L1-Educational Studies in Language and Literature
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Technology in L1: A review of empirical research projects in Scandinavia 1992-2014
Get PDFIn recent decades, several Scandinavian research projects have had an explicit focus on how technology intervenes in L1 (or so-called Mother Tongue Education) practices in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish educational contexts, and how this may impact on understanding of the subject. There is currently no systematic overview of the documented possibilities and challenges related to the use of technology in L1. At the same time, there is terminological confusion in use of ‘technology\u27 and related concepts in L1. Finally, there is a general lack of critical reflection on the relation between technological developments, political rhetoric, and the development of L1 teaching and learning as a social practice related to specific contexts and actors. Thus, the paper attempts to answer three interrelated research questions: 1) what do we mean when we talk about ‘technology\u27 in L1?; 2) based on a systematic review of empirical studies, what characterizes the research field?; and 3) for discussion, which broader implications does the review suggest for a rethinking of L1 in terms of practice and research? Introducing the notion of educational boundary objects, a theoretical framework is developed, which suggests four metaphors for understanding technology within L1: as a tool, as media, as socialization, and as literacy practices. These are found useful for analyzing and comparing both theoretical perspectives and empirical research on L1. A key finding of the study is that, although the included research is characterized by a large degree of diversity, the conceptualization of technology as media is a dominating approach which downplays aesthetic, critical and tool-oriented perspectives. Another finding is the large number of studies that focus on student practices within L1 and the relationship to out-of-school literacy practices. A final finding is the emphasis on teacher uncertainty regarding how and why to integrate technology within existing paradigms of the subject. This calls for further research on how technology may be justified in L1 practice, including various forms of teacher education
Our Lady of Guadalupe at school: Picture books, preservice teachers, and the discourse of religious (il)literacy
Get PDFThis article examines the way 83 predominantly white, female preservice teachers (PTs) at a large university in the U.S. Midwest and 132 predominantly white, female PTs at a large university in the Southeast respond to the religious content of The Beautiful Lady/La Hermosa Señora (Mora, 2012), a new contemporary realistic picturebook about an American family\u27s devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe of Mexico (Guadalupe); and Abuelito Eats with His Fingers (Levy, 1999), a realistic picturebook that show\u27s another family\u27s engagement with religious figures. Santa Ana\u27s (2002) theory that an Anglo-American Narrative underpins dominant U.S. Discourse (Gee, 2008) and Shulman\u27s (1987) and Grossman\u27s (1990) theory that personal beliefs and subject-matter knowledge influence teachers\u27 decisions frame the study. The data set offers a glimpse of the kinds of narratives and Discourses that PTs embrace. The data indicate that even with increased subject-matter knowledge, some PTs\u27 dispositions toward the censorship of religious content in schools could inhibit their facilitation of multicultural literacy instruction
Introduction to \u27Languages, Literatures, and Literacies\u27: Re-searching paradoxes and negotiations in Scandinavian L1 subjects
No full textPre-service teachers\u27 negotiation of identity and figured worlds through the reading of multicultural literature
Get PDFThis paper explores the effect of a multicultural literature course on pre-service teachers\u27 abilities to examine themselves and their figured worlds through a practice and process known as perspective-taking. With implications for teacher educators and pre-service teachers in a multicultural society, the paper uses critical discourse analysis as a tool to interpret and analyze student work completed in the course. By examining students\u27 awareness of cultural-political elements in their lives, this paper illustrates how some students may be more or less open to alternative perspectives and how new identities may emerge over the course of a class dedicated to difference and diversity
Competing disciplinarities in curricular L1: A Norwegian case
Get PDFThis article explores historical changes within curricular L1 in search for key mechanisms that can illuminate the role of kinds of disciplinarity in current educational reforms. The article investigates written curricula for Norwegian, or L1 in Norway, especially focusing this school subject\u27s goals, content, and design following an idea of stages of curricular development. A first part, starting from 1739, describes how L1 Norwegian came into being in the first place, leaning mainly on meta-reading of former investigations. From 1939 onwards the article narrows the scope and studies L1\u27s curricular goals more in detail, searching possible kinds of disciplinarities. What is studied is compulsory curricular Norwegian, meaning the school subject or the discipline textualised in national plans for L1 in Norway. The approach implies textual, content analyses of sets of reform documents, with special focus on changes over time, accompanied by theorising over how and why. The article explores to which degree historical changes within curricular L1 have altered or may alter perceptions of different L1\u27s disciplinarities. In particular discursivities and genre patterns in L1 curricula in relation to L1 as a goal in itself and as a means for promoting competencies and/or Bildung are discussed. \u27Findings\u27 lead up to the formulation of a paradox—increased essentialist disciplinarity, believed to promote both competencies and Bildung, might be counter-productive
Reading around the text: On the diversity of reading practices in the new popular literary culture
Get PDFThis article argues for an increased focus within literature didactics on the wide range of reading practices available both within and outside the educational system. One way to achieve this is to drastically shift focus, to concentrate not only on the act of reading, reading strategies and reading types, but on reading practices, as multifaceted offerings. This open, somewhat tentative line of inquiry is thus as follows: What does it mean to read around the text (a concept borrowed from Italo Calvino)? This formulation of the question forces us to take seriously the framework of reading and other factors, which tend to be marginalized. These factors can include the location of the reader when reading, the text as a physical object, other people, activities and artefacts which become important in reading practices. Exploring the diversity of reading practices entails several methods: investigating reading practices available outside the educational system; viewing individual reading practices as a multitude of complex entities of which text interpretation is only one; and increasing the intersectional perspective on reading
The L1 subject in a world of increasing individualism: Democratic paradoxes in Norwegian L1 classrooms
Get PDFThis article examines the subject of first-language (L1) instruction in the student-oriented, democratic Norwegian school. L1 instruction, a humanistic and hermeneutic subject, is closely related to interpretations of everyday life and to everyday discourses and understandings. As this subject is approached in modern, student-oriented schools and in contemporary individual-oriented cultures, learning difficulties commonly arise for a growing number of students. This article first reviews the historical development of the Scandinavian, particularly the Norwegian, school, for which the creation of a democratic school for all has been a goal for many decades. We then present three qualitative studies on the L1 school subject (Frydensbjerg Elf & Kaspersen (ed.) 2012, Skarstein 2013, Penne 2014), which reveal aspects of the same trend and can help explain the increasing social inequalities in Norwegian schools
Voice and narrative in L1 writing
Get PDFThis paper investigates issues of voice and narrative in L1 writing. Three branches of research are initially discussed: research on narratives as resources for identity work, research on writer identity and voice as an essential aspect of identity, and research on Bildung in L1 writing.
Subsequently, two empirical investigations of L1 writing in a Danish upper secondary school are presented. The first study is based on longitudinal interview data and analyses one student\u27s experience as an L1 writer in the transition from lower secondary to upper school. A high-achieving student in lower secondary L1, she found that her previous writing strategies were not rewarded in upper secondary school. In the second empirical study, two upper-secondary exam papers are investigated, with a focus on their approaches to exam genres and their use of narrative resources to address issues of voice and identity. In the first paper, the student writer is provoked by the text material to attempt a private narrative. In the second paper, the student provides a personal narrative framework for his argumentation. In conclusion, this paper argues that empirical cases document a need for explicit training of voice and narratives as a resource for academic writing, and that the Bildung potential of L1 writing is tied to this issue
The contested introduction of linguistics in the Dutch exam: A historical curriculum study on the relationship between school subjects and academic disciplines
Get PDFIn 1991 the CVEN, a committee assigned to develop a new exam program for the school subject Dutch in upper secondary education, published a report in which it proposed to the Ministry of Education to experimentally include linguistics as a separate component in this exam. Mainly because the Ministry at the time had already decided to start an extensive educational reform dealing with upper secondary education as a whole, this report did not get an immediate follow up. Also the next committee that in 1995 was assigned by the Ministry to develop an exam program for Dutch and that also recommended to include linguistics was turned down by the Ministry. In 2004 the Ministry finally decided to commission the development of modules for teaching linguistics in upper secondary education and as of 2007 schools are free to include linguistics in the school-organized part of the Dutch exam. Against this background this paper deals with the more general question, who decides, at what moment, on what grounds and in what societal and educational context about the content of school subjects and exams. In investigating this question on the basis of historical sources, oral history interviews and discussions in teacher journals, the focus is on the contested introduction of linguistics in the Dutch exam in the CVEN period (1988-1991) and on the relationship between the school subject Dutch and the related academic discipline Dutch language and literature. In doing so the paper contributes to the still very limited historiography of Dutch as a school subject as well as to unraveling the relationship between school subjects and their related academic disciplines that in curriculum research often remains underexposed
Personal interests as incentive fo professional writing: Towards a writing pedagogy for Dutch universities of applied sciences
No full textThe aim of this study is to find design criteria for a writing pedagogy for Dutch universities of applied sciences (also: HBO schools). We analyzed policy and educational documents and interviewed lecturers of three writing courses in three HBO schools. This enabled us to characterize their writing approach and the problems and aspirations of the lecturers.
We discovered two issues: one is a conflict between the competence-based learning approach advocated in HBO policy documents and the actual writing approach, used by lecturers and in educational documents, reflecting a transfer of knowledge model. A second issue is an imbalance in the two key characteristics of HBO schools: the first characteristic, an orientation towards professional practice, is evident, but no attention is paid to the second one, that of vertical mobility and emancipation of HBO-students.
Lecturers would like a more motivating and activating writing approach. They are cautiously experimenting with creative writing techniques, but they lack professional self-confidence and support by their study programmes.
Design criteria for an HBO writing pedagogy should guarantee the significance of writing for student\u27s professional future and for their current lives. It also should provide lecturers with consistent, justified principles and exercises. Thus, personal interests can function as incentive for professional writing