My dissertation project

In 2006, Sweden introduced a law prohibiting discrimination and other degrading treatment of children and students, which was replaced in 2009 by the Discrimination Act (SFS, 2018:800). These legislative changes were followed by amendments to the Education Act (SFS, 2018:800) to counteract degrading treatment and discrimination in accordance with the Discrimination Act. The Swedish school system thus has an inclusion mission that can be described as broad from an intersectional perspective on inclusion. This means inclusion based on how several forms of inequality and discrimination are interconnected over time and in different contexts, contributing to students being excluded in various ways.

Research on discrimination and degrading treatment in schools often focuses on how students experience being subjected to such treatment, which is, of course, important knowledge. However, it is also of interest to understand how the opposite is experienced and realized, to contribute to an understanding of how inclusion can be practically implemented. Furthermore, research on how inclusion can be translated into pedagogical practice often concerns how teachers and/or schools relate to and act or should relate to and act. However, it is not the student who speaks or is heard in the general discussion about what inclusion in school can mean in practice. Students' perspectives can provide critical insights and approaches that can help develop both research and practice in new ways. Additionally, the student perspective contributes to consistency in purpose and procedure, as Messiou (2006 External link.) expresses it: "Listening to children's voices is a manifestation of being inclusive" (Messiou, ibid, p.9).

Work on inclusion and anti-discrimination in schools is often linked to disciplines other than pedagogy, such as sociology in the form of bullying and classroom management, sociology in the form of the school's social work, or philosophy in the form of critical perspectives on pedagogical work. However, Korsgaard & Mortensen (2017) argue that "inclusive education researchers need to begin to ask educational questions of inclusion, as opposed to inclusive questions of education" (ibid, p.1245). This is the driving force behind the present dissertation project. The starting point is that inclusion and anti-discrimination in schools are of a general didactic nature as understood within the continental didactic educational tradition (ibid). I want to place this work at the core of teaching and as a given but often forgotten goal for didactic reflections and actions. General didactics represent the knowledge that belongs to the teaching profession itself, such as the teacher's professional development, the social life of the class, and the societal context of the school.

To grasp how general didactic inclusion work is carried out, not in theory but in practice through inclusion in didactic practice, an approach that goes in-depth is needed. An approach that goes beyond the surface, the formal, what everyone theoretically agrees on, that "of course, no student should be discriminated against or degraded." A way that describes what really happens, what is experienced, what results in students actually feeling included. Therefore, my dissertation project has a phenomenological approach, primarily based on the theories of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. Phenomenology helps describe the complexity of the phenomenon of inclusion as general didactic work, from the students' perspectives.

The study was conducted in upper secondary schools with upper secondary students. They are at the end of their school time and have had the opportunity to experience inclusion or, for that matter, discrimination in many different ways. They also encounter many different teachers in their school day and can therefore compare their experiences, which can make them clearer. Upper secondary students are assumed to have a broad repertoire of experiences to describe. In the empirical data, they talk not only about their current experiences but also about experiences from their entire school time. The material was collected in six different upper secondary schools of varying character and with different student bases through surveys (N:624 students), interviews (N:21 students), and creative workshops (2 classes). In the production of material, creative methods in accordance with the approach within Art Based Research were used.

In the phenomenological analysis of the material, three overlapping didactic dimensions in the teacher's work emerge, which from the students' perspective contribute to inclusive education: didactic persona, didactic alliance and didactic action. The dimensions interact and overlap in accordance with a venn diagram described as interwoven inclusive education (IIE). Furthermore, the students describe the outcome of inclusive education as a constantly interacting educational process that involves the students' experience of themselves, the atmosphere in the group and the student's willingness and interest in learning and development. The results of the study can contribute to new perspectives on the school's inclusion work, through the students' statements because “Students' experiences can contribute to ‘a critical edge’ and in this way ‘add a distinctive perspective for developing changes in learning and teaching that go well beyond traditional views of effective practice’ (Ainscow & Messiou, 2017, p. 5). The study also contributes with didactic understanding and didactic concepts regarding teachers' work against discrimination and harassment in schools, since teachers' professional language is the didactic

Norm-critical perspectives

Since the early 2000s, I have worked in various ways to develop the norm-critical perspective, both as a teacher educator and author. I have published several books and articles in the field and educated about the concept and its pedagogical implications both within teacher education and as a freelance educational consultant. To read more about this work, visit my website External link.. I have also been involved in initiating the Nordic, interdisciplinary research network Shifting Grounds External link., which aims to develop and promote the theoretical framework and concepts around norm-critical perspectives in academic work across disciplines.