Joron Pihl

Can Library Use Enhance Intercultural Education

What do we know about the use of library resources within education? To what extent does educational research and intercultural educational research, in particular, address teaching and learning based on the use of library resources? Can library use enhance intercultural education? These are the research questions addressed in this article. The focus is primarily on research and educational practice related to elementary education based on the use of library resources.

Literacy Education, Reading Engagement, and Library Use in Multilingual Classes.

The topic of this paper is literacy education and reading engagement in multilingual classes. What facilitates reading engagement in the language of instruction in multilingual classes? In this paper, we analyze reading engagement in a literature-based literacy program in Norway (2007–2011). The design was a research and development project in which teachers, researchers, and librarians collaborated within literacy education. We present pedagogical interventions within the project and analyze subsequent reading engagement among the students, based on a survey. The survey documented that the overwhelming majority of students were engaged readers two years into the project, measured by the students’ amount and frequency of voluntary reading, their attitudes towards reading and library use. The findings indicate that reading engagement in the language of instruction among both first- and second-language learners was facilitated by literature-based literacy education, nonsegregated educational provisions and use of library resources. The study shows that literature-based literacy education may reduce possible negative effects of low socioeconomic status and linguistic minority background on reading engagement in the language of instruction. This requires literacy education, which gives students extensive access to books, voluntary reading of fiction and facts and sharing of literacy events and library use.

Epistemological and Methodological Challenges in Research Concerning Youth at the Margins

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the epistemological and methodological challenges associated with research concerning youth at the margins. I relate the discussion primarily to educational research. I am concerned specifically with whether research concerning youth at the margins contributes to empowerment and social justice or actually reinforces marginalization.

The Challenge of Sustaining Change: Contradictions within the Development of Teacher and Librarian Collaboration.

Abstract Teacher and librarian collaboration has relatively low priority in schools and in educational research. This is a paradox, as teachers and librarians share a common social and educational mandate of literacy education. The purpose of this article is to examine this paradox through exploring systemic contradictions in teacher and librarian collaboration within literacy education. Our data consist of discursive interaction between project leaders in an educational intervention project in Norway. The aim of the intervention is to develop teacher and librarian collaboration in two primary schools. Our analytical starting point is a critical conflict that occurred in one of the project leader meetings. The conflict arises from differing discourses of literacy education held by the local education authority and by the intervention project. We analyze how the project leaders respond to the conflict, how the conflict triggers new tensions and dilemmas within the project leader group and how the conflict creates obstacles to sustaining teacher and librarian collaboration in the project schools. We argue that sustainable change can be achieved by tracing conflicts, dilemmas and tensions to systemic contradictions within and between activity systems.

Special needs education and ethnic diversity in Norway

This article is an analysis of how a discourse within special needs education relates to ethnic diversity in Norway. The analysis is based on a review of research projects, publications in four journals and curriculums at major institutions that qualify for professional work within special needs education or counselling. It is concluded that a monocultural “regime of truth” dominates the discourse in a multicultural context. Ethnic diversity in education is a challenge to critically analyse epistemology, theory, method and norms that the professional discourse applies in a multicultural context.

Nordic discourses on marginalisation through education

ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is analysis of discursive marginalisation through education in Nordic welfare states. What knowledge do Nordic research discourses produce about marginalisation through education in Nordic welfare states? What are the Nordic contributions to research discourses on marginalisation through education? We apply a discourse theoretical approach and analyse 109 peer-reviewed publications on marginalisation by the Nordic Centre of Excellence “Justice through education in the Nordic countries” (NCoE JustEd) between 2013 and 2017. The publications are from Finland, Sweden, Norway and Iceland. Four critical Nordic research discourses reconceptualise marginalisation in relation to dominant educational discourses on marketisation, Eurocentrism, gender equity and ableism. These Nordic research discourses document discursive effects of the dominant, normalising discourses in terms of stigma, segregation and exclusion of poor, working-class students, non-white and immigrant students and descendants of immigrants, as well as sexual minorities and disabled students. Based on ethical, epistemological and methodological considerations, the critical Nordic research discourses produce knowledge about marginalisation as a relational, intersectional and interdiscursive phenomenon. The critical Nordic research discourses de- and reconstruct knowledge about marginalisation in Nordic welfare states.

Why Teacher and Librarian Partnerships in Literacy Education in the 21st Century

Why do we consider teacher and librarian partnerships to be essential to literacy education in the 21st century? An unprecedented pace of knowledge development, digitalization, globalization and extensive transnational migration characterizes the 21st century (Bottery, 2006; Daun, 2011; Delgado & Norman, 2008; Sassen, 1998).