New Trends in Swedish Educational Research

What new tendencies can be made out in Swedish educational research in the last three decades? Briefly, the following developments are described: In the 1970s, a long‐prevailing emphasis on quantitative research was challenged by a number of different qualitative methods. Traditional sociology of education, meanwhile, was challenged by the new sociology of education. During the 1980s, the dominant trend was a “didacticisation” of educational research, and here two main strands can be discerned, based in phenomenography and curriculum theory. Didactics very soon made its presence felt in educational policy, and in a major evaluation of Swedish educational research the two largely didactics‐based traditions of “teaching and learning” and “curriculum theory” were identified as internationally the most significant. In the 1990s, educational research took a “linguistic turn”—involving a wide‐ranging shift in emphasis towards language and communication—with the result that new perspectives emerged. In addition, the philosophy of education experienced a powerful renaissance, partly as a reflection of the new focus on language and communication, but also in other respects, leading to a reawakening of interest in both classical and modern philosophy (of education).     

On Developing Content‐oriented Theories Taking Biological Evolution as an Example

Both in Europe and the United States there is a growing interest in design research. One example is the design and validation of topic‐oriented teaching–learning sequences. This research may be said to have two objectives. One is to design and test “useful products”, such as teachers’ guides and study material for students, which may be put into practice in various ways. The second is to contribute to the development of educational science; for example, understanding conditions for learning of given topics under regular classroom conditions. This article concerns the latter objective and deals with the development of content‐oriented theories stating conditions that promote learning with long‐term understanding of given topics. We present one such theory, concerning evolution by natural selection, and describe the arguments and evidence that underlie the theory, which we regard as a well‐founded hypothesis. Some methodological problems associated with testing this type of theory are discussed, as well as the role of content‐oriented theories in strengthening science education research as an autonomous specialization within educational science.     

Working with teachers to promote children’s participation through pupil‐led research

Enabling children and young people to act as researchers is increasingly viewed as useful in supporting their increased “participation” within settings where they live, work or receive services. This paper reports upon a project conducted by two educational psychologists (EPs) with two primary school class groups, in which the children and their teachers were provided with direct teaching and guidance to develop and undertake their own school‐based research projects. The work of each class group produced significant developments of educational provision across the whole school, showing that the EPs’ work had directly enabled the children to “make a positive contribution”. In addition, teachers and psychologists observed several social, cognitive and personal benefits to the children brought about by their engagement in the processes of questioning, data gathering, analysis, knowledge generation, and dissemination. The authors emphasise the potentially valuable contribution of EPs in promoting children and young people’s understanding and application of research skills, and in working directly alongside teachers within the classroom. Furthermore, the project represents a successful example of EPs and teachers engaging in joint direct work with children.     

Teaching Theory Analogically: Using Music to Explain Criminological Theory

There have been a number of articles recently advocating the use of nontraditional mediums to teach criminological theory. Many of these articles have advocated using music and/or music lyrics to illustrate and enliven the various theories taught in introductory theory courses. Despite the growing attention paid to teaching criminological theory, few, if any, discuss how to help students understand the more fundamental ontological question—what is “theory.” This article proposes an alternative pedagogical approach that draws upon students’ understanding of musical genres analogically to explain: (1) the historical development of the various theoretical approaches, (2) the historical, cultural and theoretical antecedents of the various approaches, and (3) how to identify the theoretical orientation(s) and influences in an unfamiliar text. Ultimately, this approach is intended to counter the overly compartmentalized and linear understanding of theory unintentionally brought on by the dynamics of teaching schedules, generic “theory” textbooks, computerized presentation software and testing methods.     

Die Geschichte des Faches Pädagogik an den österreichischen Universitäten von 1805 bis 1970

The study offers an overview of the history of pedagogics at the Austrian universities between 1895 and 1970. From its beginnings in Vienna, where the first Austrian chair for pedagogics was established in 1805, the author describes the varied development of the discipline at the universities of Vienna, Pra‐gue, Graz, Innsbruck, and Salzburg. A detailed presentation of the biographies of professors teaching at these universities is combi‐ned with a critical history of the respective educational theories they advocated. The analysis of dissertations, Habilitationsschriften (postdoctoral dissertations), and further publications shows that up until the last third of our Century pedagogics as a “science” has led a shadowy existence. An essential cause for the regrettable lack of independent educational‐science theory con‐struction was the understanding of pedagogics as a practical “teaching of the art” ("Kunstlehre") of education. This was also one of the reasons why pedagogics, or respectively, educational science, has for some time been rejected by the social sciences in general as an independent science in its own right.

     

Betwixt and Between: Working Through the Aesthetic in Philosophy of Education: George F. Kneller Lecture,Conference of the American Educational Studies Association Savannah,Georgia, October 30, 2008

At a time when both philosophy of education and the arts are under threat within education, this article inquires into interdisciplinarity as one way of approaching the disciplines of philosophy of education and aesthetics. The article offers a retrospective autobiographical intellectual history and phenomenology of the author's own learning and scholarship within Higher Education in three main areas—philosophy of literature education, women's studies, and philosophy of music education, areas paralleling the three periods of her academic career. One sub-theme of this narrative about the balancing act of working in literature and music through philosophy of education is the author's ongoing resistance to professionalization or disciplinary academic control—of literature, philosophy, and music—while being a critical student of educational theory and practice in these areas—philosophy, literature and music within philosophy of education—of thus being “betwixt and between.” Two other themes comprising the article's subtext are “praxis” and “embodiment.” The double entendre of the phrase “working through” entails, first, using the arts of literature and music to practise philosophy of education; and secondly, embracing the psychological, ethical, and spiritual introspection that comes with critical engagement of the arts and its discourses. In short, the article aims to reprise some burning philosophical educational questions that have preoccupied its author over the years, questions deemed especially pertinent to the current increasingly diverse membership in the discipline of educational studies.     

Short Cuts and Extended Techniques: Rethinking relations between technology and educational theory

Building upon a recent call to renew actor-network theory (ANT) for educational research, this article reconsiders relations between technology and educational theory. Taking cues from actor-network theorists, this discussion considers the technologically-mediated networks in which learning actors are situated, acted upon, and acting, and traces the novel positions of creative capacity and participation that emerging media may enable. Whereas traditional theories of educational technology tend to focus on the harmonization of new technologies with extant curricular goals and educational practices, an educational theory of technology looks to novel forms of technologically-mediated learning experience—from production pedagogies to role play in the virtual—to make visible the surprising relations, techniques, and opportunities that emerging media, and their attendant social contexts, may offer educational research.     

The school as a workplace: Extending democracy to schools

The author has a thorough knowledge of the educational scene in the USA. His critical analyses of the “modern” educational theories developed by J. Holt, H. Kohl, Ch. Silbermann, I. Illich and others, and of their — as yet unresearched — application to institutionalized learning and socialisation processes provide very informative insights into the on-going discussion on reform, even outside his own country. Stopsky points to four factors which have had a pronounced influence on the objectives, direction and progress of curriculum reform:

1. The student movement and the stimuli it generated in the civil rights movement and the relations with the “Third World”.
2. The subculture of youth, accompanying this protest movement and partly caused by its lack of success, with its typical phenomena of drug consumption and social disintegration.
3. The disappointment at the failure of the propagated educational reform to establish, e.g., equality of chances and improve the quality of life, and the effects of raising the standards of performance demanded of under-privileged pupils by means of drastic restrictions on admission and entrance examinations implying social selection for higher educational courses.
4. The development of “anti-curricula” in the form and content of “open” or neohumanist education. The favourable reports on experiments with these “pupil-centred” curricula in British schools created a fascinating response from teachers and pupils in the USA, but most colleges rejected the innovation as being anti-intellectual and decided in favour of a “competency based” or “performance based” curriculum.

In this future-oriented paper F. Stopsky attempts to free school from the odium of suffering individual oppression and the resulting fear of the pupils, and to turn it instead into a place where children and adults will work without repression.     

CONSIDERING MATERIALITY IN EDUCATIONAL POLICY: MESSY OBJECTS AND MULTIPLE REALS

Educational analysts need new ways to engage with policy processes in a networked world of complex transnational connections. In this discussion, Tara Fenwick and Richard Edwards argue for a greater focus on materiality in educational policy as a way to trace the heterogeneous interactions and precarious linkages that enact policy as complex manifestations. In particular, Fenwick and Edwards point to the methodologies of actor‐network theory (ANT), at least in its most recent permutations, as a useful approach to materiality in policy analysis. Published examples of educational policy studies drawing from these methodologies are beginning to appear. In reviewing these, we argue that ANT sensibilities help to make visible the sociomaterial assemblages—the “messy objects”—that enact policy, the micro‐negotiations that mobilize and stabilize (and destabilize) these assemblages, and the multiple ontologies that often coexist in policy environments. Fenwick and Edwards conclude with a discussion of methodological issues for working with concepts of ontological variance and messy objects in educational policy.     

Towards an oral history of educational ideas in New Zealand as a resource for teacher education

Studies of the educational theories which have influenced teachers have traditionally relied heavily on the textual analysis of policy documents and syllabi. While such studies are crucial, they offer a “top-down” view of the educational terrain and can imply that teachers passively absorbed the dominant policy initiatives. This paper is taken from a wider study of the educational life—histories of 150 teachers and former teachers ranging in age from 21 to 98. The aim of the overall project is to map the tides and current of educational thought as lived by New Zealand teachers from the 1920s to the mid-1990s and to produce a resource for teacher education which will help dissolve the “theory-practice split” experienced by many of our students. Life-history methods enable a focus on how teachers create educational theories within the possibilities and constraints of their circumstances—biographical, historical and political, geographical, cultural and discursive. This paper uses three case studies as a basis for discussion of the impact of “neo-progressivist” (or student-centred learning) ideas in secondary schools from the 1950s to the 1980s.     

Searching for Missing Links: neo‐Marxist theories of education

Since the appearance of Bowles & Gintis’ (1976) ‘correspondence thesis’, neo‐Marxist theorizing about educational change has gone in several directions. Different approaches have emphasized capitalist reproduction requirements, contradictions between these requirements and the democratic state, hegemony theory and processes of class formation. While studies with affinity to a Marxist problematic of subordination and oppression have become more theoretically open and empirically grounded, some of the core explanatory ideas of the historical materialist perspective tend to have been ignored or dismissed. In consequence, the main conceptual, empirical and theoretical limitations of the correspondence thesis are being repeated, notably in arguments about a ‘post‐Fordist’ form of education. After a discussion of the contemporary relevance of historical materialism's core ideas for explaining educational change, the limited foci of neo‐Marxist theories of education are critically reviewed. Some suggestions are then made for overcoming these persistent limitations—most notably a hyper‐rationalistic image of education and a lack of direct attention to both production relations and educational relations per se.     

Resource Reviews

Education and Mind in the Knowledge Age Carl Bereiter Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002 ISBN 0 8058 3943 7 The expression “Iapos;m losing my mind” holds new meaning for me, or at least is now a declaration that I will use less frivolously when overwhelmed by daily life. Carl Berieter's book, Education and Mind in the Knowledge Age, conceives of the mind in an illuminating way; something new for most readers. Bereiter disputes the “folk theory of mind” as termed in his book, the common comprehension of the “mind as a container”. This metaphor, as he explains, in extreme depth and with numerous detailed examples, is the basic tenet upon which many current educational systems establish daily policies and procedures. The idea of the “mind as a container” informs and influences most aspects of education ranging from curriculum development to standardized testing, preservice teacher education and professional development. Most of our routine teaching and subsequent student representation of learning begins and ends with the process of filling up the container. However, this “folk theory of mind”, or common understanding of how the mind works, does not allow us to consider the brain, the mind and knowledge as distinct, but interconnected entities. We often see them as one single object or phenomenon Bereiter suggests that we need to disentangle our understanding of knowledge and the mind in order to understand the mind in a fresh way (p. 55). The theory of the “mind as a container” prevents us from viewing the mind, knowledge and consequently education, differently. This commonly accepted perception dooms us to recreate, chronically, our current, mostly static educational practice. Our view of teaching and learning, then, remains the vision of pouring knowledge into little brains, assisting students in filing each new piece of information in certain location to be accessed and used at a later date. Bereiter asserts that a second common perception of the brain “as a computer” reflects a similar fixed interpretation of human understanding and learning as the “mind as a container” theory. With these “folk theories” of understanding in place, when problems arise in teaching and learning, we do not consider the theory behind it. Instead, we question the student's abilities, our presentation of the material intended to be put into the container or the computational expectations of the computer-like brain.     

Educational Psychology and its Failings: a reply to Olssen

Olssen has recently claimed that educational psychology, being a derivative of mainstream psychology, is a sham, a pseudo‐science based upon outdated positivist philosophy of science and an inappropriate understanding of the social determinants of individual behaviour and of mind. This article argues, firstly, that educational psychology has a certain independence of psychology in general; secondly, that most modem psychology does not rely on positivism; and, thirdly, that whatever the ultimate roots of behaviours and mental phenomena, it is perfectly logical—indeed it is a necessary part of the discipline—for psychologists to concentrate upon studying and working with individuals.     

Sociology of Education: Outlines Towards a Diagnosis and Thoughts on Some Major Challenges

Sociology of education in Norway has traditionally been preoccupied with the classic problems related to education and the reproduction of social inequality. As the general social scientific and political focus on inequality decreased, the sociology of education also became less visible. At the same time, the sociology of youth evolved, and brought with it a shift from theories of reproduction towards theories of individualization and cultural detachment. New challenges for sociology of education are also discussed. These are related to the educational system's position as the main socialization arena for young people, as well as new developments within educational policy, and thus within school. What kind of identities are “produced” within the educational system?     

Brown and black in white: The social adjustment and academic performance of Chicano and black students in a predominately white university

This article explores the academic and social experiences of Chicago and black students at UCLA. The analysis proceeds by examining differences in social backgrounds, high school and college experiences, and explores the relationship between these factors and college adjustment and achievement (GPA). Drawing upon recent theory on class reproduction and schooling we show particular concern with the role of social class in explaining differential outcomes. The findings indicate that blacks are more likely than Chicanos to feel alienated and perform poorly, and that social class makes no difference in these outcomes for blacks. However, middle class Chicanos perform better and are better adjusted than working class Chicanos. We discuss our findings in the light of theories of class reproduction, cultural capital, and racial signaling, suggesting that theories of reproduction must acknowledge the role of race in unequal school outcomes.     

Arab Americans: Into the Multicultural Mainstream

As the percentage of youth of color in the nation's public schools continues to increase, so, too, does the urgency of preparing a predominantly white, female, middle class teaching force to work with racially and culturally diverse youth. Drawing upon an ethnographic study of an urban, youth-serving HIV/AIDS prevention and supports center, this article describes how two white women staffers engaged culturally responsive modes of care, support, and advocacy in order to address young people's emotional, developmental, and educational needs. Since both women performed motherly personas as they cared for and supported youth at the center, this article builds upon their experiences to develop “further mothering”—an adaptation of the “other mothering” tradition of black women—as a possible heuristic for analyzing white women educators’ culturally responsive work with black youth.     

QUESTIONING THE HOMOGENIZATION OF IRREGULAR MIGRANTS IN EDUCATIONAL POLICY: FROM (IL)LEGAL RESIDENCE TO INCLUSIVE EDUCATION

In this article Elias Hemelsoet questions the way irregular migrants are approached in educational policymaking. In most cases, estimations of the number of irregular migrants serve—despite large methodological problems—as a starting point for policymaking. Given the very diverse composition of this group of people, the question is whether residence status is an appropriate benchmark for dealing with the social problems related to these people. There seems to be a homogenizing tendency at work that reduces the complexity of irregular migration. Preferable distinctions are overlooked or even denied. Inclusive education seems to provide an alternative that does not reduce individuals to a group they belong to, claiming that differences only matter at the individual level. The question is whether such an approach entails a new form of homogenization. Using the case of Roma people, Hemelsoet argues here that group differences do matter for educational practice, theory, and policy. Qualitative data on the social practices of groups can help provide insight into the particularity of situations. This “insight” or “understanding,” in its turn, is a requirement in order for policymakers to make well‐considered choices.     

“基于设计的研究”在音乐教育研究中的运用

基于设计的研究近年来活跃于教育研究领域,具有问题、理论、设计、自然情境相互交融的特点。将基于设计的研究引入音乐教育研究具有重要意义,建立学习共同体、理论与技术兼顾、挖掘音乐教育中“学”与“教”的智慧是该研究未来发展的趋势。     

Widening participation in higher education: constructions of “going to university”

Progress towards the British Government’s goal of 50% of young people undertaking higher education has been slow, particularly among pupils from working‐class backgrounds.

This study examines the range of viewpoints held by 53 Year 12 pupils in a former coalfield area, all of whom were eligible to apply for university. Each completed a Q‐sort on 60 statements concerning “going to university”. By‐person factor analysis yielded five viewpoints termed “positive”, “put off”, “perplexed”, “pragmatic” and “other plans”. Detailed analysis of these viewpoints provides new insights and practical implications for raising educational aspirations in disadvantaged areas.     

L'enseignement du dessin dans les écoles centrales (1795‐1802)

The “Ecoles Centrales” were originally created by the Frena Convention in order to contribute to the education of the elite but the art classes were in fact assiduously attended by working class pupils.

By confronting the various teaching methods used by art teachers in the “Ecoles Centrales” with those in use at the end of the “Ancien Régime”, we shall study the appropriateness of their teaching methods compared with the aestheticand educational theories prevailing at the turn of the century. We shall also examine whether the art class effectively provided the students’ needs for professional experience.

Despite a commonly accepted idea, the teaching methods which originated from the academic tradition are not necessarily incompatible with working doss students. However, if a few teachers set/ lay down the basis for a changing in tìx teaching of elementary drawing by introducing geometry, it is more to rationalise the very first learning steps rather than attempt to implement methods adapted to the graphic training of workers and craftsmen.