Teacher’s leadership in web-based language courses in Dalarna University, Sweden

The purpose of this presentation is to discuss how teacher’s leadership can be used as a teaching method in web based language education. The environments that offer online courses provide a wide field for discussion on the contact between teacher and student. My intention is to contribute to the debate on teacher leadership in online courses. In my earlier studies on leadership, I have explored how some religious leaders affected different social movements in Brazil during the military dictatorship (1964-1985). Pruth (2004) by examining the three kinds of legitimacy described by Max Weber I aimed at seeing and analyzing how religious leaders used different teaching methods to explain their messages to ordinary citizens. Thus my research showed how educational leadership is a way to get people to reach their goals. I became interested in the subject teacher’s leadership whenI participated in a survey of the teaching methods of language courses in Dalarna University which is funded by the NGL Center of Dalarna University. In  this project, we have made interviews with the teachers, undertaken the course plans (in the language department at Dalarna University) and categorized the learning outcomes. A questionnaire was constructed based on the learning outcomes and then either sent out remotely to teachers or completed face to face through interviews. The answers provided to the questionnaires enabled the  project to identify many differences in how language teachers interact with their students but  also, the way of giving feedback, motivating and helping students, types of class activities and materials used. This made me aware of how teachers use their leadership or not in their teaching. My focus is to look at the relationship between teachers and students as an important part of the development and quality of online courses. The teacher's performance on campus is different from online courses. I want to understand how the contact between teachers and students in online courses develop and look at how students can make use of this contact and what influence the teacher's leadership has on the ability for the students to achieve the goals of their course

The Björling 'Opera' : A children's Nursery Academy and an Italian Conservatory in Miniature

The aim in this chapter is to develop a deeper understanding about the informal Björling 'School' in Sweden. Contextually the example is related to the micro history of opera education contributing to the macro perspective illuminating a provincial example of the concept of domestic opera schooling. The specific focus was on Karl David Björling (1873-1926), the teaching parent of the Swedish tenor Jussi Björling (1911-1960) and his brothers Gösta and Olle.   The Björling family model of opera schooling belongs to the classical canon of domestic home education which was common during the epoch. The phenomenon is also within the field of opera singing an important reference to the historical context of the Nordic opera history of vocal education.   The uniqueness concerning the Björling School seems to be the rigorous and exceptionally early training. David Björling’s pedagogy was rooted in earlier German theories of musical upbringing. It's clear from his results that he was familiar with the neo-humanistic ideal on which reformed music education was based. Of a specific interest is the term Gesang als Unterricht as a concept for developing childrens musical and memorising capacities.   Conceptually the roots of the Björling model are in the eighteenth-century Romantic view of prodigies and their abilities. The extensive touring is connected to the promotion of wonder-children, and David Björling’s educational style to the conservative Master-pupil tradition.   David Björling's vocal ideal was a part of the contemporary debate about “The decadence of the singing art”, and seems to have its roots in an older Italian tradition. There are recurring similarities between his educational methods and the didactic principles of the Lamperti School: Enjoying a revival around the late 1800s and early 1900s, it has been called the natural or the national school. Nevertheless, through authentic experiences and gramophone recordings the Italian tenor Enrico Caruso became David Björling’s pedagogical role model.

Be the Change You Wish to See: National Attiudes and Climate Change Policy

A multitude of views characterize what should or should not be done about climate change, and in the past decades, nations have acted very differently in the face of climate change. This study explores factors that affect individuals' attitudes and concerns towards the environment and how those attitudes ultimately affect climate change policy. One model investigates the link between individual attitudes and countries' actions on climate change, and the results show that attitudes indeed matter in the implementation of policy. Different measures of democracy such as freedom of the press also prove to be important as channels for these attitudes. A second model identifies a number of political, socioeconomic and demographic characteristics that matter for people's attitudes towards climate change.