Även om ”en skola på vetenskaplig grund” idag är ett högaktuellt ämne är det ingalunda något nytt fenomen. I artikeln studeras tendenser i policyinitiativ som de senaste 25 åren haft till syfte att forskningsbasera den svenska skolan. Utgångspunkt tas i de problembilder som framkommer i policy samt vilka modeller för forskningsbasering som samtidigt lyfts fram som lösningen på dessa problem. Resultatet pekar mot att det de senaste 25 år har skett en succesiv förskjutning från indirekta till mer direkta initiativ. Under 1990-talet och det tidiga 2000-talet var många policyinitiativ ordnade utifrån att främst vilja skapa de rätta förutsättningarna för en forskningsbasering av skolan. Under 2000-talet blir initiativen alltmer fokuserade och ambitiös med syfte att åstadkomma direkta förändringar i lärares undervisning. När det kommer till modeller för forskningsbasering blir det samtidigt alltmer tydligt hur policy vänder sig till och söker legitimitet hos delvis nya aktörer och institutioner, som exempelvis hälso-sjukvården. Med detta går det också att urskilja en insnävning vad gäller att definiera och innehållsligt välja ut vilken forskning som bör sprids till skolans aktörer. Konsekvensen med en sådan modell för forskningsbasering menar vi kan bli att läraren främst får inta rollen som passiva mottagare av forskning.

Leda lärande är en vänbok till professor emeritus Per Gerrevall vid Linnéuniversitetet. Ett tjugotal medverkande kollegor, forskare och lärare tar upp olika aspekter av ledning och ledarskap i olika pedagogiska kontexter och verksamheter. De olika verksamhetsområdena som tematiseras i boken är akademi och högre utbildning, idrottsfältet och de pedagogiska professionerna.

Kapitlen i boken anknyter till några av de forsknings- och verksamhetsområden som Per arbetat inom under en lång framgångsrik och inspirerande karriär inom akademin. På temat leda lärande ger bokens innehåll olika infallsvinklar på hur pedagogiska praktiker utvecklas och förfinas genom de ställningstaganden och val som framsynta lärare och ledare gör. Det gäller såväl inom högre utbildning, där ledare märker ut frågor, perspektiv och utforskningar inom kunskaps- och forskningsfronterna. Det gäller inom idrottsfältet där de goda och framgångsrika ledarna ser nästa steg i talangens utveckling. Och, det gäller också inom utbildning och skola där den pedagogiska ledaren tillsammans med de studerande märker ut mål och navigerar mot uppsatta mål i de lärandes bildningsgång.

Bokens olika kapitel ger sammantaget en rik repertoar av nycklar för att leda lärande på ett kvalificerat sätt och för att tackla några av de utmaningar som lärandefrågorna, internationellt och nationellt, står inför i en tid av stora samhälleliga omställningar. Alla med intresse för frågor om ledning, lärande och pedagogik har utbyte av bokens olika kapitel såväl som i professor Per Gerrevalls verk och gärning.

This paper relies on a systematic review of literature concerning competence-based education  (CBE) approaches, specifically focusing on curriculum implementation and assessment of key competences. The paper aims to provide a synthesis of the state of the art with regard to educational research that focused on competence-based education and curricula covering a period of 20 years – starting with 1997 as the first year after UNESCO’s Jacque Delors report in 1996 (Delors, 1996). It is relevant to undertake the study as very little is known from the educational research perspective how curriculum implementation and assessment of key competences have been shaped under CBE approaches within and across national education systems, or what research questions have been addressed when examining the competence-based curricula. As Davies (2000) has argued, educational policy and practice gain much from systematic reviews and research syntheses.

General description of research questions, objectives & theoretical framework

The following research questions are addressed in the paper: (1) How much research is reported in the peer reviewed literature about implications of CBE approaches to curriculum implementation (CI) and assessment of key competences (AKC)? (2) What research methodologies are used to conduct research in CBE-related CI and AKC domains? (3) What are subject matter domains, educational levels, and geographical distribution of the studies in CBE-related CI and AKC research? The main objective is to gain a better understanding of CBE-based CI and AKC findings internationally. Theoretically, the study adopts from the curriculum-didaktik approaches as two main education traditions in the Western world that shape to a large extent, for example, what education policies are implemented in school systems (Hopmann, 2015; Tahirsylaj, Niebert, & Duschl, 2015).

Methods/methodology/approach/mode of inquiry

This study is a systematic review, and more specifically it falls within ‘narrative reviews’ category as the goal is not to seek generalizations but to identify and analyze key issues related to CBE from educational research perspective (Davies, 2000; Educational Research Review, n.d). The search strategy will rely on Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) framework (Liberati et al., 2009), which is one of the most established frameworks for systematic reviews and meta-analyses. The PRISMA framework outlines key stages to search for the articles, develop inclusion and exclusion criteria and evaluate articles that are part of the sample. We used the following 4 search terms: ‘competence-based education’, ‘competence-based curriculum’, ‘key competences’, and ‘key competencies’ in five major international social science databases, including: ERIC; Scopus; Springer Link; Taylor & Francis Online; and Web of Science.

Links to conference theme(s), where appropriate

The paper goes to the core of the main conference theme as the paper literally deals with the transnational curriculum inquiry by examining how the educational research has addressed CBE curriculum implementation and assessment of key competences over past 20 years.

References

Davies, P. (2000). The relevance of systematic reviews to educational policy and practice. Oxford Review of Education, 26(3-4), 365-378.

Delors, J. (1996). Learning: the treasure within. Paris: UNESCO.

Education Research Review [ERR]. (n.d.). A guide for writing scholarly articles or reviews for the Educational Research Review. Retrieved from: https://www.elsevier.com/__data/promis_misc/edurevReviewPaperWriting.pdf

Hopmann, S. (2015) ‘Didaktik meets Curriculum’ revisited: historical encounters, systematic experience, empirical limits. Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, 2015:1, 27007, DOI: 10.3402/nstep.v1.27007

Liberati, A., Altman, D. G., Tetzlaff, J., Mulrow, C., Gøtzsche, P. C., Ioannidis, J. P. A., … Moher, D. (2009). The PRISMA Statement for Reporting Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses of Studies That Evaluate Health Care Interventions: Explanation and Elaboration. PLoS Medicine, 6(7), e1000100. http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000100

Tahirsylaj, A., Brezicha, K., Ikoma, S. (2015), Unpacking Teacher Differences in Didaktik and Curriculum Traditions: Trends from TIMSS 2003, 2007, and 2011, in Gerald K. LeTendre, & Alexander W. Wiseman (Eds.) Promoting and Sustaining a Quality Teacher Workforce (International Perspectives on Education and Society, Volume 27) Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.145 – 195.

Tahirsylaj, A., Niebert, K. & Duschl, R. (2015). Curriculum and didaktik in 21st century: Still divergent or converging? European Journal of Curriculum Studies. 2(2), pp. 262-281.  

To understand and explain the new meanings of teaching, with all its varied expressions, the focus needs to be directed towards communication about and between different arenas. Education involves relations in large as well as small contexts. Teachers cannot be expected to create meaningful relations between students and school content alone. Schooling is embedded in larger societal narratives of the benefits and purposes of schooling, both for the individual and for society as a whole, which is the reason it is important to explore the meaning and consequences of educational reforms. All educational reforms carry a specific discourse on education that explains the ways education and its current and future prospects are understood at a certain time and in certain spaces. By studying a specific reform, it is possible to examine the types of expressions the reform content contains for different arenas as well as the affinity involved in relation to other contemporary educational policy movements.

Discourse approaches in education policy analysis have gained prominence in the last decade. However, though the literature on policy discourses is growing, different conceptions of the ‘discursive’ dimension and its potential for empirical analysis related to the field of curriculum policy have not yet been fully researched. To address this gap in education policy research, this article explores the framework of discursive institutionalism. Using background and foreground ideas and coordinative and communicative discourses on three analytically distinct levels, this article proposes and discusses a framework for empirically analysing, explaining and understanding education reforms on the transnational and local levels. The introduced conceptual framework represents an integration of discursive institutionalism (DI) and curriculum theory (CT) to provide a more multifaceted set of concepts to explore the lending and borrowing of transnational education policies and their application at both national and local levels. These concepts have been applied as analytical tools in a research study on the most recent curriculum reform in Sweden, and they may serve as an example of how different ideas, discourses and levels can be distinguished in research studies to maintain the complexity of education reforms.