What do we understand as “teaching”, and how is it created? SLATE Researcher Fride Haram Klykken will defend her PhD thesis, which shows how bodies, objects, rooms, processes and practices are active parts of creating what we understand as teaching.
Teaching can often be understood as the spoken and physical actions performed by a teacher, which students receive. In this thesis, Fride Haram Klykken shows that teaching is a much more complex process, which includes social, bodily and spatial relationships and practices.
Klykken has carried out a video-ethnographic study in a «Media and Communications» classroom at a Norwegian high school. With a basis in sociomaterial theories, Klykken has done detailed analyses of video and audio recordings of the teacher and students’ work during two bigger project periods. These analyses show how bodies, objects, rooms, processes and practices are active parts of creating what we understand as teaching.
The thesis consists of three articles. The first article shows how the researcher uses informed consent as an ethical tool throughout the entire research process, including during the phases before, during and after the field work. The second article shines a light on how teaching can be understood as a spatial and bodily process. The third article shows how many material practices are involved in producing the phenomenon of teaching, including task and friendship practices.
One of the main arguments of the thesis is how each teaching situation weaves different practices together, forming a complex set of limitations and possibilities for the actions of the students and the teacher. This makes each teaching situation unpredictable. Therefore, the thesis argues for a more nuanced and procedural understanding of teaching as part of the evaluation of education quality, teaching education and further research.
Trial Lecture and PhD Defense
Fride Haram Klykken’s trial lecture will take place at 10:00 – 10:45 at Bjørn Christiansens hus (Christies gate 12), in Auditorium 129. The topic is: "What can sociomaterial theories bring to discussions of the quality of educational practice?"
The PhD defense will take place at the same venue, at 11:15 - 14:15. The first opponent for the thesis is Professor Dorte Marie Søndergaard, from the Danish School of Education - Educational Psychology, Emdrup, Aarhus University. The second opponent is Professor Monika Nerland, from the Department of Education at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Oslo.
All are welcome to attend the trial lecture and the PhD defense!
Bio
Fride Haram Klykken (born 1980) grew up on the island Valderøya, outside of Ålesund. She has a master’s degree in Pedagogy from the University of Bergen, a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) from the University College of Art and Design in Bergen (now part of the Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design at UiB), and a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from the Glasgow School of Art.
Fride works as a Researcher for SLATE at the Faculty of Psychology at UiB, but her PhD scholarship was provided through the Department of Education, also at the Faculty of Psychology. The supervisors for Fride’s thesis are Associate Professor Gunn Elisabeth Søreide and Associate Professor Gry Heggli.
At SLATE, Fride is currently working on the transnational game research and development project DALI. The DALI project supports adult learners in acquiring and developing basic data literacy skills and key competences in informal contexts, through the use of games.
