Preschool as an Arena for Developing Teacher Knowledge Concerning Children’s Language Learning

The most important benefits of international comparisons are the indications that make hidden national characteristics visible and shed new light on the system in each country. From a comparative perspective, this article explores what Swedish and Norwegian preschool teachers emphasise as important to preschool student teachers about preschool as an arena for children’s language learning. The theoretical framework of the study is based on ecological system theories (Bronfenbrenner in The ecology of human development, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1979; Bronfenbrenner in Dev Psychology 22(6):723–742, 1986) and socio-cultural theories concerning language learning (Vygotsky in Thought and language, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1986). The data are produced through interviews with 69 Swedish and 35 Norwegian preschool teachers. The analyses focused on what the preschool teachers stated to be the most important elements to work with concerning children’s language learning, how and why they worked like this, and what rationales may have led to their pedagogy. The two countries seem quite alike in terms of the values embedded in early childhood education and political ideas concerning a rich childhood based on play and democratic ideals. By comparing the two countries, the results reveal differences that can lead to a deeper knowledge of cultural concepts that are often taken for granted, such as pedagogical approaches, and how these create different conditions for children’s preschool language learning.     

Transition from higher education to work: are master graduates increasingly over-educated for their jobs?

In this paper we address the transition from higher education to work among graduates with a master’s degree, with a particular focus on over-education. We relate to an ongoing debate on whether too many students undertake a master’s degree, and the consequences a surplus of graduates may have. Our data show that the transition from higher education to work has not become much more difficult during the period 1995–2013, despite a huge increase in the number of graduates. Unemployment rates fluctuate, but were lower at the end of the period than at the beginning. Regarding over-education, we find an increase at the beginning of the observation period, but a striking stability in years when the number of graduates rose sharply. When considering all educational groups together, we find no association between the number of graduates, business cycles and the prevalence of over-education. However, we find some exceptions when looking at different subject fields.     

Children’s Narrating as a Way of Learning About Other People’s Beliefs in Interaction with Teachers

As a genre of talk, narratives represent important building blocks in children’s learning in many fields. The purpose of the study presented in this article is to examine how teachers can encourage children’s learning about people’s beliefs through narrating. Narratives play an important part in children’s learning to understand other people and how they will act according to what they believe, think or know. This study is based on video observations of six children, 3 and 4 years old, and their spontaneous personal narratives told to teachers over a period of 8 months. The narrative analysis revealed that in most of the narratives the teachers were passive listeners or were concerned about the structure of events. The teachers seldom asked questions about the children’s mental state or disagreed with the child in ways that revealed their different beliefs. Suggestions about implications of this study are that early childhood teacher education should focus on talking with children about what they may think or believe concerning narrated events, and also reveal what they think and believe themselves.     

1:1 (Dis)section ‐ Learning through Full‐Scale Dissection and Transformations of Abandoned Buildings

The section is an essential tool for understanding, exploring, representing and communicating spatial relations, structure and materiality in architecture, design and engineering, and therefore a recurring topic in the curricula. The section itself is destructive of nature and incompatible with a built environment in use or under construction. Hence, students throughout their education meet the section in the form of diagrammatic representations, that is, as forms of meaning emptied from scale, spatiality and materiality. This article reports on a series of four workshops, held in the spring semesters from 2011 to 2014 for first‐year students at Aarhus School of Architecture. The aim was to provide first‐year students with an experience of the relation between the section as a diagrammatic representation and the materiality, structure and spatial relations of a concrete building. The climax of each workshop was a full‐scale dissection and transformation of an abandoned house. As we shall see, the workshops fulfilled not only the intended learning goals, but created an initially unforeseen and unique context for learning about the relations between building and place and introduced the question regarding depopulation of rural areas as a pertinent processional challenge. Beyond an educational value, the research project ‘Transformation on abandonment, a new critical practice?’ transpired from the workshops. This research project and the interplay between teaching and research are discussed in the last part of the article.     

Students and the Governance of Higher Education in Norway

The article discusses the question of student participation in higher education governance at the national and the institutional levels in Norway. Two ideal-type perspectives on governance are developed in order to illuminate the Norwegian case: a democratic perspective and a market perspective. The article provides a brief overview of the historical development of student participation in higher education governance, emphasizing how students view their own role in the governance arenas in which they participate. Close attention is paid to student participation and influence in quality assurance schemes at both the national and the institutional levels. In the conclusion, the article discusses how the recent developments are changing the balance towards the market model of higher education governance, without obliterating significant elements of the hitherto predominant democratic governance model.