Abstract
To make an educational situation meaningful for students necessitates more content than just subject content (Östman, 1995). Subject matter is always taught within an educational context (Roberts, 1982). The context, which could be seen as an indispensable part of the content, is communicated to students by teachers through speech and action during the conduct of teaching (Sund & Wickman, 2008). The context in which subject content is taught is here called the socialisation content (Englund, 1998). Policy level discussions are often focusing mainly on subject matter integration (UNESCO, 2005). The differences in the view on educational content could be the main gap between people on policy level and practice.
One important point of departure for this exploratory and empirical study is that the learning of subject content and socialisation content occurs simultaneously, and together they constitute the educational content. This study focuses on the socialisation content communicated by ten upper secondary teachers, which is studied through their messages to students. These might be different messages about the subject content or different messages in the teaching process.
The starting points for teachers’ value-related and often hidden choices of socialisation content are of common political interest. These therefore need to be made visible, rather than implied or insinuated as a kind of tacit background.
Methodology
Data were gathered through 60-80 min. long interviews with teachers who regularly taught a mandatory course in general science. The teachers were asked to describe how they conduct their teaching by describing: the content -what, the methods -how and the purposes -why. Teaching purposes can be framed on many levels and can include purposes within the subject or the subject field at a micro-level, as well as far-reaching purposes of goals for students’ schooling on a macro-level, which aim towards consequences in the societal life of students.
The analysis is founded on the pragmatist tradition associated with John Dewey. What we might call beliefs are actually patterns or habitual ways of making arguments or acting. According to Dewey (1922), an analysis of such habits does not mean comparing repeatedly simple behaviours as in the behaviouristic research tradition, but rather looking at the more complex approaches to life. In this sense a habit is not always something that can be explicitly expressed by the teacher, but can be discerned through reflection, either by an interviewer or by an interviewee, as patterns of one’s own action (Wickman, 2004).
Conclusion
The aim of this study is to contribute to a better developed knowledge of the socialisation content, an indispensable part of the content in environmental education and education for sustainable development. By using an analytical tool developed in earlier research (Sund, 2008) is possible to discern some important differences in the socialisation content within three selective traditions of environmental education (Öhman, 2004).
2011.