My research focus is leadership in the classroom, internationally mostly discussed as classroom management. When I did my PhD thesis I found that teachers construct pupils, girls and boys, which in different ways disturb the teaching. Pupils that were constructed as being disturbing were often corrected in different ways. The corrections were more or less thought through and couldn’t be understood as strategies. Teachers used corrections as multi-functional tools and tried their way regarding their functionality.
In a later study I found that teachers in 2013 generally experienced the same pupil behaviour as teachers did in 1998, and that very few changes regarding teachers’ experiences of misbehaviour have happened during the last 15 years. I have also studied sloyd teachers’ experiences of disturbing pupils and how they handle them in school. Partly because many pupils mean that sloyd is the best subject in school and partly because there is not much research focusing on sloyd didactics and sloyd teachers’ work.
During the last 5 years, my research has focused on computer simulations and in what way they can be used in teacher training as a way of training teacher students’ ability to lead in the classroom. Together with other researchers at LiU, I have constructed and tested four different computer simulations and examined teacher students’ opinions of leadership in the classroom. We found that computer simulations is stimulating teacher students’ reflections on leadership in the classroom. We also found the teacher students had a good ability to identify different opinions and that they found control to be the most important factor for their future work. We also found that many of the students enter their profession with an identified insecurity concerning how to use leadership in the best possible way. This result can be understood as an expression of the importance of flexibility or a situational awareness, and an opinion that ONE way to act as a leader doesn’t always work.
In a later study I found that teachers in 2013 generally experienced the same pupil behaviour as teachers did in 1998, and that very few changes regarding teachers’ experiences of misbehaviour have happened during the last 15 years. I have also studied sloyd teachers’ experiences of disturbing pupils and how they handle them in school. Partly because many pupils mean that sloyd is the best subject in school and partly because there is not much research focusing on sloyd didactics and sloyd teachers’ work.
During the last 5 years, my research has focused on computer simulations and in what way they can be used in teacher training as a way of training teacher students’ ability to lead in the classroom. Together with other researchers at LiU, I have constructed and tested four different computer simulations and examined teacher students’ opinions of leadership in the classroom. We found that computer simulations is stimulating teacher students’ reflections on leadership in the classroom. We also found the teacher students had a good ability to identify different opinions and that they found control to be the most important factor for their future work. We also found that many of the students enter their profession with an identified insecurity concerning how to use leadership in the best possible way. This result can be understood as an expression of the importance of flexibility or a situational awareness, and an opinion that ONE way to act as a leader doesn’t always work.
I mainly teach at the teacher programme, the special education programme and the special needs training programme. My teaching mostly covers my areas of interest: leadership and social relations, didactics and methods such as observation and ethnography as well as scientific and popular writing. My teaching is mostly lectures and seminars. I’m also a tutor and assistant tutor for several PhD students and licentiates.
