Utveckling av skolmiljörer - aktiviteter och mening i småskaligt arbete

Abstract

Almost every day, Swedish media bring up issues from the school environment. Public and academic research identifies problems in these environments. Knowledge about the school environment is mainly about the conditions in schools. Less is known about how schools could work with changing their environment. This study develops knowledge about how schools could improve their environments in a broad sense – buildings, the physical, socio-psychological, pedagogic and organisational aspects of the environment. A project has been followed, analysed and reported. It was a co-operation between a council’s school property management unit and three schools. The project has generated 67 different sites, which have worked in different ways. Understanding has been developed through these experiences. Three projects have been described extensively, but the conclusions are based on the whole project. This work has a strong empirical base. The material has also been analysed, compared and reflected in different ways. Conclusions have been related to different areas of research. The practical conclusions are about the work process, different participants and the thoughts behind school environment development. The importance of time, feedback, information and economy has also been emphasised. The study shows that the development of the environment should be broad, connected to the schools core activity, and that it is important that teachers and students participate. The school should also co-operate with external participants, such as the public schoolhouse maintenance organisation. It is a difficult and complicated process, and the work should be adapted to the unique conditions and circumstances in each school. The theoretical conclusions develop our understanding of such work at close quarters. The conclusions show that this work consists of two different dimensions; one is about the factual matter and developing the school environment, the other dimension is about participation in this process. The first is called the activity dimension, the second the meaning dimension. A successful process should integrate those two dimensions, so that they amplify each other and work as a reciprocal carrier wave. The study also shows that a great challenge in developing a school environment is to work on a small scale and to integrate both dimensions of the process to make the activities meaningful to the individuals who participate. Key words: School environment, environment in a broad sense, improvement, change, work process, buildings, property management, maintenance, co-operation, empirical base, participation, learning, time, feedback, information, economy, activity, meaning and small scale.