Marcus Samuelsson

Bystanders to bullying: fourth- to seventh-grade students’ perspectives on their reactions

The aim with the present study was to investigate bystander actions in bullying situations as well as reasons behind these actions as they are articulated by Swedish students from fourth to seventh grade. Forty-three semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with students. Qualitative analysis of data was performed by methods from grounded theory. The analysis of the student voices of being a bystander in bullying reveals a complexity in which different definition-of-situation processes are evoked (a) relations (friends and social hierarchy), (b) defining seriousness, (c) victim’s contribution to the situation, (d) social roles and intervention responsibilities, and (e) distressing emotions. There are often conflicted motives in how to act as a bystander, which could evoke moral distress among the students. Our analysis is unique in that it introduces the concept of moral distress as a process that has to be considered in order to better understand bystander actions among children The findings also indicate bystander reactions that could be associated with moral disengagement, such as not perceiving a moral obligation to intervene if the victim is defined as a non-friend (‘none of my business’), protecting the friendship with the bully, and blaming the victim.

Exploring Simulated Provocations - Supporting Pre-Service Teachers' Reflection on Classroom Management.

The purpose of our research project is to explore the design of game-like simulations that allow pre-service teachers to explore and experiment with problematic classroom situations to develop proficiency in classroom management. The research problem for this paper is how to design a plausible, valuable to learn, and interesting game-like simulation that also is usable and opens up for reflection on and understanding of the scenarios in the simulation. We used ‘research through design’ and combined interaction design and game design to develop the SimProv simulation. 21 pre-service teachers were invited to evaluate it in a play session with constructive interaction and questionnaires. SimProv consists of text-based scenarios where pre-service teachers can take actions corresponding to classic leadership styles. The results show that it provides a plausible, valuable, exploratory, playful, but not always interesting experience for pre-service teachers. The participants did engage in reflective discussions about the choices they made.

Simulated Provocations: A Hypermedia Radio Theatre for Reflection on Classroom Management:

Background. Learning to manage a classroom is a difficult but important part of teacher education. Earlier research on simulations for learning classroom management has highlighted the difficulty of supporting reflection. Purpose. This case study explores and evaluates the design of a simulation for student teachers’ reflection on classroom management. Design. The design process resulted in the scenario-based SIMPROV simulation, which was made in the form of a hypermedia radio theatre that students go through in pairs or triads. Authoritarian, authoritative, democratic, and compliant leadership styles were built into the choices student teachers made. Evaluation. The simulation was evaluated in two courses where the participants’ level of reflection and perceived knowledge improvement was measured using a questionnaire. Forty-three first-year student teachers, 48 third-year student teachers, and 38 of the student teachers’ mentors participated in the evaluation. Results. The results indicate that participants engaged in reflection and understanding to a high degree, and only to a low degree in critical reflection or habitual action. Conclusions. The conclusions are that the scenario-based simulation designed as a hypermedia radio theatre supported knowledge improvement, understanding, and reflection and that social interaction during and after simulation sessions was an important feature.

“What’s in it for Me?” A Study on Students’ Accommodation or Resistance during Group Work

This article explores students’ accommodation and resistance while participating in group work. The data collected are from fieldwork observations in several classrooms over the course of four terms in different secondary school classes in Sweden, and also from interviews with the students. Through this data analysis, we report that the students accommodated for such reasons as amusement, compliance, fulfilling expectations, and striving for high marks. The reasons for students’ resistance were blending, inability, stage fright, and vagueness. Macro-sociological concepts from Ziehes cultural theory were used to capture explanations for students’ behaviour in order to understand why students, on a micro-sociological level, accommodate or resist when using group work as a learning mode. On the basis of results, three models of interpretation were developed, namely, individual, institutional, and structural.

Gender differences in boys’ and girls’ perception of teaching and learning mathematics

ABSTRACT Gender differences between boys and girls in the perception of the classroom setting, and their relationship to achievement in mathematics and aspects of self-regulated learning skills are the focus for this article. Throughout the component analysis of answers from 6758 Swedish students we found some differences in how boys and girls perceive their classroom setting and some differences in boys’ and girls’ relationship to mathematics. According to the classroom setting, we found that boys feel that they use group work more than the girls do. Boys also feel that they have an influence over the content and are more involved during the lesson than girls. With respect to students’ relations to mathematics we found that boys perceive mathematics to be more important than girls do. One implication for teachers from the study points out how different aspects of a perceived learning environment affect students’, boys’ and girls’, achievement in mathematics.

Simulating Variation in Order to Learn Classroom Management.

Abstract Classroom management is an important part of learning to be a teacher. The variation theory of learning provides the insight that it is important to vary the critical aspects of any task or subject that is to be learned. Simulation technology is useful in order to provide a controlled environment for that variation, and text as a medium gives the opportunity to control exactly what aspects are presented to the learner. This study shows that text-based simulation has the potential to help the learner discern critical aspects of classroom management.

Design and Anthropology

a participant and interacting with them. The chapters on data handling and coding and data analysis are informative about how to think about the analysis as well as how to carry it out. Following t ...

Book Review: Wendy Gunn and Jared Donovan (eds), Design and Anthropology

a participant and interacting with them. The chapters on data handling and coding and data analysis are informative about how to think about the analysis as well as how to carry it out. Following t ...

Book Review: Wendy Gunn and Jared Donovan (eds), Design and AnthropologyGunnWendyDonovanJared (eds), Design and Anthropology. Farnham: Ashgate, 2012. 284 pp. ISBN: 9781409421580 (hbk) £65.00.

a participant and interacting with them. The chapters on data handling and coding and data analysis are informative about how to think about the analysis as well as how to carry it out. Following t ...

Combating gender violence in and around schools, by Fiona Leach and Claudia Mitchell

The book also focuses on accessing lifelong learning, and how this affects mostly men but also women in their choice of work; the gendered choices students make, and how these choices are heavily ‘raced’ and classed. This has an impact on the experiences people have of ethnicities, and leads to a stereotyping not only of people in general but also of men and women, in terms of what they should or should not do. Higher education is highly classed; working-class women are severely under-represented within higher education. Burke, in her chapter, claims that there is no fair access to higher education, which is classed, raced and gendered. Women have the unpaid job of taking care of not only the house but also the children and, in most cases, the husband. There is no time for women to take part in lifelong learning. I really recommend this book. It is an important book that pinpoints a lot of questions around higher education, gender awareness, ethnicity, class, ‘race’ and what effects lifelong learning has on these issues, as well as on men and women. The book is really focusing on what lifelong learning is about and who can benefit from it; more importantly, it also asks questions about those who are left out and the reasons why they are excluded. I was both upset and angry when I read it; upset and angry, but in a good way. In the best of worlds, this book would be on every teacher education course reading list. Anyone working as a teacher, or planning on becoming a teacher, should certainly read this book.