Doctoral Theses / Doktorsavhandlingar Institutionen för pedagogik, kommunikation och lärandehttps://hdl.handle.net/2077/224082024-03-28T22:53:12Z2024-03-28T22:53:12ZTeacher Professional Learning in Response to Contemporary Challenges in Early Childhood Education and CareStavholm, Emeliehttps://hdl.handle.net/2077/794022024-03-28T08:35:43Z2024-03-22T00:00:00ZTeacher Professional Learning in Response to Contemporary Challenges in Early Childhood Education and Care
Stavholm, Emelie
The purpose of this doctoral thesis is to generate new knowledge, through the empirical study, of how an Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) work team collectively learn about two contemporary challenges in ECEC, by means of a theoretical framework. More specifically, how they learn about the relationship between teaching and play, particularly in relation to children’s digital experiences in play. The thesis is based on a combined research and development project where a work team in preschool were introduced to the theoretical framework Play-responsive early childhood education and care (PRECEC) which has implications for how to understand teaching and play activities in preschool. A sociocultural perspective functions as the theoretical framework of the thesis and the data consists of ten audio and Zoom-recorded focus group conversations which have
been analyzed through Sociocultural Discourse Analysis. The thesis contains three empirical studies where the findings show how reading research articles and watching video-recordings play a central part when the participants appropriate theoretical concepts. The findings also show how time and dialogue based on scientific knowledge matters for the learning process when the work team change their reasoning about the teacher’s role in play. In addition, the findings illustrate how PRECEC, for the participants, mediate an understanding of play and teaching as responsive activities requiring mutual (digital) experiences. This mediating process is discussed as potentially enabling teacher agency. Overall, the findings contribute with new knowledge regarding how an ECEC work team learn about contemporary challenges by means of PRECEC and are therefore discussed in relation to implications for what becomes important when organizing for professional development in ECEC settings.
2024-03-22T00:00:00ZUnicorns in moderation: gender and epistemology on stack overflowOsborne, Tanyahttps://hdl.handle.net/2077/795132024-02-23T21:09:44Z2024-02-23T00:00:00ZUnicorns in moderation: gender and epistemology on stack overflow
Osborne, Tanya
Stack Exchange is a global knowledge sharing platform centred around programming, computer science, and a variety of other topics. It is a ubiquitous resource for coders and programmers. Knowledge sharing platforms, like Stack Exchange, are increasingly part of informal professional learning, and make professional knowledge accessible to people across the world. However, the platform has several persistent issues, like the under-participation of women and gender minorities. Given the ubiquity of the platform, and its positioning in recognising the expertise of programmers, there is an urgent need to understand how and why gendered participation patterns are reproduced in this environment.
Female participation in computer science and engineering has long been a subject of academic research. This thesis extends this line of research to cover female, non-binary, and trans experiences of participating in the online production of programming and coding knowledge. The title of the thesis, Unicorns in Moderation, has multiple meanings: it refers to the ‘unicorn’ success of a technology platform; the unique way in which of Stack Exchange’s approach to moderation combines platform affordances, volunteer moderation, elected moderation, and automation; and the relatively low participation of female and non-binary members.
Using a hybrid approach to digital ethnography, drawing on a mixture of interview, observation, document analysis and data analysis, I explore the gendered issues that are produced and reproduced on Stack Exchange. I find that the language policies on Stack Exchange are central to the reproduction of gendered discrimination and find that this is exacerbated by the gamified approach to content moderation. I also find that it is difficult for users to have measured discussions about gender-based discrimination on the platform due to the lack of recognition for embodied knowledge. From this, there is great potential to understand how online professional learning and knowledge sharing environments might avoid reproducing gender-based discrimination. Future research could extend this by observing how communities on emerging user-coordinated platforms, such as Slack and Discord, manage professional knowledge creation and documentation practices and how these practices are institutionally coordinated.
The thesis has three main contributions. The first a theoretical contribution, by applying contemporary social epistemologies, such as epistemic ignorance, to digital contexts. The second is in the methodological design, which brings together a mixture of digital and conventional methods under the banner of institutional ethnography. The third is an empirical contribution, shedding new light on the discourses of gender on platforms.
This compilation thesis comprises an extended history of Stack Overflow, three empirical papers, and one methodological paper. Paper 1, Writing the Social Web, argues for how digital platforms can be understood as institutional settings. Paper 2, Gaming Expertise Metrics, explores how the platform mechanics on Stack Overflow reinforce existing masculine hierarchies in programming. Paper 3, No Room for Kindness, examines the codification of communication on Stack Overflow, using interviews, policy texts, and social media data to explore the relations that prevent politeness on the platform. Paper 4, Silencing Tactics, discusses how queer issues are discussed in the Stack Exchange community, and how these issues are minimised through the mechanisms of epistemic ignorance
2024-02-23T00:00:00ZUppdrag: Historia och demokrati. Perspektiv på studieresor till Förintelsens minnesplatserOla, Flennegårdhttps://hdl.handle.net/2077/790172023-12-19T10:17:17Z2023-12-15T00:00:00ZUppdrag: Historia och demokrati. Perspektiv på studieresor till Förintelsens minnesplatser
Ola, Flennegård
Förintelsen som absolut moralisk referenspunkt i det senmoderna samhället innebär att undervisning och lärande om Förintelsen tillmäts stor vikt inom utbildningssektorn. Sedan millenniumskiftet har studieresor till Förintelsens minnesplatser vuxit fram som en gräsrotsrörelse inom den svenska skolan, och bidragit till att omkring var fjärde svensk tjugoåring besökt museet Auschwitz-Birkenau. Trots omfattningen av skolans pedagogiska insatser är arbetet med studieresorna obeforskat i Sverige. Avhandlingen belyser och problematiserar explorativt hur relationen mellan å ena sidan utbildning om Förintelsen och å andra sidan skolans demokratiuppdrag gestaltar sig i lärares och elevers praktiska arbete med att förbereda, genom¬föra och följa upp studieresor till Förintelsens minnesplatser, genomförda i en svensk nationell utbildningskontext.
Avhandlingen är en sammanläggningsavhandling bestående av fyra kvalitativa, empiriska delstudier. Materialet utgörs av intervjuer med nio lärare med varierande erfarenheter av studieresor och 49 elevers skriftliga reflektioner skrivna före, under och efter två studieresor. Vidare ingår två fallstudier med intervjuer och observationer med lärare och elever före och efter två olika studieresor. Avhandlingen förankras teoretiskt i kritisk diskursanalys (CDA) och undersöker mönster i lärares och elevers diskursiva praktik. Därmed genereras en tentativ översikt över hur kunskaper om Förintelsen i arbetet med studieresorna formas och knyts samman med demokratiska kärnvärden.
Avhandlingen visar att två diskursordningar, benämnda skolans demokratiuppdrag och den sekulära pilgrimsresan, samverkar och reglerar arbetet med studieresorna med syfte att socialisera eleverna in i demokratiska kärnvärden. Däremot förpassas förklarande ansatser, som antisemitism som drivande faktor i Förintelsen, generellt till undervisningens periferi. Detsamma gäller också förankring av undervisningens innehåll i Förintelsens specifika historiska sammanhang. Det medför att elever riskerar att utveckla en grund förståelse för Förintelsens orsaker och en begränsad konceptualisering av Förintelsen som historisk händelse. Sammantaget problematiserar avhandlingen Förintelsens universalisering, genom att visa hur den innebär att didaktiska potentialer, särskilt utvecklandet av kunskaper om antisemitism, tenderar att förbigås.
2023-12-15T00:00:00ZInteraktionsmönster, social anpassning och emotioner i förskolan. En mikrosociologisk studie av interaktion mellan förskollärare och barn i målorienterade aktiviteterNilfyr, Katarinahttps://hdl.handle.net/2077/736082023-10-06T11:44:00ZInteraktionsmönster, social anpassning och emotioner i förskolan. En mikrosociologisk studie av interaktion mellan förskollärare och barn i målorienterade aktiviteter
Nilfyr, Katarina
The overarching aim of this thesis is to contribute knowledge about the interactions between preschool teachers and children in ongoing goal-oriented documentation activities in preschool. More specifically, the thesis aims to contribute with in-depth knowledge of how interaction and social adaptation can be understood based on Goffman’s (1983, 1986) and Scheff’s (1990, 1997) micro-sociological theories. The empirical data were generated by video recordings of documentation activities that took place in the everyday context of preschools. The thesis comprises three chronologically accomplished sub-studies. Study I is a rewritten and condensed study with a focus on the results and discussion of my published licentiate thesis. The first study takes an exploratory analytical approach by means of Goffman’s concepts of framing and interaction orders, which implies that the interaction and the social behaviour are organised based on shared norms. Studies II and III constitute an in-depth development of the initial results of Study I and have a micro-sociological analytical approach using Scheff’s theory, in particular his concept of the deference-emotion system, which denotes an informal system of social sanctions that subtly promotes conformity. The overarching results show the complexities and the nature of interaction in a goal-oriented activity, with the preschool teachers demonstrating a task- and result-oriented definition, whereas the children’s definition of the situation was of a more spontaneous and changeable character. However, later in the interaction, the children adapted by temporarily agreeing with the teachers’ definition and aligning their performance accordingly, which occurred through an informal and subtle system of social influence. The thesis highlights the functions that the interaction order and emotions have in social adaptation in preschool, which need to be discussed with regard to an overall adaptation to formal schooling. This raises questions regarding the balance between conducting goal-oriented education and following children’s interests with a teacher-child relationship approach to learning activities. These questions are targeted at the policy level. In practice, however, the responsibility is placed on individual preschool teachers to handle the complexity of goal-oriented activities in preschool contexts that should also create conditions for children’s socio-emotional development and lifelong desire to learn.