Phd

My Phd-project is entitled «Can content create community? Exploring curriculum centered education for social learning and belonging in class.»

Over the next three years I will be exploring, through theory, curriculum analyses and class room observation, how the contents of core and subject curriculum in Norwegian and Science influence student social learning and sense of belonging in Norwegian lower secondary education. The project is inspired by researchers Selma Therese Lyng and Ingunn Marie Eriksen, who in their recent book (Elevenes Psykososiale skolemiljø, 2018) identify gaps in the current repertoire for bullying prevention. One such gap is the lack of strategies to enhance social cohesion and sense of belonging in the «formal we» of the school class. They point to the concept of «community building didactics» developed by Danish researchers Helle Rabøl Hansen and Helle Plauborg  as one potential strategy to overcome this gap.

While school practitioners and discourses traditionally position activities related to community, bonds and wellbeing among students as something separate from – and partly in opposition to – learning activities, community building didactics are characterized by an integrated approach to the curricular and the social. (Plauborg, 2011)

This project aims to further explore «community creating didactics» in a Norwegian context and to investigate how already existing curriculum strategies and practices can be understood in light of this concept. My overall research questions is: How does curriculum centered education influence students’ social learning and sense of belonging in class? I will also be asking:

  1. On what theoretical basis can we understand and explore curriculum centered education to influence students’ social learning and sense of belonging in class?
  2. What are goals and strategies for enhancing social learning and students’ sense of belonging in the new national curriculum?
  3. How do teachers and students’ intra-act social learning and sense of belonging in curriculum centered education?

As part of my research I will be looking for examples of schools and practices that have an integrated approach to developing academic and social learning in school subjects.
If you have comments or tips regarding the project, please don’t hesitate to get  in touch on Twitter or ResearchGate.

Here are some of my works so far: