Public defence: Kristine Haugen Rubilar

Kristine Haugen Rubilar will defend her PhD degree in Humanities, Cultural and Educational Sciences. The thesis examines partnerships between teacher education and schools.

27 Mar

Practical information

  • Date: 27 March 2026
  • Time: 10.00 - 15.00
  • Location: Porsgrunn, Auditorium A-271 and Zoom
  • Download calendar file
  • Organizer: Faculty of Humanities, Sports, and Educational Science

    • Link to digital participation (Zoom)

    Meeting ID: 659 5520 6680
    Password: 267646

     

    Program

    Kl. 10:00 Trial lecture: "How can tensions at the intersection of research-based knowledge and professional practice in teacher education and schools be understood?"

    Kl. 12:15 Public defence: "Partnerships between teacher education and schools: teacher education perspectives on collaboration for competence development and interdisciplinarity"

    Assessment committee

    • First opponent: Professor Sven-Erik Hansén, Åbo Akademi University, Finland
    • Second opponent: Professor Lise Vikan Sandvik, NTNU (Norwegian University of Science and Technology)
    • Administrator: Associate Professor Janne Solberg, University of South-Eastern Norway

    Supervisors

    • Principal supervisor : Associate Professor  Kari Hernæs Nordberg, University of South-Eastern Norway
    • Co-supervisor: Professor Kristin Emilie Willumsen Bjørndal, UiT Norges arktiske universitet

    Chair of defence: Head of Department Jørn Varhaug, University of South-Eastern Norway.

Any questions?

Kristine Haugen Rubilar is defending her dissertation for the degree philosophiae doctor (PhD) at the University of South-Eastern Norway. 

She has completed the doctoral programme in humanities, culture and educational science at the Faculty of Humanities, Sports, and Educational Science.

All interested are welcome to the trial lecture and public defence.

Summary

The dissertation examines how teacher educators experience and enact their role in partnerships between teacher education and schools.

  • The findings show that teacher educators have substantial latitude to influence local development work, including how interdisciplinarity is understood and how competence development is organized in schools. They actively contribute to interpreting and expanding concepts and practices in schools and can therefore act as key drivers within partnerships.
     
  • At the same time, the dissertation identifies clear constraints. Established structures between teacher education and schools make it difficult to develop durable, equitable collaborative relationships—particularly due to time pressure, fragmented organizational arrangements, and limited opportunities for close, ongoing interaction.


The dissertation therefore questions whether current schemes and structures truly enable robust and mutually binding partnerships.Bilde av Kristine Rubilar

The study forms part of the BRIDGES research project, which aimed to develop interdisciplinary didactics in teacher education and to strengthen collaboration between teacher education institutions and schools.

In the dissertation, interdisciplinarity is used both as a thematic frame and as an analytical lens to understand how teacher educators work within partnerships and how they contribute to schools’ development efforts.

The dissertation is based on qualitative interviews with 14 teacher educators and observation of a development initiative in which three teacher educators collaborated with schools over 16 months. The research is also a self-study, as Kristine Haugen Rubilar took part in this collaboration.

The materials provide insight into how teacher educators understand interdisciplinarity, how they plan and implement competence development with schools, and how they perceive their role in relation to the needs and expectations of the practice field.

Theoretically, the dissertation draws on research on partnerships, professional cultures, and professional learning communities, as well as the concept of the “third space” as a potential arena for co-creation.

Analytically, it employs activity theory to examine how teacher educators develop new ways of working and new understandings through participation in partnerships, and how such processes are shaped by both affordances and tensions in the collaboration.

In short, the dissertation demonstrates that partnerships between teacher education and schools hold significant potential for mutual learning and for advancing both teacher education and practice.

At the same time, the analysis makes clear that structural and cultural conditions mean this potential is not always realized in practice.

There is therefore a need to strengthen the enabling conditions for collaboration if partnerships are to be developed as a lasting and integrated part of teacher education’s work.