Mid Sweden University

Collaborative approaches are increasingly promoted to strengthen research connections between universities and school practices and indorse improvements. In Sweden, a national initiative launched in 2017 aiming to enhance the scientific foundations of teacher training and strengthen relevant research through a trial project creating sustainable structures for collaboration between schools and universities. Universities providing teacher education were expected to translate national ambitions into opportunities for collaboration with schools. This paper draws on an evaluation of six Swedish universities’ realization of this initiative, empirically based on survey responses and group interviews. Using institutional logics theory, we discern and interpret key elements of collaboration logics and characteristics of distinct identified logics. Our analysis identifies three configurations of logics: the Explorer, the Organizer, and the Competitor. We highlight the benefits and drawbacks of these logics and their relations with prevailing university logics. The paper contributes an institutional perspective on collaborative approaches between universities and schools, suggesting that links between organizational and field logics play important roles that have been largely neglected in much of the literature. 

Swedish education carries many traces of colonial history within the education system, not the least in relation to the Saami population. For example, the Swedish curriculum mentions knowledge about Saami perspectives to a limited extent. In other parts of the world, efforts have been made to advance culturally responsive pedagogies in education in general, and in science and technology education specifically, aiming to include and nurture indigenous perspectives. In addition, there has been little research in science and technology education regarding relations between Saami traditional knowledge and science and technology education. This study draws on the framework of culturally responsive teaching and Saami traditional knowledge, árbediehtu. Árbediehtu considers human and environment as a whole, and is a collective knowledge carried by individuals. The aim of this study is to envision a culturally responsive science education where árbediehtu is not framed as a special interest, but as a resource for gaining more nuanced understandings of wicked sustainability problems. The study is conducted as a reflection-action study in which we observe previous practice and research, reflect and try out teaching in order to achieve a more culturally responsive science and technology education. Preliminary results from the initial mapping, analysis and teaching will be presented. The results will contribute to new knowledge on how indigenous perspectives may be incorporated into science and technology education for all.

Collaboration between universities and schools has been emphasised byboth governments and within educational development research in the Nordic countries. However, educational research has tended to focus onthe practitioners’ perspectives and experiences, i.e., researchers andteachers. Our intention is to contribute to the field with research from another perspective; that of organising for collaboration. This is done by focusing on the experiences of university representatives responsible for the organisation of collaboration within a Swedish nation-wide initiative,the ULF project. Our theoretical framework draws on the literature of partial organisation. The results indicate that the different approaches and solutions used by universities could not only potentially strengthen schools’ opportunities to participate in educational collaboration with universities but also lead to different opportunities, reinforcing previously existing differences between school organisers. The results are discussed in relation to governmental intentions and guidelines.

This paper examines Swedish secondary students’ interest in science and technology from a gender perspectivein a comparative research design using quantitative data collected 2003 and 2020. National datahas been collected from 610 15-year-old students in 2020 as part of a large-scale comparative researchproject, the Relevance of Science Education - Second (ROSES) and compared with data from the Relevanceof Science Education (ROSE) study from 2003. The results empirically update the research field and showa reoccurring interest pattern with minor changes. Content related to space and unexplained phenomenaare still ranked as interesting to learn about. Girls are interested in health issues and the human body,space, dreams and the human soul. Boys favour items about space, inventions and discoveries togetherwith ABC weapons. Minor developments are that interest in learning about diets and exercise as wellas technology has declined. The least interesting things to learn are almost the same as in 2003, with several topics connected to the national science curriculum. The character of students’ interest in S&T isframed and discussed using the theoretical approach of science identity. The stable character with minorchanges is discussed as reoccurring science identities interpreted by the differentiation hypothesis of the“person-object theory of interest”. Gender differences are interpreted as collective identities shown to be‘domain specific’ not ‘subject specific’ and the content level of analysis provide specificity to ‘interest patterns’which has not been well described earlier in the research literature. Research consequences of thisconceptualization and implications for school practice is critically discussed. A research implication fromthis conceptualization is the importance for future studies to investigate varieties of collective identities.

En studie från Malmö universitet visar att när generella lässtrategier betonas i NO-undervisningen, för att utveckla elevernas läskunnighet, riskerar lärobokstexten att reduceras till pedagogiska exempel på lässtrategier. Därmed hamnar lässtrategierna i förgrunden medan det naturvetenskapliga innehållet hamnar i bakgrunden.

I vår presentation kommer vi att rapportera från ett forskningsprojekt som syftar till att öka kunskapen om hur undervisningen i naturvetenskap och teknik (NT) kan utvecklas genom studiebesök. Ett övergripande mål med utvecklingen av undervisningen är att öka elevernas intresse för dessa ämnen. Forskning visar att en viktig pusselbit för att få fler studenter att intressera sig för naturvetenskap och teknik är att förstärka känslan av att se sig själv som någon som sysslar med och är intresserad av dessa ämnen. Intresse för naturvetenskap och teknik är med andra ord också en fråga om identitet. Begreppet “vetenskapligt kapital i naturvetenskap och teknik” har i projektet använts för att identifiera aspekter av elevers NT-identiteter. Genom att uppmärksamma vilket vetenskapligt kapital elever har, skulle undervisningen kunna ge fler elever känslan av att NT är något för dem. I projektet har vi undersökt om och i så fall hur dessa aspekter påverkas när eleverna deltagit i ett studiebesök. Datainsamlingen har gjorts genom elevenkäter och observationer. Analyserna fokuserar på vilkenbetydelse design och genomförande har för elevers upplevelser av besöken. Resultaten visar att aktiviteter och goda förebilder under studiebesöket är viktiga komponenter för att ge eleverna en positiv upplevelse och stärka den naturvetenskapliga identiteten. Resultaten visade också att eleverna upplevde en begränsad vardagsanknytning under besöket. För att utveckla denna aspekt identifierades förberedelserna inför besöket som en avgörande faktor. Slutsatsen är att studiebesök kan påverka flera aspekter av elevernas vetenskapliga kapital om dessa uppmärksammas vid design och genomförande.

Swedish education carries many traces of colonial history within the education system, not the least in relation to the Sámi population. For example, the Swedish curriculum mentions knowledge about Sámi perspectives to a limited extent. In other parts of the world, efforts have been made to advance culturally responsive pedagogies in education in general, and in science education specifically, aiming to include and nurture indigenous perspectives. In addition, there has been no research in science education regarding relations between Sámi traditional knowledge and science education. This study draws on the framework of culturally responsive teaching and Sámi traditional knowledge, árbediehtu. Árbediehtu considers human and environment as a whole, and is a collective knowledge carried by individuals. The aim of this study is to envision a culturally responsive science education where árbediehtu is not framed as a special interest, but as a resource for gaining more nuanced understandings of wicked sustainability problems. The study is conducted as an action research study drawing on theories of culturally responsive science education. Preliminary results from the initial mapping and analysis will be presented. The results will contribute to new knowledge on how indigenous perspectives may be incorporated into science education.

Historically students’ interest in science and technology (S&T) has been researched mostly from a gender and age perspective and on a subject level of analysis. The work presented in this study make use of Swedish quantitative data from a large scale international and comparative research project called “The Relevance of Science Education Second (ROSES) study” to investigate secondary students’ interest in S&T on a content level of analysis. National data were collected by a questionnaire in 2020. By making use of the theoretical development pointed out in the literature the “person-object theory of interest” is used to frame and interpret the results. In this perspective interest is expected to differentiate as interest patterns. Seven such patterns were identified by an explorative factor analysis which points out a direction for future work to investigate students’ interest in S&T with a deepened understanding of how learning S&T is influenced by identity formation.