Didactics for Life?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24834/educare.2014.2.1158Keywords:
Childhood, Didactics, Ethnography, Life Competence Education, Livskunskap, Sweden, Teacher, Value-system, VärdegrundAbstract
Drawing upon ethnographic fieldwork, this article explores how the national value-system is realized in a Swedish compulsory school. The ethnographic data is combined with video recordings of a 5th form class in a compulsory school in Sweden. At this school the work with fundamental values is organized within the non-mandatory school subject Life Competence Education (Sw. Livskunskap). A common feature in this subject is the ambition to establish a sense of companionship and to strengthen togetherness among children (Löf, 2011).
In the task of strengthening togetherness within groups of children, the establishment of common values becomes central. A local working plan is formulated by the school to point out learning objectives, as well as ways of working in the classroom. Still the teacher is left alone with her own interpretations of what values to establish. With childhood sociology (Corsaro, 2005; Lee, 2001; James & Prout, 1997) as a starting point, the analysis focuses on constructions of childhood through local interpretations of the value-system (Sw. Värdegrunden): Which values are established in the classroom interaction? Which view on children, teaching and learning is permeating the work?; Which childhood is constituted through teaching? The results suggest that the values and norms that are constructed in local school practices and alleged to be part of the value-system are based on teacher’s own interpretations of what children need.
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