Public Defence: Anne Holm-Nordhagen

Anne Holm-Nordhagen will defend her PhD degree in Educational Sciences. Her dissertation is about the interdisciplinary collaboration on career guidance in schools.

20 Mar

Practical information

  • Date: 20 March 2025
  • Time: 10.00 - 15.00
  • Location: Drammen, Auditorium A2503 og Zoom
  • Download calendar file

    • Link to digital participation on Zoom.

     

    Programme

    10.00-10.45. Trial lecture: A critical approach to career learning: Reflections on risks and opportunities of career learning as a concept and phenomenon in relation to young people's pathways to adulthood.

    12.00-15.00. Public defence

     

    Assessment committee

    • First opponent: Lecturer Jonas Sprogøe, Aarhus University
    • Second opponent: Lecturer Åsa Sundelin, Stockholms University
    • Administrator: Associate Professor Sanna Toiviainen, University of South-Eastern Norway

    Supervisors

    • Main supervisor: Professor Rie Thomsen, University of South-Eastern Norway and Aarhus Universitet
    • Co-supervisor: Professor Ottar Ness, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

     

     

Any questions?

Anne Holm-Nordhagen is defending her dissertation for the degree philosophiae doctor (PhD) at the University of South-Eastern Norway.

Portrett av Anne Holm-Nordhagen

The doctoral work has been carried out at the Faculty of Humanities, Sports and Educational Science.

You are invited to follow the trial lecture and the public defence.

Summary

"A whole school approach to career guidance” has been a vision in the field of career guidance, research, and practice in Norway for several decades. Despite strong support for the vision, there is little to suggest that the vision is part of established practice. The aim of this study is to create new knowledge about what might be the reason for this, and the study explores what tensions become apparent when a whole school approach to career guidance is tested in practice through action research, and the actions are analysed in the light of activity theory. The study draws its empirical data from an action research project conducted at a secondary school in Norway. The overarching problem is discussed and answered based on findings from three sub-studies

In sub-study 1, a specific collaboration in the action research project is analysed. The collaboration being analysed involves two counsellors and five teachers, and the focus of the collaboration is career guidance in the classroom. A thematic analysis of the empirical data is conducted, resulting in themes that show how the teacher can function as a door opener, pedagogical and didactic sparring partner, and role model. The teacher's competencies complement the counsellor’s, allowing the teacher to function as the "oil in the machinery". 

In sub-study 2, three generations of activity theory and the concept of "relational agency" are analysed. The result of the theoretical analysis is "Model for interdisciplinary collaboration on career guidance". The model emphasises relational perspectives in interdisciplinary collaboration, and can be used as a basis for analysing, understanding, and operationalising interdisciplinary collaboration on career guidance in school. The thesis explains the development of the model and discusses critical perspectives on the model and its application in practice. 

In sub-study 3, the Model for interdisciplinary collaboration is used as an analytical framework. Using the model, tensions in interdisciplinary collaboration on career guidance are identified. The tensions identified in sub-study 3 are central to the thesis's knowledge contribution and form the basis for the discussion of contradictions between 1) the position of the various subjects in the school, 2) different interests, and 3) requirements for competence and encouragement for joint effort. 

The tensions can illuminate and explain what makes the operationalisation a whole school approach to career guidance challenging. Based on the findings of the sub-studies, the thesis provides new knowledge about how the vision of career guidance as the entire school's responsibility can be understood. "Interdisciplinary collaboration on career guidance in school" is proposed as a reformulation of the vision, and the thesis discusses how such a reformulation can be a possible way to resolve tensions and bring the vision closer to realisation in practice.