Pedagogic Practices and Student Influence: An Ethnographic Study of Upper Secondary Students' Attempts to Influence

Author(s):

Valgerður Bjarnadóttir(presenting / submitting)Elisabet Öhrn Monica Johansson

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

19. Ethnography

Format:

Paper

Session Information

19 SES 09 B, Teachers' Empowerment, Students' Power and Participation

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-24

13:30-15:00

Room:

K3.19

Chair:

Karen Borgnakke

Contribution

Education in the Nordic countries has for decades emphasised the fostering of democratic citizens. This vision is evident in Nordic educational legislation and curricula, where the importance of democratic participation, student influence and agency in everyday classroom practice is maintained (Arnesen, Lahelma, Lundahl & Öhrn, 2014). This is also manifested in international discourse and conventions, such as in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations Human Rights, 1989) and is in accordance with the maxim that all students should have equal opportunities to succeed in school and be active participants in the society.

Recently implemented education policy in Iceland further emphasizes the fostering of democratic citizens, not least through six fundamental, socially constructed, cross-curricular pillars of education, which all emphasise critical thinking, action competences and influence (Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, 2012). Such a goal is challenged by the strong contemporary neoliberal waves, with increased emphasis on measureable, high achievement (Carr, 2008; Rizvi & Lingard, 2010), which is likely to be at the cost of the cultivation of democratic citizenship.

This contradiction between increased competition and emphasis on equal opportunities and student influence, drew us to examine power and influence in everyday practices within different academic programs at the upper secondary school level in Iceland. Our main research questions are the following: How do students try to influence and what areas do they target? What can they influence and how is it interrelated to the program they are enrolled in?

Previous Nordic research in the field demonstrates that despite strong arguments in education policies, pedagogic practices that support student influence seem to be rare (Öhrn, 2005; Rosvall, 2011; Waage, Kristjánsson, & Björnsdóttir, 2013) and depend on the efforts of individual teachers or subjects (Dovemark, 2011; Hjelmér, 2011; Öhrn, 2005; Rosvall, 2011). Furthermore, students’ explicit requests for change seem seldom to be fruitful and some studies show students neither succeed when asking for more teaching (Rosvall, 2011) nor reduced workload (Hjelmér, 2011). This situation tends to favour students with well-educated parents and a strong economic and social capital. Thus, some students are better positioned to get help from each other or from parents, or finance private tutoring. This is in accordance with many international studies showing strong connection between social class and educational achievement (Apple, 2002; Arnot & Reay, 2004; Bernstein, 2000; Power & Whitty, 2002).

In our analysis, we follow Bernstein’s theory of pedagogic discourse, to examine positions of power within the classroom and everyday pedagogic practices. The main concepts are classification and framing, and the two concepts explain power and control in relation to curriculum and pedagogic practice (Bernstein, 2000). Classification helps us to analyse the power relations caused and explained by the curriculum, such as areas of knowledge and school subjects. The concept of framing helps us to explain communications, pedagogic practices and the control teachers and students have over education within the classroom. This can comprise the selection of content, sequence, pacing and assessment of knowledge.

Method

The analysis draws on ethnographic observations of classes enrolled to the Natural Science and Social Science academic programmes in one upper secondary school in Iceland; Björk gymnasium. Björk gymnasium is a medium sized upper secondary school, located in the Reykjavik metropolitan area. The school offers a few academic programs leading to matriculation, of which the natural science and social science programs are the most popular ones. During the field work, the first author of this paper joined two classes at Björk gymnasium and participated in their daily routines for four weeks. The classes consisted of students attending their final year at the school, one class from the natural science program (NP) and one from the social science program (SP). The time of the field work was divided between the two classes where two weeks were devoted to each. The students, who were 18-21 years old, came from different areas of the Reykjavík metropolitan area – both districts that are considered “at risk” (Valdimarsson, 2016) as well as areas that can be considered middle class areas. However, the student groups were homogeneous in terms of cultural backgrounds and all the students had Icelandic as their mother tongue. The data consists of comprehensive field notes (Wolfinger, 2002) of participant observations during lessons (60 hours), formal interviews with students (N=37, 26 girls and 11 boys) and teachers (N=6). Additionally, informal conversations with students and staff during breaks are also included in the data. In the interviews, incidents from lessons were discussed as well as experiences and perceptions of students and teachers regarding the school. Throughout the field work, the observational field notes were written in as much detail as possible and retouched and reflected on as close in time to the field work as possible. The same applies to the transcriptions of the interviews but most of the interviews were transcribed verbatim and reflected on simultaneously.

Expected Outcomes

The data shows that the NP students repeatedly asked for slower pacing in mathematics. The math teacher explained how he was in a tight spot; fulfilling the learning outcomes while attending to all students in the class. The teacher was also aware of that some of the students needed to be prepared for university education where certain math skills were required. In the lessons, the teacher always tried to slow down and find ways to respond to students’ requests, while knowing that the subject content would not be reduced for the final examination. Consequently, majority of the students expected to invest in private tutoring before the final examination in mathematics. The situation was different in the SP class. Neither the students nor their teachers deliberated on the learning outcomes or university preparation. The SP students were displeased with the teaching in one of their core subjects. Unspoken means were used to show discontent, such as yawning or sighing loudly, sleeping or leaving class without permission. Few students directly asked the teacher to use more challenging teaching methods. The teacher explained that he would not bother to and students’ wishes were too bold. This resulted in that the SP students who aspired greater ambition by the teacher did not manage to influence the teaching. However, the unspoken resistance by many of the students resulted in reduction of lesson time for the whole group. One of the preliminary finding is that both classes tried to influence pedagogic practices, without much result, and experienced strong framing (Bernstein, 2000) of pedagogic practices. Due to a strong framing of sequence, pacing and assessment in maths, students had a hard time keeping up with the fast pacing while some of the SP students ineffectively asked for more challenging teaching methods and were deprived of subject knowledge.

References

Apple, M. (2002). Does education have independent power? Bernstein and the question of relative autonomy. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 23(4), 607-616. Arnesen, A.-L., Lahelma, E., Lundahl., & Öhrn, E. (2014). Unfolding the context and the contents: Critical perspectives on contemporary Nordic schooling. In A.-L. Arnesen, E. Lahelma, L. Lundahl & E. Öhrn (Eds.), Fair and competitive? Critical perspectives on contemporary Nordic schooling. London: Tufnell. Arnot, M., & Reay, D. (2004). The framing of pedagic encounters. In J. Muller, B. Davies & A. Morais (Eds.), Reading Bernstein, Researching Bernstein (pp. 137-150). London: Routledge Falmer. Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity: Theory, research, critique (Revised edition). Boston: Rowman & Littlefield. Carr, P. (2008). Educating for democracy: With or without social justice. Teacher Education Quarterly, 35(4), 117-136. Dovemark, M. (2011). Can this be called democracy? In E. Öhrn, L. Lundahl, & D. Beach (Eds.), Young people's influence and democratic education. Ethnographic studies in upper secondary schools (pp. 112–138). London: Tufnell. Hjelmér, C. (2011). Collective actions in the Natural Science Programme. In E. Öhrn, L. Lundahl, & D. Beach (Eds.), Young people's influence and democratic education. Ethnography studies in upper secondary schools (pp. 34–51). London: Tufnell. Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. (2012). The Icelandic national curriculum guide for upper secondary schools: General section. Reykjavík: MoESC. https://eng.menntamalaraduneyti.is/publications/curriculum/ Öhrn, E. (2005). Att göra skillnad. En studie av ungdomar som politiska aktörer i skolans vardag [To make a difference. A study of young people as political actors in schools]. Göteborg: Institutionen för pedagogik och didaktik. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/2077/27923 Ritzvi, F., & Lingard, B. (2010). Globalizing education policy. London: Routledge. Rosvall, P-Å. (2011). Pedagogic practice and influence in a social science class. In E. Öhrn, L. Lundahl, & D. Beach (Eds.), Young people's influence and democratic education (pp. 71–91). London: Tufnell. United Nations Human Rights. (1989). Convention on the Rights of the Child. Valdimarsson, Ó. (2016). Hvar þrengir að í Reykjavík 2016? Fólkið í skugganum: Athugun á högum lakast settu borgarbúanna [Areas feeling the pinch in Reykjavík 2016. People in the shadows: Study on disadvantaged city dwellers]. Reykjavík: The Redcross Waage, I. Ó., Kristjánsson, K. & Björnsdóttir, A. (2013). Hver eru viðhorf grunnskólakennara til lýðræðis í skólastarfi? [Teachers' attitudes towards democracy in education?]. Hugur, 25, 75–90. Wolfinger, N. (2002). On writing fieldnotes: Collection strategies and background expectancies. Qualitative Research 2(2): 85-93.

Author Information

Valgerður Bjarnadóttir (presenting / submitting)

University of Iceland

School of Education

Akureyri

Elisabet Öhrn

University of Gothenburg

Department of Education and Special Education

Gothenburg

Monica Johansson

University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Search the ECER Programme

Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
Search for authors and in the respective field.
For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.