Principals´ Views on and Descriptions of Preschool Education for Sustainable Development

Principals have an important role to play when it comes to making decisions on organizational reforms and priorities in preschool; however, there has been little focus on their views on education for sustainable development (ESD) at the preschool level, which is a reform that needs to be prioritized. Furthermore, there is little insight into similarities and differences when it comes to how different types of preschools incorporate ESD, especially from the point of view of management. For this reason, this study aims to find out about the views on ESD that principals of eco-certified and non-eco-certified preschools have. A further aim is to examine whether there are any differences between the two types of preschools – eco-certified and non-eco-certified – as made evident in the principals’ descriptions of ESD. This qualitative study applies a cross-sectional design. Seven principals, who headed a total of 22 preschools located in six municipalities in Sweden were interviewed: these interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed, and a thematic analysis was conducted. The findings demonstrate that the principals consider ESD to be crucial in early childhood education and feel ESD needs to be integrated into preschool education. Going by the principals’ descriptions, it seems that the eco-certified preschools prioritize ESD in their daily educational practices more than non-eco-certified preschools do. Further studies are needed to explore the attitudes and actions of principals when it comes to heading ESD in preschool, since attitudes guide both actions and behavior. &nbsp

European history crossroads as pathways to intercultural and media education (EHISTO)

[EN] EHISTO (European history crossroads as pathways to intercultural and media education) is concerned with the mediation of history in popular (science) media and the question of social and political responsibility of journalists and other mediators of history, especially teachers, in the field of commercial presentation of history. The project responds to the increasing significance of a commercialised mediation of history within the public historical culture and reflects the fact that these representations, which do not always meet the EU standards for history education, can have a lasting impact on the young generation’s understanding of history. Using the example of popular history magazines, the project shall, besides the necessary basic research, develop didactically reflected materials for both history education in school as well as initial and in-service teacher training. On one hand enable a media-critical examination of history magazines and on the other hand, by working with the history magazines, the project addresses itself to popular interpretations of history from the participating countries and reflects their similarities and differences in European cultures of remembrance. Therefore, this approach not only trains mediacritical competences but furthermore enables a multi-perspective and comparative access to history. The project EHISTO will last two years and is funded by the EU Lifelong Learning Programme with about 300,000 euros. Partners from six European nations take part in the project

Åldersblandning i skolan : elevers erfarenheter

Mixing ages in school classes became more and more common during the last dec-ades of the 20th century. From being a way to organise classes out of necessity they have now come to be something which is implemented on the basis of pedagogical arguments. The aim of this research has been to improve our knowledge of classes where pupils are not of the same age. A study of the pupils’ perspectives has been my main interest. (Age) homogeneous class can been looked upon as a result of the authorities’ deci-sion to have a fixed age for children to start school and their decision that certain courses should be completed within a defined period of time. Terms and the data concerning heterogeneous age groupings are ambiguous and cannot be fully understood without knowledge of national and sometimes even local contexts. Practices within age heterogeneous classes may differ greatly. A great deal of individual work takes place in age heterogeneous classes. Whether the class is non-mixed or mixed-aged does not seem to have a major im-pact on cognitive or non-cognitive abilities among the pupils, but there are suggestions that age heterogeneous classes might be disadvantageous to pupils in problematic situations. I am able to show that more than 30% of pupils in grades 1-3, close to 25% in grades 4-5, about 15% in grade 6 and a couple of percent of Swedish pupils in the later school years are taught in mixed-age groups. My own empirical research focuses on pupils’ experiences. My investigation has a ‘life-world’ oriented approach inspired by phenomenology. Pupils in grades 5 and 6 from three schools in three different socio-economic settings were interviewed. These pupils had experienced both mixed-age and single-age classes. The life-world of pupils seems to be something different from that encompassed by the philosophy about the advantages of mixing the ages in classes. Pupils find it diffi-cult to maintain or create relationships when only a few pupils of the same sex, who have started school at the same time, can be together in a class for a long time. Be-cause of the importance of social relationships almost every pupil in this investigation wished to be in a single-age class during the following year. It is the importance of common experiences rather than age that is central. Pupils stated that having things in common to study in their everyday schoolwork makes it easier to communicate and contributes to stable friendships. In my conclusion I focus on what it means to have relationships and how these are important for human identity. I also try to show how relationships are important in learning situations at school and for pupils’ opportunities to expand their knowledge.digitalisering@um

Globalization and Classroom Practice: Insights on Learning about the World in Swedish and Australian Schools

Globalization and global education implies changes to practices at the classroom level to adapt to new imperatives associated with technology use and awareness, and environmental sustainability. It also implies much more. It implies that teachers apply their classroom pedagogy to take account of students’ new found global understandings of which they, and the school community, is largely unaware. This article addresses and discuses three key consequences of globalization for classrooms worldwide; an increased diversity of experience of the students within the classroom, an increased competitiveness of educational outcomes between national states and subsequently some standardisation of curriculum across nations to enable this, and an increased emphasis on teaching skills and values associated with intercultural understanding. Young children’s map knowledge and their resultant, and associated, interpretations of the world from a comparative study a from Swedish and Australian primary classrooms is used as examples of some of these implications of the impact of ‘global culture’ and ‘global issues’ on current and future classroom practice

Constroversially uncontroversial? Swedish pre-service history teachers' relations to their national pasts

This article presents a study of how Swedish pre-service history teachers narrated their nation’s past. Previous research on national history education has generally focused on the treatment of conflicts in national history and what challenges that poses for history education. The present study seeks to complement and broaden this research through its focus on a country where national history is generally perceived as uncontroversial and the debate on national history is generally characterised by consensus, and on what strategies future history teachers use when recounting the national history of Sweden. Using a qualitative approach, we asked our respondents to “Tell us the history of Sweden in your own words” in writing. The study finds that the vast majority of the respondents approach their national history in a way that reinforces a traditional view of Swedish national history. These narratives are generally presented in a way that does not engage with or show how perspective and position affects our rendering of history, which has often been regarded as problematic in history educational research. At the same time, these results also show that our respondents are well familiar with the dominant way of perceiving the Swedish past, something that could also be argued to be valuable in history education, depending on how we choose to approach national history.Artikeln presenterar en studie av hur svenska historielärarstudenter skildrade Sveriges historia. Tidigare forskning om nationell historieundervisning har främst närmat sig ämnet från ett konfliktperspektiv och undersökt vilka utmaningar detta innebär för historieundervisningen. Föreliggande studie söker att komplementera tidigare forskning genom att fokusera på ett land vars nationella historia generellt uppfattas som okontro­versiell och där debatten om den nationella historieskrivningen i stor utsträckning präglas av konsensus, samt på vilka strategier historielärarstudenter använder när de skildrar Sveriges historia. Genom en kvalitativ forskningsansats bad vi våra respond­enter att skriftligen”Berätta Sveriges historia med dina egna ord”. Studien visar att majoriteten av respondenterna skildrar den svenska historien på ett sätt som återger en traditionell syn på Sveriges historia. Dessa narrativ är generellt skrivna på ett sådant sätt att de inte visar hur perspektiv och positionering påverkar hur vi skildrar det förflutna, något som ofta ansetts vara problematiskt i historiedidaktisk forskning. Samtidigt visar studiens resultat att respondenterna är välbekanta med det dominerande sättet att skildra den svenska historien, något som även kan vara värdefullt för historieundervisningen, beroende på hur vi väljer att närma oss den nationella historien

History curriculum, geschichtsdidaktik, and the problem of the nation

Editorial: The field of curriculum studies has become increasingly sensitive to the “effects of global flows, transnational connections, and transcultural interactions” ([1], p. 43), and an international dialogue has begun to take shape between the European <i>bildung</i>-influenced tradition of <i>Didaktiks</i> and the Anglo-American psychologised Curriculum Studies tradition. As it stands, the dialogue has concentrated on a comparative analysis of the traditions at the level of general curriculum theory or <i>Allgemeine Didaktik</i> (see for example, [2]), and has rarely, if ever, drilled down into an area of subject-specific pedagogy or <i>fachdidaktiks</i>. This special issue seeks to address this directly, by encouraging a dialogue between various regional and national traditions of history education or <i>Geschichtsdidaktik</i>

Children's learning for a sustainable society : influences from home and preschool

Although parents and preschool play important roles in developing children?s behavior and attitudes, little is known about their influences on children?s learning of environmental, social and economic aspects of sustainability. This study investigated the influences of home- and preschool-related practices and factors on children?s declarative and functional knowledge of sustainability issues, and the extent to which eco-certified preschools promote beneficial practices. ?Eco-certified preschools? refers to schools that explicitly work with education for sustainability. Children (n=53), aged five to six years, and the directors (n=7) at six eco-certified and six non-eco-certified preschools were interviewed, while guardians (n=89) and teachers (n=74) filled out questionnaires. Children?s responses were categorized and classified using SOLO Taxonomy. Multivariate analyses were performed in SIMCA P + 14. The findings indicate a positive relationship between children?s declarative and functional knowledge of sustainability issues and the involvement of teachers and guardians in sustainability-related discussions and activities. Teachers? verbal interaction with children about sustainability issues, and the perceived high value of these issues among teachers and directors seem to be more beneficial for children?s declarative knowledge than their functional knowledge. No statistically significant differences between eco- and non-eco-certified preschools in terms of children?s declarative and functional knowledge were found

Preschool children's knowledge about the environmental impact of various modes of transport

This study explored Swedish preschool children’s knowledge about theenvironmental impact of various transport modes, and investigatedwhether or not eco-certification has any role to play in relation to thisknowledge. Additionally, this study examined children’s perceivedsources of knowledge. Using illustrations and semi-structured questions,53 children, aged five to six years, from six eco-certified and six non-eco-certified preschools were interviewed. Qualitative and quantitative datawere analysed using content analysis and Orthogonal Partial LeastSquares Discriminant Analysis (OPLS-DA), respectively. Findings revealedthat most of the children had acquired some knowledge about theenvironmental impact of various transport modes, although somechildren were not familiar with the word‘environment’. Although thecomplexity of children’s justifications for the environmental impact ofdifferent modes of transport tended to be higher at eco-certifiedpreschools compared to non-eco-certified preschools, no statisticallysignificant differences were found. Parents were reported to be a majorsource of knowledge

What Motivates Students to Read at School? : Student Views on Reading Practices in Middle and Lower-Secondary School

Background: Reading amount is decisive for individual students’ academic success as well as for the general strength of democratic societies. Still, the amount of both leisure-time and school-related reading is decreasing. To reverse this trend, more knowledge of what drives students’ school reading is needed. Methods: Drawing on Self-Determination Theory (SDT), the study is based on structured interviews with 259 students in Grades 6 and 9 from 14 different schools. Descriptive statistical analyses were made to map students’ perceptions of themselves as readers and their school-related reading practices, and to find out what regulates students’ motivation for in-class reading. Results: Although students express a strong will to become good readers, our data indicate that students are mainly driven by controlled motivation for their school-related reading; autonomous motivation was only expressed by a minority of students in Grade 6. What would make students read more are mainly text and instruction related factors such as more interesting texts and more time allocated to reading. Conclusions: Our results point to a great potential for more in-class reading across the curriculum, reading sessions that need to be regularly scheduled using carefully selected texts. In line with SDT, our findings highlight the importance of fulfilling students’ need for competence, relatedness, and autonomy in order for them to develop more self-determined behavior, such as leisure-time reading – which in turn will boost their reading self-concept

Motivational Aspects of Students’ Amount of Reading and Affective Reading Experiences in a School Context : A Large-Scale Study of Grades 6 and 9

As leisure-time reading among adolescents declines in the western world, stakeholders try to increase students’ motivation for school-related reading. We examine the relationship of students’ autonomous and controlled reading motivation with their amount and experiences of school-related reading in four school subjects, controlling for students’ attitudes toward the school subjects and general attitudes toward reading. Questionnaire data were collected from 3308 students in Grades 6 and 9 at 144 schools in Sweden. Multiple linear regression indicates that students’ attitudes toward the subject are more important predictors of reading amount than their reading motivation. Motivation type was primarily related to students’ affective experiences of the reading, and only weakly related to their amount of school-related reading. Results suggest that the relationship between motivation and school-related reading differ from voluntary leisure-time reading. The study thus complements previous research which primarily has focused on the role of students’ motivation for their amount of leisure-time reading