Vad kommunikation vill säga : En iscensättande studie om specialpedagogers yrkesroll och kunskapande samtal

This thesis is about the role of special educators in (pre)school and about developing democratic communication. It is based on the theory of argumentation developed by Jürgen Habermas. The aim of the study was to describe the conditions that create possibilities for deliberative communication between special educators, parents, students and colleagues in (pre)school. My overarching aim was to contribute to a more distinct description of special educators´ field of knowledge. I have used a social constructionist approach. The project has been based in the field of action research. A precondition for deliberative dialogues in (pre)schools is to start out from a communicative perspective. That means that (1) some theoretical conditions have been made apparent, (2) knowledge about these conditions have been shown to be crucial for using an aware communicative perspective in a speech act, (3) an aware communicative perspective is revealed through procedures of knowledge. These procedures were understood by and made evident to me as a result of network meeting discussions. A communicative perspective, a special educator as facilitator and procedures of knowledge are found to be crucial for collaboration using a deliberative attitude in (pre)schools. Today there is often a lack of pedagogical professionals in (pre)schools who can act as a link between authorities, organisations, professionals and parents, and who have the authority to pose challenging pedagogical questions. This can be changed if the role of special educators is, instead of teacher, defined as communicative special educators working with dialogues on different levels.

Utbrändhet som arbetsskada och motståndsberättelse

Burnout as occupational injury and narrative of resistance During the last years of the 1990s and the first years of the 2000s, burnout was a common diagnosis for sick listing in Sweden. That burnout is directly related to working life was acknowledged by medical experts as well as in the public debate. The number of applications for occupational compensation due to social and organizational factors in work rose from a very modest degree to nearly a forth of the claims among occupational diseases. In this article 48 individual claims for compensation in cases of burnout as occupational disease are analyzed as narratives of resistance. In this respect they are seen as alternative accounts of risk in working life, but also as narratives about resistance. The concept, narratives of resistance, is used to understand the claimants’ argumentation for rights to compensation, as well as how the claimants draw upon public narratives of societal transformation to understand how they themselves have become ill from occupations that normally are not thought to be hazardous. One conclusion from the analysis is that the claimants regard their illness as the resistance of the body against changes in society and working life. 

Utmaningen från andra berättelser : En studie om moraliskt omdöme, utvidgat tänkande och kritiskt reflekterande berättelser i dialogbaserad feministisk etik

The present study has a threefold aim: First, the theoretical aim is to give a contribution to refinement of the theory of dialogue based feminist ethics, concerning the understanding of judgment and narration within such an ethics.  The study also has an empirical aim, defined as to clarify what kind of knowledge, relevant to the moral judgment of an engaged outsider actor, can be received from dialogical interpretation and analysis of a limited selection of critically reflecting life stories. Third, a methodological aim is defined as to develop an approach to interpretation and analysis of reflecting life stories, which renders the storyteller visible as a reflecting moral subject, and makes the story accessible as a source of knowledge for the moral judgment of an engaged outsider actor. The thesis combines philosophical reflection and argumentation, with a narrative-hermeneutic method for interpretation of life stories, relating the two to each other in a hermeneutic process.  The theoretical reflection draws on Seyla Benhabibs theory of communicative ethics. A dialogue based model for moral justification and a likewise dialogue based model for political legitimacy are at the heart of this universalistic theory, although in combination with a conception of a narratively and hermeneutically constituted context sensitive moral judgment, based on Hannah Arendt’s concept “enlarged thought”. In the reflection, this model is related to other feminist theorizing within the tradition of dialogue based feminist ethics, as found in the works of Iris M. Young, Georgia Warnke and Shari Stone-Mediatore. The empirical study draws on three critically reflecting life stories from Israeli-Palestinian women activists for a just peace. The methodology for interpretation and analysis that is worked out combines dialogical interpretation as presented in Arthur W. Frank’s socio-narratology with a method for structural analysis derived from Shari Stone-Mediatores theory of storytelling as an expression of political resistance struggle. The results show that some stories drawing on marginalized experiences have a potential­ to stimulate further public debate through their capacity to enable a stereoscopic seeing, elucidating a tension between ideologically structured discourse and non-linguistic experience; implying that narrative-hermeneutic competence should be considered crucial for public debate.  

Dissonant Voices : Philosophy, Children's Literature, and Perfectionist Education

Dissonant Voices has a twofold aspiration. First, it is a philosophical treatment of everyday pedagogical interactions between children and their elders, between teachers and pupils. More specifically it is an exploration of the possibilities to go on with dissonant voices that interrupt established practices – our attunement – in behaviour, practice and thinking. Voices that are incomprehensible or expressions that are unacceptable, morally or otherwise. The text works on a tension between two inclinations: an inclination to wave off, discourage, or change an expression that is unacceptable or unintelligible; and an inclination to be tolerant and accept the dissonant expression as doing something worthwhile, but different. The second aspiration is a philosophical engagement with children’s literature. Reading children’s literature becomes a form of philosophising, a way to explore the complexity of a range of philosophical issues. This turn to literature marks a dissatisfaction with what philosophy can accomplish through argumentation and what philosophy can do with a particular and limited set of concepts for a subject, such as ethics. It is a way to go beyond philosophising as the founding of theories that justify particular responses. The philosophy of dissonance and children’s literature becomes a way to destabilise justifications of our established practices and ways of interacting. The philosophical investigations of dissonance are meant to make manifest the possibilities and risks of engaging in interactions beyond established agreement or attunements. Thinking of the dissonant voice as an expression beyond established practices calls for improvisation. Such improvisations become a perfectionist education where both the child and the elder, the teacher and the student, search for as yet unattained forms of interaction and take responsibility for every word and action of the interaction. The investigation goes through a number of picture books and novels for children such as Harry Potter, Garmann’s Summer, and books by Shaun Tan, Astrid Lindgren and Dr. Seuss as well narratives by J.R.R. Tolkien, Henrik Ibsen, Jane Austen and Henry David Thoreau. These works of fiction are read in conversation with philosophical works of, and inspired by, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Stanley Cavell, their moral perfectionism and ordinary language philosophy.

Varför en sydsvensk regionbildning : finns svaret i Ansvarskommitténs utredning?

Den sydsvenska regionbildningen är en förening som tillsammans står bakom en avsiktsförklaring för att slå samman Blekinge, Kalmar, Kronoberg och Skåne till en region med eget utvecklingsansvar. Förslag på att Sverige borde införa regioner med eget utvecklingsansvar lade den statliga utredningen, kallad Ansvarskommittén, fram efter att utförligt undersökt hur Sveriges samhällsorganisation kan förbättras. Efter Ansvarskommittén lade fram sitt förslag diskuterades det kring regionbildningar runt om i Sverige, men dessa diskussioner har en efter en lagts ner, förutom den sydsvenska regionbildningen och denna uppsats vill försöka ta reda på varför. Syftet med denna uppsats utgår ifrån att ta reda på om argumentationen för att bilda region som presenteras i Ansvarskommitténs utredning är drivkraften bakom den sydsvenska regionbildningen. För att ha underlag för att besvara detta syfte utgick jag från följande frågeställning Vilka huvudargument lade Ansvarskommittén i sin utredning fram för regionalisering i Sverige?, Vilka likheter och skillnader finns det i huvudargumenten för regionalisering från Ansvarskommittén i förhållande till den sydsvenska regionbildningens sätt att resonera kring en regionalisering? och Mot bakgrund av forskningslitteratur om regionalism, nyregionalism och regionalisering, i vilken utsträckning kan dessa begrepp kopplas samman med Ansvarskommitténs utredning? För att besvara syftet utgick jag från Ansvarskommitténs utredningsdokument och dokument från den sydsvenska regionbildningen. Genom kvalitativ textanalys i form av idéanalys och argumentationsanalys kom jag fram till att det verkar som att den sydsvenska regionbildningen har sin drivkraft i Ansvarskommitténs argumentation.

Problemlösning och kommunikation : En undersökande studie kring hur lärare använder kommunikation för att utveckla elevers kunskaper i problemlösning

I denna studie undersöks det hur lärare använder kommunikation för att utveckla elevers matematiska förmågor i problemlösning samt om det finns något samband mellan kommunikation och problemlösning. Detta undersöktes genom observationer och intervjuer av fem grundskollärare i årskurserna 1-4. Resultatet visar att lärare anser att kommunikationen är nödvändig för att elever ska ges möjligheten att utveckla förståelse för matematisk problemlösning. Specifikt genom att alla elever behöver ges tid för sig själv, att reflektera kring problemets innehåll för att sedan kunna föra ett matematiskt resonemang tillsammans med andra. Detta sätt är något som alla lärare använder i arbetet med problemlösning. Att reflektera själv innan argumentation i grupp tas vid är viktigt för att ge eleverna möjlighet att förstå problemet och för att själva komma fram till en rimlig lösning med hjälp av en eller flera lämpliga strategier. Men även för att utveckla sina matematiska förmågor i problemlösning. Resultatet visar också att kommunikation kan ske på olika sätt med hjälp av abstrakta och konkreta verktyg vilket även forskning hävdar. Studiens slutsats visar att lärare och forskning anser att kommunikation är nödvändig för elevers utveckling i matematisk problemlösning och att elever bör ges möjligheten att argumentera, reflektera, resonera och analysera kring valda strategier på olika sätt för att utvecklas till effektiva problemlösare.

Political participation as public pedagogy : The Educational Situation in Young People´s Political Conversations in Social Media

In this article we argue that young people’s political participation in the social media can be considered ‘public pedagogy’. The argument builds on a previous empirical analysis of a Swedish net community called Black Heart. Theoretically, the article is based on a particular notion of public pedagogy, education and Hannah Arendt’s expressive agonism. The political participation that takes place in the net community builds up an educational situation that involves central characteristics: communication, community building, a strong content focus and content production, argumentation and rule following. These characteristics pave the way for young people’s public voicing, experiencing, preferences and political interests that guide their everyday political life and learning – a phenomenon that we understand as a form of public pedagogy.