The Faculty of Education

My research touches on the relationship between education and society in a broad sense, with an interest in how different types of conditions can enable or challenge educational activities and professional action. Knowledge of the goals and purposes given to education, the content chosen, how it is organised and provided, and who is given power and influence are of great importance for the development of individuals and groups, as well as society and democracy.

Based on my interest in the use of language in education policy, I have studied how the concept of quality gradually became part of Swedish education, and I have shown how it opened the door for changed ideas about what education is, can or should be. Furthermore, I have been interested in how various complex questions take shape and are produced in the different parts of the education system. Here I focus on values, anti-racism and the development of teaching and learning in higher education, among other things. An ongoing project concerns the fact that schools are increasingly subject to new and strengthened regulation in law, which means that the relationship between juridification and education is the project’s focus. Another ongoing project focuses on local initiatives to break down school segregation, and in a third the focus is on the teacher rebellions on Facebook, with the aim of understanding what this can tell us about Swedish schools and education in a contemporary context, where far-reaching changes have been made in the welfare system.

A common theme in my research is my interest in the mathematical content of learning contexts and this content in relation to the historical development of mathematical terms. More specifically, I am interested in the semantic and syntactic aspects of the meaning and development of mathematical terms. The vast majority of the research I have conducted so far concerns the history of mathematics, algebraic thinking, and the integration of programming into school mathematics. My main methodology is to conduct empirical studies along with more investigative studies of theoretical approaches to concrete examples in mathematics teaching and mathematics history.

In one of my history research projects, I have studied the consequences of developments in mathematical analysis in the 19th century, where terms such as functions and limit values underwent significant change. In another project together with colleagues, I have studied difficulties with algebra among Swedish school pupils. This research included identifying the type of algebra tends to be taught in Swedish school mathematics and what learning options are offered from both a synchronous and diachronic perspective, but also in an international comparison. In a recently completed research project together with colleagues, I have studied the intersection between algebraic and computational thinking in connection with Sweden choosing to implement programming within the context of the algebra content area in the school curriculum.

I research and teach mainly in the sociology of education subject area, and I am part of the Sociology of Education and Culture research group. Sociology of education is about understanding education in relation to other parts of society, such as the world of economics, of culture, and of politics. In my investigations, I have mainly studied individuals, families, preschools, schools, higher education institutions and geographical places that are rich in education resources. A question that guides virtually all of my research is: Why do those who are rich in education resources behave as they do in the education system?

In the scholarly tradition to which I belong, represented by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, it is crucial to understand how the best resourced people utilise education and what education strategies they develop. Those who are rich in education resources set the agenda for what counts as excellent education and thus affect everyone else.

The topics of my research have varied over time. I have focused attention on everything from families’ choices of preschool to migrants’ encounters with the Swedish education system and the emergence of new areas of knowledge such as sustainable development in higher education. Through interviews, surveys and statistical data, I have captured people’s choices of schools, courses and study programmes, and higher education institutions, as well as the reasons why those who can choose anything at all prefer just a few programmes.