What has happened with the image of the working class? The hero in the construction of the Nordic... more What has happened with the image of the working class? The hero in the construction of the Nordic Model was the labor movement (and the working class). For a long time, this was the dominant picture of the Norwegian working class. However, the societal trends of the past decades have, in a peculiar way, given the working class a central place in political discussions and in the public sphere, but now, a more ambivalent image emerges. In a somewhat paternalistic way, the worker image in political and academic debates as well as in part of the public sphere is typically that of a person unsuccessful in the educational system. Even a third image is identifiable in the public sphere-a prejudice imagery-in which the class is labelled as unhealthy, abusing the welfare system, culturally unsophisticated, and politically dangerous, moving toward right-wing populism. The ambition of the paper is to present these different images of the working class.
I denne artikkelen tar forfatterne opp til diskusjon Verdens helseorganisasjon (WHO) sin anbefali... more I denne artikkelen tar forfatterne opp til diskusjon Verdens helseorganisasjon (WHO) sin anbefaling for barn og unge om 60 minutter fysisk aktivt daglig, og et eksempel på hvordan denne helsebaserte anbefalingen blir innført som tiltak i norske skoler. Ved hjelp av sosiologiske begreper analyserer forfatterne hvordan fenomener, som for eksempel manglende fysisk aktivitet blant barn og unge, blir formulert som et samfunnsmessig problem og knyttes til handlinger og sosiale grupper. Deretter hvordan slike problemer og løsninger trekkes inn i skolen. Artikkelen analyserer hvilke konsekvenser det kan få for undervisningen og for elevene når det helsebaserte konseptet om fysisk aktivitet blir transformert og operasjonalisert i skolen gjennom det fylkeskommunale eksemplet «Liv og røre». Resultatene viser at det medisinske helseaspektet ved fysisk aktivitet for barn og unge som WHO formidler, også knyttes opp mot kognitive ferdigheter og akademiske prestasjoner og skolens samfunnsmessige ma...
In 2020 the new National Curriculum, Knowledge Promotion Reform 2020, was implemented in Norwegia... more In 2020 the new National Curriculum, Knowledge Promotion Reform 2020, was implemented in Norwegian schools. In this article we present a detailed empirical analysis of the relationship between competence aims, core elements (disciplinary knowledge and transversals skills) and interdisciplinary topics in the National Curriculum. The discussion is limited to the school subject social studies at the secondary level (ages 13-15). The findings provide practical knowledge about the curricula that will prove useful for teacher educators and teachers. In the second part of the article, we discuss the implications of the findings and call for a theoretical informed discussion of (1) governance in school, (2) the content of curriculum, and (3) the teachers’ professionalism. We conclude that the curriculum structure is exceptionally complex, lacking both logical integrity and consistency. And since the digital module seems to obscure rather than amend this flaw, we suggest that “formalistic ob...
European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology, 2021
In recent years, much attention has been paid to the white working class’ concern with their decl... more In recent years, much attention has been paid to the white working class’ concern with their declining position in the neoliberal era. The hypothesis that social and economic insecurity provoke ang...
It is well documented that educational achievement in Western societies is related to family back... more It is well documented that educational achievement in Western societies is related to family background. Yet we know less about how people who have completed university degrees experience the importance of their education. How is education related to the different culturally embedded structures of nation states? How do highly educated people perceive the pertinence of their education? Such questions are rarely posed in the literature on social class, but recent research on the middle class in Britain offers a background for comparisons. Based on results from interviews with a sample of people having higher educational diplomas, the article discusses the particularities of the Norwegian case. We find much ambivalence over class identification and there is a remarkable tendency to downplay the importance of education. Our findings indicate that the Norwegian middle class has internalized egalitarian values embedded in Norwegian culture and thus, compared to the British case, more ofte...
Nordisk tidsskrift for pedagogikk og kritikk, Dec 1, 2017
I denne artikkelen undersøker vi hvordan norske videregående skoleelever presenterer seg selv. El... more I denne artikkelen undersøker vi hvordan norske videregående skoleelever presenterer seg selv. Elevene har tatt med et bilde de synes er viktig til intervjuet og dette dannet utgangspunktet for en refleksjon om hva de opplever er viktig i sitt liv og i samfunnet. Problemstillingen er todelt: Hva rapporterer skoleelever som viktig i sine liv og hvordan skal vi forstå det mønsteret som trer fram? Dataene antyder et kulturelt mønster hvor de unge søker etter kollektiv og grupper de kan knytte seg til heller enn å frigjøre seg fra. Vi spør derfor hvorvidt vi bør utvikle en tenkning om tilknytning snarere enn individualisering.
In recent decades, economic and social differences have increased in many Western countries. The ... more In recent decades, economic and social differences have increased in many Western countries. The consequences of these societal changes are higher unemployment and more insecurity within the working class. Hostile attitudes towards the poor and immigrants have grown in scale and intensity, leading to claims of a crisis. However, these attitudes are not as common among the ethnic Norwegian working class as they are in the United States and France. Workers in Norway are more hostile towards the rich than vulnerable groups. In contrast with those in the United States and France, it appears that the working class in Norway still struggles for recognition of its societal role and political identification, and this ‘struggle’ is still fought against the economic elite.
Histories of statistics and quantification have demonstrated that systems of statistical knowledg... more Histories of statistics and quantification have demonstrated that systems of statistical knowledge participate in the construction of the objects that are measured. However, the pace, purpose, and scope of quantification in state bureaucracy have expanded greatly over the past decades, fuelled by (neoliberal) societal trends that have given the social phenomenon of quantification a central place in political discussions and in the public sphere. This is particularly the case in the field of education. In this article, we ask what is at stake in state bureaucracy, professional practice, and individual pupils as quantification increasingly permeates the education field. We call for a theoretical renewal in order to understand quantification as a social phenomenon in education. We propose a sociology-of-knowledge approach to the phenomenon, drawing on different theoretical traditions in the sociology of knowledge in France (Alain Desrosières and Laurent Thévenot), England (Barry Barnes...
What has happened with the image of the working class? The hero in the construction of the Nordic... more What has happened with the image of the working class? The hero in the construction of the Nordic Model was the labor movement (and the working class). For a long time, this was the dominant picture of the Norwegian working class. However, the societal trends of the past decades have, in a peculiar way, given the working class a central place in political discussions and in the public sphere, but now, a more ambivalent image emerges. In a somewhat paternalistic way, the worker image in political and academic debates as well as in part of the public sphere is typically that of a person unsuccessful in the educational system. Even a third image is identifiable in the public sphere-a prejudice imagery-in which the class is labelled as unhealthy, abusing the welfare system, culturally unsophisticated, and politically dangerous, moving toward right-wing populism. The ambition of the paper is to present these different images of the working class.
I denne artikkelen tar forfatterne opp til diskusjon Verdens helseorganisasjon (WHO) sin anbefali... more I denne artikkelen tar forfatterne opp til diskusjon Verdens helseorganisasjon (WHO) sin anbefaling for barn og unge om 60 minutter fysisk aktivt daglig, og et eksempel på hvordan denne helsebaserte anbefalingen blir innført som tiltak i norske skoler. Ved hjelp av sosiologiske begreper analyserer forfatterne hvordan fenomener, som for eksempel manglende fysisk aktivitet blant barn og unge, blir formulert som et samfunnsmessig problem og knyttes til handlinger og sosiale grupper. Deretter hvordan slike problemer og løsninger trekkes inn i skolen. Artikkelen analyserer hvilke konsekvenser det kan få for undervisningen og for elevene når det helsebaserte konseptet om fysisk aktivitet blir transformert og operasjonalisert i skolen gjennom det fylkeskommunale eksemplet «Liv og røre». Resultatene viser at det medisinske helseaspektet ved fysisk aktivitet for barn og unge som WHO formidler, også knyttes opp mot kognitive ferdigheter og akademiske prestasjoner og skolens samfunnsmessige ma...
In 2020 the new National Curriculum, Knowledge Promotion Reform 2020, was implemented in Norwegia... more In 2020 the new National Curriculum, Knowledge Promotion Reform 2020, was implemented in Norwegian schools. In this article we present a detailed empirical analysis of the relationship between competence aims, core elements (disciplinary knowledge and transversals skills) and interdisciplinary topics in the National Curriculum. The discussion is limited to the school subject social studies at the secondary level (ages 13-15). The findings provide practical knowledge about the curricula that will prove useful for teacher educators and teachers. In the second part of the article, we discuss the implications of the findings and call for a theoretical informed discussion of (1) governance in school, (2) the content of curriculum, and (3) the teachers’ professionalism. We conclude that the curriculum structure is exceptionally complex, lacking both logical integrity and consistency. And since the digital module seems to obscure rather than amend this flaw, we suggest that “formalistic ob...
European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology, 2021
In recent years, much attention has been paid to the white working class’ concern with their decl... more In recent years, much attention has been paid to the white working class’ concern with their declining position in the neoliberal era. The hypothesis that social and economic insecurity provoke ang...
It is well documented that educational achievement in Western societies is related to family back... more It is well documented that educational achievement in Western societies is related to family background. Yet we know less about how people who have completed university degrees experience the importance of their education. How is education related to the different culturally embedded structures of nation states? How do highly educated people perceive the pertinence of their education? Such questions are rarely posed in the literature on social class, but recent research on the middle class in Britain offers a background for comparisons. Based on results from interviews with a sample of people having higher educational diplomas, the article discusses the particularities of the Norwegian case. We find much ambivalence over class identification and there is a remarkable tendency to downplay the importance of education. Our findings indicate that the Norwegian middle class has internalized egalitarian values embedded in Norwegian culture and thus, compared to the British case, more ofte...
Nordisk tidsskrift for pedagogikk og kritikk, Dec 1, 2017
I denne artikkelen undersøker vi hvordan norske videregående skoleelever presenterer seg selv. El... more I denne artikkelen undersøker vi hvordan norske videregående skoleelever presenterer seg selv. Elevene har tatt med et bilde de synes er viktig til intervjuet og dette dannet utgangspunktet for en refleksjon om hva de opplever er viktig i sitt liv og i samfunnet. Problemstillingen er todelt: Hva rapporterer skoleelever som viktig i sine liv og hvordan skal vi forstå det mønsteret som trer fram? Dataene antyder et kulturelt mønster hvor de unge søker etter kollektiv og grupper de kan knytte seg til heller enn å frigjøre seg fra. Vi spør derfor hvorvidt vi bør utvikle en tenkning om tilknytning snarere enn individualisering.
In recent decades, economic and social differences have increased in many Western countries. The ... more In recent decades, economic and social differences have increased in many Western countries. The consequences of these societal changes are higher unemployment and more insecurity within the working class. Hostile attitudes towards the poor and immigrants have grown in scale and intensity, leading to claims of a crisis. However, these attitudes are not as common among the ethnic Norwegian working class as they are in the United States and France. Workers in Norway are more hostile towards the rich than vulnerable groups. In contrast with those in the United States and France, it appears that the working class in Norway still struggles for recognition of its societal role and political identification, and this ‘struggle’ is still fought against the economic elite.
Histories of statistics and quantification have demonstrated that systems of statistical knowledg... more Histories of statistics and quantification have demonstrated that systems of statistical knowledge participate in the construction of the objects that are measured. However, the pace, purpose, and scope of quantification in state bureaucracy have expanded greatly over the past decades, fuelled by (neoliberal) societal trends that have given the social phenomenon of quantification a central place in political discussions and in the public sphere. This is particularly the case in the field of education. In this article, we ask what is at stake in state bureaucracy, professional practice, and individual pupils as quantification increasingly permeates the education field. We call for a theoretical renewal in order to understand quantification as a social phenomenon in education. We propose a sociology-of-knowledge approach to the phenomenon, drawing on different theoretical traditions in the sociology of knowledge in France (Alain Desrosières and Laurent Thévenot), England (Barry Barnes...
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