Chanette Catharina Bach Mikkelsen

• Qvortrup, Ane & Mikkelsen, Chanette Catharina Bach (2021). Lærerens didaktiske valg og deres betydning for eleven i undervisningen - En empirisk undersøgelse af didaktiske kernebegreber, hvordan de kommer til udtryk i interaktioner i folkeskolens udskoling og deres betydning for elevens meningsdannelser. Nordisk Tidskrift för Allmän Didaktik. ISSN 2002-2832. 7(1), p. 2–18. Full text in Research Archive

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• Mikkelsen, Chanette Catharina Bach; Elmies-Vestergren, Alexander; Willbergh, Ilmi; Marthinussen, Greta & Aasebø, Turid Skarre (2026). How accountability systems restrain democratic schooling. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Abstract How accountability systems restrain democratic schooling Mikkelsen, C. C. B., Willbergh, I., Elmies-Vestergren, A. Accountability in schooling originated a hundred years ago in the United States (Whitehead, 1929/1967) and is based on the Anglo-American educational concepts of schooling, teaching and learning (Gundem & Hopmann, 1998). The European tradition of Bildung-centered general didactics, founded on the tradition of pedagogy, represents an alternative view of schooling, teaching and learning, compared to the accountability-perspective. Education for democracy is a central goal in Bildung-centered general didactics. This paper will apply a Bildung-centered general didactic perspective with the aim to discuss the implications of accountability systems on education for democracy. We ask: How does accountability governance systems challenge education for democracy from a Bildung-centered general didactic perspective? This question is answered by presenting an analysis of accountability-critical articles from the period 2000-2024, using the general didactic perspective on education for democracy as an analytical lens. The core data of the study is 170 peer-reviewed journal articles in international journals. The method of the study is searching for accountability-critical studies in Academic Search Complete, snowballing in relevant research journals and thematic analysis (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2018). The thematic analysis is conducted inductively and then the challenges are analyzed from a perspective of democracy and Nordic general didactic. The concept of accountability is in this paper defined broadly as governance systems based on standards-based evaluation and student outcomes (Hopmann, 2003). Educational researchers have published overview-studies addressing the weaknesses of the accountability system of school governance (Granger, 2008; Jones et al., 2017; Sahlberg, 2010; Slater & Griggs, 2015; Zhao, 2020). As Slater and Griggs (2015) explain is the direction of 2 accountability changed, so that accountability flows from educational stakeholders to centralized institutions. This means that neoliberal schooling is at its core an ontological struggle over subjectivity. Hence, it is a shift from a democratic social institution, accountable to the collectives of subjects of compulsory schooling given power though education, to a neoliberal reform that holds students and teachers accountable to corporate state mandates (Slater & Griggs, 2015). The primary dividing line among democratic traditions lies between the liberal perspectives, emphasizing individual freedom and self-determination, and republican perspectives, emphasizing community, obligation and the common good (Solhaug, 2021). Our understanding of education for democracy is based on Klafkis (1991/2001) educational aims self-determination, co-determination and solidarity, which, through the imbedded ideas of individual freedom and responsibility for others, encompass parts of both liberal and republican ideals (Elmies-Vestergren, 2025). In this Bildung-centered general didactic perspective (Klafki, 1991/2001; Willbergh, 2021) individual autonomy is central, translated into teaching practice through teachers’ and students’ collective interpretation of subject matter content in teaching, differing from the outcome-focus of accountability. We find that the main problems of accountability in education is: the de-professionalization of teachers, an undermining of student’s subjectivity, a narrowing of curricula and reinforced systematic inequality, which all are connected to and is undermining democratic education. We will contend that, within a Nordic context, the concepts of autonomy and community are uniquely challenged, which may also hold international significance. Alvesson, M., & Sköldberg, K., M. (2018). Reflexive methodology : new vistas for qualitative research (Third edition. ed.). Los Angeles, California: SAGE. Elmies-Vestergren, A. (2025). Frigjøring eller umyndiggjøring: Et kritisk perspektiv på læreplanens konsept om demokratisk deltakelse i skolen. Nordisk tidsskrift for pedagogikk og kritikk, 11(1), 3–20. http://doi.org/10.23865/ntpk.v11.6481 Granger, D. A. (2008). No Child Left Behind and the Spectacle of Failing Schools: The Mythology of Contemporary School Reform. Educational Studies: Journal of the American Educational Studies Association, 43(3), 206-228. doi:10.1080/00131940802117654 3 Hopmann, S. T. (2003). On the Evaluation of Curriculum Reforms. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 35(4), 459. Retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00220270305520 Jones, K. L., Tymms, P., Kemethofer, D., O'Hara, J., McNamara, G., Huber, S., . . . Greger, D. (2017). The unintended consequences of school inspection: the prevalence of inspection side-effects in Austria, the Czech Republic, England, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland. Oxford Review of Education, 43(6), 805-822. doi:10.1080/03054985.2017.1352499 Klafki, W. (1991/2001). Dannelsesteori og didaktik - nye studier (B. Christensen, Trans. 2nd ed.). Århus: Forlaget Klim. Sahlberg, P. (2010). Rethinking accountability in a knowledge society. Journal of Educational Change, 11(1), 45-61. doi:10.1007/s10833-008-9098-2 Slater, G. B., & Griggs, C. B. (2015). Standardization and Subjection: An Autonomist Critique of Neoliberal School Reform. The Review of education/pedagogy/cultural studies, 37(5), 438-459. doi:10.1080/10714413.2015.1091259 Solhaug, T. (2021). Skolen i demokratiet – demokratiet i skolen (2. utg.). Universitetsforlaget. Willbergh, I. (2021). Bildung-Centered General Didactics. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. doi:https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.1554 Zhao, Y. (2020). Two decades of havoc: A synthesis of criticism against PISA. Journal of Educational Change, 21, 245–266. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-019-09367-x

• Mikkelsen, Chanette Catharina Bach (2026). Intersubjective classroom dynamics and their role in student action – an ethnographic study of interactions in lower secondary. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The aim of this paper is to bring forward results from my thesis (Mikkelsen, 2024) showing how students' intersubjective interplay and group dynamics in the classroom constitute possibilities and limitations for actions in the classroom. With symbolic interactionism (Mead, 1925, 1934/2015) as the theoretical framework for the project, all students are considered to have to adapt to a social world that already exists, but through learning the classroom rules for interaction, the student can adjust the already established interaction orders. With an ethnographic approach (Blumer, 1969; Garcez, 1997; Hammersley & Atkinson, 2019; Sandstrom et al., 2014), interactions in the classroom have been investigated in a lower secondary class in a Danish school in the subject Danish over a school year. Interactions are studied inductively and explore how objects put into play determine how actions can be played out. The results show how primarily two types of intersubjective interplays constitute actions. That is in interactions initiated by individual students considered as competent players and in the dynamics of the group. Students who are competent players manage to strategically adjust interaction orders in the rules of the game in the interplay with others and achieve social control. But most decisive for the conditions of actions in the classroom are the dynamics of the groups that generally achieves a dominance over individual students and have greater social control over actions, because everyone in the class (in addition to the group) directs attention to the generalized attitudes of the group. The paper is relevant to the Nordic educational research as the results discuss the academic and social responsibility that students are given through the school's expectations of having to cooperate independently.

• Elmies-Vestergren, Alexander; Mikkelsen, Chanette Catharina Bach; Marthinussen, Greta; Sirevåg, Lene Cherize Haugland & Willbergh, Ilmi (2026). Hvordan innholdsorienterte læreplaner kan forbedre norsk skole. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Utforsk hvordan en vending mot innhold i skolen kan gi elever felles referanser og støtte læreres arbeid, samtidig som vi reduserer resultatstyringens negative effekter.

• Willbergh, Ilmi; Mikkelsen, Chanette Catharina Bach; Elmies-Vestergren, Alexander; Aasebø, Turid Skarre & Marthinussen, Greta (2026). Accountability governance systems and challenges from a Nordic general didactic perspective – a research overview. Full text in Research Archive
• Willbergh, Ilmi; Marthinussen, Greta; Elmies-Vestergren, Alexander & Mikkelsen, Chanette Catharina Bach (2024). Accountability-critical educational research – a review. Full text in Research Archive
• Mikkelsen, Chanette Catharina Bach (2023). Common or un-common starting points for experiencing educational openings in school - reflections on values and experiences in teaching. Full text in Research Archive
• Mikkelsen, Chanette Catharina Bach (2022). Autonomy in student classroom interactions - an empirical qualitative study from a perspective of symbolic interactionism. Full text in Research Archive
• Mikkelsen, Chanette Catharina Bach (2021). Students’ interpretations of interactions in group work - an empirical study showing group work dynamics. Full text in Research Archive
• Mikkelsen, Chanette Catharina Bach (2024). Elevers intersubjektive samspil i klasserummet : En empirisk undersøgelse af spillets regler for interaktion i udskolingen, og dets vilkår for elevernes handlingsmuligheder og selvforståelse. Universitetet i Agder. ISSN 9788284272146. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This project investigates students' intersubjective interplay in the classroom, where the interplay between the student is considered to constitute the class's rules of the game for interaction. In this study the game's rules for interaction work to understand the possibilities for action students experience in the classroom. The interactions experienced by the students are additionally examined concerning the students' understanding of themselves as students. With an ethnographic approach, interactions in the classroom have been investigated in a lower secondary class in a Danish school in the subject Danish in the school year 2020-21. Interactions are examined through an interpretive and investigative approach to the students' lived lives in the classroom, where a culturally embedded organisation of the game's rules for interaction is considered a co-determinant of the students' options for action and self-understanding. With symbolic interactionism as the theoretical framework for the project, all students are considered to dynamically constitute and learn the game's rules for interaction. These rules consist of generalized attitudes which are normalized and value-based understandings of the world. With this understanding of classroom interactions, the student is considered to have to adapt to a social world that already exists, but through learning the classroom rules for interaction, the student can adjust the already established interaction orders. The project investigates how students actively relate to each other through the use of objects, interacting, taking initiatives and responding in interactions. The results show how the students' use of objects is put into play and, through its use in the interaction between the students, constitutes certain possibilities and limitations for action. Put into play, the objects have a particularly significant meaning for the students, as they can be adjusted and determine how actions can be played out. Through the analysis it is described how this happens through physical things, the students' place at their desk and movements in the room, through the language that is used, the play that is initiated and the students that actively engage each other. The objects refer to an invitation to join a social community. At the same time, the use of the objects are invitations that reflect and reject responses to formal educational expectations.

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