From Texts to Pictures in Teaching Civics. Participant Observation in Mark’s Classroom

We are now living in a “new media age”, with a dramatic shift from the linguistic to the visual, from books and book pages to screens and windows (Kress, 2003). This article offsets out to explore what happens to educational activities in schools when electronic media and pictures replace written texts. The article draws on interviews and classroom observations of a particular Swedish vocational upper secondary programme, where the social studies teacher observes that students are finding it increasingly difficult to benefit from written texts. Theoretically, the study draws on Meyrowitz (1985/1986) theories concerning the relationship among media, situations and behaviour and the effect of a shift from “print situations” to “electronic situations” on a broad range of social role and Bernstein’s (1996/2000) notions of ‘recontextualisation’, ‘framing’ and ‘classification’. The study shows that classroom relations are changing; hierarchies between students and teachers are being broken down, and classification of subjects is affected in the sense that the students’ own interpretations and references are beginning to govern teaching when pictures and electronic media enter the educational discourse

School subjects in the screen culture

Skolämnesparadigm och undervisningspraktik i skärmkulture

Svenskdidaktikens håg för ungdoms- och mediekulturer

Vilken inriktning har den forskning som bedrivs inom det svenskdidaktiska fältet? Vilken betydelse har det faktum att vi nu lever i en värld som i hög grad förmedlas via visuali­seringar av olika slag på en skärm när nya forskningsfrågor formuleras? Redan för tjugo år sedan ägnades i Läroplanskommitténs betänkande Skola för bildning (SOU 1992:94) stort utrymme åt skolans relation till medie­utvecklingen och omvärldsförändringarna. Man menade att det var viktigt att ta elevernas intresse för medievärlden på allvar. Ungefär samtidigt, dvs. i skiftet 1980- och 1990-tal, konsoliderades också stora delar av forskningen och grundutbildningen inom medieområdet i egna ämnesinstitutioner eller ämnesavdelningar i det som blev medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap (MKV) (HSV 2001). Den forskning som utvecklades inom det nya ämnet var förbunden, inte bara med utvecklingen inom forskningsdiscipliner som beteende­vetenskap, statsvetenskap, ekonomisk historia, konstvetenskap och filosofi, utan också språk- och litteraturvetenskap, dvs. ämnen historiskt nära förbundna med utbildningen av lärare i skolämnet svenska och därmed också forskningen inom det svenskdidaktiska fältet. Medieforskningen är liksom många and vetenskapliga discipliner dessvärre måttligt intresserad av fältet pedagogik, menar Thavenius (1995), som diskuterar mediepedagogikens nuvarande och möjliga roll i skolan. Han identifierar två förhärskande mediediskurser kopplade till skola och undervisning: den ena gäller historien om mediernas farlighet, som innebär att mediekompetens (media literacy) definieras som en förmåga att skydda sig mot något som samhället inte kan göra så mycket åt, den andra att mediepedagogiken formats av en snäv syn på vad undervisning kan vara och vad medievetenskap är för något. Mediepedagogiken riskerar därför att bli ett endimensionellt inslag i skolans kulturella produktion, menar han. På motsvarande sätt menar Rönnberg (2003) att skolan underlåter att anknyta till elevernas medieerfarenheter och att den koncentrerar sig ensidigt på skriftligt tillägnande och struntar medvetet i kommunikationen via och kring medier och andra språk än de rent verbala. Hon argumenterar därför för införandet av ämnet ”Mediepedagogik” i den svenska skolan och formulerar ett vidgat och internationellt förankrat perspektiv på läs- och skrivinlärning, medier och kommunikation. Skolan måste, menar hon, ta till vara elevernas vardagserfarenheter och fritidskunskaper och anknyta till deras läroprocesser utanför skolan; det gäller att försöka begripa vardagskulturen. Det här kapitlet handlar om den forskning som vuxit fram inom det svenskdidaktiska fältet under de senaste två decennierna. Fonden utgörs av den forskning som länge bedrivits inom ett mer lösligt sammansatt forskningsfält kring svenskdidaktiska frågor och som huvudsakligen varit förbundna med läsning av böcker (codex) och skrivning för hand. Specifikt behandlar kapitlet hur svenskdidaktiken, här sedan ungefär tio år tillbaka i tiden betraktat som ett mer sammanhållet forskningsfält, intresserar sig för och förhåller sig till modern teknologi och dess relation till ungdomskulturer. Intresset är således inte enbart riktat mot datorn som ett hjälpmedel, utan ny teknologi knutet till ungdomskultur och elevers erfarenheter. Teoretiskt utgår jag från ett medieekologiskt perspektiv, vilket bland annat innebär att jag betraktar institutionen skola och den tillhörande undervisningen i svenska som historiskt och symbiotiskt förbunden inte bara med kyrka, läs- och skrivundervisning (Erixon 2010; Johansson 1977; Tyner 1998), utan också med teknologierna bok, papper och penna

Skola och skrivundervisning i ett medieekologiskt perspektiv

School and writing instruction from a media ecological perspective The theory formation of educational science pays little or  no attention to the fact that technologies have great and extensive implications for what Bernstein (1996) calls content and framing in an educational discourse (Erixon 2010d). This lack of attention also applies to Bernstein’s theory formation. It is easy to disregard the fact that tools and hence different technologies are, and always have been, a part of the practice of teaching in schools, e.g. in the form of books, paper and pencils. This article is about the development of digital media technology (ICT) that is taking place in schools on a wide front and poses questions about how to understand this development and what it is that is really happening to the content and forms of teaching in schools while this development takes place. For this purpose a media ecological perspective is taken on media and communication. This perspective is based on the conception of media in terms of environments that exhort human beings to think and feel in different ways and hence also prescribe what they can do. The point of departure is that education as an institution and an idea emanates from written culture, and is therefore a function of it. In the article, which has a particular focus on the teaching of writing in schools, I use examples from previous and ongoing research projects on how educational practice is changing and how education as an institution is being challenged by new technology. The analysis shows that the new technology provides schools and teaching with a number of new values, and the pupils with new competences, while other values and competences that were associated with the older written culture are simultaneously being lost.Skolämnesparadigm och undervisningspraktik i skärmkulture

School subjects in the screen culture

Skolämnesparadigm och undervisningspraktik i skärmkulture

Skola och skrivundervisning i ett medieekologiskt perspektiv

School and writing instruction from a media ecological perspective The theory formation of educational science pays little or  no attention to the fact that technologies have great and extensive implications for what Bernstein (1996) calls content and framing in an educational discourse (Erixon 2010d). This lack of attention also applies to Bernstein’s theory formation. It is easy to disregard the fact that tools and hence different technologies are, and always have been, a part of the practice of teaching in schools, e.g. in the form of books, paper and pencils. This article is about the development of digital media technology (ICT) that is taking place in schools on a wide front and poses questions about how to understand this development and what it is that is really happening to the content and forms of teaching in schools while this development takes place. For this purpose a media ecological perspective is taken on media and communication. This perspective is based on the conception of media in terms of environments that exhort human beings to think and feel in different ways and hence also prescribe what they can do. The point of departure is that education as an institution and an idea emanates from written culture, and is therefore a function of it. In the article, which has a particular focus on the teaching of writing in schools, I use examples from previous and ongoing research projects on how educational practice is changing and how education as an institution is being challenged by new technology. The analysis shows that the new technology provides schools and teaching with a number of new values, and the pupils with new competences, while other values and competences that were associated with the older written culture are simultaneously being lost.Skolämnesparadigm och undervisningspraktik i skärmkulture

Educational sciences : national and international aspects

I am sitting in a large auditorium (A 280) in the University of Geneva in Switzerland on a Saturday morning in September 2010. The room is filled with people who are involved in different ways in a large European research project of the 7th Framework Programme for Research in the Socio-Economic Sciences and Humanities Theme (SSH), called EERQI–European Educational Research Quality Indicators. The goals of the EERQI project are to reinforce and enhance the worldwide visibility and competitiveness of European educational research. More specifically, the project aims to: (1) develop new indicators and methodologies to determine the quality of educational research publications; (2) propose a prototype framework for establishing such indicators and methodologies; (3) make this framework operational on a multilingual basis (starting with English, German, French and Swedish); (4) produce a search and query engine for resource harvesting and text analysis; (5) test the transferability of the EERQI indicators to other fields in the Social Sciences and the Humanities; and (6) develop a sustainability plan for the quality assessment of European educational research publications. The project hopes to improve the current standards of research quality indicators, especially for the fields of the Social Sciences and the Humanities (see the homepage http://www.eerqi.eu/)

Extended writing demands : a tool för 'academic drift' and the professionalisation of early childhood profession?

This study explores the extended demands for writing in the Swedish public service sector of early childhood and how academic writing in the higher education programmes aimed at professional work in that sector is perceived to be of value for early childhood practice among practitioners. Empirical data was collected in individual interviews and focus groups among 69 early childhood staff in two different communities. The study points to an overall focus on assessments and evaluation in professional writing which tends to challenge everyday communication, i.e. everyday discourse for an internal audience (staff, parents and children). The study further indicates that professional writing holds implications for social relations and contributes to strengthened hierarchies among early childhood staff; younger generations more trained in academic writing tend to be ‘ranked’ higher than staff more experienced in practice. Whether the twin demands for ‘professional’ and ‘academic’ writing will contribute to a ‘professional’ early childhood staff community, as suggested in policy and teacher union rhetoric, remains an open question. Kampen om texte

The degree project in Swedish Early Childhood Education and Care : what is at stake?

This study deals with the undergraduate degree project in teacher training programmes for early childhood education and care in Sweden. For the study we draw on documents and qualitative interviews with teacher educators of different disciplinary backgrounds. The aims of this study were to identify discourses on the degree project in the field of early childhood education and care: (1) in documents; and (2) among teacher educators. Our study points to the tensions between discourses on the degree project as being of primary relevance for the vocational field, or as preparation for research activities. It also shows that varying perceptions on the degree project among teacher educators are largely related to different disciplinary fields. It further emerges that teacher educators have different views about text norms for the degree project, based on different underlying epistemologies to which the student teachers must adapt. We conclude that the multiple and often contradictory requirements of the degree project need critical examination and be reviewed. We also suggest an opening up for new and more creative ways of dealing with the degree project, with greater recognition of professional values and knowledges in the field.Kampen om texten (2012-2015