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Vad bör läras ut? Hur ser ämnesexperterna på frågan om ämnesinnehållet i samhällskunskap som skolämne och som

Abstracts are sequentially numbered from P1 to P

Slot 4 – Social Science P

2. Vad bör läras ut? Hur ser ämnesexperterna på frågan om ämnesinnehållet i samhällskunskap som skolämne och som

perspektiven? Vilka är de viktigaste aspekterna att undervisa om inom ett antal områden knutna till statsvetenskapens subdiscipliner?

Hur bör man lära ut? Hur ser ämnesexperterna, avseende såväl skolämnet som lärarutbildnings-ämnet, på frågor om hur ämnesteori bör undervisas? Denna fråga kommer att fokusera på ämnesexperternas syn på olika

lärandestrategier. Slot 5 – Social Science P13

Writer and title Janna Lundberg

Institution and country Institution of Educational Sciences, Lund University, Sweden

E-mail address Janna.lundberg@uvet.lu.se Abstract title

Observational studies of Social Science class: World Alienation and Privilege in the face of nothingness

Observational studies have been conducted in a classroom of high-achieving, wealthy-acting, well-behaving students throughout three years of upper

secondary school. Social science has been taught to the class during the observations.

The findings are understood within the analytical frame of Hannah Arendt’s concept of World Alienation in contrast to classical theory of alienation

(Arendt, 1981, 2006; Arendt & Retzlaff, 1998). Privilege and being further adds to how World Alienation and responsibility for Arendt’s “common world” clashes. In these cases some of Simone de Beauvoir’s writings on privilege and

bourgeoisie has been useful (Beauvoir, 1992; Beauvoir, Simons, Timmermann, & Beauvoir, 2012).

The bourgeois/conservative code of conduct that dominates the school, the class and the way they work with social science, stands out as an ambiguity in perspective to the dominating view of Swedish school system and social science as an egalitarian, equality-producing unit (Englund, 2005).

Through micro-studies of social interaction during social science class, small, hardly noticeable, signs of resistance has been noticed. The different relations to power and powerlessness has also been investigated closely – the surface show of a teacher leading its students is under the surface being read as students leading and controlling their teacher as the conditions of their education is understood further.

The last but most intriguing result of the study is how nothing-ness

characterizes the activity in social science class – no noice, no destruction, no critique, no failure, no influence for students, no presence of “the other”. This is understood within frames of Sartres ideas of nothingness (Sartre, 1969). References

Arendt, H. (1981). The life of the mind: San Diego, Calif. : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981

1. one-volume ed.

Arendt, H. (2006). The Crisis in Education Between past and future : eight exercises in political thought (pp. 170-193). New York: Penguin Books.

Arendt, H., & Retzlaff, J. (1998). Människans villkor : vita activa: Göteborg : Daidalos, 1998 (Uddevalla : Mediaprint)

Rev. utg.

Beauvoir, S. d. (1992). För en tvetydighetens moral (M. Rosengren, Trans.): Göteborg : Daidalos, 1992 ; (Uddevalla : Bohusläningen).

Beauvoir, S. d., Simons, M. A., Timmermann, M., & Beauvoir, S. d. (2012). Political writings. [Elektronisk resurs]: Urbana : University of Illinois Press, c2012.

Englund, T. (2005). Läroplanens och skolkunskapens politiska dimension / Tomas Englund: Göteborg : Daidalos, 2005 (Lettland).

Sartre, J.-P. (1969). Being and nothingness : an essay on phenomenological ontology: London : Routledge, 1969.

P14

Writer and title Nora E. H. Mathé

Institution and country Universitetet i Oslo, Norge E-mail address n.e.h.mathe@ils.uio.no

Abstract title How do 16-year-old students characterise political issues?

The majority of studies focusing on youth and politics look at adolescents’ interest, trust and participation in, attitudes toward and knowledge about formal politics. Despite a decline in conventional forms of political

participation among youth, several studies refute the claim that today’s youth are apathetic and unengaged in politics. We know little, however, about what adolescents see as being political issues, and what issues they see as more

16-year-olds characterise political issues and their reasoning behind the criteria they give for categorising an issue as political. The findings reported in this paper are based on semi-structured interviews with nine 16-year-old students in five different upper secondary schools in the east of Norway. In general,

students seemed to have quite similar views on what constitutes more and less political issues. Most frequently mentioned was that the more political issues are the “big” and “important” ones and issues that affect many people. Two specific examples are repeated by several students, namely the

environment/global warming and the currently ongoing refugee crisis. These issues cut straight to the core of several of the criteria given by students.

Gender equality was also mentioned as an example of a political issue by several students. However, when asked whether the activities of the family at home are political, the students said no. This issue, then, is characterised both as political and as private by several students. The students' criteria for categorising an issue as political, the students’ specific examples of highly political issues, and the case of gender equality will be discussed.

References

Barry, N. (2000) An introduction to modern political theory (4th ed.) (Basingstoke, Palgrave).

Held, D. (1991) Political theory today (Cambridge, Polity Press).

O'Toole, T. (2003). Engaging with Young People's Conceptions of the

Political. Children's Geographies, 1(1), 71-90. doi: 10.1080/14733280302179 Sloam, J. (2007). Rebooting Democracy: Youth Participation in Politics in the UK. Parliamentary Affairs, 60(4), 548-567. doi: 10.1093/pa/gsm035

of Young People in the United States and Europe. Comparative Political Studies,47(5), 663-688. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0010414012453441 P15

Writer and title Niels Nørgaard Kristensen & Trond Solhaug Institution and country Ålborg University - Norwegian University of

Science and Technology E-mail address Trond.solhaug@plu.ntnu.no

Abstract title

Party choice and family influence in the age of modernity:

Students´ reflections on sources of political

influence on their party choice as first time voters in a Norwegian election-implications for voter education

Abstract

This paper focuses on how young, first-time voters reflect on the sources of influence on their party choice, as they approach recent (2013) parliamentary election in Norway for the first time. Party identification has traditionally been seen as a result of family influence on social (class) identity or professional belonging. This is well documented by the Michigan school of political

research in the sixties (Converse, 1960; Holmberg, 2008). This view has led to the much tested hypothesis of transfer of political orientations from one

generation to another (Jennings & Niemi 1974). Later, modernists like Giddens (1991) or Beck (1986) argue that social and political orientations are first and foremost characterized by reflexivity. This imply that young people’s social and

political orientations are a result of their reflections of self, and their identity, and perceptions of whom they wish to constitute their self as. In this process, their upbringing and cultural background are less predominant, which lead to the hypothesis that; young people’s choice of party as first time voters is first and foremost a result of their self-reflections and search for their political self. A selection of 30 first-time voters in upper secondary school was interviewed about their party choice. In the analytical procedures, we read and coded the interviews on self-reported family influence and self-reported reflexivity. We found that young voters reflect considerably over their choice, but the influence of family environment was surprisingly strong. A majority of the voters

reported that their upbringing has had strong influence on their orientations, particularly where parents showed great political interest. In the analysis of voters´ reasoning, all of the voters somehow acted rationally using available information from a variety of sources for reflective purposes. Particularly, these first-time voters reflected on party choice and their political self, but the family influence was most often voiced as basis for their reflections. This way the hypothesised family influence is supported more strongly than the modernity hypothesis. We suggest that political education should take account of this and allow for reflexivity in the formation of the students´ political self.

Keywords: Political identity, first-time voters, Voter Advice Applications, participation, social studies, voter education.

Slot 6 – Science/Technics and Mathematics

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