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Inscriptions and digitalization initiatives across time in the nation-state of Sweden: The relevance of shifts and continuities in policy accounts for teachers’ work
Jönköping University, School of Education and Communication, HLK, Learning Practices inside and outside School (LPS), Communication, Culture & Diversity @ JU (CCD@JU).
Jönköping University, School of Education and Communication, HLK, Learning Practices inside and outside School (LPS), Communication, Culture & Diversity @ JU (CCD@JU).ORCID iD: 0000-0002-1846-858X
2019 (English)In: Virtual sites as learning spaces: Critical issues on languaging research in changing eduscapes / [ed] Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta, Giulia Messina Dahlberg & Ylva Lindberg, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, p. 27-62Chapter in book (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

This study illuminates the political, ideological, moral and ethical driving forces behind the Swedish governmental initiative to digitalize the educational system—the Swedish Digitalization Initiative (SDI). Taking a sociocultural point of departure, policy documents are considered mediational means and have agency. Nexus analysis is the analytical lens that is deployed. Policies are analyzed according to the public consultative discourse analysis scheme. Three main findings are reported in this study:

  • The policy documents are chained, that is, one document is linked to one or more others.

  • There are three important discourses that circulate in the policy documents: digital competence, programming and an economical discourse.

  • Different policy documents have different strengths of agency, expressed rhetorically in terms of both languaging and layout.

The driving forces of SDI are politically and ideologically economical liberalism. Moral and ethical driving forces can be seen in terms of equality between women and men.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. p. 27-62
Keywords [en]
Digitalization; Education; Policy documents; Nexus analysis; Discourse analysis
National Category
Educational Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-46918DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-26929-6_2Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85089050479ISBN: 978-3-030-26928-9 (print)ISBN: 978-3-030-26929-6 (electronic)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hj-46918DiVA, id: diva2:1373548
Available from: 2019-11-27 Created: 2019-11-27 Last updated: 2021-08-17Bibliographically approved
In thesis
1. One-school-for-all As Practice – A Nexus Analysis of Everyday Digitalization Practices
Open this publication in new window or tab >>One-school-for-all As Practice – A Nexus Analysis of Everyday Digitalization Practices
2021 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

The Government of Sweden formulated a strategy in 2017 to digitalize the entire Swedish educational system. The government summarizes this strategy through three focus areas: (i) all parts of the school system shall have equitable digital competence, (ii) all parts of the school system shall have equal access to and usage of digital tools, and (iii) research and follow-up of the possibilities of digitalization shall be conducted. The impetus for the digitalization strategy was that despite the long history of the Swedish school system’s digitalization, there existed major differences in access to digital tools between different schools and individual students. Further, differences existed in digital competence between different actors in the school system.

The point of departure in this compilation thesis is the 2017 governmental digitalization strategy, with a special focus on discourses of digital tools as compensatory tools and tools for inclusion. The compensatory and inclusive perspectives are conceptualized as the one-school-for-all discourse. Three research questions guide the thesis. These cover discourses at macro (policy), and micro (classroom) levels, and temporal spaces before the enactment and in the implementation processes of the digitalization strategy.

Nexus analysis is used as an analytical framework. This draws on a sociocultural perspective and an ethnographically inspired framework. The ethnographic data material that this thesis builds upon comprises of audio and video recordings, fieldnotes, policy documents, student work sheets, and timetables. The classroom data (recordings, fieldnotes, etc.) are from grades 7 and 8 in five secondary schools in one small and one medium-sized municipality in southern Sweden. Here students are 13 and 14 years old.

This thesis consists of four studies. The first study contributes with analysis of macro level policy discourses before the enactment of the digitalization strategy. The second study contributes with classroom discourses on digitalization from student interview accounts of the everyday use of digital tools in secondary schools before the enactment of the digitalization strategy. Based on fieldwork data from a secondary school, the third and fourth studies highlight classroom inclusion and marginalization processes. They contribute with classroom discourses in the implementation processes of the digitalization strategy.

The discourses highlighted in the thesis relate to the computer room, programming, compensatory tools, hardware that is focused, identity, entertainment, and agency redistribution. The digitalization strategy is temporally demarcated in terms of a before and after of the implementation phase of the digitalization strategy. Students had ubiquitous access to digital tools after the enactment. The thesis highlights that this has both including and excluding consequences.

The analysis, in particular of the fieldwork observations, indicates that the ubiquitously present digital tools are used as tools to facilitate learning only to a minor extent. Schools purchase digital tools without always considering how to use them pedagogically. Furthermore, the studies indicate the importance of teachers’ continuing education for their mastery of the pedagogical usage of digital tools. The thesis does not support the technology deterministic belief that digital tools per se facilitate learning. Instead, it highlights that pedagogical affordance can be enhanced by introducing digital tools; for instance, teachers and student’s digital competence increases when digital tools are used in creative ways, functioning as mediating tools for learning. Thus, the pedagogical value of digital tools needs to be considered before they are incorporated into schools. The thesis also argues for a more comprehensive societal perspective on digitalization.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Jönköping: Jönköping University, School of Education and Communication, 2021. p. 150
Series
Doktorsavhandlingar från Högskolan för lärande och kommunikation, ISSN 1652-7933 ; 039
Keywords
nexus analysis, digitalization, one-school-for-all, inclusion, identity
National Category
Educational Sciences
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-54255 (URN)978-91-88339-42-3 (ISBN)978-91-88339-43-0 (ISBN)
Public defence
2021-09-10, Zoom (digital webinar), 13:40 (English)
Opponent
Supervisors
Available from: 2021-08-17 Created: 2021-08-17 Last updated: 2021-08-17Bibliographically approved

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