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- Convenors:
-
David Gunnarsson
(Södertörn University)
Maria Zackariasson (Södertörn University)
Göran Nygren (Uppsala university)
Elisabeth Wollin (Södertörn University)
Send message to Convenors
- Format:
- Panel
- Stream:
- KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTIONS
- Location:
- Room H-208
- Sessions:
- Thursday 16 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Many ethnologists and folklorists have been and/or are currently involved in research in the school context and different forms of education. We think it's time to gather Nordic ethnological and folkloristic researchers and research on the topic again, to recollect, so to speak.
Long Abstract:
The Swedish National Agency for Education states that trusting relations between pupils and teachers are important for feeling safe and motivated in schools. Schools and other educational arenas are complex social phenomena that include a multitude of relations, interactions, norms and practices. These differing experiences of, for example, pupils and teachers form an interesting starting point for ethnological analysis.
Many ethnologists and folklorists have been and/or are currently involved in research in the school context and different forms of education. Furthermore, ethnological perspectives have been made relevant in teacher education, for example, and quite a few of us are involved in teaching in teacher education programmes. We think it's time to gather Nordic ethnological and folkloristic researchers and research on the topic again, to recollect, so to speak.
In this panel, we invite papers that depart from empirical examples from differing educational contexts, to continue mapping current ethnological research on schools and education. What topics do we have in common? What ethnological analytical tools seem to be working well in regard to educational arenas? In multidisciplinary contexts, what are the specific ethnological contributions to teacher education programmes and to the field of education?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 16 June, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
On the basis of an empirical study of teacher-parent conferences in Danish ECEC institutions I analyse how ECEC practitioners meet and approach parents diffently. These differences emanate from ECEC teachers’ readings of the appearance and ethos of the families.
Paper long abstract:
On the basis of an empirical study of teacher-parent conferences in Danish ECEC institutions I analyse how ECEC practitioners meet and approach parents differently. These differences emanate from ECEC teachers’ readings of the appearance and ethos of the families. In Denmark ECEC have a long tradition for what is called “parent collaboration”. There has been an increased focus on parents’ roles and responsibilities recently, so the meetings and collaboration is affected. I examine the question of inequality within these frames.
The study shows that parents work hard to perform good parenthood when meeting with ECEC staff and at home. Nevertheless, parents are interpreted in quite different perspectives depending on how staff read their bodies, linguistic performance, their social status, parental abilities etc. The material documents how inequality is produced in subtle processes in social interaction.
Theoretical inspirations and methods
The theoretical inspirations combine studies of parenthood and parenting cultures (Lee et al.) with a Bourdieuan perspective on the (re)production of social inequality.
The study is based on an ethnographic approach, exploring everyday meetings and parent-teacher conferences in four ECEC institutions in Denmark. The empirical material was produces through fieldwork, combining participant observations, observations, qualitative interviews, audio recordings of parent-teacher conferences and other meetings. This presentation focuses on parent-teacher conferences and draw on the total body of empirical material for establishing a deeper understanding.
Paper short abstract:
Based on interviews with mothers aiming at fostering reading children, this paper takes advantage of ethnology’s facility for studying lived experience by exploring how conflicting notions of values of reading translates in daily practices of reading homework.
Paper long abstract:
The act of reading is often considered beneficial beyond questioning, in particular regarding children. Contemporary Icelandic educational policy even defines literacy as a main aim of primary school and essential for participation in society. To accomplish this, authorities place a great deal of the responsibility with parents by extensive reading homework. This is without taking the voice of parents‘ into account, and thus leaving the question of how parents‘ experience this obligation wide open and urgent.
Based on 8 semi structured in-depth interviews with mothers all aiming at fostering reading children, this paper takes advantage of ethnology’s facility for studying lived experience by exploring how these mothers feel about the conduction of reading homework. The paper is part of an ongoing doctoral project on promotion of literacy in Icelandic primary school.
The findings reveal that although the mothers interviewed share the goal of the educational system to encourage reading, most of them experience a conflict between the reading practices promoted by the school and how they themselves would preferably support their children to become readers. Where an increased focus of measurement of reading and daily practice violates the interest of reading the mothers strive to awaken. Though there is an agreement on the value of reading, the notions about which the values are do not harmonize as well as reflected by the difference in preferred reading practices. The paper furthermore explores the implications of this discrepancy and how ethnology can contribute to the field of education by bridging different perspectives.
Paper short abstract:
School ethnography of secondary vocational school in the Czech Republic describes the students of low school achievements and their teachers approach towards them during their secondary school attendance. The ethnography aims to show structures leading to low social mobility.
Paper long abstract:
In modern democratic societies, school is perceived as a tool to promote social mobility (Jarkovská 2009; Keller 2012; da Conceição 2019), at least theoretically. In the Czech Republic, although the number of people with higher education has been growing in the past thirty years, the reproduction of social inequalities remained almost unchanged (OECD, 2019). Many scholars (Willis 1977; Bettie 2003; Katrňák 2004) studied the family background role in children school achievements to show the effect of family on social mobility. I aim to show structures leading to the social reproduction of working class through the ethnography of one vocational secondary school class (15/16-17/18 year-olds) in the Czech Republic during their three-year attendance.
The role of schools’ hidden curriculums and teachers’ norms, values, and praxis has a vital impact on the social mobility of their pupils. Prescribing a child pupils identity (the belief that a child can be taught, is able to learn and gain knowledge) is a tool to social mobility. However, school institution often does not bestow working class children the pupil’s identity, because working class holds norms and values that do not concur with those of school.
Paper short abstract:
This paper is based on the results of my dissertation I Want Good Grades (2021). An issue to highlight is the capacity of ethnological research to contribute to the educational field about pupils’ approach to and conditions concerning education, schooling, learning, and knowledge.
Paper long abstract:
This paper is based on the results of my dissertation I want good grades. An ethnological study of strong school results and practices of pupils in lower secondary education (2021). (In Swedish: Jag vill ha bra betyg. En etnologisk studie om höga skolresultat och högstadieelevers praktiker). The purpose of the study was to analyse and bring attention to the way ideas, practices and conditions interact and enable strong school results among pupils. Material was collected using ethnographic methodology involving qualitative fieldwork methods, such as observations, semi-structured interviews, and dialogues. I highlighted three main findings: 1) For most pupils, school was about constantly performing, being assessed and being graded, and not about learning or gaining knowledge. 2) Extensive work at home and parental support are crucial for good school results. 3) Pupils from academic backgrounds are benefited by today’s school system. The school system does not provide equal education. Instead, it amplifies the unequal life chances and segregation of children and youth.
The results of the study indicated the necessity of an explorative and holistic perspective on everyday life of pupils and their educational resources for understanding and explaining their results at school, and their experience, altogether, of education and schooling. The study also indicated that ethnological methods, perspectives, and analysis have the capacity to leave important contributions to the educational field and research concerning pupils’ approach and conditions to education, schooling, learning, and knowledge.
Paper short abstract:
This paper is based in a small project on Swedish upper secondary school teachers’ views on students’ societal involvement outside school and their experiences of working with this. The material consists of interviews and the analysis re-visits a cultural analytical perspective on the school context
Paper long abstract:
This paper is based in a small research project on views among Swedish upper secondary school teachers on their students’ societal involvement outside of school and their experiences of working with this in the classroom. Through different examples, with the school strikes for the climate being one of them, the paper discusses issues such as if societal involvement among students is regarded as a resource or as a challenge by the teachers and in what ways. The material consists of interviews with upper secondary school teachers and the analysis re-visits a cultural analytical perspective on the school context.
The preliminary results show that categorizations connected to age and the position as a student or school teacher but also connected to socio-economic and cultural aspects that teachers described as characteristic for various schools and student populations they had experience from, may be of relevance for how the societal involvement of upper secondary school students is viewed and handled. The results furthermore show how teachers in various ways may use cultural analytical tools such as perspectivation, contrasting and dramatizing, when describing their own actions and the classroom practices. The paper relates this to for instance practice-based research, which is much discussed in the educational research context today and where ethnographic methods and ethnological perspectives could play a significant part.