Eirik Granly Foss will defend his dissertation for the degree of philosophia doctor (PhD) in the program pedagogical resources and learning processes in kindergarten and school.
- Read the dissertation: «Colouring a crisis – graphic and auditive design in educational representations of climate change» (openarchive.usn.no)
- Participate digitally in Zoom: press here
Summary
This PhD thesis explores the graphic and auditive designs used in representations of anthropogenic climate change in Norwegian educational resources, and how these designs may be interpreted in light of the marketization of educational resources in Norway, as well as the educational challenges posed by climate change.
Through three sub-projects the thesis explores colour schemes and soundscapes, shape and movement of graphical elements, as well as choices in photographic motifs.
The materials studied have been sampled from all school science textbook series for middle school and lower secondary school published by major Norwegian textbook publishers to cover the curriculum of Kunnskapsløftet 2006, as well as a broad selection of educational videos produced by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, the organisation Save the Children, the production company
Snöball, and the Norwegian Information Bureau of eggs and meat.
The theoretical framework draws influence from the fields of classical Semiotics, Social Semiotics, Critical Discourse Studies and Environmental Education, as well as cultural theory on climate and climate change. A two layered analytical model is applied for the analysis of graphic and auditive design, in which the material configuration of a semiotic resource is analysed initially, which then forms the basis for interpretations of the wider meaning potentials the configuration may carry through connotation and metaphor.
Overall, the study finds that the graphical and auditive designs analysed code the educational resources for affect: they facilitate esthetical experience, suggest particular emotional reactions, and perform identity communication. Through such semiotic work, the designs may contribute in making the educational resources appealing, engaging and trendy, and thereby in giving the producers success on the market of educational resources.
However, the analyses also show how such choices of decoration has consequences for the social construction of anthropogenic climate change provided. Seen from a social semiotic view of learning, this means that the affective codification also influences the student’s educational environment: it says something about what anthropogenic climate change is, how we should feel about it, how we communicate about the phenomenon, and what actions we should take.
To conclude with, some implications of these findings for both production and use of resources for education in sustainable development is discussed.