Abstracts ppt 1/2020 - Frihed, frygt og fravær – når skolen vælges fra
Gro Emmertsen Lund
School absenteeism calls for relationship development and cultural development at the school
Students’ absence from school is an increasing, complex and sometimes mysterious phenomenon that requires action.
In recent years, students’ absence from school is an increasing, complex and sometimes mysterious phenomenon that requires action. However, it is less apparent who is to take action, what to focus on, and who the responsible person is for solving the problem. The article shows, with the help of a discourse analysis, how pathogenic, salutogenic and interactionist discourses invite looking for causes of school absenteeism in the child, in the family or the interaction between student, family and school, but offers few or no options to reduce absenteeism. Seen from a
social constructionist perspective, the three discourses are co-created constructions that emerge and thrive in different communities and school cultures. The article incorporates
research into different school cultures, as students experience them. In aggressive and passive school cultures, individual thinking dominates, and the risk of absence and exclusion is high. In the proactive school culture, employees listen to students’ voices and empower them to create constructive contexts. Here the risk of absence and exclusion is considerably lower. The article thus offers a shift from individual-, problem- and deficit- thinking towards reinforcing the creation of inclusive, appreciative and creative learning communities in the classroom and at school. There is a need to focus on a wide range of efforts that promote relational and cultural development in schools in order to reduce school absenteeism.
The centre of indifference: Affect in the teaching room on the upper secondary shorter general education programme (HF)
Students’ challenges to the interaction in the classroom and more specifically to explore the role of affect.
Traditionally, research in alternative upper secondary education has a deficit focus on the students’ challenges or their socio-economic, academic and family characteristics. In this article, I will shift the focus from the students and their challenges to the interaction in the classroom and more specifically explore the role of affect. The analyses are inspired by ‘posthuman’ approaches to practices in education exploring spatial, material and affective dimensions in classroom activities. I ask the questions: what happens when ‘indifference’ circulates in the classroom and what is
needed to avoid indifference? The article is based on qualitative interviews, researchers’ observation, students’ observations and a workshop with students and teachers.
Frederikke Skaaning Knage
Refusal to attend school: entanglements and subject positions
Theoretically, the article builds on poststructuralism and new materialism, primarily focusing on a young girl who struggles to become a legitimate subject among her school peers, as well as on the entanglement of different human and non-human partakers involved in these subjectification processes.
This article analyses an interview with an eleven-year-old girl, Julie, who has not attended school for many months. Theoretically, the article builds on poststructuralism and new materialism, primarily focusing on Julie’s struggles to become a legitimate and worthy subject in her school and among her peers, as well as on the entanglement of different human and non-human partakers involved in these subjectification processes. The analysis centres on Julie’s experiences with bullying, her dyslexia and smartphone usage among the girls in her class, and it ends with a critical discussion of a psychological support system that identifies Julie as the problem. Overall, the article argues for complexity sensitive approaches when dealing with situations where children and young people have persistent school absence. Furthermore, the article urges researchers and practitioners to listen more carefully to the voices of these children.
Laila Colding Lagermann
The sense of absence. An understandable resistance to an unbearable school life?
In this paper, we follow three young 15-year-old boys and their perspectives on how their resistance towards the school’s culture and ideas of learning becomes a reasonable choice.
School absence has become an increasing problem in Denmark. In this paper, we follow three young 15-year-old boys and their perspectives on, how their resistance towards the school’s culture and ideas of learning becomes a reasonable choice – that being both the silent resistance we see, as Amir responds with school absence,or the noisy kind we see, as he is with his two friends, Saad and Hakim, participate in what, from several teachers’ perspectives, is seen as troublemaking in the classroom. The paper is theoretically informed by a critical psychological practice researchapproach, as well as recent research investigating school as a room of (limited)possibilities for marginalised youth at school/in education.
Equality is also the right to be different
We tend to talk about school dropout as a problem belonging to the child or student. Instead, we should talk about the impact of the narrative of education within an economic paradigm and of students as resources afforded to children.
This chapter provides an anthropology of schooling which suggests that the school worldview embodied in social practices can motivate school dropout. We tend to talk about school dropout as a problem belonging to the child or student. Instead, I suggest we should talk about the impact of the narrative of education within an economic paradigm and of students as resources afforded to children. I suggest it tends to alienate children from school. Fieldwork among Greenlandic caribou hunters provides an alternative narrative of education relative to the hunter-gatherer’s
perception of a world shared among humans and non-humans, which offers a sense of belonging to a broader narrative.
Thomas Berg Nielsen
A practitioner’s dilemmas about school absenteeism
This article represents a practitioner’s view regarding school absences.
This article represents a practitioner’s view regarding school absences. The main goal is to describe the types of dilemma one meets in an ordinary or special needs school setting. It is founded on Ross Greene approach “Kids do well if they can”. The assumptions the article is based upon are:
– Did the Danish National school reform have an impact on the way we view school absence?
– Did the parents view change in regard to what to expect from their own children and their local school?
– How well does the local school build a sustainable environment in every classroom?
The article brings forth different experiences, dilemmas and methods to view school absences. It carries a common thread of professional and personal views in this crucial subject - “How to change school absences?”
Tine Basse Fisker
From children and drunk people ... What children say about school avoidance
This article will analyse and reflect upon the empirical material from 33 journals with notes from the therapeutic treatment of children, who all found school attendance difficult
This article will analyse and reflect upon the empirical material from 33 journals with notes from therapeutic treatment of children, who all found school attendance difficult. These children have been treated with either cognitive behavioural therapy or metacognitive therapy. Based on narratives from these children, it is concluded that all cases of school avoidance are complex, and we need to be able to take both an individual and a contextual perspective into consideration when we look for causes and solutions. When analysing the children’s cases, it is clear that helpful intervention can be located in the following areas: collaboration between school and home, the role of the teacher, temporary exceptions and interventions which create a safe environment for the child in the school setting.
Why is it so difficult to implement the inclusive school?
Do we lack knowledge? Do we waste resources? What is the role of the Pedagogical System (PPR)?
The author looks 40 years back and demonstrate that we through all the years keep having 15-20% of pupils in the school, which we are not able to secure a proper school profit. How is that? There are many possible explanations from these 40 years of school history and from the PPR-history. It is pointed out that we have lots of research showing how to develop the inclusive school, but the question is why we fail to do it in practice in spite of so much effort from the school system and the PPR. We lack research showing the obstacles and how we can manage to overcome these obstacles. In addition to the possible explanations, which are examined in the article, three focus areas are highlighted: 1. The needs of the 15-20% must determine how to develop
the school and education, 2. The efforts to develop the school must be much more persistent to secure that the teachers work in new ways in practice and 3. Focus and the efforts from the PPR and other help systems must always be how it helps the teacher in concrete ways in the classroom. Otherwise the resources are wasted and of no good in the efforts to develop the inclusive school.