In recent years there has been increasing interest in developing greater creativity in education. This study focuses on trainee teachers during their initial teacher education and explores their beliefs about and perceptions of developing greater creativity in their practice. The work is located within the context of a school-based initial teacher education course and considers whether and how continuing moves towards school-based training in England can support the impetus towards greater creativity in teachers and their pupils. The study draws from qualitative research undertaken with a small group of trainee English teachers during a one-year School-based Initial Teacher Education course in England. Working from a social constructionist perspective, this research uses the methodology of Action Research. Employing a range of qualitative methods, including discourse analysis of group discussions, individual interviews, a silent discussion, and writing and analysing metaphors, it provides some insight into the trainee teachers’ complex understandings of creativity in the classroom, and how these understandings connect with their developing identity as teachers and with their pedagogy, practice and philosophy. It offers an insight into the trainees’ beliefs about and perceptions of moving towards creativity in their teaching, and the barriers and supports to such practice they encounter, both within the training course and in the partner schools. Reviewing a range of approaches to teaching and learning and considering the trainees’ beliefs and perceptions, the study suggests that agency is central to creativity, and that approaches which support the agency both of trainee teachers and of pupils are most likely to result in greater creativity in the classroom. The study regards creativity as a situated and highly contextual quality, and discusses practical approaches to teaching and learning, gathered under the term Creative Practice, which may be most likely to occasion greater creativity in the classroom. It offers suggestions for teacher educators as to how to better support trainee teachers in moving towards Creative Practice.

This paper sets out to explore to what extent teacher trainees at a university in southern Sweden are influenced by communicative language teaching (CLT) approaches that the Swedish national syllabus for English, LGR 11, advocates. In addition, reliabilities regarding the level of institution (Junior High versus High School) will also be explored. The material consists of 20 lesson plans, two from each student equally split between Junior High and High School. These plans were submitted by the author’s classmates as part of an assignment during their teaching practice. The method for rating the lesson plans in terms of function versus form is based on a chart created by Thornbury (1999), although his chart has been adapted to better suit the methodology of this paper. The results showed that most of the lesson plans favored, to varying degrees, a communicative approach; the most popular one being a mixture of deep-end and shallow-end CLT approaches. Furthermore, the lessons in High school proved to lean slightly more towards deep-end CLT than their counterparts at Junior high.

Den här uppsatsen har haft som syfte att undersöka hur fem unga transsexuella upplevt sin skoltid och hur detta har påverkat deras identitetsskapande. De tre frågeställningarna har varit: Hur har intervjupersonerna skapat sin könsöverskridande identitet i en skolkontext? Vilka är de praktiker och diskurser som de format och formar sina "jag" genom? Mot vilka diskurser, om några, gör de intervjuade personerna motstånd genom sitt identitetsskapande? Uppsatsen poängterar att forskning inom utbildningsvetenskap med koppling till sexualitets- och identitetspolitik är essentiellt för lärarutbildningens och läraryrkets utveckling. Det finns redan uttryckligen formulerat i styrdokumenten men verkligheten i verksamheten tycks se annorlunda ut. Skolan har ansvar för alla barn och unga som befinner sig i verksamheten. Man kan därför inte blunda för de rapporter om ohälsa och utsatthet som redovisats av statliga institutioner såsom Folkhälsoinstitutet och Ungdomsstyrelsen. / This thesis originates from an experienced lack of knowledge within the teacher trainee program. The lack consists of a close to non-existent information of the LGBT-group as a norm breaking group of students in our schools. This essay focuses in particular on the transgender group. The essay claims that this lack of knowledge within our schools leads to discrimination against students which can cause health problems. But most importantly it complicates the identity formation process of young transgender people.