Elevinflytande ställer stora krav på ledarskap i skolan utifrån skolans funktion som demokratisk institution, kunskapsarena och arbetsplats för många. I kapitlet ställer vi frågan om ledarskapets betydelse i förhållande till elevinflytande som didaktisk praktik. Vi belyser även några policyförändringar med betydelse för dessa frågor och presenterar en möjlig didaktisk modell för elevinflytande. Elevinflytande förstås som ett mål och ett medel länkat till skolans sammantvinnade kunskapsuppdrag och demokratiska uppdrag. Tvärtemot vad som kanske ofta antas eller förstås ställer elevinflytande som didaktisk praktik mycket stora krav på proaktivt ledarskap i klassrummet.

Göran Bostedt, Associate professor of Political Science, Department of Education, Mid-Sweden University. goran.bostedt@miun.se

Linda Eriksson, Assistant professor in Pedagogy, Department of Education, Mid-Sweden University. linda.eriksson@miun.se

Abstract

‘Living’ and ‘learning democracy’ through pupil influence.

Policy changes in the Swedish school system

The aim of our paper is to discuss policy changes in the Swedish school system in relation to the area of ‘living’ and ‘learning democracy’ through pupil influence. The Swedish Education Act (Skollag, 2010:800, § 4) stipulates that education in the school system should aim at pupils acquiring and developing both knowledge and values. It should also promote learning and development of pupils. Despite those statements there is an ongoing discussion in Sweden today primarily about the importance of the knowledge commission. This due to results presented in international measurements studies such as PISA. The aim about values is subordinated and issues of democracy and pupils influence have come to the fore. This is troublesome for Social studies, where the curricula states that teaching should give pupils the opportunity to develop knowledge and skills in the area of power, democracy, gender equality and human rights (Skolverket, 2019)

Our interest is to illuminate changes in policy in relation to education in schools. Earlier research in this area (Englund 1995, 2005) have focused changes in society in relation to policy. Pupil influence could be understood and discussed in different ways (Eriksson, 2019). In our paper, we analyze and discuss the policy shift in Sweden on pupils influence as a change of perspective on pupils as subjects participating in achieving the aims of the school system to pupils as only receiving objects of school activities. We do this by comparing relevant parts of the Swedish curricula for compulsory school from year 1980 to year 2019. The results are discussed in the context of power relations, perspectives on democracy, knowledge and didactical considerations. Our results questions the possibilities to fulfill of the aim of ’learning’ and ‘living’ democracy in schools today.

References:

Englund, T. (2005). Läroplanens och skolkunskapens politiska dimension. Göteborg: Daidalos.

Englund, T. (Red.). (1995). Utbildningspolitiskt systemskifte. Stockholm: HLS Förlag.

Skolverket (2019) https://www.skolverket.se/download/18.4fc05a3f164131a74181078/1535372299998/Social-studies-swedish-school.pdf

Skollag (2010:800).

This thesis focuses on student influence in the borderland between didactics and power. Student influence is ambiguous and the mission of student influence can be interpreted in different ways in Swedish compulsory schools. In the school reforms of the 1990s, the intentions of student influence, based on both moral and political as well as theoretical positions were stated. Student influence was seen as a right, as being important for education in democracy, and as a prerequisite for learning. Democracy, knowledge and learning are essentially contested concepts. As a didactic practice student influence cannot be understood as general impact through learning, nor as fully-fledged democracy. The question of the limitations of student influence is described and analysed in the thesis. The aim is to describe and critically analyse student influence as didactic practice. The research questions that have directed the study are: How is student influence expressed in three different schools, where there has been a particular ambition to implement student influence? What prerequisites are given for student influence in the way teaching is organised and carried out?What possibilities and constraints (conditions) appear, from the perspective of didactics and power? A fourth question links together the empirical study with the problem of the limits of student influence: Can a didactic model be designed for student influence as didactic practice, and if so, how? The study was conducted using an abductive approach and strategy, and with a point of departure in critical realism as scientific approach. Three primary schools, with the particular ambition of implementing the mission of student influence, were studied through a multiple case study design. The empirical material was produced using ethnographic methods. The a didactic framework is used for description, whilst a sociological concept of power has contributed to the construction of analytical tools. Using ‘order’ and ‘renegotiation’ as analytic tools, the conditions for student influence on how teaching is organised and carried out, are described. Responsibility and transparency are tested as conditions, in order to answer the question of possibilities and constraints from the perspective of didactics and power. The analysis of teaching practice in the three schools shows that student influence is complex, and that it has to be understood as local bound and situationally. This impacts on the possibility of understanding its limitations. The results show that experiences and interests of students can concern motivating them to work, adapting teaching to different learning styles, or that the teachers pay attention to their expressions to fostering more generally. Furthermore, all models of democracy, and of different approaches to learning and knowledge are visible in the schools. The importance of classroom discussion for student influence needs to be illuminated, and the distinction between didactic considerations, and what could be understood as unwarranted power. The results are discussed in relation to issues of learning theory and curriculum theory, as well as to ideals of democratic education, to understand the limits of student influence. A didactic model, with three conceptual tools that enable repeated questioning of the limits of student influence, is proposed.

Elevinflytande som didaktisk strategi

Samhällskunskapsämnet i svensk skola har sin bakgrund i erfarenheterna av de totalitära staternas framväxt på 1930-talet och sedemera nederlag i andra världskriget. Erfarenheterna av europeisk fascism och, i synnerhet, nationalsocialism motiverade ett starkare fokus på demokratifostran. I 1940 års skolutredning, som åtföljdes av 1946 års skolkommission, betonades att samhällsundervisningen behövde förstärkas.”Uppgiften är så pass betydelsefull för elevernas fostran till samhällsmedborgare, att ett särskilt skolämne härför bör inrättas, samhällskunskap ..” (SOU1948:27, s.7). I skolkommissionens rapport föreslogs inrättandet av ett nytt ämne och vikten av det innehåll (samhällsfostran) ämnet skulle förmedla diskuterades. Därutöver kommenterades även formerna för undervisning. ”Lika viktigt är det, att ämnet lägges upp så, att det fångar elevernas intresse.” (a.a., s. 165) Skolans samhälls- och demokratifostrande roll har återfunnits i de läroplaner som därefter gällt. Samtidigt har elevernas delaktighet i genomförandet av undervisningen betonats. I den nu gällande läroplanen för gymnasieskolan står t ex att ”Det är inte tillräckligt att i undervisningen förmedla kunskap om grundläggande demokratiska värden. Utbildningen skall dessutom bedrivas i demokratiska arbetsformer och utveckla elevernas förmåga och vilja att ta personligt ansvar och aktivt delta i samhällslivet.” (Skolverket 2011, s.6). I den svenska skollagen konstateras att ”Barn och elever ska ges inflytande över utbildningen” (SFS 2010:800). Skolans uppdrag att ge de unga en förståelse för det demokratiska samhällets arbetsformer och värderingar omfattar således att både ’leva’ som ’lära’ demokrati. I vår presentation kommer vi diskutera elevinflytande som möjlig didaktiskt orienterad handlingsstrategi i undervisningspraktik. Detta kommer ske såväl i ljuset av de förändringar som införts i den senaste svenska läroplanen gällande elevinflytande, som empiriska resultat från ett antal skolors arbete med elevinflytande. Resultaten kommer analyseras utifrån perspektiv på makt.

Källor: SFS 2010:800. Skollag, Stockholm

Skolverket (2011). Läroplan, examensmål och gymnasiegemensamma ämnen för gymnasieskola 2011, Stockholm:

Skolverket SOU 1948:27. 1946 års skolkommissions betänkande med förslag till riktlinjer för det svenska skolväsendets utveckling. Stockholm

The aim of the paper is to discuss perspectives on power in Swedish schools in relation to policy change in the area of pupil influence. More specific the aim is to discuss possible analytical tools that could contribute to illuminate pupil influence as strategy according to values and power in educational processes.

The Swedish Education Act (2010:800 § 4) stipulates that education in the school system aims at students acquiring and developing knowledge and values. It should promote the development and learning of students. Despite the statement in the Education Act we have today in Sweden an ongoing political discussion on the need to put knowledge as aim in the forefront of values.  Pupil influence, as a way of learning and living democracy in schools, is also being questioned.

In our paper we want to analyze and discuss a policy shift in perspectives of pupils’ participation, i.e. from pupils as subjects participating in achieving the aims of the school system to student as only receiving objects of school activities. Furthermore, we want to discuss how didactical oriented studies can contribute with action strategies enabling both knowledge and values as important aims of everyday activities in schools.   

The purpose of this paper is to examine and analyse the paradox between individual and collective learning while highlighting questions of learning strategies and styles. This conceptual paper gives a theoretical framework and a conceptual model built on theoretical perspectives. This includes connecting and systematising different dimensions in the overall educational process. The attempt is made to conceptualise educational processes with learning levels, learning as process and product and putting them in relation to wider institutional and societal contexts. The paradox emerging in the steering documents is described, and then the questions of learning as a process and product connected to an epistemic stance and democratic fostering are briefly mentioned. Learning strategies and style perspectives are explained, and finally learning levels from the perspectives of individuals and collectives as product and process are discussed. Relating students’ learning styles and strategies to perspectives of individual and collective learning provides an additional dimension about how to facilitate learning. This study could be relevant because of the discussion concerning the relative inability of Swedish students to compete with international competitors in terms of learning performance due in part to ineffective use of specific learning strategies (OECD, 2010). The paper underlines the importance of understanding different theoretical perspectives and how the choices made in the teaching practice could be developed. The conclusion is that an awareness of the different levels of learning when linking those to individual learning strategies can provide teachers with a foundation for the selection of teaching strategies. This paper offers both macro and micro perspectives as an opportunity for conscious pedagogical considerations. The results are presented as a theoretical and conceptual model that includes different theoretical frameworks covering teaching and learning processes as practices linked to institutional prerequisites. Such conceptual development can be valuable to understand and empirically examine the phenomena of individual development, student influence, and more generally, working to achieve the school’s contemporaneous knowledge and democracy mission. This conceptual development therefore has practical implications for promoting lifelong learning, meta-cognition and effective teaching and learning strategies.

Som lärare i skolan möts man av förhoppningar, förväntningar och krav rörande det arbete man utför. Instrumenten för att hantera detta är de förhållningssätt, kunskaper och färldigheter man erhållit genom personlighet, utbildning och erfarenhet. Didaktiken intresserar sig för vilka faktorer som påverkar/ska påverka undervisning i skolan utgående från de många olika uppdrag skolan har att hantera. Detta kapitle kommer att fokusera på ett av dessa uppdrag - frågan om det praxisnära arbetet med elevinflytande i skolan.