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Powerful knowledge, transformations and the need for empirical studies across school subjects'. London Review of Education, 16 (3): 428-444. AbstractIn this article, we explore the concept of 'powerful knowledge' which, from a curriculum studies perspective, refers to the aspects of content knowledge towards which teaching should be oriented. We then consider how the concept of 'powerful knowledge' can be developed and operationalized as a research framework within studies in subject-specific didactics across the curriculum by relating it to the analytical concept of 'transformation'. Transformation is perceived in this case as an integrative process in which content knowledge is transformed into knowledge that is taught and learned through various transformation processes both outside and within the educational system. We argue that powerful knowledge cannot be identified based on the discipline alone, but needs to consider transformation processes and be empirically explored. A variety of theories and frameworks developed within the European research tradition of didactics are described as ways to study transformation processes related to powerful knowledge at different institutional levels as well as between different subjects and disciplines. A comparative research framework related to subject-specific education is proposed around three research questions.Powerful knowledge, transformations and the need for empirical studies across school subjects 429London Review of Education 16 (3) 2018

In the present paper, we report findings from a study of performance appraisal interviews between middle managers and employees. The study is based on analysis of video uptake of authentic performance appraisal interviews, and through detailed examination of participant conduct and orientation, we point to structural mechanisms and institutional norms which limit the possibilities for employees to raise topics connected to negative experiences of stress in performance appraisal talk. It is argued that norms concerning ideal employeeship are shaped by a partly hidden curriculum in the organization which in turn is talked into being in the performance appraisal interviews. The study concludes that empirical attention to the social interplay in performance appraisal interactions reveal how participant conduct aligns or disaligns with institutional and social underpinnings of workplace ideals. KEy wOrdSPerformance appraisal interview / ideal worker / staff development / conversation analysis / hidden curriculum.

This paper takes an interest in how schools and teachers dealt with new demands when teaching rapidly went online during school closures related to the COVID-19 pandemic, in what we see as an example of emergency remote teaching. The aim is to make visible how schools and teachers dealt with the demands that they were confronted with while under hard pressure during emergency remote teaching, and what discursive frames are used in upper secondary teachers’ pedagogical considerations. Fifteen teachers of history, mathematics and Swedish (five from each subject) are followed in recurring interviews between April 2020 and September 2020, resulting in a total of 41 interviews. A narrative approach is used in the analysis and results show how teachers made large efforts to maintain teaching in what can be described as a crisis organization. Three main discourses are identified: (a) a strong assessment discourse; (b) a relational discourse; and (c) a compensatory discourse. The findings are discussed in the light of educational policy based on the so-called Nordic model and the idea of one-school-for all, and in relation to what becomes possible to teach as well as what is not possible to do in times of crisis.

As teachers' informal professional development is visible in social media, this study probes teachers' participation in self-organized Facebook groups in mathematics or Swedish-language education. In total, 553 posts from six Facebook groups were categorized using Shulman's knowledge-base framework, and analysed using systemic functional grammar. Teachers use "questions" and "offers" most frequently (88%). Within these speech functions, pedagogical content knowledge dominates (63%), indicating that these groups constitute professional learning communities that teachers use as a professional development resource, focusing the interaction on pedagogical content knowledge. This study finds a largely similar practice in Facebook groups across the two subjects.