Rural Pupils Making their Way through the Norwegian Education System: Enablements, Constraints and Agency in a Northern Norwegian Context

This thesis focuses on pupils’ agency and their experiences with and reflections on educational choices. The theoretical framework draws on Margaret Archer’s morphogenetic approach as it examines parts of the educational situational logics, as well as her Three-Stage Model in which structural and cultural properties shape agents’ situations. The thesis thus explores constraints and enablements pupils face, and courses of actions that are produced through their reflexive deliberations. The thesis is based on semistructured interviews at two points in time with eighteen pupils in one rural and one urban municipality; it is supplemented by the researcher’s previous experiences and contextual knowledge. This thesis argues that rural pupils are constrained by rural demography, the centralized education system, the assimilation/colonisation of the Sámi people and a spatially and ethnically unaware curriculum. Local opportunities’ structures, to some extent, enable rural pupils. In addition, their decision-making capabilities enable them to navigate within existing structures. In Archer’s theory, spatial contexts are not entirely explicit; the way spatial constraints and enablements are actualised in specific structural contexts can be further developed. Theoretically, this thesis engages with spatial contexts in addressing structural constraints and enablements. It emphasises space within Archer’s theoretical framework, as spatial properties produce unequal conditions for education.Avhandlinga setter søkelys på elevers aktørskap og deres erfaringer med, og refleksjoner omkring valg av utdanning. Det teoretiske rammeverket bygger på Margaret Archers morfogenetiske tilnærming. Rammeverket benyttes for å undersøke enkelte aspekter ved utdanningens situasjonslogikk. I tillegg gjøres det bruk av Archers Trestegs-modell som muliggjør en analyse av hvordan strukturelle og kulturelle egenskaper påvirker situasjonen til aktører. Avhandlinga undersøker dermed hvordan elevene refleksivt overveier egne handlinger i lys av strukturelle muligheter og begrensinger. Avhandlinga er basert på semistrukturerte intervju, utført på to tidspunkt, med atten elever i en rural og en urban kommune. I tillegg benyttes forskerens egne erfaringer og kontekstuelle kjennskap. Avhandlinga antyder at rurale elever er begrensa av rural demografi, det sentraliserte utdanningssystemet, koloniseringa av Sápmi, og en læreplan som tar mindre hensyn til rom/sted og etnisitet. Lokale mulighetsstrukturer gir, til en viss grad elever i distrikta handlingsrom. I tillegg benytter de seg av egne beslutnings egenskaper, noe som gjør dem til i stand til å navigere de eksisterende strukturene. Archers teori har i liten grad tatt for seg kontekstuelle betingelser; hvordan muligheter og begrensinger blir aktualisert i spesifikke strukturelle kontekster kan derfor videreutvikles. På et teoretisk plan befatter denne avhandlinga seg med kontekst ved å adressere strukturelle begrensinger og muligheter. Ettersom romlige egenskaper produserer ulike betingelser for utdanning, fremhever avhandlinga romlige/stedlige aspekter i Archers teoretiske rammeverk

Being Able to Stay or Learning to Stay: A Study of Rural Boys’ Educational Orientations and Transitions

This study explores the influence of geographical location on young pupils’ educational orientations and their transition from lower to upper secondary school; it pays particular attention to the voices of male youths from a rural area. More specifically, it investigates the interplay between gender and geographical contexts and the significance of these factors in understanding the processes associated with educational orientations. Margaret Archer’s framework is used to analyse how pupils’ agency is constrained and/or enabled by objective structures. The data material consists of qualitative interviews with 18 pupils transitioning from lower to upper secondary school in Norway. Each of the pupils was interviewed twice: first when they were in their last year of lower secondary education, and then during their first year of upper secondary education. The findings show that pupils consider geographical locations when making decisions about further education and work. In addition, they believe that education beyond compulsory schooling benefits their life in the rural areas. However, unlike their urban counterparts, pupils from rural areas appear to have a more constraining transition to upper secondary education. Through the analyses in this article, it becomes clear that both geographical location and gender are key factors for understanding processes connected to education

“I am Sámi, but I am not a Sámi”: Coastal Sámi students’ articulations of identity in a colonial-blind Norwegian state

This article gives voice to coastal Sámi students and explores their negotiations over being Sámi or Norwegian within the Norwegian education system. Through interviews, students share insights on the extent to which education focuses on Sámi issues and reflect upon their identity. The article explores how youths negotiate personal identity within pre-existing structures by employing Archer’s theory on structure and agency as a backdrop. The changing phases in how ‘western’ societies view indigenous practices and knowledges are applied together with (de)colonial perspectives to understand (colonial) structures. Some key findings are that the coastal Sámi students’ identity negotiations are complex, as official discourses seem to restrict them from identifying as ‘real’ Sámi, and that the local Sámi is within a discursive void due to unintended consequences resulting from the unification in the centralised education system. In focusing on students and using the educational system as a backdrop, this article seeks to deepen the understanding of how society and the educational system in particular condition students’ notions of what it entails to be Sámi and how students negotiate their identity

Rural Pupils Making their Way through the Norwegian Education System: Enablements, Constraints and Agency in a Northern Norwegian Context

This thesis focuses on pupils’ agency and their experiences with and reflections on educational choices. The theoretical framework draws on Margaret Archer’s morphogenetic approach as it examines parts of the educational situational logics, as well as her Three-Stage Model in which structural and cultural properties shape agents’ situations. The thesis thus explores constraints and enablements pupils face, and courses of actions that are produced through their reflexive deliberations. The thesis is based on semistructured interviews at two points in time with eighteen pupils in one rural and one urban municipality; it is supplemented by the researcher’s previous experiences and contextual knowledge. This thesis argues that rural pupils are constrained by rural demography, the centralized education system, the assimilation/colonisation of the Sámi people and a spatially and ethnically unaware curriculum. Local opportunities’ structures, to some extent, enable rural pupils. In addition, their decision-making capabilities enable them to navigate within existing structures. In Archer’s theory, spatial contexts are not entirely explicit; the way spatial constraints and enablements are actualised in specific structural contexts can be further developed. Theoretically, this thesis engages with spatial contexts in addressing structural constraints and enablements. It emphasises space within Archer’s theoretical framework, as spatial properties produce unequal conditions for education

Being bullied, quality of life and gender. A quantitative study of students at lower secondary school on bullying and self-perceived quality of life

The subject of this thesis is bullying. The thesis is related to the project “Trivsel i Tromsø”-TiT (Well-being in Tromsø), which is managed by The Department of Education at the University of Tromsø. A questionnaire within the frame of the TiT-project has been answered by pupils, their teachers and parents at 6 schools in Tromsø. It included both a standardized “Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire” and quality of life questionnaire called KINDLR. It also includes a separate section of questions considering traditional- and cyberbullying. I have performed various quantitative analyses using SPSS. One objective is to find whether there are differences in the reporting of being bullied, with respect to gender. Another objective is to find whether there are differences in the reporting of “quality of life” with respect to being bullied or not and to gender. The results show that more girls than boys report being bullied in general. Cyberbullying does not seem to be a major problem and seem to come partly in addition to the traditional bullying. Most students report a relatively good QoL, but girls report poorer QoL than boys, and the students who report being bullied either way, report a lower QoL-score

Cyber Harassment and Quality of Life

Research on bullying and harassment in Scandinavia has been going on for several decades, and is appearing in new frameworks and forms since the new categories of “cyber harassment” or “cyberbullying” has been introduced. Bullying is a phenomenon of great importance, as it seems to affect persons negatively in their everyday functioning. We designed a questionnaire on cyber harassment, which was answered by pupils, at five schools in Tromsø (N=878). This questionnaire included a section of questions concerning traditional forms of harassment and bullying, as well as a set of quality of life (QoL) questions. The main questions asked here are: 1) What is the prevalence in percentages of classical bullying and cyberbullying; 2) Are there gender and/or age differences; 3) What percentage of children bullied classically were also cyber-bullied; 4) In what way was the quality of life affected for those that were classically bullied or cyber-bullied? Our main finding is that students who report being cyber-harassed or cyber-bullied, report a significantly lower QoL-score than their non-harassed peers, and thus share the same negative characteristics in relation to quality of life as classical harassment and bullying. Cyberbullying is less common than classical bullying, but it now affects some 3.5% of the pupils, and nearly half of the cyberbullying comes in addition to traditional bullying

Lærerstudenters forventninger til arbeidet som profesjonelle lærere i skolen: Resultater fra en spørreundersøkelse i regi av NFR-prosjektet STEP: Partnerskap for bærekraftig overgang fra lærerutdanning til yrke

Formålet med undersøkelsen var å kartlegge hvilke forventninger det første kullet i den femårige integrerte masterutdanningen for grunnskolelærere har til arbeidet som profesjonelle lærere i skolen. Det empiriske grunnlaget for rapporten består av svar fra studenter som nettopp hadde startet i det siste året i grunnskolelærerutdanningen. Spørreskjemaet omfattet i hovedsak spørsmål med faste svaralternativer, men med anledning for respondentene til å kommentere sine svar. Datainnsamlingen ble gjennomført høsten 2021, i en periode preget av Covid19-pandemien med nedstengning og utstrakt nettbasert undervisning som erstatning for planlagt undervisning på campus. Det er også verdt å merke seg at undersøkelsen ble gjennomført før studentene hadde startet arbeidet med masteroppgaven, og deres vurderinger av utdanningen og betydningen av masteroppgaven må forstås i lys av det. Resultatene viser at studentene generelt sett ser fram til yrkesstarten med forventning og spenning. De føler seg godt forberedt til å undervise i fagene de har fordypning i fra utdanningen. Samtidig viser kommentarene at mange er usikre på om de i tilstrekkelig grad er rustet for bredden og kompleksiteten i utfordringene de forventer å møte i skolen. Denne usikkerheten handler i første rekke om to forhold: For det første er de urolige med tanke på eventuelt å undervise i fag de ikke har fordypning i. Videre indikerer svar og kommentarer at de mener de er lite forberedt til å håndtere en del av de oppgavene som understøtter møtet med elevene i klasserommet. Det gjelder i første rekke samarbeid med foresatte, kontaktlærerrollen, samarbeid med skolens hjelpetjenester og tilrettelegging for elever med særskilte behov. Studentene forventer at overgangen fra utdanning til arbeidet i skolen blir krevende. De har en offensiv og læringsorientert holdning til møtet med disse utfordringene. Når det gjelder deres eget behov for tilrettelegging og lærings-støttende tiltak, peker de i første rekke på forventninger om samarbeid med erfarne kolleger, tilpasning fra ledelsen i form av arbeids- og undervisningsplaner som de kan mestre og deltakelse i en kvalitetssikret veiledningsordning i tråd med de nasjonale prinsippene for veiledning av nyutdannede lærere. På spørsmål om hva studentene mener de vil kunne tilføre det profesjonelle fellesskapet i skolen, peker de på entusiasme og glød for elevenes læring og skolemiljø og vilje til å stimulere til elevmedvirkning og demokratiforståelse. Studentene gir også uttrykk for at de tror de kan bidra med en kritisk-analytisk og utforskende tilnærming til undervisning og læring. Både svar og kommentarer viser at svært mange av studentene primært oppfatter arbeidet med masteroppgaven som en ytterligere fordypning og spesialisering i fag

Attuning to a changing ocean

The ocean is a lifeline for human existence, but current practices risk severely undermining ocean sustainability. Present and future social−ecological challenges necessitate the maintenance and development of knowledge and action by stimulating collaboration among scientists and between science, policy, and practice. Here we explore not only how such collaborations have developed in the Nordic countries and adjacent seas but also how knowledge from these regions contributes to an understanding of how to obtain a sustainable ocean. Our collective experience may be summarized in three points: 1) In the absence of long-term observations, decision-making is subject to high risk arising from natural variability; 2) in the absence of established scientific organizations, advice to stakeholders often relies on a few advisors, making them prone to biased perceptions; and 3) in the absence of trust between policy makers and the science community, attuning to a changing ocean will be subject to arbitrary decision-making with unforeseen and negative ramifications. Underpinning these observations, we show that collaboration across scientific disciplines and stakeholders and between nations is a necessary condition for appropriate actions