Sannfæring um framfarir

Greinin "Principles of legitimation in educational discourses in Iceland and the production of progress", birt árið 1993, var hluti af afrakstri doktorsritgerðar minnar. Hér er ágripið:

On the one hand this paper is an exploration of how suitable the theories of Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault are to explain educational reform. At another level, the paper tells a story of educational reform in Iceland in the last 25 years ‐ through the Bourdieuean and Foucauldian lenses. The paper identifies legitimating principles in the discourse on educational reform in Iceland and focuses on the tensions over what counts as capital in teacher education. In short, pedagogy, curriculum theory, educational psychology and other educational sciences signify a discursive pole that is gaining currency at the cost of the capital of the traditional academic disciplines, such as Icelandic, history and biology, which signify the other pole in this spectrum. The paper argues that an epistemology of progress underlying reform often prevents reformers from taking a reflective stance on the historical foundations of their beliefs in educational science; they take for granted that progress and evolution are possible and call for better methods to produce progress. Greinin var birt í Journal of Education Policy, 8(4), 339-351.

Að kenna drengjum og stúlkum

Ágrip greinarinnar "To teach boys and girls: a pro‐feminist perspective on the boys' debate in Iceland": This article is based on an interview study with 14 women teachers in Icelandic primary schools (6–16 years old). It presents their experiences and opinions about the differences in teaching boys and girls as well as what they believe about their prospects and possibilities in school and in the future. It also portrays their opinions regarding the so called ‘boys' debate’. The study found that the interviewees see clear gender patterns among students but also very strong individual differences. The interviewees emphasised that individual differences among teachers are most important, although there are gender patterns. The article is critical of the myth that boys in particular need ‘male role models’, and it argues that student teachers of both genders should be equally prepared to teach children of both genders.

Greinin birtist árið 2004 í tímaritinu Educational Review, 56(1), 33-42 

Sveitadrengurinn og tælingarmáttur femínismans

Abstract greinarinnar "Farm Boy from the Edge of the Arctic and the Seduction of Feminist Pedagogy in American Academia"

The article assumes that pedagogical decisions are not merely the result of the educator's personal choice or her/his serious and rational curriculum planning; rather, they occur through the interrelation of coincidences, structural issues, political and institutional discourses, and events in people's lives. The article focuses upon the politics of progressive pedagogy as they concern my work on a US campus (as a graduate student and as a teaching assistant) and my nature preservation work in the small arctic nation of Iceland. I discuss how and why I became attracted to the political potential of feminist poststructuralist theories. This is discussed in light of my supervision of mostly white young women in a teacher education programme in a large Midwestern university. I consider the institutional strength of the discourse on classroom management, grounded in curriculum taxonomy and educational psychology, over environmental education and feminist and critical pedagogy. These issues are examined in relation to my struggle to make a liveable reality for myself as a teaching assistant; after all, pedagogical decisions are usually pragmatic solutions (strategies) to immediate problems. I tell the story of one man's pedagogical decision‐making process and trajectory of identity formation in which personal history, political beliefs, discursive and institutional power, and immediate problems interact. The article unfolds in several layers: narrative stories about the feminist party in Iceland (Kvennalistinn), my work as a ranger in Iceland, and my work as a teacher in Iceland and the USA; the trajectory of me working through issues of feminist theories and my practice as a teacher during my stay in the USA (that is, identity formation); and a postscript concerned with pedagogical and academic implications of the story that is presented.

Birt í Gender and Education, 6 (3), 1994, bls. 293-306 

Nýmarxísk kennslufræði

Ágrip greinarinnar Capable of Resisting and Entitled to Lead: On the Historical Conditions of the Neo-Marxist Educational Discourse frá 1992:

This article examines the assumptions about resistance and leadership in selected literature on critical pedagogy and argues that the idea of resistance in critical pedagogy (as well as its siblings empowerment and voice) is rooted in traditional notions of Marxist vanguard politics that consider the trade-unionized White male working class as the entitled leaders of the revolutionary movement. The article records a "pre-history" of the ways that resistance and leadership were conceived before they were taken up in critical pedagogy and traces out how European traditions and practices that have influenced the production of neo-Marxist educational theory are perpetuated in North American academia. The article draws not only on written sources but on the author's knowledge of the European Marxist-Leninist movement itself. Further, the bases for central concepts in critical pedagogy, such as counter hegemony and transformative intellectuals, are examined. Then, attention is paid to aspects of leadership practices in the field of critical pedagogy. It is argued that inside Marxism there is a theory and practice of elitist leadership notions and that this practice is replicated among contemporary critical pedagogues. The article insists that this practice needs to be recognized, abandoned, and retheorized. Birt í tímaritinu Educational Policy, 6 (3. hefti), bls. 298-318. Það var sérlega gaman að rekast á ágripið á netinu því að netfangið mitt á þessum tíma var [e-mail].

Uppeldi og menntun - 1. hefti 2011

Út er komið vorhefti tímaritsins Uppeldis og menntunar með fjölbreyttu efni. Fyrsti hluti þess er viðtal við Jón Torfa Jónasson sem tók við starfi forseta Menntavísindasviðs þegar Háskóli Íslands og Kennaraháskóli Íslands sameinuðust. Í viðtalinu lýsir Jón Torfi sjónarmiðum sínum til menntunar og spyr gagnrýninna spurninga um helstu viðfangsefni nútímans og úrlausnarefni framtíðarinnar. Sjá efnisyfirlit.

Í heftinu eru fjórar ritrýndar greinar og fimm ritdómar um sex rit úr flokkum námsefnis og rannsókna. Ritrýndu greinarnar spanna ólík viðfangsefni á sviði menntunarfræða og fjalla um orðaforða, leikskólastefnur, námskrá hönnunar og smíði og loks námsmat í grunnskólum. Þrír dómanna eru um nýjar bækur og námsefni á sviði kynjajafnréttis ætlaðar þremur ólíkum skólastigum, einn dómur er um tvær bækur um tónlistarkennslu og einn er um bók sem lýsir rannsókn um aðstæður nemenda með þroskahömlun.

Tímaritið uppfyllir núna 17 skilyrði af 18 sem tímarit eru metin eftir í stigakerfi fræðimanna í háskólunum og telst þannig standa jafnfætis mörgum erlendum tímaritum að gæðum og höfundur fær 15 stig í launakerfi háskólafólks fyrir birtingu greinar í tímaritinu. Leiðbeiningar fyrir greinarhöfunda eru á netinu, bæði á íslensku og ensku.

Hægt er að panta áskrift og einstök tölublöð hjá SRR í síma 525 5980 eða á netfangið [e-mail]. Nýjum áskrifendum gefst kostur á að kaupa eldri rit á afsláttarverði. Uppeldi og menntun er einnig fáanlegt í Bóksölu kennaranema, Stakkahlíð, Bóksölu stúdenta, Hringbraut og í öllum stærri bókaverslunum. Eldri árgangar tímaritsins eru nú komnir á vefinn timarit.is og yngri árgangar eru birtir á vef tímaritsins, með eins árs birtingartöf.