This article draws from data produced during subject theory lectures and in conversional interviews with students from an ongoing ethnographic study of mathematics teacher education at a Swedish University. Using Bernsteins' language of description of the pedagogic device the article describes how the aims of teacher education to re-contextualise…

Many studies into learners' ideas in science have reported that aspects of learners' thinking can be represented in terms of entities described in such terms as alternative conceptions or conceptual frameworks, which are considered to describe relatively stable aspects of conceptual knowledge that are represented in the learner's memory and…

This paper analyses changes in the governance of universities as a result of growing demands from society as well as of a strong penetration of management ideology into all kinds of institutions. For this purpose the paper uses a theoretical framework focusing on two governance mechanisms in social systems: entry control and performance control.…

Four specific schemas of cognitive structures that adolescents may hold concerning interpersonal disagreements with their parents were identified, each reflecting an authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, or a neglecting parenting style. To examine the occurrence of such schemas across high and low levels of psychosocial adjustment, 120 Swedish…

During the last decades, an increasing awareness has developed that humankind will have to make important decisions about the environment which will demand substantive knowledge of critical ecological phenomena such as the production and decomposition of biomass (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). As a biology teacher the…

Describes a study of the understanding of basic electrical concepts shown by 15-17 year-old students in England, France, Netherlands, Sweden, and West Germany. Reports substantially the same pattern of learning difficulties across countries. Provides sample items. (Author/YP)

The conceptions of information needs of seven American and seven Swedish mechanics employed by a Swedish multinational machine industry are compared by using perspective text analysis to analyze their verbal responses to three open-ended questions concerning their need for work-related information. The structures embedded in the texts are…

This newsletter describes an ongoing empirical field study involving a description and analysis of practical teaching situations aimed at describing the content and structure of pupils' frames of reference. The project takes the form of a series of case studies in classes of the 3-year lines of upper secondary schools in Sweden. The study seeks to…

Describes five ways that high school students explain a chemical change. Discusses the differences in conceptual understanding of the students based upon their responses to questions about simple reactions. Presents additional classifications of conceptions of chemical reactions done by other researchers. (TW)

This paper describes the BUD project which surveyed childrens' conceptions of division, and of fractions and decimals. The lack of connection between counting skills and conceptual understanding is discussed. The expectations for new algorithms and the basic idea in planning the BUD project are summarized. Some previous studies on counting, the…

The study of consciousness requires a language for exact and precise communication. This research project investigated how workers from different cultural contexts value information that is relevant to their job performance. Thirty-five randomly selected mechanics, from Sweden, England, West Germany, Italy, and the United States, were selected as…