Karin Sporre

Emotions and values - a case study of meaning-making in ESE

Abstract With an interest in the role of emotions and values in students’ meaning-making in Environmental and Sustainability Education a case study was carried out in a Swedish school-class with students, 12 years of age. During a six-week thematic group-work focusing environmental and sustainability issues related to food, the students were observed and interviewed in their daily school practice. The results are presented here through narrative reporting, and analysed with the use of Dewey’s theoretical perspectives on experience, distinguishing three phases in a process: a start, an activity phase and a closure. Martha Nussbaum’s theory of emotions is used to assist in the understanding of emotions and values. The study reports on active and independent meaning-making processes in students’ group work. The results provide examples of students’ meaning-making experiences and the role of emotions and values in them, indicating that more of values are formed and expressed in the concluding phase.

Values, religions and education in changing societies

1. Introduction K. Sporre and Jan Mannberg.- 2. From excellence in dealing with similarities to learning how to handle differences. Scandinavian democracies at a crossroads E. Amna.- 3. Islam in education: A contribution to dialogue or a factor of conflict? D. Jozsa.- 4. Global citizenship education: a new gender ethic, gender hegemony and a gendered collective conscience? M. Arnot.- 5. Diversity in South African classrooms and teacher preparedness: findings from research in the teacher education sector. What can be learnt? D. Zinn.- 6. Religions, Values, Worldviews and Knowledges in Educational Dialogue Christo Lombard et al..- Index.

What Name Are We? Global Citizenship Education for Whom?

In this chapter aspects on a global citizenship education are discussed against the background of postcolonial relationships between North and South. This raises questions concerning the “situatedness” of us as knowers and how we position ourselves in North and South. I argue that the relationship to the global is different and varies, meaning that it matters where we are situated when discussing global citizenship education. When discussing this I draw on the critical feminist discussion on epistemology, my own praxis of having initiated and led student and teacher exchanges, and actively participated in research cooperation between Sweden and South Africa. Further, having a background in ethics and in feminist theology I reflect over resources for an empowering ethics within global citizenship education.

Global Responsibilities and Ethics Education: To Be Assessed and If So How?

In the initial paragraphs of the Swedish curriculum from 2011 for the compulsory school grades 1–9 (Lgr11), some issues that are particularly emphasised are environmental perspectives, sustainable development and international perspectives. In the same context, an ethical perspective is described as giving a foundation for the competence of pupils to form their own standpoint.

Young students’ aesthetic experiences and meaning-making processes in an outdoor environmental school practice

ABSTRACT This study uses John Dewey’s theoretical concept of ‘aesthetic experience’ in empirically exploring expressions of cognition and emotion in students’ meaning-making processes. A case study was conducted in one class of Grade 6 students during a single school semester. This article reports results from five outdoor days. The empirical material consists of observations, field notes, logbook entries, interviews and students’ written reflections. The students’ meaning-making processes were analyzed through the Deweyan theory of an initial phase involving anticipation, an activity phase with courses of actions and a concluding phase with reflections that serve as fulfillments. Expressions of aesthetic experience were identified in four important components of the students’ meaning-making processes: prior personal experiences; responses to environments and artifacts; social interaction; and situations allowing for responsibility, trust and independence. A more in-depth process-oriented analysis revealed that aesthetic experiences are vital in continuous meaning-making processes.

Voices from South and North in dialogue: on diversity and education for the future

In this article texts by scholars from South Africa, Sweden and Great Britain are analysed. They contributed as invited speakers to a conference in Sweden in 2009 on changing societies, values, religions and education. Here a South–North dialogue on diversity and the future of education is constructed through the way their conference contributions are presented and analysed. Democracy and gender also appear as crucial themes. Out of the original 12 keynote contributions to the conference a selection is made, meaning that seven of them are focused on. What can be observed is (a) that the contributors from South Africa connect diversity and social justice; (b) that the gender researchers critically discuss the risks of the North imposing its theoretical framework on the South and search for ways out of that and (c) a preoccupation with a renewal of education recognising diversity but also looking for what could come beyond such an emphasis and form a common ground. The article constitutes an example of shared knowledge production where South and North meet. Conditions for that are critically reflected upon methodologically.

Possible competences to be aimed at in ethics education – Ethical competences highlighted in educational research journals

Abstract The aim of this article is to present varieties of ethical competence that are highlighted in ethics and moral education research articles, and to discuss them in the light of competences stressed in the Swedish curriculum, understood as an example of ethics education in compulsory school. The material consists of 1,940 educational research articles published between 2000 and 2015, and the method of analysis is inductive, focusing on ethical competence. One finding is the similarity between the study’s tentative formulation of identified ethical competences in four categories, and Rest’s understanding of acting morally, captured in the four components: sensitivity, judgement, motivation and implementation. Based on the analysis of the articles, broader understandings of these focuses are developed, and later discussed in relation to Swedish ethics education, characterised as both a conservative and liberal values education. The analyses and comparison show the importance of the components of moral sensitivity and moral implementation and their relative absence in the Swedish curriculum, but also how moral judgement must include a competence to evaluate moral motivations, where empirically testable reasons are also central. Moreover, the risk of neglecting contextual, situational and knowledge-related aspects of ethical competence is highlighted.

Assessing ethics education through national tests—an advantage or not?

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to describe, critically analyse and discuss the Swedish system of assessing ethics education in compulsory school through national tests. The publicly available tests from 2013 for grades six and nine have been studied as have the assessment instructions for teachers. Staff responsible for the test construction have been interviewed. The aims, core content and knowledge requirements of the curriculum were also studied. The concept ‘ethical competence’ was used as an analytical tool in the qualitative content analyses. Through the design of this study, the actual test, its process of construction and the curriculum were examined. The results suggest that ethics education, given (a) the curricular construction of what ability to assess, (b) complexities of test construction in ethics and (c) possible teach-to-the-test effects, runs the risk of being limited to an argumentative, conceptual competence, with ethics education being emptied of crucial content. However, being included in national testing can strengthen the position of a school subject. Is it then an advantage for ethics education to be tested in this way? The critical problems the study raises make the author conclude it to be a disadvantage for ethics education to be tested through national tests.

Ethical competence : a comparison between the Swedish and the Icelandic curricula and some teachers’ views

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to highlight some conceptions of ethical competence identified in interviews with teachers in religious education in Sweden, and within analyses of policy documents in a Swedish and an Icelandic educational context. As a starting point we take seven interviewed teachers’ comments about what they view as important ethical competences for their pupils to have. A comparative analysis of Swedish and Icelandic policy documents with regard to the conceptual understandings of ethical competence is made, as well as a comparison between the policy documents and teachers’ comments. The Icelandic curriculum is chosen because it differs from the Swedish one in a sense relevant to an analysis of the teacher interviews. The analyses imply a tension between theoretical and analytical conceptions of ethical competence and an action competence. Finally, some possible threads to consider in developing a broadened and deepened understanding of ethical competence are outlined.

Values, religions and education in changing societies introduction

Societies go through changes. This book focuses primarily on two changes: (a) the fact that many societies through migration have become more multicultural over the last decades; and (b) that the m ...