kristina Ledman - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by kristina Ledman

Nordidactica: Journal of Humanities and Social Science Education, Nov 29, 2019

Criticality (the ability to think, self-reflect and act critically, as well as reason analyticall... more Criticality (the ability to think, self-reflect and act critically, as well as reason analytically) is framed as an important goal of education generally, and citizenship education specifically. However, literature and research within subject didactics tend to frame criticality as subject-specific, hence its conceptualisation can vary substantially depending on epistemological and research traditions. Thus, this paper compares its treatment in the same subject, civics, in curricula of the five Nordic countries. Civics is an interesting case as it is a major element of citizenship education, which varies somewhat among the five countries. Four ideal types of criticality are elaborated and deployed in the analysis: general, disciplinary, moral and ideological criticality. The results reveal substantial differences between the five compared curricula. They also reveal apparent correlations between civics as a single-subject construct (as in Denmark and Sweden) and disciplinary criticality, and between civics as an integrated curriculum construct (as in Iceland) and general criticality. Overall, the disciplinary view of criticality slightly prevails in the five compared curricula. The results raise questions about contextual factors’ effects on how criticality is constructed in school subjects, and helps reflection on what we actually refer to when we talk about a certain school subject

The 46th Congress of the Nordic Educational Research Association (NERA), Oslo, Norway, 8-10 March, 2018, 2018

How do history teachers transform and teach a new history curriculum to new learners? The questio... more How do history teachers transform and teach a new history curriculum to new learners? The question is currently quite urgent in Sweden where a new national curriculum has made history part of the c ...

M eier i historieervisningen: Histodidaktisk fokning i prktiken I ljuset av samtidens forandrade ... more M eier i historieervisningen: Histodidaktisk fokning i prktiken I ljuset av samtidens forandrade medielandskap och samhallsgrundade spanningar om historieframstallningar framstar de historiska mediernas roll i dagens och historiens historieamne i ungdomsskolan som en historiedidaktiskt angelagen fraga. Med denna fraga i fokus utformades forskarskolan Historiska medier: forskarskola i historia med didaktisk inriktning i borjan av 2011. I denna antologi ges en samlad presentation av elva studier fran forskarskolan som beror de historiska mediernas roll, funktion, villkor och anvandning. Studierna bidrar till den historiedidaktiska forskningen, och erbjuder ocksa verksamma och blivande historielarare en mojlighet att utveckla sin kunskap om hur medier paverkar undervisning och larande i historia.

Gendered identity and norms interplay with other social categories, as ethnicity, age and class. ... more Gendered identity and norms interplay with other social categories, as ethnicity, age and class. What is valued and recognised as ways of being a girl and women in one social group differs from ano ...

This book weaves together two central dimensions of contemporary edu-cational research, namely th... more This book weaves together two central dimensions of contemporary edu-cational research, namely the attention to school spaces and the use of visual sources. Its sixteen brief case studies deal with both contemporary and historical settings, topics including teachers' perception of educatio-nal change, their working places and daily tasks, the interlacing of social, spatial and knowledge differentiation in schools, discrepancies between students' and teachers' ways of visualizing school life, commercial repre-sentations of the school environment and the spatial fluidity between in-door and outdoor. The ongoing technology shift and its impact on schoo-ling is an undercurrent running through the entire volume. The authors – the majority of whom are practicing teachers – are Westerberg. The book is edited and introduced by Catherine Burke, Ian Grosvenor and Björn Norlin. Engaging with Educational Space is suitable to both academic courses focusing on methodological issues as...

Utbildning & Demokrati – tidskrift för didaktik och utbildningspolitk

So one can participate": On the value and meaning of history education in the view of pupils on a... more So one can participate": On the value and meaning of history education in the view of pupils on a vocational programme. History is a compulsory subject in Swedish upper secondary Vocational Educational and Training (VET) programs since the reform of the national curriculum in 2011. On a general level, the vocational/academic divide of upper secondary education contributes to social reproduction. This article argues that history education has an important role to play in the acquisition of powerful and critical knowledge for the students in VET, knowledge that can empower subjects and groups in society. Data consists of interviews with 46 students. The analysis draws on the concepts of horizontal and vertical discourse. The results show that the students do appreciate the potential of knowledge in history. However, history education must provide the students with the opportunity to interact with contemporary history in order to answer to the needs that the students in this study articulated, that is to understand present-day society.

Gender and Education

This article reports results of an ethnographic study of how girls are positioned, and position t... more This article reports results of an ethnographic study of how girls are positioned, and position themselves, in relation to gender regimes in three vocational programmes in Swedish upper secondary education: Restaurant Management & Food, Health & Social Care, and Vehicle & Transport. The comparison shows that there are different possible feminine positions where the girls resist and comply to varying degrees both within and between the programmes, with expectations interrelated with discourses of consumption, caring and production. However, generally the position of emphasised femininity is most prominent and becoming a female worker in the programmes' settings involves complying with feminine ideals of a caring discourse, regardless of whether the VET is oriented towards education for masculine production work, or feminine consumption work.

British Journal of Sociology of Education

Previous studies of citizenship preparation in upper secondary school, including studies on vocat... more Previous studies of citizenship preparation in upper secondary school, including studies on vocational programmes, have primarily focused on general subjects. Potential and actual roles of vocational subjects in this context have received little attention, so we have little knowledge of what is likely a significant part of the citizenship preparation that occurs in vocational programmes. Drawing on the work of Basil Bernstein and ethnographic data, this study presents an analysis of socialisation processes in vocational elements of three vocational programmes in Swedish upper secondary school. The analysis addresses the formation of pedagogic codes in various vocational programmes and subjects, and how these codes condition students' practice of citizenship at individual, social and political levels. The results show how different pedagogic codes have different implications for the students' practice of citizenship, and thus raise questions about factors and processes that may either constrain or strengthen, this aspect in vocational subject classes. The focal problem and purpose of the study There is a long history of differentiation in education, that prepares young people from different class backgrounds for unequal future life chances and experiences and channels them into very different positions in society and the division of labour (Bernstein 2000; Bourdieu and Passeron 1970). Vocational education, in Sweden and elsewhere, is embedded and plays key roles in such contexts by primarily attracting working-class students and socializing them for working-class jobs. However, part of the mission of modern mass educational systems in liberal democracies is to foster formally equal citizens by promoting reproduction of essential conditions for democratic governance. The tension between these two processes highlights the importance of raising and addressing questions about citizenship preparation in education, particularly in contexts such as vocational programmes.

Nordic Journal of Educational History

General Subjects in Vocational Education and Training in Post-War SwedenThe present article focus... more General Subjects in Vocational Education and Training in Post-War SwedenThe present article focuses on the role of general subjects in the curriculum for vocational education and training (VET) in Swedish upper secondary schools after the Second World War. It shows that a steady increase in general VET subjects as a result of Social Democratic legislation in 1968 and 1991 was interrupted by a Liberal-Conservative government bill introduced in 2009, which led to a reduction. The rhetoric of these reforms is analyzed with the intent of increasing insight into the perceived educational benefits of general subjects in VET. The study employs the analytical lens of Gert Biesta and his proposed major functions of education: qualification, socialization, and sub-jectification. The results serve to illuminate the present-day educational po-licy debate, showing that the place of general subjects in the curriculum has been motivated by the important role they play in educating youth in demo-cr...

Educational Research

Background: This article presents an analysis of how critical thinking is contextualised in every... more Background: This article presents an analysis of how critical thinking is contextualised in everyday teaching in three vocational education and training (VET) programmes: Vehicle and transport, Restaurant and management, and Health and social care. Purpose: The main question addressed is: What knowledge discourses permeate different VET-contexts, and hence what kinds of opportunities for critical thinking do they offer students? Method: The qualitative analysis draws on data from a four-year ethnographic project exploring learning processes that can be characterised as civic education in Swedish vocational education. The analysis presented here used data collected during 85 days of observations of teaching in six VET classes, interviews with 81 students and 10 teachers, and collected teaching material. To explore why some contextualisations provided more opportunities and encouragement for critical thinking than others, we applied Bernsteinian concepts of 'horizontal and vertical knowledge discourses' and 'discursive gaps'. Findings and conclusions: Overall, teaching that was observed focused primarily on 'doing'. However, in all three programmes, the analysis identified that there were also situations that touched upon critical thinking. Three major themes were identified: critical thinking related to 'Personal experiences', 'The other(s)' and 'Wider perspectives'. It appeared that the frequency and nature of such situations varied with the knowledge discourses permeating the programme. Furthermore, we discuss the manifestations of critical thinking in relation to the wider context of what Bernstein refers to as pedagogic rights; individual enhancement, social inclusion and development of the competence and confidence to participate in political processes.

Journal of Education and Work

Surges of migration into Sweden and other European countries have raised needs to adjust civic ed... more Surges of migration into Sweden and other European countries have raised needs to adjust civic education to provide Bernsteinian pedagogic rights of enhancement, participation and inclusion, both generally and in VET specifically. However, associated issues have received little research attention even in countries with colonial histories and longer traditions of immigration and non-native ethnic minorities. Moreover, most published empirical studies on race and ethnicity issues in VET have had Anglophone settings. Thus, research in other contexts is needed to broaden understanding and distinguish between general and contextspecific aspects. This article addresses gaps in knowledge of the construction and significance of race and ethnicity in VET, particularly in Swedish contexts. First, it examines how critical understandings of being an immigrant, immigration and ethnicity are constructed in pedagogic practices in Swedish VET programmes, then analyses students' and teachers' discussion of these issues. Content related to immigration and ethnicity was sparse in monitored VET classes, but the presence of immigrants increased instances of both spontaneous and planned content. We conclude that pedagogic practices do not reflect the large increase in numbers of students in Swedish schools with immigrant backgrounds, and greater intercultural awareness is needed to safeguard their pedagogic and general democratic rights.

Journal of Vocational Education & Training

Training. This paper has been peer-reviewed but does not include the final publisher proofcorrect... more Training. This paper has been peer-reviewed but does not include the final publisher proofcorrections or journal pagination.

Journal of Education Policy

Access to the published version may require subscription. N.B. When citing this work, cite the or... more Access to the published version may require subscription. N.B. When citing this work, cite the original published paper.

Nordidactica Journal of Humanities and Social Science Education, 2014

In the reform by the liberal-conservative government of Swedish upper secondary education in 2011... more In the reform by the liberal-conservative government of Swedish upper secondary education in 2011, history was recognized as an important part of citizenship education and was introduced into the curriculum for vocational education and training (VET) tracks. Through the concepts of classification and framing, this article explores the process of constructing the history syllabus for VET. The data consist of archived material from the working group responsible for the history curriculum under the Swedish National Agency for Education. The analysis shows that there are competing discourses concerning the relative emphasis on competencies and skills and concerning the emphasis on contemporary and modern history. Although historians, history teachers and other agents are invited to respond to the content of the curriculum, the respondents have no influence on the knowledge structure of the curriculum, which is controlled by agents of the dominant educational ideology. From a critical perspective, this article suggests that the curriculum reflects the instrumental and neoconservative message of the reform through strong classification and framing and through the emphasis on general abilities and a contemporary history that has a more direct explanatory value to contemporary society.

This thesis offers critical perspectives on a history syllabus for vocational education and train... more This thesis offers critical perspectives on a history syllabus for vocational education and training (VET) tracks in Swedish upper secondary schools and adds to our knowledge and understanding of the educative function of history education for the individual and for society. The overall aim of this thesis is to critically investigate discourses that are voiced in different fields about the construction and reproduction of the history curriculum in VET tracks. A general question addressed is how vertical (critical and theoretical) and horizontal knowledge is articulated by the discourses in terms of the meaning of history in a VET context. The following four research questions were the focus of the four different studies in this thesis: How were non-vocational subjects discussed on a policy level during the postwar period, and what meanings were ascribed to history education? What aspects of history as a field of knowledge are recontextualised into a pedagogic discourse for the VET curriculum? How do teachers perceive the history syllabus? What do the students express concerning the history syllabus and history education? The results of these studies are reported in separate papers, and the aggregated results are analysed in this thesis. The data consisted of government bills and committee reports, material from the National Agency of Education archives, and interview data gathered through interviews with 5 teachers and 46 students. The major theoretical inspiration comes from Basil Bernstein whose theories of classification and framing, pedagogic discourse, pedagogic code, and vertical and horizontal discourses are used in the analysis. With the aid of these concepts, the content and meaning of history education for VET are connected to macro levels of education, and the way in which education reproduces social order when certain forms of knowledge are distributed to different groups in society is discussed. Three major conclusions are drawn. First, history as a pedagogic discourse comes forward as versatile and contradictory when the results from the studies are aggregated. There is, however, a shared understanding that the meaning of history in VET is to educate the students to become democratic and active citizens. Secondly, the investigated discourses ascribe history education with the potential to distribute critical and powerful knowledge. The students see a value for history education in their future as citizens and for giving them access the public conversation of society. A final conclusion is that the pedagogic code, embedded in the history curriculum, can be interpreted in two different ways. The emphasis on competencies and the focus on the last two hundred years can be interpreted as (A) an expression of a wish for immediate utility and thus an instrumental view of education or (B) the recontextualisation of scientific theories, concepts, and practices into a pedagogic discourse as a means to give students access to disciplinary (powerful) knowledge.