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Performativa lärarpraktiker
No full textThe preconditions for teachers’ practices in Sweden have dramatically changed during the last few decades. Since the 1990s, processes of decentralisation, marketisation and privatisation have rapidly transformed the educational system from being one of the most regulated to one of the most deregulated in the western world. Recent changes have included a greater focus on performativity, which includes various forms of outcome controls, state-funded career services, inspections and evaluations. This thesis addresses this increased focus on performativity and how it gives rise to fields of tensions in teachers’ practices. The main part of the data was collected through interviews and observations with teachers who implemented new standardised tests and grading in their practices. The main focus in the dissertation’s four papers is on how performativity affects teaching practices. Article 1 set out the thesis methodological framework, which aims at contributing to an understanding of how performativity can be studied in teachers’ practices. It is argued that Ricœur’s discussion of the concept of practical reason can be used to depict teaching as existing in a field of tension. Further, it is argued that critical hermeneutics can frame a study of teaching, understood as practical reasoning. Article 2 studies the standardising influence of performativity on teaching practices in relation to different contextual preconditions. The article problematises the assumption that reforms such as grades and national tests in lower years can function as an impetus for educational equity. Article 3 studies a similar standardising influence of performativity in relation to social studies teaching, which, at its core, has highly diverse and sometimes conflicting aims and purposes. It is shown how teaching practices shifted from social studies’ extrinsic dimensions (emphasising an open and individual understanding of social issues) toward social studies’ intrinsic dimensions (emphasising knowledge about a predetermined content) as a result of policy changes, teachers’ meaning-making of the reforms, and in relation to external constraints. Article 4 takes a broader perspective on teachers’ practices and uses the concept of fairness as a lens for illuminating changes in social relations, changes in the organisation of teachers’ practices, and teachers’ struggles with these changes. The results show that there is an increased focus on individuality in the everyday working lives of teachers, where result-centred practices, relations and professional identities have replaced notions of equality and compensatory interventions
Constraints and meaning-making: Dealing with the multifacetedness of social studies in audited teaching practices
No full textPurpose: The backdrop of the article is the emergence of an international and politically motivated ambition that aims at standardising the purpose and outcomes of teaching practices via various forms of outcome controls. This ambition of standardisation is discussed in a Swedish context in relation to social studies teaching, which, at its core, has highly diverse and sometimes conflicting aims and purposes. The purpose of the article is to analyse tensions that arise in practice as ten experienced Swedish social studies teachers implement outcome-focused reforms in their teaching, and to critically discuss implications for social studies teaching. Method: Interviews, observations and a conceptual framework built on Paul Ricoeur’s discussion on the concept of practical reason has been used to analyse tensions that arose when the teachers implemented standardised tests and grading. Findings: Teaching practices shifted from social studies extrinsic dimensions (emphasising an open and individual understanding from social issues) toward social studies intrinsic dimensions (emphasising knowledge about a predetermined content) as a result of policy changes, teachers meaning-making of the reforms, and in relation to external constraints. In conclusion, it is argued that this shift risks circumscribing tools that can be used to deal with inherently complex subject dimensions. © 2017, Bielefeld University. All rights reserved
Equity Through Assessment? Teachers' Mediation of Outcome-Focused Reforms in Socioeconomically Different Schools
No full textDespite uncertainties regarding the effects of outcome-focused reforms on teaching practices, the political confidence in the potential of such reforms to create educational change remains high. This article problematizes the assumption that two such Swedish reforms (grades and national tests in younger years) can function as an impetus for educational equity. Analysis is directed toward how the reforms were enacted in six socioeconomically diverse teaching practices, framed by a conceptual framework built on Ricœur’s discussion on a critical hermeneutics and practical reasoning. The results show great differences; with the reforms benefiting established teaching practices in the socioeconomically privileged schools to a greater extent. In conclusion, it is argued that this poses a problem in relation to aims for educational equity
Lost in translation–production, reproduction and transformation of teacher education knowledge in teacher educators’ local practices
No full textEuropean teacher educations today are expected to not only be ‘close to school practices’, but also to equip their students with academic knowledge. This article analyses one year of fieldwork data to discuss how these expectations are produced, reproduced and transformed in local practices by different categories of teacher educators (lecturers/assistant lecturers). The theory of practice architectures and Basil Bernstein’s concepts of vertical and horizontal knowledge discourses are employed to analyse different practices of teacher educators, and how these practices constrain and enable different actions, understandings, and relations. Different roles are identified, and it is argued that local and distal arrangements fuel isolation and fragmentation, leading to a situation where difference becomes a burden and important discourses risk being lost in translation. Under such circumstances, seemingly tangible, applicable knowledge risks overshadowing important general, theoretical, and context-independent knowledge that are crucial for a scientific professional knowledge base in teacher education
Equity through assessment? Teaching in socioeconomically different classrooms during the Swedish implementation of grades and national tests in year six
No full textPractical reason: A conceptual framework for understanding teaching in times of outcome regulation
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Policy, practice and practical reason: Understanding teaching in times of outcome regulation
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