as Bruno Latour has put it, “we have never been modern.” They accept the STS thesis that, while modern practices purport to be entirely rational and coherent, on closer inspection they turn out to be as much noncoherent as coherent. This article poses the question of what forms “noncoherences” take and how they are managed. The basic argument is that there is a range of styles of noncoherence or “modes of syncretism.” In small case studies, the authors identify six such modes or styles, which they term denial, domestication, separation, care, conflict, and collapse. Given that consistency and coherence seem less important now than they were once taken to be — and given that the conditions of possibility for purity are, in any case, in decline — this list and its supporting case studies, while not meant to be definitive, are offered as a way of understanding how practices that do not cohere may still function and fit together admirably