Global Summit on Childhood
San Jose, Costa Rica, 31 March – 3 April 2016
Curricular Constitutions
of Childhood
Camilla Löf, Ph.D
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Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
The aim is to understand how teachers in a Swedish
Compulsory School, interpret values promoted in the national
curricula in local work plans.
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What childhood is constructed in the process?
What view of school’s agenda?
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Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
Childhood sociology
(Corsaro, 2005; James & Prout, 1997; Lee, 2001)
CDA
(Fairclough, 2010)
Curriculum Theory
(Arnot, Hopman & Molander, 2010; Popkewitz, 2009;
Sundberg, 2009)
Critical realism
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Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
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Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
Background
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Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
Background
National critique against Schools Work with Values
+
A risky childhood
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Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
Background
National critique against Schools Work with Values
+
A risky childhood
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Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
Background
National critique against Schools Work with Values
+
A risky childhood
=
Life Competence Education on the Schedule
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Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
Background
National critique against Schools Work with Values
+
A risky childhood
=
Life Competence Education on the Schedule
[email protected]
Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
Aim
… to understand how teachers in a Swedish
Compulsory School, interpret values promoted in the
national curricula in local work plans.
- What childhood is constructed in the process?
- What view of school’s agenda?
[email protected]
Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
Ethnographic fieldwork
Documentation (audiorecordings, fieldnotes, handouts, etc) of the working process with
recontexualizing values in Life Competence
Education into mandatory subjects.
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Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
Ethnographic fieldwork
Documentation (audiorecordings, fieldnotes, handouts, etc) of the working process with
recontexualizing values in Life Competence
Education into mandatory subjects.
Participants: teachers (all ages, alll subjects), counsellours,
nurse, principals, Process leader (from the municipal school
development department)
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Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
Ethnographic fieldwork
Documentation (audiorecordings, fieldnotes, handouts, etc) of the working process with
recontexualizing values in Life Competence
Education into mandatory subjects.
Year 1: Revision of local work plans (5 occations for teachers)
+ workshops for students’ reference groups
Year 2: Introduction för collegues (+ training)
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Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
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Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
Starting point – risks and regulations
We talk about norms and rules. One talks about… one
speaks quietly in a bus or in the classroom. This sort of
things.
Carina Language?
Lotta Yes. It’s also about speaking.
Carina Mm. Norms.
Lotta
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Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
Starting point – risks and regulations
Carina Democracy. I mean meetings… how…
Lotta … it’s taking turns then, sort of?
Carina Yes, taking turns is democracy
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Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
Starting point – risks and regulations
Nadja
Carina
Lotta
Carina
Lotta
Nadja
Carina
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Feelings.
It is important how you control…
…control feelings.
Thanks. Absolutely! (Laughs).
(Is thinking). That’s life, even as an adult.
You are not always happy.
You are not always happy. That’s how it is.
That’s how it is.
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Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
Starting point – risks and regulations
Nadja I can imagine that gender is a very important issue here.
Talk to the Arab boys and the Arab girls. To sort of pay
attention to both of them. That’s why it’s more important for
us here than at other schools.
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Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
Starting point – risks and regulations
Lotta
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… if I take my class as an example, for instance, this tight
group of girls that are much stronger than the boys. They
take over and just don’t bother about those poor little boys
who just sit there shivering in the morning. It’s the other
way around! So I don’t know. On the other hand, I think that
part of what we’ve been talking about when it comes to the
girls. Who is it that always stays and wipes the tables
clean? Yes, the girls. It’s taken for granted in a way.
Because that’s how things are at home. You
bring the norms with you from home,
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don’t you?
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Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
Starting point – risks and regulations
Nadja But I mean, gender again, if you look at it from a statistical
perspective. Who gets into trouble? Yes, the boys, right?
The worst that can happen to the girls is that they won’t get
an education if they don’t attend school. They become
housewives and those things. Boys become criminals and
mafia bosses and all those things. It’s all that sort of things.
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Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
Student reference group – childrens’ experiences
They glue the pictures onto a collage with the title “This is what we
have worked with in Life Competence Education”. The content
revolves around everybody’s equal worth, families, the body, ideals,
peer pressure, equality, relaxation, sex and health. Among all the
pictures, there is one that stands out. A mug shot [a photo of a
person who has been arrested, with a plate and a lined
background]. Next to the picture it says: “Criminality. Not to become
a criminal.” (field note, 121024)
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Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
A turning point
Leader 1 How about the balance between risk and health? Do you
understand what I mean by this? It mustn’t be like “we work
with the value system so now you have to learn not to
become criminal!”. Clearly your pupils have picked it up
from somewhere, right? That you want to teach them not to
become criminal? There’s something scary in this. Don’t
you think?
Lotta Yes. It’s like you expect it to happen.
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Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
Process
There was something that made us react I remember. “The
importance of not becoming criminal” I think the children
had said and we thought now how awful that they thought it
was something we had worked a lot with.
Nadja Yes, that came up. That WE have worked a lot with the
children on them not becoming criminal or something like
the children had said.
Lotta
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Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
Process
Leader 1 How about the balance between risk and health? Do you
understand what I mean by this? It mustn’t be like “we work
with the value system so now you have to learn not to
become criminal!”. Clearly your pupils have picked it up
from somewhere, right? That you want to teach them not to
become criminal? There’s something scary in this. Don’t
you think?
Lotta Yes. It’s like you expect it to happen.
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Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
Recontexulizing the value system
Stefan
Lena
Stefan
Lena
Stefan
It is quite difficult, this question.
Which one is it, the last one?
Gender, identity, system.
Exactly (the others agree).
As soon as one tackles this question there is a risk that one
already there shows…
Lena … that one points it out.
Stefan That there are differences in gender.
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Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
Recontexulizing the value system – salutogenesis
Stefan For us it’s important to start from the assumption that
things are healthy. Not focusing on what’s already sick.
“Not to become criminal”. That’s not a salutogene attitude!
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Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
Recontexulizing the value system – critical
understanding
Lena
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Gender, tolerance, salutogene attitude, norms. We have
evident thoughts about these concepts, but when we start
talking about them… and this was only in our little group.
We should definitely have something to talk about if all of
us started talking.
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Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
Recontexulizing the value system – professionalism
Staff
Maybe we should have a common culture at
school?
Lotta No. Better not. A strong common norm is not a solution.
The way I have understood it, right boss (turns to leader
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The point of norms and the school’s work is that all of us
have to realize that there is no right or wrong?
H.mast. Maybe our own values and professionalism should be
central instead?
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Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
Conclusions
• From training skills & handle emotions to a critical
understanding of children and school’s agenda
• Values need to be contested (Popkewitz, 2009)
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Knowledge
Process
At times unpleasant (to reveal ones own norms and prejudgements)
Support from headmaster (and above)
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Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
Conclusions
• From training skills & handle emotions to a critical
understanding of children and school’s agenda
• Values need to be contested (Popkewitz, 2009)
–
–
–
–
Knowledge
Process
At times unpleasant (to reveal ones own norms and prejudgements)
Support from headmaster (and above)
[email protected]
Curricular Constitutions of Childhood
Conclusions
• Led by an expert within the field (School development, with a
specific interest of values-education) the teachers develop
analytical tools that help them reveal their own norms and
prejudgements.
• From training skills & handle emotions to a critical
understanding of children and school’s agenda
• From a childhood at risk – stigmatizing children because of
where they grow up, who their parents are and where they are
from – towards a childhood that embraces everyone
on the same terms
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