Justice through participation: student engagement in Nordic classrooms

ABSTRACT

In this article, we approach large questions regarding justice and equality in the Nordic classrooms. A substantial body of previous research emphasises the importance of student engagement in teaching and learning. Drawing on video data from Norway, Sweden and Finland, we focus on whole-class teaching, i.e. situations in which the teacher addresses the class from the front of the classroom, to investigate justice trough participation. We have approached our topic through two concerns: student participation in classroom discourse and student engagement as providing access to content. Our findings seem to pose some serious challenges for the Nordic welfare society vision of classrooms as core societal hubs for justice and equality. While whole-class teaching is one of the primary tools available for attempting to achieve justice and equality for all, this interaction format seems to contain inherent constraints that do not support equitable student engagement. Further, the way the Nordic classrooms have responded so far to the massive digitisation in their societies seems to pose serious questions rather than provide comforting answers.

KEYWORDS:

• student engagement and participation
• classroom discourse
• access to content

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kirsti Klette

Kirsti Klette is Professor at the Department of Education and School Research, University of Oslo. Her research interests are classroom research and instructional quality She is currently leading the large-scale classroom video study Linking Instruction and Student Achievement (LISA),and the eInfrastructure for video research (eVIR) project

Fritjof Sahlström

Fritjof Sahlström is Professor in Education at Åbo Akademi university in Finland. His research has focused on the organisation of interaction in educational settings, on developing ways of documenting and analysing classroom interaction relying on Conversation Analysis, and on the relationships between interaction, participation and social reproduction.

Marte Blikstad-Balas

Marte Blikstad-Balas is Associate Professor at the Department of Education and School Research, University of Oslo. Her research interests are literacy and how texts are used in school across subjects. She is currently a part of the large-scale classroom video study Linking Instruction and Student Achievement (LISA).

Jennifer Luoto

Jennifer Luoto is a PhD student at the Department of Education and School Research, University of Oslo. Her research interests are classroom research and comparative education. She is currently working in a large-scale classroom video study Linking Instruction and Student Achievement (LISA).

Marie Tanner

Marie Tanner is Assistant Professor at the Department for Educational Studies, University of Karlstad. Her research interests are classroom interaction and changing literacy practices. She is currently working in a video study about new literacy practices owing to the digitisation of upper-secondary classrooms, and in a study of Swedish classrooms in the LISA project.

Michael Tengberg

Michael Tengberg is Associate Professor at the Department of Educational Studies, Karlstad University. His research topics include issues related to the process of reading and reading instruction, classroom interaction and the validity of reading assessment practices, e.g. reading comprehension tests.

Astrid Roe

Astrid Roe is Professor at the Department of Education and School Research, University of Oslo. Her research interests are reading and writing instruction across subjects, assessment of reading and the use of test results to improve students’ reading literacy. She is part of the large-scale classroom video study Linking Instruction and Student Achievement (LISA).

Anna Slotte

Anna Slotte is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Helsinki. Her research interests are learning in multilingual settings in and outside school, video ethnography and (digital) literacy. She is currently working in a video study about literacy practices in digitalised upper-secondary classrooms (Textmöten).