- Trial lecture starts at: 10.00
- Public defence starts at: 12.00
Title of trial lecture: What challenges do diversity and globalization pose for teachers’ professional practice in different local contexts? (Translated from Norwegian)
Disputation chair: Dean Ingunn Folkestad Breistein
Assessment committee:
- First opponent: associate professor Ole Andreas Kvamme
- Second opponent: associate professor Turid Løyte Harboe
- Chair of assessment committee: Associate professor Helen Eikeland, UiA
Supervisors in the doctoral work:
- Main supervisor: professor Aslaug Kristiansen, UiA
- Co-supervisor: professor Turid Skarre Aasebø, UiA
Summary of thesis
Närvaron av plats.
En fenomenologisk intervjustudie i en skola i glesbygd.
The overall purpose of the study is to make experiences visible through the perspective of a relationship-oriented place pedagogy and thereby highlight how experiences of place can be translated into possible new knowledge concepts that can expand and critically illuminate our understanding of the school's equality mission. This is done by reflecting teachers' thoughts and experiences in relation to the surrounding place and highlighting the challenges facing the teachers’ practice through a relationship-oriented place-based education perspective in a sparsely populated area.
In this study, the relationship between people and our world is in focus. It is about the presence of place. This study focuses on the relationship between the teachers' work in the school and the society where the school is located. It is about the meeting between the place where the school is and where the teachers carry out their work, together with the conditions that surround the place. Through the use of a relationship-oriented place-based education that partly consists of a phenomenological experience-based perspective that considers the lifeworld of teachers and also the place, and partly a socially-oriented professional-theoretical institutional perspective that emphasizes the mission of the teaching profession and the school, I claim that I enable a broader perspective on place and possible new knowledge concepts and at the same time consider socially oriented aspects.
The place in this study is a place marked by the consequences of urbanization, which contribute to and create a field of tension in the teacher's pedagogical work in the school. The meaning I assign to the concept of equity for this study means that in the field of tension, challenges are revealed for the teachers in an urbanization context. Even the fact that the bildung debate has been replaced by a discussion about measurable results (Lundgren, 2017b) contributes to these challenges. From a relationship-oriented place-based education perspective the teachers find themselves in a dilemma when it comes to the school's mission of equality, due to a perceived urban norm that drives depopulation from places where experiences grow. This further raises questions about sustainability from a societal perspective, for example how depopulation affects our common society.
We humans are closely intertwined with places, and they shape who we are and become. In this study, I have shown that through a relationship-oriented place-based education perspective, it is possible to open up a discussion about experiences tied to places and how they provide valuable critical contributions to understanding the emergence of various forms of possible future knowledge concepts. And through that, a possibility to develop the School Act's basic goal of equal education throughout the country and thereby contribute to underline and nuance some aspects of the purpose of education in the school system in Sweden. In other words, I have created an opportunity to make use of the diversity of experiences that different places provide us with by opening up to a different way of thinking regarding the education assignment in the Swedish school system.
What to do as an online audience member
The disputation is open to the public. To follow the trial lecture and the public defence online, register on Zoom.
We ask online audience members to join no earlier than 10 minutes in advance. After these times, you can leave and rejoin the meeting at any time.
Opponent ex auditorio:
Deadline for the public to pose questions is during the break between the two opponents. Questions ex auditorio can be submitted to disputation chair.
Contact:
- lise.moss@uia.no
- Phone
- +47 38 14 20 58