Trial Lecture
The trial lecture starts at 10.00.
Title: «Hvordan inngår emosjoner som del av læreres profesjonskunnskap, og hvilken betydning kan emosjoner ha for hvilke didaktiske valg lærere gjør seg i undervisningsøyeblikket?»
Public defence
The candidate will defend her thesis at 12.00.
Title of the thesis: «Student teachers' emotional experiences as a pedagogical phenomenon».
Ordinary opponents
- Associate professor Merete Wiberg, Danish school of education, Aarhus University
- Professor Trine Ørbæk, Department of Educational Science, University of South-Eastern Norway
- Head of studies Geir Aaserud, Department of Early Childhood Education, Faculty of Teacher Education and International Studies, OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University
Leader of the public defence
Roger André Federici, Dean of the Faculty of Education and International Studies, OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University.
Supervisors
- Main supervisor: Professor Anne Greve, Department of Early Childhood Education, OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University
Abstract
The overall aim of the thesis is to supplement empirical educational research on Bildung with a theory-developing exploration of student teachers' emotional experiences.
The purpose of the study is to gain insight into student teachers' emotional experiences in teacher education, as well as to discuss how these can have relevance as a pedagogical phenomenon.
The overarching research question for this thesis is: In what way can student teachers' emotional experiences be considered a pedagogical phenomenon in teacher education?
This overarching research question is explored through the following two sub-questions:
- What characterizes student teachers' emotional experiences during their teacher education?
- How can these experiences be taken care of in teacher education as a condition of possibility regarding the students´ Bildung process?
The study's theoretical perspectives are mainly based on John Dewey's (1980; 1895) concept of experience and his understanding of emotions as a changeable, integrated, and necessary phase of every experience.
In addition to this, the theoretical framework is phenomenologically informed, starting from Knud Ejler Løgstrup's (1956;1984; 1987;1996) concepts of omnipresence and attunement, in Maurice Merleau-Ponty's (2009) perspectives on intentionality, in Dan Zahavi's (2003) perspectives on intersubjectivity.
Furthermore, in Peter Goldie's (2000) understanding of the intentionality of emotions and finally in existential phenomenology with Søren Kierkegaard's (2014) and Paul Tillich's (2000) definitions of the term existential anxiety. Except for the concept of omnipresence, these theoretical concepts are referred to in the thesis' three articles.
Methodologically, the study is placed in a qualitative and phenomenographic research tradition. The study is article-based and consists of three articles and a dissertation in which the findings of the three sub-studies are summarized and discussed against the thesis's overall research question.
The empirical material has been analyzed using an abductive approach where the theoretical framework has developed in step with the development of the research questions, the collection, analysis, and interpretation of the empirical material.
The empirical material is firstly based on the experiences of four groups of student teachers, a total of 29 students over four years in connection with the students' three-month internships in Namibia and Uganda respectively.
The material consists of practice reports, logbooks, and a group discussion in addition to field notes taken from a three-day guidance workshop. Secondly, the empirical material is based on qualitative in-depth interviews with 11 student teachers, focusing on their emotional experiences during teacher education.
As an answer to the overall research question, the three sub-studies in the thesis contribute with a conceptualization of three different insights to describe what characterizes student teachers' emotional experiences during teacher education.
These three insights are shown in the conceptualization of 1) global awareness as an emotional matter, 2) the emotional phase of students' experiences, as a kind of sentimentalization and 3) anxiety as a condition of opportunity in teacher education.
Based on the results of the thesis, the thesis contributes with concrete suggestions on how teacher education can take care of the students' emotional experiences as a condition of opportunity for the students´ Bildung through teacher education.
