Beyond Individual Matters: Sloyd Teachers posts in a Facebook group
2019 (English) In: Techneserien : forskning i slöjdpedagik och slöjdvetenskap. B, ISSN 1238-951X, Vol. 26, no 2, p. 1-15Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
The reason for conducting this study was two-fold: sloyd teachers have over a period of time expressed a need for fellow sloyd teachers at their workplace in the beginning of 2016 felt that there had been an “attack” on their subject. Using thematic analysis, we studied 334 posts written by participants in a Facebook group called Nationellt Resurscentrum (National Resource Centre) during an “ordinary” month, April 2016. The results show that the posts were mainly concerned with the exchange of teaching experiences, functional discussions concerning matters such as internal and external conditions related to sloyd as a school subject, and information sharing related to the teachers’ own continuing professional development, such as invitations to specific lectures. In terms of community of practice theory, the results of this study can be interpreted as demonstrating that this specific Facebook group strengthens the sloyd teacher community and allows them to initiate and assert ownership of discussions related to their profession. The result also shows that posts in this specific Facebook group made it possible for the members to transform individual competencies into a collectively possessed skills “toolbox” beyond individual matters
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages Helsinki, Finland: Nordiskt Forum for Forskning och Utvecklingsarbete inom Utbildning i Slöjd , 2019. Vol. 26, no 2, p. 1-15
Keywords [en]
Experience exchange, Functional discussions, Information sharing, Communities of Practice, Sloyd Teachers IntroductionSocial media such as blogs, Twitter and Facebook have become useful resources for networks of teachers. Such platforms have given teachers new opportunities to comment and to share knowledge, information and teachingmaterials with each other (Hew & Hara, 2007; Liljekvist, 2016). Furthermore, it also offers the ‘members’ to ask questions and to get response from other members within the group. A foreshadowed problem (Malinowski, 1922) wasthat social media could be regarded as an arena for extended workplace learning.Previous research strengthens the assumption that Facebook could be an important communication and social networking tool (Aydin, 2012; Rutherford 2010). For this study, we have followed in the footsteps of such researchers as (Bissessar, 2014; Lacatus, van Bommel, & Olin-Scheller, 2017; Bissessar, Liljekvist, von Bommel, & Olin-Scheller, 2018). In so doing, we studied sloyd teachers and their communication within the context of a teacher-administrated Facebook interest group. This public group, is known as the Nationellt resurscentrum för slöjd (National Resource Centre for Sloyd). It could be described as a community of practice for people who share an interest in the specific phenomenon of sloyd. The Facebook group, which started in November 2012 (Frohagen, 2012), is open to participants with an interest for sloyd and school sloyd who have been accepted by the group’s administrators.This specific study of posts in the Facebook groupsNationellt resurscentrum för slöjd (National Resource Centre for Sloydduring spring 2016 was interesting for some reason. An article in the trade journal Uttryck(Expression) demonstrates the fact that Facebook groups can be important to Swedish
National Category
Educational Sciences
Identifiers URN: urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-161435 OAI: oai:DiVA.org:liu-161435 DiVA, id: diva2:1366960
2019-10-312019-10-312020-03-03 Bibliographically approved