Annette Rasmussen

A School for Less Than All in Denmark

Political and public sectors develop at different speeds and in diverse directions. The aims of economic policies are often different from the aims of education policies, and the tendency is that policies on economics outpace those of education.

The Use of Talent Classes to Reproduce Differentiated Education.

Talent and the development of talent have become increasingly dominant topics in the public sphere. Topics of talent also figure as important objectives for the education policies in Denmark, where various initiatives, including science centres for talents, annual talent camps and competitions, and not least resources and funding, are provided as part of this ‘new’ priority in education. This article examines, through an ethnographic approach of a talent class in a Danish secondary school, how the purpose of current educational policies focusing on talent are perceived and experienced. In addition to this analysis, the phenomena of establishing such classes as an integrated activity of ordinary schooling and of the labelling attached to being talented is discussed. The conclusion is that the use of the talent classes is a form of socially constructed differentiation with the cohort mainly constituted to those with cultural capital.

Conceptions of Student Talent in the Context of Talent Development

This paper reports from a case study of a ‘talent class’, a special development programme for talented pupils, established in a Danish municipality. It analyses student backgrounds and motives for joining this talent class programme, which is seen in relation to ordinary schooling in Denmark. Drawing on Bourdieu, the paper links social background resources and success in school via the concepts of habitus and capital; it views talent as the product of an investment of time and cultural capital, which is easily accumulated by children of resourceful families. Based on the analysis and its discussion of school talent, the paper proposes a typology of talented students, encompassing the distinguished, the quiet, the versatile and the industrious students. For each type of talent, a student narrative illustrates the link between social backgrounds and student approaches and understandings of their own talents.

Nordic Upper Secondary School: Regular and Irregular Programmes – Or Just One Irregular School for All?

The Nordic vision of an upper secondary school for all faces major challenges. Particularly the high number of students leaving school with no formal qualification raises political and public concerns. To meet and reduce the dropout problem, a range of targeted and irregular programmes are offered.

Restructuring the Educational Profession in Denmark

The development of nation states, and the concurrent development of national school systems, which occurred in many Western countries during the first half of the 19th century (Thomas et al. in Institutional structure: constituting state, society, and the individual. Sage, Newbury Park, 1987), instituted the teacher as important official person. Teachers had a main responsibility for molding new generations into competent and well socialized citizens, who could contribute both economically and politically to national progress. The social status of teachers rose and the state started to take an interest in the work of teachers, their skills and the recruitment and training for the job. Thus started a process through which a teaching profession was gradually established, in interaction between the teachers as a group and the state.

Excellence in education policies: Catering to the needs of gifted and talented or those of self-interest?

Globally, education policy reforms are increasingly aimed at attending to excellence in education. This is mainly expressed as attempts at raising educational standards generally, but also of identifying intellectual elites and making special provisions for them. Denmark, which is otherwise considered an exponent of an equality-oriented tradition in education, is now pursuing strategies of developing talent throughout the educational system, which is to cater more to the needs of so-called gifted and talented students. This policy is claimed to have found inspiration from Australia, where some of the states have been pursuing such policies for several years and where we find a more developed tradition for this. The paper is focused on understanding what concept of excellence such education policies imply; we aim to analyse the targeted groups with respect to means of identification and development, and to analyse the wider implications of such policies. The analysis is empirically focused on education policy documents on gifted and talented educational provisions at national/state level. Beginning with the political discourse of talent development in education as it has appeared in Denmark, we analyse this in relation to the policies and curricular provisions for the gifted and talented in England and Australia.

Implicit Knowledge of General Upper Secondary School in a Bridge-building Project

ABSTRACT Bridge-building activities are practiced widely in the education systems of Europe. They are meant to bridge transitions between lower and upper secondary school and form a mandatory part of the youth guidance system in Denmark. By giving pupils the opportunity to experience the different educational context of upper secondary school, bridge-building activities are meant to facilitate their decision-making on educational paths, but also to attract more and new groups of pupils. However, the premises of the inherent differences of educational contexts and of pupils’ lacking knowledge of upper secondary education can be questioned. In this ethnographic case study of a bridge-building project in a rural area in Denmark, we analyse the implicit knowledge of the general upper secondary school, as it is practiced in a bridge-building project, and how it is experienced by the pupils on the background of their prior knowledge. The analysis is theoretically informed by especially the code concepts of Basil Bernstein.

Rollekonflikter i mødet mellem arbejdsliv og uddannelse

Gennem de seneste artier har der vaeret en stigende opmaerksomhed pa laering og kompetenceudvikling i arbejdslivet. Bade ud fra laerings- og effektivitetsmaessige og ud fra demokratiske og emancipatoriske perspektiver kan der argumenteres for ideen om at knytte uddannelsesaktiviteter til arbejdslivet. Arbejdsmarkedets parter er da generelt ogsa enige om, at der er et behov for kompetenceudvikling og en styrkelse af voksen- og efteruddannelsesindsatsen. Til gengaeld er det ikke entydigt, hvad der ligger bag ordene, nar virksomheder og deres medarbejdere definerer kompetenceudvikling og laering, som ogsa ovennaevnte perspektivers forskellighed antyder. Artiklen saetter ud fra en uddannelsessociologisk vinkel fokus pa, hvordan virksomheder og medarbejdere ser forskelligt pa den almene kursusundervisning, der knytter an til arbejdslivet. Med udgangspunkt i en empirisk analyse belyses det, hvilken betydning betingelserne i arbejdslivet, specielt for de kortuddannede, spiller for deltagelsen i almen kursusundervisning, samt hvorvidt og hvordan modet mellem rollen som medarbejder og kursist skaber konflikter og saerlige laeringsrum. ENGELSK ABSTRACT: Annette Rasmussen: Perspectives and Conflicts Between Working Life and Education Lifelong learning has become a mantra of educational policy. Therefore, the development of general competences in working life has enjoyed growing attention, and several projects have been undertaken to increase the participation of low skilled workers in general adult education in Denmark. This article draws on findings from a recent research project which focused on the encounter between working life and education. It considers cases in which low skilled workers attended courses that were established by adult education centres and private or public enterprises. It focuses on the conflicting logics of work and education and the sometimes divergent perspectives of employers and employees on the meaning of such courses. It illustrates how meaning attached to adult and workplace education and learning reflects the perspectives of the various stakeholders; and it shows how power relations are implicitly part of the pedagogical strategies employed in the educations. The concepts of interests and investments are important tools in this analysis. Observations from the courses and interviews with participants outline the tensions and contradictions which have arisen from the meeting of working life and education. Key words: Adult and workplace education, interests, conflicts, lifelong learning.