Handledning av självständiga arbeten är en omfattande pedagogisk verksamhet inom högre utbildning och ingår i de flesta universitetslärares undervisningsvardag. Samtidigt är uppsatshandledning på många sätt speciell. Exempelvis ställs det höga krav på studenters självständighet, samtidigt som handledaren får en tätare och mer långvarig relation till studenten än normalt. Dessa speciella villkor ställer handledaren inför nya frågor och utmaningar:

• Hur kan jag stötta studenten i uppsatsarbetet och samtidigt uppmuntra självständighet? 

• Var drar jag gränsen mellan en professionell och en mer personlig handledningsrelation? 

• Hur mycket kan jag berömma och bekräfta studenten när det är en examinator som sätter betyg?

I den här boken ligger fokus på hur handledning ser ut och fungerar i praktiken. Genom exempel från verkliga handledningssituationer och teoretisk diskussion av dessa, behandlas handledares uppfattningar om självständighet, relationen mellan handledare och student, känslornas betydelse i handledningsprocessen, olika handledningsverktyg för självständighet, och handledarens roll som bedömare.

Handledning i praktiken kan användas i handledningskurser inom högskolan, men också som underlag för kollegiala diskussioner av frågor relaterade till handledning och uppsatsskrivande. 

Independence is a concept of scholarly interest in relation to higher education, especially when it comes to undergraduate projects. At the same time independence is characterised by a certain conceptual ambiguity, and, consequently, tends to be understood differently in different academic contexts, both nationally, internationally and interdisciplinary. Based on the existing research in the field, we see a need for more studies on how supervisors of undergraduate projects handle this conceptual ambiguity. The aim of this article is, thus, to examine how supervisors from two different education programmes, teacher education and journalism, in two different countries, Sweden and Russia, understand the concept of independence within higher education in connection with the supervision of undergraduate projects. The analysis is based on 12 focus-group interviews with supervisors at different universities in the two countries. In our results, we highlight and discuss seven different understandings of independence that were recurrent in our material and in which phases of the undergraduate project they were seen as most significant. Using Wittgenstein’s ideas on family resemblances, we conclude with a discussion of how the concept independence may be understood in relation to some associated concepts that are also significant within higher education.

Under de senaste decennierna har Sverige genomgått stora demografiska och politiska förändringar. Tillsammans har dessa inneburit att Sverige idag samtidigt är ett av Europas mest sekulariserade och mest mångreligiösa länder. Den snabba demografiska förändring Sverige har genomgått har ställt många inför nya, stora och i vissa fall skyndsamma kunskapsbehov samtidigt är forskningen om situationen delvis eftersatt. I denna rapport identifieras hur den nya situationen relaterar till det lagstadgade uppdrag som svenskt polisväsende, vård, skola och offentlig förvaltning har. Den forskning som gjorts inom dessa områden sammanfattas och de viktigaste forskningsbehoven identifieras.

Young people are constantly confronted with pictures and ideas of what it means to be young. Some of these ideas concern political interest and involvement. The prevailing view, which is evident in research and media, is that young people in general are not interested in politics. But those who are politically engaged are portrayed as radical in their views, and as more prone to using radical methods than grown-ups. This view is connected to the negative picture of the "young activist", which is related to the historically based idea of young people as a potential threat to the established society. Furthermore, there exists an image that young people are only interested in politics when it is considered trendy. In this article, the author addresses how some of the young people in Attac and the Social Forum movement have experienced the expectations such ideas give rise to, and how their political engagement is formed in interaction with such ideals.

När studenter ska skriva sin första stora uppsats, det vill säga det som i högskoleförordningen betecknas ”självständigt arbete”, möter de delvis andra krav och förväntningar än de stött på tidigare under sin utbildning. Det kan gälla till exempel hur självständiga de förväntas vara, men också att de ska skriva en text som inte bara visar vad de själva har lärt sig utan som också andra kan lära sig av. För några är detta en spännande utmaning, som de ser fram emot, men för andra kan uppgiften framstå som skrämmande och stressande. Hur ska man som kursansvarig kunna entusiasmera och motivera studenter för uppgiften att skriva sitt självständiga arbete, när man samtidigt vill få dem att inse att uppsatsarbetet kan vara både svårt och utmanande och att de måste arbeta hårt för att klara av det?

I denna artikel använder jag scaffolding som teoretisk utgångspunkt för att reflektera över detta, i ett resonemang runt vad stress och stöttning kan innebära i detta sammanhang och hur relationen dem emellan kan se ut. Jag utgår från mina erfarenheter som kursansvarig på en självständigt arbete-kurs på ett av lärarutbildningens program.

A person’s identity, both social and personal, can be said to be constituted by several different aspects, such as gender, age, ethnicity, class and also religious affiliation. In a country like Sweden, where only a small number of youths are involved in religious organizations, it is, however, not necessarily uncontroversial for youths to present themselves as religiously active. To openly declare your religious commitment, places you in particular collective identities associated with certain beliefs or stereotypes that may challenge norms surrounding how Swedish youths are expected to think, behave and act. This article examines how a number of youths, active in the Christian youth organization of one of the Swedish free churches, present themselves and their religious involvement to friends at school. The results show different strategies used for handling experienced or anticipated reactions to their involvement in a religious organization and the collective identities they may be ascribed because of it.

The purpose of this article is to examine the learning processes that take place when youths from non-religious homes become active in religious youth organisations. The empirical foundation for the article consists of interviews with Swedish youths who are active in youth organisations belonging to free church denominations. The experiences and reflections of the interviewed youths are analysed in terms of communities of practice, situated learning and conversational learning and discussed in relation to socialisation processes. The results show that more organized learning situations, led by adults or youth leaders within the congregation, are of some importance for the learning within the groups. But that friends and peers also play an imperative role for these youths from non-religious homes, when it comes to learning how to behave and what to believe, as well as knowing what can be said and what shouldn't be mentioned in the context and group they become a part of. The article finally underlines how learning about the values, expectations and practices within a religious group or organisation, is not necessarily the same as actually embracing them.

This presentation is based on a qualitative research project involving young people who are active in an evangelical church in Sweden. Using their narratives and experiences as a starting point, I will discuss how religious values and beliefs can be transmitted to and within a group of young Christians, and how this process may involve negotiation, interpretation and reinterpretation of those values.

For young people, who are active in a congregation and its youth organization, religious transmission takes place on several levels and in various environments. There is for instance an official religious message that comes e.g. from the adult representatives of the main congregation, and from the youth leaders. Here the communication is in many ways quite direct, and it may involve a level of discipline, that becomes visible if the implicit and explicit rules within the congregation are not followed. But there is also an ongoing process within the youth group, where beliefs and values are discussed and transmitted within the peer group. The communication process on this level is in several ways different, since the relations and power relations between the individuals are different.

In their everyday lives, the participants in my study also encounter ideas about what it means, or should mean, to be a young Christian today, in contexts outside the church, such as in school. Such more general conceptions are subsequently related to their own faith and the more specific ideas and values that are transmitted in the church context.

Purpose

The aim of this article is to examine if and how supervisors’ use of two kinds of potential scaffolding means - asking questions and giving instructions - could contribute to fulfilling the scaffolding intention of student independence, in the context of supervision of degree projects within higher education.

Design/methodology/approach

The article is based on qualitative content analysis of two series of supervision meetings between a supervisor and a student in Swedish higher education, comprising a total of eight recorded sessions. The theoretical framework of the article is centered on scaffolding and independent learning, and central concepts are contingency, fading, transfer of responsibility and student independence.

Findings

The analysis shows how the supervisors’ use of questions, and in some respect instructions, could contribute to fulfilling the scaffolding intention of student independence through enabling active participation of both student and supervisor and that the supervision was based on contingency. The analysis further shows that the supervisors tended to become more directive as the work came along, especially when students appeared to be running out of time. The supervision processes did thus not appear to be characterized by fading and transfer of responsibility.

Originality/value

This article contributes to the research field of higher education through discussing student independence as a potential scaffolding intention within supervision of degree projects, based on recorded supervision meetings. Supervision of degree projects is a highly relevant context for discussing scaffolding, since it combines increased student independence with close interaction between student and supervisor for an extended period.

Feeling at home? An emotion work perspective on involvement in a Christian youth organization

Author: Maria Zackariasson (Södertörn University)

Abstract

As this paper will discuss, being active in a religious organization is not something automatically accepted or uncontroversial among young people in Sweden, a society which in several aspects is characterized by a high level of secularization. Still, a number of youths are engaged in Christian youth organizations, even though they do not necessarily come from religiously active homes. What contributes to their choice to become active in this kind of organization and what makes them want to stay active there? These are questions discussed in this paper, which is based on a qualitative research project about young people active in the Christian youth organization Equmenia in Sweden.

The results from the project show that the experience of feeling at home, being able to be oneself and being part of a community where they felt everyone was accepted, were significant contributing factors for the youths' will to stay active in the organization. In the paper I use an emotion theoretical approach, with a focus on emotion work and everyday rituals and collective practices, to discuss how such an inclusive atmosphere and feeling of togetherness could be created. But also how such rituals and collective practices at times had the opposite effect, in the sense that they created atmospheres that could contribute to that certain situations and contexts were experienced as strange and unpleasant, and to that the youths felt out of place rather than at home.

Är demokratin i fara? Ja, åtminstone om man ska tro de som ser minskat föreningsdeltagande som ett problem. Men kanske är blicken felriktad. Inte alla sorters föreningsengagemang ses självklart som positivt ur demokratisynpunkt.

Denna bok handlar om ett sådant förbisett engagemang, och vad som driver det. Att som ung person vara aktiv i en religiös organisation i Sverige uppfattas vanligtvis av majoritetssamhället som en personlig angelägenhet, och kanske rent av som något avvikande eller suspekt. Gemenskapen – Deltagande, identitet och religiositet bland unga i Equmenia ifrågasätter denna bild.

Boken bygger på intervjuer med unga i den frikyrkliga organisationen Equmenia. Hur ser de på sitt eget engagemang? Varför har de valt att bli aktiva och vad får dem att stanna kvar? Hur uppfattar de att vänner och bekanta utanför kyrkan ser på dem? Ungdomarnas personliga erfarenheter och berättelser sätts i relation till mer övergripande frågor om hur engagemang skapas och upprätthålls, och hur ungas aktivitet i religiösa organisationer kan förstås som samhällsdeltagande och demokratisk skolning.

Maria Zackariasson är professor i etnologi vid Södertörns högskola, Stockholm.

Within Swedish higher education, there is an explicit focus on the importance of independence, not least in relation to degree projects, which makes it a significant issue within supervision. What student independence comprises and how it may be achieved, however, is rarely discussed, even though the expectations of independence may be a stressful aspect of degree projects for students. This article examines the role emotions may play in undergraduate supervision in relation to student independence, through analysing recorded supervision meetings and focus group interviews with supervisors. Based in a theoretical framework centred on the concepts affective practices, anticipated emotions and anticipatory emotions, it discusses how supervisors handled students’ expressions of fear and anxiety, joy and relief, and how anticipated emotions could be used as a didactic tool.

This article uses examples from the media debate on higher education in Sweden, as well as from a research project on independence in higher education, to discuss the significance of class and social background in relation to higher education. The article takes as its starting point how higher education in the media debate tends to be described as being in a severe crisis, and how the roots of the perceived problems in higher education are described to lie in deficits or incompetence of the individual students, but also within higher education itself. The discussion of what role class and social background may play in this, relates these examples to the assignment given to Swedish higher education institutions to promote widening participation and to the claims within the field of academic literacies that academic writing is not only a question of writing skills as such, but also a question of epistemological understandings, meaning making, and students’ background, identity and self-perception.

The purpose of the thesis is to analyse the cultural processes that arise when a group of people come to live together and share part of their everyday lives. It is based on a ten months fieldwork in two so-called student corridors, a form of student housing, in Uppsala. The central issues concern how community is created and maintained, but also why some people become outsiders.

This thesis is also a contribution to the new youth research, where youth is seen as a socially and culturally regulated category and used as an analytical tool. Another term that is used to analyse events and relations in the groups, is culture, which is seen as an ongoing process in which individuals are active participants. The corridors are the students’ home but in the common areas, such as the kitchen, the privacy of the home is intermingled with public spheres. Therefore the relation between public and private becomes a significant topic, as does the relationship between the group and its individual members. The dissertation also employs a new concept of power, which is applicable to the small, intimate environments that are examined. In order to understand the power structures fully, a gender analytical perspective is applied, that connects power use on an interactional level with gender power on a structural level.

At the same time as the thesis gives insight into the everyday lives of young college students, it also gives new perspectives on how small groups work, from a cultural analytical point of view.

The Swedish national school curricula for pre-school and for the compulsory school system include an explicit focus on gender issues, connected to aspects such as gender equality and sexuality. The overarching aim is to promote all individuals’ opportunities to express themselves in whatever way they want to, without being hindered by implicit or explicit norms and traditions. My aim with this paper is to discuss how these issues can be incorporated in the teacher education, using a particular course at Södertörn University as my starting point. During this course, the students learn basic facts about how the body works, and the didactics for teaching this to small children. But they also learn about societal and cultural aspects of the body. Parallel to learning for instance about x and y chromosomes they have seminars on gender roles and sexuality, and so on. During the practicum period that is included in the course, the students are to create a lesson where they use a children’s book to talk about different kinds of families, and afterwards reflect upon their experiences in a short written paper. The suggested books are selected based on how they show family constellations that in various ways differ from the nuclear family, but the books also open up for discussions around having two mothers or two fathers, and thus the opportunity to talk about LGBT issues. In my paper I will discuss the experiences students have had when doing this assignment, using the written course papers as the basis for my analysis. The theoretical framework used for analyzing these experiences and examples includes the concepts masculinity, femininity and heteronormativity. The preliminary findings show that the students’ experiences differ considerably from each other, and that the focus on gender and sexuality that is present in the national school curriculum is not uncontroversial among the students or among the supervising teachers out in the schools.The paper is of relevance to Nordic educational research since it raises the issue of how gender and sexuality issues can be incorporated in the teacher education also for teachers for the younger age groups.

In a global perspective, Sweden is often regarded and described as one of the most secularised countries in the world. Compared to countries in the south of Europe, Latin America or the US, religion is seen as much less influential in society and in the everyday lives of the individuals. Even though this view incertain respects can be contested, Protestantism and the Church of Sweden are for instance still significant forces in the Swedish society, these views of Sweden as secularised, have consequences for the daily lives of young people who are practising a religion. Religion has for example not a very prominent place in the mainstream youth culture, and pronounced religious piety among youth is in the general discourse described as problematic rather than as commendable. So what is it like to be a practising Christian in a society and an environment where this is regarded as unusual at best and strange at worst? How are the religious rights of young people affected by the expectations they meet from parents and friends, but also from the school and the congregation they are a part of? How do they navigate between these different environments in their everyday lives? This presentation will be based on a qualitative research project involving young people who are active in one of the independent evangelical churches in Sweden: The mission covenant church. Their experiences of and views on being a practising young Christian in contemporary Sweden will be discussed in relation to concepts such as religious rights, youth culture, and fundamental values.

When the media writes about young people and political action, they usually focus on the big, spectacular demonstrations and protests. Those are the kind of political actions that are most visible to the public, and they thus get the most attention. In my study of political involvement among youth, based on interviews with young people in the Global Justice Movement, I show that many individuals see other, less visible ways of acting politically as just as important as the big manifestations. Seemingly trivial choices in everyday life; what you buy, what you eat, how you travel etc. are by them seen as political actions, in those cases when they are motivated by political opinions and values. To keep up a “politically aware” lifestyle is however not always easy. In my paper I give examples of how the interviewed individuals reason around the connection between such inconspicuous actions, their political involvement and their long term goal to change the world.