This thesis examines two aspects of the shaping of school pupils and has its theoretical base in Foucault's concepts of governmentality and conduct of conduct. The initial study deals with the construction of the ideal pupil in two curricula texts from 1969 and 1994. The second focuses on how pupils are constructed and construct themselves in the school context. The method of inquiry is text analysis and group interviews. The curricula study describes pupils' desired competencies in curricula texts today and forty years ago. The study notes that during the last four decades the honest, helpful, patient and considerate subject has been replaced by a responsible, reflective, active and critical subject. A subject with dichotomous competencies is elaborated to show the antithesis to the democratic pupil/member of society. The discussion deals with how the desired competencies may effect schoolwork and the interaction between teachers and pupils, and vice versa. The second study deals with what a group of pupil talk about, how they do it and who is allowed to talk when. The subject matter is how nine-year-old pupils argue with each other about coming off well in school or failing as a pupil. The results indicate that relations with peers is central for nine-year-old pupils during the school day, and that traditional school work - such as reading and writing, maths and so on - is not something the pupils pay particularly much attention to. The pupils must learn to master a number of implicit rules about the conduct of a school girl or a school boy. Most pupils learn the prevailing criteria without difficulty, but those who fail in this matter are in one way or another excluded from other children's activities. To position oneself and others is a basic part of the interaction with others and is always in progress. Positioning in this sense is not to be mixed up with social positions and status in more traditional terms. You position yourself and the other as soon as you catch sight of each other by asking yourself: Who am I and who is he/she? This question is strictly tied to here and now in a special context, and continues as long as any kind of interaction exists between two or more people. The children have different techniques for positioning themselves and each other, and use them more or less frequently. Some pupils are more competitive than others and express a more hierarchic idea in their relations to other pupils. Other boys and girls seem to have very little interest in such competition and manage to position themselves without comparing or competing.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-21037 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Lofors-Nyblom, Lottie |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Institutionen för svenska och samhällsvetenskapliga ämnen, Umeå : Umeå University, Department of Swedish and Social Sciences |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Doctoral thesis, monograph, info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | Doktorsavhandlingar i pedagogiskt arbete, 1650-8858 ; 28, Doktorsavhandlingar inom den Nationella Forskarskolan i Pedagogiskt Arbete, 1653-6894 ; 17 |
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