Solveig Maria Magerøy
Title: Students' agency in teacher education as an optical illusion: Questioning perceptions on what agency means to redefine democratic education
Abstract: In this presentation, I question student teachers’ agency in teacher education, closely linking agency with having a voice (Cook-Sather, 2020). Interviews with student teachers reveal that they acknowledge the possibility to influence their education to be present but chose not to utilize it. A common feature amongst the students is that they connect raising their voice with addressing problematic issues, thus regarding involvement as complaining. They choose not to be involved because they either do not see themselves as `troublemakers`, they do not assign a leading role to themselves and consider other students as more suited, or they express a lack of knowledge for theoretical or structural aspects in teacher education, thus regard themselves inadequate to such participation. Could an ecological view of agency, which entails including the conditions of where this agency is exercised, be suitable for this study? (Biesta et al., 2017).
In talks on pupils’ agency in schools, it seems the students see such participation mostly as positive involvement. The student teachers’ perceptions demonstrate a discrepancy in how they regard their own agency, and how they see the involvement of pupils in schools. Student teachers experience a possibility within teacher education to participate but their own perceptions of what such participation entails, hinder them from involvement.
How can teacher education open a space where students can experience their involvement and agency as more than an ‘optical illusion’?
Kristine H. Rubilar
Title: Expanding learning toward interdisciplinary didactics
Abstract: In this study, I investigate how further education for teachers can strengthen and create new approaches to collaboration between teacher education and schools in Norway. With a new national curriculum in 2020, three interdisciplinary topics were introduced to primary and secondary education: (1) public health and life skills, (2) democracy and citizenship, and (3) sustainable development. This change created a demand for research-based, practice-oriented and relevant measures to facilitate processes that improve practices. “Decentralized competence development”, a particular form of in-service teacher education through partnerships between schools and universities, is used to address this need and include a space for both partners to learn and develop through collaboration.
However, systemic contradictions in forms of conflicts and dilemmas affect efforts to develop practices in schools (Engeström, 2010, Aas & Vennebo, 2021, Eri, 2017). Being dialectic, contradictions are obstacles but also a potential driving force for development and change. The concept of expansive learning can contribute to revealing and analysing tensions, in order to resolve them and learn new forms of activity which are not yet there (Engeström, 2001). Departing from
activity theory and the theory of expansive learning I ask how can an action research project on interdisciplinary didactics transform teachers’ teaching practice?
In the session I wish to discuss and explore how we can understand the concept interdisciplinary didactics.
Ingrid Schudel and Leigh Price
Title: A comparative critical realist analysis of the effect of increasing specialisation in education systems on interdisciplinary thinking and engagement in real world social-ecological challenges
Abstract: This study will be a document analysis of two school curricula (South African and Norway) with the aim to compare possibilities for inter-disciplinary thinking in engaging real-world issues as subject specialization increases from primary to secondary schooling. The necessity of inter-disciplinary thinking in engaging real world issues will be described using the critical realism tenet of laminated totality (for understanding complexity as well as false totalities). The document analysis will require reading of the general outline of each curriculum as well as the introductory pages of each subject (1 lower primary, 3 higher primary, 4 lower secondary, and 5 higher secondary). Additionally, it will require a search for a social-ecological topic (one per subject and guided by any of the Sustainable Development Goals to identify a topic) as illustrative of the ways that trans-disciplinarity is engaged (if at all) in different subjects. Questions applied to the two curricula will be: What are the ideological standpoints for change/transformation apparent in the general aims/principles underpinning the curricula? What are the ideological standpoints for change/transformation apparent in specific disciplines’ aims from primary to senior school subjects? What need/potential for trans-disciplinary thinking is described/implied in the general aims/principles of the curricula? What need/potential for trans-disciplinary thinking is described/implied in specific disciplines’ aims from primary to senior school subjects? Choosing one topic that engages a social-ecological challenge in the prescribed content of each subject, how does trans-disciplinary thinking ‘play out’ (if at all) in the outline of the topic? Laminated totality will be used to describe how ideologies, aims and specific social-ecological topics are constructed in curricula.