Agneta Linné

The lesson as a pedagogic text: A case study of lesson designs

In the 19th century, a shift in classroom technology from monitoring to recitation was staged in several European countries. The analysis draws on late 19th- and early 20th century lesson plans that were produced as part of the final teacher examination by students at two Swedish teacher training colleges, in order to explore how the lesson was restructured as a pedagogic text in the course of this transformation. The argument focuses upon the structure and transformation of the lesson designs, the discursive pattern of the text, the narrative involved, and the message or moral reflected in the text. The inquiry demonstrates that a classroom technology originally advocated in order to enhance the teachers control of pupils and to influence childrens minds, thoughts and morality became one instrument in the creation of a school for symbolic representation and meaning-making in a rapidly changing world of modernity.

Curriculum theory and didactics – towards a theoretical rethinking

The objective of this paper is to contribute to an ongoing theoretical discussion on rethinking curriculum theory. Various meanings of time and history, culture and agency in curriculum studies are discussed and comments made on didactics as a possible link between socio-historical and curriculum-theory approaches. Theoretical and methodological framework includes the curriculum-theory perspectives rooted in frame factor theory and highlights historical and theoretical analysis. I explore challenges evoked when concepts originating in one educational perspective confront a different theoretical strand, and I argue that such boundary work offers prolific means to rethink curriculum theory. I suggest that allowing Reinhart Kosellecks conceptual history, in addition to James V. Wertschs reasoning on voices of collective remembering, to influence a vocabulary of curriculum theory would strengthen the theoretical tradition. I ground my arguments in empirical data and theoretical discussions within a number of research projects which I have been recently involved in.

Lutheranism and Democracy: Scandinavia

The story of girls’ secondary education in Scandinavia from the eighteenth to the twentieth century is a story of gender and social class. It is a story of Lutheran faith, explicitly emphasizing the different callings of men and women in the evangelical striving for a good and decent life. It is also a story of the recognition of enlightenment and democracy as dominant social values influencing ways of life. Throughout the story, we hear the voices of pioneer women, enacting entrepreneurship, making alliances, and balancing on boundaries between conflicting interests. Girls’ secondary education opened doors for women to fulfill a professional career at times when woman’s position was considered to be that of mother and housewife. Inquiring into girls’ secondary education, therefore, means inquiring into the relations between public and private.