The purpose of this study is to answer whether the teaching material Magic! 1 – 3 can be used without complementary material to convey the subject content and the didactic elements presented as central in the curriculum. The questions the study aims to answer are how well Magic! 1 – 3 is in line with the curriculum's central content and whether it can be used in teaching without complementary teaching material. This study is carried out through a qualitative content analysis of the English teaching material Magic! intended for grades 1, 2 and 3. The teaching material Magic! includes a printed and a digital copy where the content is analyzed qualitatively. Each task is quantified as possible elements for the student to practice a skill and can be categorized several times.   The theoretical starting points of the thesis are based on curriculum theory with a focus on the formulation arena and the transformation arena. The curriculum is a result of the decisions that have been made within the formulation arena and, based on that, the textbook authors are a part of the transformation arena, i.e. those who transform the content of the curriculum. By using the theory of constructive alignment, the questions of the study can be answered.    The tasks in Magic! 1–3 conveys all the points that are written out as central content in the curriculum, but there are some instances where the teacher needs to actively decide whether it is enough for his/her classroom.

<p>This thesis is intended as a contribution to the discussion about science education, especially with regard to how care for nature can be understood, to what extend care for nature is included or excluded in the science education discourse and the importance of this in regard to an environmental education and a gender perspective. The empirical part of the thesis is carried out as a case study, where the discourse of physics is studied as a case within the discourse of science education. The discourse of physics is investigated by analyses of textbooks for lower secondary school in Sweden. </p><p>In the thesis, I present two ways of understanding care for nature. The first way is related to a systemic aspect of ethics that is based on principles. If the principles in use ascribe intrinsic value to nature, then the ethics can be seen as an expression of a systemic aspect of care for nature. The second way is related to an aspect of ethics based on care in ‘I-Thou encounters’ with nature, and is seen as a non-systemic aspect of care for nature. </p><p>Three forms of analyses are performed: 1) of the discourse and selective traditions in physics, 2) of orientations (attitudes) towards nature, and 3) of ways of knowing (indicating what meetings with nature students are offered in science education). </p><p>The analyses performed showed one discourse in physics education, consisting of two selective traditions. The systemic aspect of care for nature is excluded as the discourse has an anthropocentric foundation. The non-systemic aspect of care for nature is also excluded, as no I-Thou meetings are offered through the ways of knowing and no expression for the I-Thou attitude is found in either of the traditions. Further, ways of knowing and an ethical orientation associated with female gender are excluded. Thus, the discourse in physics does not contribute to obtaining the goals of the national syllabuses concerning gender equality and care for nature from the perspectives investigated.</p>

This thesis is intended as a contribution to the discussion about science education, especially with regard to how care for nature can be understood, to what extend care for nature is included or excluded in the science education discourse and the importance of this in regard to an environmental education and a gender perspective. The empirical part of the thesis is carried out as a case study, where the discourse of physics is studied as a case within the discourse of science education. The discourse of physics is investigated by analyses of textbooks for lower secondary school in Sweden. In the thesis, I present two ways of understanding care for nature. The first way is related to a systemic aspect of ethics that is based on principles. If the principles in use ascribe intrinsic value to nature, then the ethics can be seen as an expression of a systemic aspect of care for nature. The second way is related to an aspect of ethics based on care in ‘I-Thou encounters’ with nature, and is seen as a non-systemic aspect of care for nature. Three forms of analyses are performed: 1) of the discourse and selective traditions in physics, 2) of orientations (attitudes) towards nature, and 3) of ways of knowing (indicating what meetings with nature students are offered in science education). The analyses performed showed one discourse in physics education, consisting of two selective traditions. The systemic aspect of care for nature is excluded as the discourse has an anthropocentric foundation. The non-systemic aspect of care for nature is also excluded, as no I-Thou meetings are offered through the ways of knowing and no expression for the I-Thou attitude is found in either of the traditions. Further, ways of knowing and an ethical orientation associated with female gender are excluded. Thus, the discourse in physics does not contribute to obtaining the goals of the national syllabuses concerning gender equality and care for nature from the perspectives investigated.

As the postmodern view on local perspectives and situated knowledge is becoming increasingly more important, educational issues regarding ethnic minority groups and multicultural aspects of learning are rapidly turning into a major focus throughout the international educational world. Distinct minority cultures and languages are rarely given enough attention within formal school settings. Instead national languages and curriculum are mandatory, leaving minority students confused and at a disadvantage. The Akha people of Northern Thailand find themselves sharing these minority struggles and this paper sets out to explore issues of continuity and change within Akha discourses from an educational perspective. Eight semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with individuals from the Akha minority group in regards to their views on education. The aim was to analyze how their educational discourses were constructed and what perceptions they carried, primarily in relationship to knowledge and learning. When analyzing the interview material it became evident that the informants’ discourses about education constructed two completely different worlds. Their descriptions of traditional Akha learning in a community setting was distinctly different from how they depicted the mandatory Thai schooling. Conflicts between continuity and change also emerged in the interview material. At the same time as a strong wish for continuity of traditional Akha culture was clearly visible, the interviewees also expressed the necessity to change and adapt to the outside world. This paper, therefore aims to discuss these conflicting discourses in relation to four different aspects of life where education seems to play an essential role for the informants in promoting and preventing changes and continuity: knowledge and learning, social structures, morals and ethics, and cultural identity. It will also be discussed how these discourses construct and impact reality, as well as how perceptions are constructed and reproduced. Furthermore, this paper will also consider how the different issues and conflicts mentioned above could be addressed by a formal Akha school setting.

<p>As the postmodern view on local perspectives and situated knowledge is becoming increasingly more important, educational issues regarding ethnic minority groups and multicultural aspects of learning are rapidly turning into a major focus throughout the international educational world. Distinct minority cultures and languages are rarely given enough attention within formal school settings. Instead national languages and curriculum are mandatory, leaving minority students confused and at a disadvantage. The Akha people of Northern Thailand find themselves sharing these minority struggles and this paper sets out to explore issues of continuity and change within Akha discourses from an educational perspective.</p><p>Eight semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with individuals from the Akha minority group in regards to their views on education. The aim was to analyze how their educational discourses were constructed and what perceptions they carried, primarily in relationship to knowledge and learning.</p><p>When analyzing the interview material it became evident that the informants’ discourses about education constructed two completely different worlds. Their descriptions of traditional Akha learning in a community setting was distinctly different from how they depicted the mandatory Thai schooling. Conflicts between continuity and change also emerged in the interview material. At the same time as a strong wish for continuity of traditional Akha culture was clearly visible, the interviewees also expressed the necessity to change and adapt to the outside world. This paper, therefore aims to discuss these conflicting discourses in relation to four different aspects of life where education seems to play an essential role for the informants in promoting and preventing changes and continuity: knowledge and learning, social structures, morals and ethics, and cultural identity. It will also be discussed how these discourses construct and impact reality, as well as how perceptions are constructed and reproduced. Furthermore, this paper will also consider how the different issues and conflicts mentioned above could be addressed by a formal Akha school setting.</p>

Syftet med studien är att genom en kvalitativ och komparativ textanalys granska kunskapsdiskurser i läroplanerna Lgy 70, Lpf 94 och Gy 2011 för att urskilja förändringar. Kunskapsdiskurserna är indelade följande: teoretisk, praktisk och ideologisk kunskap, och fokus är på läroplanernas allmänna del och kursplan för Svenska. I centrum står diskursteori, läroplansteori samt epistemologi vid tolkning av resultatet. Resultatet visar att det har skett en viss förändring av kunskapsdiskurser, främst mellan Lgy 70 och de två senare läroplanerna. Samtliga läroplaner innehåller till stor del ideologisk kunskap i allmänna delen, men Lgy 70 innehåller mer teoretisk kunskap jämfört med de andra läroplanerna. I Svenska har kursplanen gått från en teoretisk och praktisk inriktning till praktisk och ideologisk inriktning i Lpf 94 och Gy 2011. Kunskapsinnehållet har därmed även förändrats då sociala mål har blivit alltmer centrala i Lpf 94 och Gy 2011. Ytterligare ett resultat är att kunskapsbegreppet diskuteras i de två senare läroplanerna till skillnad från Lgy 70, men trots detta används inte typologin annat än i begreppsförklaring av de fyra F:n. Kunskap refereras därmed liknande i samtliga läroplaner, det vill säga genom kunskap och förmåga. Resultatet visar inte på att läroplanerna har blivit mer eller mindre kunskapsinriktade med åren utan att diskursen om vad kunskap innebär och uppfattningen om vad som är central kunskap i skolverksamheten har förändrats. / The purpose of the study is that through a qualitative and comparative textual analysis review knowledge discourses in the curricula Lgy 70, Lpf 94 and Gy 2011 to identify changes. The knowledge discourse have been divided as follows: theoretical, practical and ideological knowledge, and the focus is on the curriculum, the general part and curriculum for Swedish. In the center stands discourse theory, curriculum theory and epistemology in the interpretation of the results. The result shows that there has been a certain change of knowledge discourses, mainly between Lgy 70 and the latter two curricula. All curricula contain largely ideological knowledge in the general part, but Lgy 70 contains more theoretical knowledge compared to the other curricula. The curriculum for Swedish have shifted from a theoretical and practical approach to the practical and ideological orientation in Lpf 94 and Gy 2011. The knowledge content has consequently changed when social objectives have become increasingly central in Lpf 94 and Gy 2011. A further result is that the concept of knowledge is discussed in the latter two curricula unlike Lgy 70, but despite this is not the typology other than in conceptual explanation of the four F. Knowledge referenced thus similar in all curricula, through knowledge and ability. The results do not indicate that the curriculum has become more or less knowledge-oriented over the years but the discourse about what knowledge is and the perception of what is central knowledge in school activities has changed.

This critical ethnographic collective case study examined the process of becoming a teacher in the context of visual art education. This longitudinal study was grounded in larger educational concerns regarding the preparation of teachers for socially and culturally diverse U.S. public schools. This framing of teacher learning went beyond traditional dichotomies in educational research that maintain an artificial boundary between learning to teach content and learning to teach all students effectively and equitably. In order to re-integrate the study of teacher learning, this research foregrounds the transactional relationship between a preservice art teacher’s social locations (e.g., race, class, sex-gender, language) and how s/he makes sense of what it means to be an “art teacher.” Specifically, the study asked (a) how preservice art teachers negotiated their emerging art teacher identities in a university-based teacher education program, (b) how their social positions were implicated in that process, and (c) how their teacher identities were meditated by cultural narratives, artifacts, and practices. This approach eschewed simplistic and reductive analyses of teacher identities in order to attain a nuanced understanding of the multiple, sometimes contradictory social processes involved in becoming a teacher. This collective case study centered six preservice art teachers with varied racial, class, gender, and sexual identities, all of whom attended the same undergraduate teacher education program in the southwestern U.S. Social practice theory of identity, and critical curriculum and cultural theory were employed in constructing a multi-leveled relational analysis of the commonalities and divergences in participants’ self-understandings over time. Findings showed historical patterns of institutionalized racism, as well as complex class and sex-gendered meanings of art. These inequitable norms were reproduced in ways distinctive to the asocial and apolitical “common sense” knowledge that was mobilized within the world of art teacher education. Some participants experienced alienation and marginalization based on their social positioning in relation to the world of art education. The findings also illuminated the polyvalent nature of identity through the coexistence of hegemonic identities as well as counter-hegemonic agency. Implications and possibilities for generating more critical, equity-oriented teacher education and art education research, practice, and policy are considered. / text

The overall purpose of this thesis is to critically contextualise the organization of content in Swedish upper-secondary vocational education by highlighting its social and political implications in relation to social class. Policy documents concerning the content of vocational education in Sweden from 1971 to 2011 serve as the main empirical source, with particular attention given to the reform of 2011 (Gy11). The thesis is comprised of four studies that each represents a different context that reveals social and political implications of the selection and organisation of content in Gy11. The content structure of Gy11 is thus analysed in relation to (a) the school’s role of fostering democratic citizens and the overarching societal function of education, (b) knowledge distribution among social classes, (c) a class context, including key historical and contemporary reforms, and (d) a modern historical context, focusing on how two previous structural reforms (1971 and 1994) organised power and control over educational content. The study results show that, in terms of its content structure and underlying principles, Gy11 represents a historical break with previous reforms in many respects. Fundamental organising principles of past reforms, such as students’ preparation for active citizenship, critical thinking and entry to higher education, have been given less importance while the content is more context-bound than in previous reforms. The Gy11 reform can thus be seen as a part of a broader policy trend that is detracting from earlier efforts to give all social classes equal access to an equivalent education and reduce social imbalances in education. This new way of shaping vocational education is, it is argued, likely to exacerbate class inequalities by both reducing social mobility and rendering knowledge distribution in society more asymmetric.

This doctoral thesis investigates the interrelatedness between school policy and practice. In the thesis, the construction of “the teacher” is analysed in school policy documents and teacher interviews. I am particularly interested in the relation between school policy and school practice in light of the two latest curriculum reforms 1994 and 2011 and the teacher accreditation registration reform of 2011. The analysis focuses on two topics: grading and the professional teacher. In fact, an analytic link is made between the emphasis on grading and the discursive construction of the teacher in Swedish education policy. The theoretical framework is positioned within institutional theory within which I combine curriculum theory and the sociological new institutionalism with discourse theory. The analyses of policy documents reveals three types of different discursive constructions of “the teacher”. In the period of deregulation and decentralization, a professional teacher is constructed and the need for an autonomous teacher for school quality is expressed. By the 1990s -2000s an unprofessional grading teacher is constructed. In the period signifying the teacher accreditation and registration reform, a quality assured teacher is constructed. It is a teacher who is formally authorized and in need of continuing evaluation. In the focus groups interviews teachers constructs two types of professionalism. One is in line with the professionalism articulated in the policy texts and is about control and formal regulation and the other is about autonomy. Furthermore, the teachers relate to grading and teachers' ability to act in accordance with their overall teaching assignment. Grading were often constructed opposed to teaching. Demands for documentation, quality reports or the requirement of teacher accreditation is described as institutional practices defined from above. These practices make it difficult for teachers to complete their teaching assignments. The study indicates that teachers' ability to operate in an increasingly regulatory schooling culture has, through the types of requirements for transparency in teachers’ work, resulted in the decline of autonomy in their professional practice.

Contemporary popular music is a ubiquitous social, cultural, and pedagogical force. Enabled by ever-evolving and -expanding technology, its songs and lyrics are transmitted into our most public and private spaces. For this study, I present the Billboard music charts as a functioning pedagogy and curriculum. Riffing on Richter’s denkbilder, Aoki’s curricular worlds of plan and lived experience, Giroux’s public pedagogy, and Giroux & Simon’s theorizing on youth culture, I sound out messages and motives embedded within the hit parade pedagogy. DJing a methodology of qualitative inquiry, autoethnography, and free association, I listen closely to chart-topping songs by Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and P!nk that feature themes of marginalization, and consider the paradox presented by the juxtaposition of their popularity and subject matter. I suggest that this playlist legitimizes and perpetuates its listeners’ marginalization, running counter to its supposed intent to galvanize and inspire. Before signing off, I consider the implications for school-based educators and pedagogy in regard to engaging marginalization, particularly the notion of implementing a curriculum with which students may participate and sing along.