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Swedish Research Council (Committee for Educational Science)
Director: Professor Roger Säljö,
Department of Education, Göteborg University
email: Roger.Saljo@ped.gu.se
Programme
Website: http://www.vr.se/english/
The Swedish Research Council set up a special Committee for Educational Science
in 2001 to distribute what represented a major step change in funding for
research in educational science. The purpose of this funding is to promote
research on knowledge and learning in various contexts and in disparate forms.
One anticipated result of the research is that it will serve to bolster teacher
training and be a resource for education and teachers' work.
To stimulate further research in areas of learning, and to complement already existing projects, planning grants were announced in spring 2003. Learning was here considered as how knowledge and proficiency are developed and communicated in different parts of the society. Learning is thus not seen as limited to activities in schools and other educational institutions, but rather expanded to include other areas where focus is on the interplay between activities within educational systems and workplace learning as well as other sectors of the society. The aim is to enhance the understanding of how learning is organised in different sectors and activities in working life, at leisure time and in different institutional contexts. The projects are aimed at contributing to the enlightenment of learning processes on individual and organisational levels, and to create interest for how knowledge and skills are communicated.
Examples of areas of interest:
The following research projects were awarded planning grants in late September
2003.
Across school:
Prof. David Hamilton
Umeå University - Department of Education
"The internet is everywhere, but it is not everywhere in the same way": Diffusion and dissemination of ICT in schools
Project summary:
The spread of technology receives much attention. This attention arises, ultimately,
from commercial concerns. Market penetration, however, is not the same as
take-up or implementation. Penetrating a market is not the same as penetrating
an educational culture. It is no surprise, in Cuban's summary judgement, that
computers in classrooms have been 'oversold and underused'. Market penetration
is an unreliable indicator of the significance of ICT in schools. ICT is not
a disembodied tool that exists in a vacuum. Human activity -the reason why
the internet is not everywhere in the same way - cannot be decoupled from
the artefacts, technologies, symbol systems, institutional structures and
other cultural paraphernalia within which it is constituted. The impact of
a technology is, therefore, contingent upon the local circumstances of the
host culture. Put another way, analysis of an educational technology cannot
be restricted to the mapping of its distribution. Ecological conceptions of
take-up and anthropological conceptions of impact must also be factored into
the analysis. Funds are sought, therefore, to conceptualise and design a study
that, using these conceptions of technology (a) explores the take-up and impact
of ICT in at least one Swedish school; and (b) considers the general relevance
of this model to the understanding of educational technology and its relevance
to learning in a knowledge society.
Dr. Klas Roth
Stockholm Institute of Education - Department of Society, Culture and Education
Democratic learning and democratic competence in the integrative processes between the nation and the European Union
Project summary:
This research project focuses on democratic learning and democratic competence.
I will analyse the degree to which the European Union, schools within compulsory
education and the educational policy system in Sweden stimulate democratic
learning and develops democratic competence in the integrative processes between
the nation and the European Union. The following question motivates the project:
Which are the conditions for and consequences of democratic learning and the
development of democratic competence in a national and European context? The
overall purpose of the research project is to analyse the conditions for and
consequences of democratic learning and the development of democratic competence
on different dimensions of citizenship in a national and European context.
I will analyse texts, interviews and observations. The new knowledge will
contribute to increase our understanding of conditions for and consequences
of democratic learning and the development of democratic competence in the
integrative processes between the nation and the European Union.
Lifelong learning:
Sen. Lecturer Kenneth Abrahamsson
Luleå University of Technology - Department of Human Work Sciences
The hidden curriculum of lifelong learning - defining and assessing informal learning at work and in everyday life
Project summary:
The purpose of this planning initiative is to develop concepts, models and
techniques to assess informal learning in various learning contexts. The intention
is to follow and analyse a number of Swedish EQUAL-projects within the framework
of the European Social Funds, forming a so called National Thematic Group.
The project will be process-oriented and interactive and it will also develop
international contacts both within the scientific community and with other
EQUAL-projects. The research environment for this initiative is the Department
of Human Work Science in Luleå University of Technology and the research
network LARENA.
Sen. Lecturer Christina Garsten
Stockholm University - Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research (SCORE)
The Politics of Capability: local and regional organizing of learning and competence in a knowledge-intense worklife
Project summary:
Learning and the development of competences are central components in a knowledge
based society. Learning is the basis for a sustainable development, for creativity
and for innovation. The learning of individuals is also of a strategic significance
for the future of enterprices and for regional development. The purpose of
this project is to analyse contemporary strategies for learning and developing
organizational and individual competences in work life with a specfic focus
on its political adminstrative organisational conditions for regional and
local cooperation. Theoretically the project inspired by the economist Amartya
Sen's work on equality in terms of capabilities. The project contains four
parts. The first sub-project "The discourse of the politics of capabilities:
From emplyability to capability" problematizes the discourses on employability
in relation to meanings of capability in the European and Swedish laobur market
policy field. A second project called "The politics of capabilities and
the Swedish model: an alternative or integrated policy field?" focuses
on the institutionalization of adminstrative political arrangements in two
regional contexts within the administrative region Västra Götalandsregionen.
The comparison departs from the notion that contemporary conditions for local
adminstrative cooperation are influenced by their adminstrative pasts. A third
proejct "The local organizing of the politics of capability: Between
politics and markets" focuses on the organisational dimension of learning
av development of competences. Four sectors are analysed with a focus on conditions
in female versus male dominated sectors, and public sector versus private
sector. A fourth project "The politics of capabilities in practice: Learning
and social responsibility in the enterprise" is an etnografic studie
on the implementations of capability based projects. The purpose of this subproject
is to study the outcomes of local projects for disadvantaged groups in work
life. In the project as a whole, researchers collaborate with local and regional
public agencies and with enterprises.
Higher Education:
Prof. Bernt Gustavsson
Örebro University - Department of Social and Political Sciences/Department
of Education
A Clash of Traditions? Education Initiatives in Bergslagen: Problems and Opportunities
Project summary:
Today, universities and academic training stand out as increasingly important
in local and regional development. This outline focuses on the clash between
the academic tradition and local/regional traditions by studying the launch
of academic training programmes in communities often referred to as "communities
in crisis" in the area of Bergslagen in central Sweden. What is required
for academic training programmes to function as a field of force for learning
and social development in regions wrestling with relocation, business closures
and a failing belief in the future as well as contempt
for academics? In Bergslagen a number of initiatives for academic training
are now under way in which new forms of study are applied and groups that
have previously not been prioritised are brought into focus. The empirical
aim of the programme is to describe and analyse the education initiatives
in the region. The theoretical aim is to facilitate understanding of the prerequisites
of learning on an individual, organisational and societal level in relation
to the education initiatives. The constructive aim is to contribute to the
discussion on the way in which learning in connection with the education initiatives
may be developed. The study is based on a knowledge-theoretical discussion
of various knowledge types, theories on institutionalisation and learning.
The programme will provide knowledge that can be used as a basis for discussions
on education initiatives in other similar regions.
Prof. David Hamilton
Umeå University - Department of Education
Testing for the improvement of teaching and learning
Project summary:
Student assessment receives increasing amount of attention in Sweden and other
countries. Yet the roles and goals of assessment are confused, particularly
as systems of higher education change from an elitist past to a comprehensive
future. Is selection the primary goal of assessment? Or can assessment also
support teaching and learning? Can these processes be combined? There is a
great need for clarification. In short, what are the key issues? What are
their implications for the organisation of teaching and learning in higher
education? What, for instance, is the relevance of recent work on different
theories of learning (e.g. Sfard), dialogic pedagogy (e.g. Wells) and formative
assessment theory (e.g. Wiliam, Torrance, Black, Linn and Shepard). What pedagogical
significance should be attributed to the difference between formative and
summative assessment, high stakes and low stakes testing, and divergent and
convergent assessment? Funds are sought, therefore, to build on existing work,
to strengthen international networks and, in the process, to prepare for a
thorough investigation of assessment as support for teaching and learning.
Prof. Gunnar Olofsson
Växjö University - Department of Social Sciences
Education contracts in Academic Vocational Programmes
Project summary:
How do students in different forms of university-based vocational education
handle their role as "students" and their role as "professionals-in-the-making"?
How does the "double focus" of student attention shape their orientation
to knowledge and learning? How do these two "arenas of learning"
interact in shaping the vocational and intellectual orientations of the student?
Our guiding concept is the "education contract". This concept denotes
the system of expectations and practices that regulate the key process within
an education that goes on within a university. The ambition is to describe
and analyse the different kinds of "education contract" which operates
within different kinds of studies and programmes as well as to explain the
emergence, reproduction and content of these contracts. We will compare five
rather different
forms of vocationally oriented students and study programmes - school teachers,
policemen, personnel management, cultural management, and mid-level engineers.
Although teachers are important in this project the choice of much more diverse
group of vocationally oriented programmes give this project a different focus
as well as design. The comparative character of this project will help us
to elucidate and to explain how the vocational orientation of the students
influence and shape the different "education contracts" operating
in the teaching/learning processes. We plan to make international comparisons
in relation of to each of the programmes.
PhD Magdalena Petersson
Göteborg University - Department of Ethnology
Welcome to the real world. - Commodifying Knowledge, Personality and Success in IHM Business School
Project summary:
In Sweden in recent years, there has been a significant increase in privately
run educational institutions. With intensive marketing, these schools offer
higher education for individuals that seek success in the private sector.
Private business
schools boast to having stronger connections with Industry and thereby with
future employers which they refer to as the real world. One of the more established
of these institutions, is IHM Business School. The project will critically
examine how discourses on knowledge and success are constructed in IHM. The
aim is to study how knowledge is defined, when the definitions are based on
what kind of knowledge that is believed to be needed to succeed in private
industries? How is education defined when knowledge is about being a certain
type of person, as much as being able to do certain things? Does the educational
content at IHM normalise economic discourses and does it perpetuate the white,
heterosexual, male dominance within the business world? The project will discuss
how institutions like IHM present, reproduce and create knowledge and cultures
where individuals are subordinated private industries and employers and how
knowledge and psychology are used in this process. The study will be based
on ethnological qualitative method. The material will be interviews with students
and teachers at IHM and participant observations during lessons. Disourse
analysis will be made of educational material and advertising brochures.
Working life:
PhD. Anna-Malin Karlsson
Stockholm University - Department of Scandinavian Languages
Mediated learning and the semiotic construction of knowledge. Studies of everyday work texts
Project summary:
The suggested project is based in the preliminary findings of the VR funded
project Literacy Practices in Working Life. It aims at deepening the understanding
of the mediation of knowledge, focusing on re-contextualisation and re-mediation
processes, but still using both a socio-cultural and a semiotic framework.
A main assumption is that discourses (here understood as configurations of
knowledge about work as well as the surrounding world) both form and are formed
by the sign systems by which they are realised. Some possible research questions
are: What kind of knowledge is being constructed in language and what kind
of knowledge is constructed in the visual and other modes? Do the different
modes make meaning together or each on its' own? How can the different semiotic
realisations be related to traditions and discourses within the field where
the text is used? To what extent are the conventions of mediation general
or more specific to the field? The focus on non-academic, "blue-collar"
occupations might not only shed light on "invisible" literacy practices,
and learning process that earlier have received little attention, it could
also deepen our understanding of the knowledge society as a whole by exploring
the relation between institutionalised (i.e. literate) and more practice-based
learning traditions.
Workplace learning:
PhD. Ingrid Andersson
Linköping University - Department of Educational Science
Learning in the interaction between teachers of foreign background and a Swedish school context
Project summary:
The present application concerns work place learning with focus on participants
with academic education and immigrant background. A basic assumption is that
knowledge develops in the interaction between people and cultures. Learning
is in this view constructed between different actors and may take place as
informal learning in everyday encounters between colleagues, pupils and parents.
Depending on the situation at hand we plan to follow any meeting or informal
planning session that take place to find out how knowledge is inquired, analysed
and negotiated in contexts where immigrant teachers are involved. Central
issues are how immigrant teachers participate and whether they meet other
expectations than native teachers. This target group is new and not studied
in Swedish settings before.
Prof. Staffan Laestadius
Linköping University - Department of Thematic Studies
The Future of Experience - On Skills in the "Knowledge Society"
Project summary:
Present discussions, within academia as well as in policy circles, on "the
knowledge society" may be looked upon as a late variety of the post-industrial
discourse with origins in the writings of Bell several decades ago. Recent
discussions have benefited from the high-tech boom in the late 90s and are
dominated by a science & technology perspective.
Our research proposal challenges some of the assumptions and consequences of the strong scientification of knowledge formation in the rhetoric on the knowledge society. We focus on skills and experience based knowledge, on situated learning practices important not only in areas dominated (still) by non academics but also for those with academic training. In fact 90-95% of all economic activity take place in non high-tech (non-science based, non R&D-intensive) sectors. I.e. we will focus on learning processes in a largely neglected segment of the knowledge society. We want to investigate the following areas: - The transformation of vocational training during the last 20 years ) as an update of a 1980s sociological/ethnographic study) - The mechanisms for learning and knowledge formation in industry and technology (related both to the general decline of manual labour and the high educational standard of today's labour force) - Learning in the post-industrial service sector (with a focus on knowledge formation in personal service jobs OE the low end of the labour market).
PhD. Åsa Mäkitalo
Göteborg University - Department of Education
Learning strategy: dialogue as a tool for organisational change
Project summary:
The focus of this project is to study dialogues, arranged in by management
in work places, as tools for organizational change and as means for learning.
A dialogue, in this sense, is used as a strategic means by management in order
to get employees committed in discussing new visions of organisational change
and company goals. In this sense, strategic dialogues function as socialisation
devices, tools for problem solving, and as contexts for learning. Such dialogues
imply local negotiations of what is important and relevant to change, and
can thus be described as instances of meta-communication in which the perspectives
of the various actors are analysed, contrasted, and often challenged. What
kind of knowing that is considered relevant and valid thus needs to be negotiated
at the local level. The people responsible for implementing such dialogues
are often middle managers or staff in support functions, who function as facilitators
or mediators or whatever term is used. Their task will therefore often be
to challenge traditional patterns and the established ways of understanding
and pursuing daily practices. The studies will be carried out in two
different organisations with very different histories and tasks: one major
manufacturing site in the heavy industry sector and one media-production (television)
company.
PhD. Åsa Mäkitalo
Göteborg University - Department of Education
Supporting technologies and technologies as support: learning and communication at work
Project summary:
The background of this application is a general interest in issues of human
learning in relation to the introduction and use of complex technologies in
working life. New professions have emerged, that work with supporting new
technologies. Their professional language and artifacts represent specialized
forms of knowing that are becoming increasingly inaccessible to people in
general. To become a member of such work communities implies, not only knowledge
of the technological systems and concepts (obtained in formal education),
but also extensive learning at the specific work site. In addition, already
established fields of working life are changing, since new technologies are
introduced as tools to administrate and organize daily practices. In order
to integrate new technologies, transformation and categorisation of already
established working procedures and relations are necessary.
In the present project, two different settings will be studied empirically for the purpose of exploring what forms of knowing are acquired in the accomplishment of everyday practice. In one setting, changing technologies are both the means and content of work. Learning and problem solving are, in this setting, necessary for achieving continuity of everyday practice. In the other setting, a new technological work tool needs to be integrated in, and adjusted to, an established work organisation.
Continuing professional development:
Prof. Mikael Alexandersson
Göteborg University - Department of Education
Professions, information and knowledge formation
Project summary:
The aim of the project is to explore how teachers, librarians and journalists
develop information literacy and knowledge when they search for and work with
information for others. The way humans develop their ability to use various
media and to manage great amounts of information, e.g. on the Internet, is
of central importance for the development of both economy and democracy. In
this process teachers, librarians and journalists have in common that they
give rise to some kind of reproduction of ideology as regards for instance
mediating, transferring, influencing, presenting or documenting information
in order to educate or inform somebody.
The theoretical basis of the project originates from interactionist theory, where language, thought and action are seen as interdependent and also dependent of the social context. The three professions are conceptualised as cultures, manifested in discourses and orders of discourse through which professional practice can be identified. The view we adopt emphasises the collective experience of the professionals. Since our interest concerns the interrelationships between language and practise our theoretical base is anchored in discourse analysis. The data collection will be organised as an ethnographic study. We will collect data through field notes, that is, observations, interviews and talking to teachers, journalists and librarians at their working places - in their social practices.
Sen. Lecturer Urban Nulden
Viktoria Institute
Police Competence and Technology
Project summary:
This proposal outlines a research project on technology in the police context
and especially educational technology and its relation to the development
of police competence. By police competence we refer to the unique competence
involved in being and being perceived as a police officer in the society.
The technology applied by the police are for instance uniforms, weapons, documents,
dogs, cars etc., all with a strong symbolic value both within and outside
of the practice. The aim of the project is to contribute to the understanding
of the relation between learning, practice and technology by empirically studying
these relations in police work. The expected results of this research are
both descriptive and normative: First, it will result in a rich description
and analysis of police as a CoP as well as conceptual models of police practice
and the relation to technology. Second, new forms of training and competence
development for the police practice will be designed and evaluated. The project
as described here has a very strong empirical grounding in the police context.
Concerning the possibility to generalize from the findings we argue that the
case of the police is suitable in two ways; firstly police practice is in
no way an unusual or limited practice from both a national and global perspective,
and secondly being an extreme case in many ways police practice serves as
a fruitful starting point for research on the relations of practice, technology
and learning.
For more information here
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