In my PhD; A School – based Theoretical Framework for Comparative Research, I focus on the single school as a functional system (Luhmann, 1995). The purpose of my thesis is to develop a theoretical framework which allows understanding and analyses of the school’s dualistic function as cultivation and qualification (Hopmann 2003). These two concepts are developed into analytical concepts in order to analyse the school’s intended function and performance as well as to make comparisons across-the-border. The thesis of this school-based theory is: How the relationship between cultivation and qualification is established as a description of school function results in consequences for the school’s performance. The two concepts expand upon the theory concerning Bildung and autonomy as essential to the understanding of education. This occurs through discussions about the pedagogical paradox between Biltsamkeit and Auffordrung as described by Uljens (2003). And also by the difference between education and the uncertainty surrounding what the individual will do and what effect this education will have on him (Hopmann 2007). Cultivation and qualification is in this theoretical framework connected both to the school’s teaching situation and to the school as an organisation. The perspective of the school-based theoretical framework is not as many other approaches to the subject which attempt to explain school and society with each other (Young 2008, s. 11). To avoid this, I use Niklas Luhmann`s (1995) theoretical approach which provides the opportunity to understand school and society as being environments separate from one another. How the relationship between nation-states and the individual school emerges, then become an empirical question. The main research question for my empirical approach is the following: How do the nation-state expectations of the school create premises for the individual school’s organisation and performance as regards the individual? When a school is understood to be an organisation the pupil becomes a member of this organisation which has its own program and values. The opportunities students enjoy regarding socialisation depend on the school’s orientations as well as how explicit these expectations for behaviour and other normative expectations are made. This is important because it gives the individual an opportunity to situate himself/herself with regard to the school organisation’s expectations. To situate, the pupils are challenged to orient themselves socially and academically by comparing themselves with other members of the organisation in regard to how they are different from others and imagining what they think about placement.

Methodologically the individual school is “the unit of analysis” in this approach. The individual school is to be understood as the physical school building with its own characteristics and values. Moritz Rosenmund (2000), a comparative researcher, criticises comparative research for its dichotomy between culture-free and context-specific premises. A comparative research methodology is developed in the doctoral dissertation, which combines the two approaches. How different countries construct the relation between the nation-state’s expectations to the schools’ cultivation and cultivation, the single school’s choice of program and values, and how schools’ programs meet the individuals’ carriers, is the focus in the comparative research. This methodology has been used to analyse the performance of two schools in two different countries, Denmark and Norway, one public and one private. The research method used is that of group interviews, text analyses, questionnaires and transcribed school/home conferences.

Results from the comparative research within the school-based theoretical framework, gives the possibility to describe the school’s performance. The school organisation which has its own more or less consciously chosen program and values, gives very different possibilities for their members. The pupils’ opportunity to be cultivated and qualified depends on; the single school explicitly and equal expectations for how to act as a member of the organization, and the diversity of members where the single pupil can orient herself and place herself. The general didactic is then a question of whom the members are, what the schools goals and values are, and where the school culture finds its goals and values appropriate. This allows a clear differentiation between subject didactic and the general didactic and revitalizes the schools function as Bildung (Midtsundstad, In print, Meyer et al 2008, Klette 2008).