Trial lectures - time and place
Adjudication committee
- 1. Opponent: Professor B.A.J. (Johannes) Westberg, Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, University of Groningen,The Netherlands
- 2. Opponent: Professor Merethe Roos, Faculty of Humanities, Sports and Educational Science, University of South-Eastern Norway, Norway
- Chair of the committee: Professor Kirsten Sivesind, Department of Education, University of Oslo, Norway
Chair of defence
Professor Palmyre Pierroux, Department of Education, University of Oslo, Norway
Summary
This dissertation in the history of education examines how practices in Norwegian teacher education are institutionalized, legitimized, problematized, and changed through the interaction between academic and political actors from 1930 to 2010. The study draws on academic and political documents related to a total of eight reforms in Norwegian initial teacher education. Based on philosopher Michel Foucault’s concept of ethos, the dissertation explores teacher education practices as conditions for shaping teachers as ethical and critical actors in society. It also highlights how teacher education perpetuates and contributes to changes in fundamental values in Norwegian cultural and societal development.
Changes in Norwegian teacher education are presented through three main sections of the dissertation. The first part illustrates how the period between 1930 and 1940 was characterized by complementary tensions between political and academic actors, facilitating both formation and individualization, as well as cultural development and criticism. The second part demonstrates how education between 1945 and 1987 became intertwined with the development of the welfare state and the reconstruction of democracy after the war. National authorities attributed a significant role to academic councils in developing teacher education as class teacher training, emphasizing social and solidarity practices rooted in the newly established social sciences. Critics of the welfare state strategy contributed to weakening the role of science. Instead, reflection and dialogue were emphasized in teacher education in the 1970s. The dissertation’s final part shows how authorities between 1988 and 2010 facilitated the strengthening of both the national canon and teachers’ professional skills and competence in an increasingly multicultural and knowledge-based society. From the turn of the millennium, an international discourse contributed to strengthening effective practices leading to measurable learning outcomes. Teacher education and teachers were granted a degree of freedom and responsibility, alongside an increasing bureaucratic control.
In summary, the dissertation demonstrates how teacher education practices between 1930 and 2010 are institutionalized and legitimized based on a constantly shifting balance between cultural educational institution and vocational and professional education. The conditions for teachers as ethical and critical actors change within the same dynamics. The dissertation is based on historical methodology inspired by Foucault’s genealogy. By exploring the difference between the present and the past, the study reveals what characterizes contemporary teacher education. It shows that teacher education in present time is characterized by blurred and fluid boundaries between political and academic actors, and thus also between the governance of teachers and teachers’ own self-governance. This dissertation also demonstrates how teacher education from the late 20th century onwards perpetuates and contributes to performative practices and result orientation, while solidarity practices are downplayed, and freedom made ambiguous.