Abstract

Tribes, Territories and Commons in Teacher Education - Looking backwards on a mode2 curriculum effort

Harald Jarning, Oslo University College, Norway

For a decade the faculty at the teacher education program for basic school teachers at Oslo University College have been involved in common and subject based development work. Within the department multidisciplinarity - “flerfaglighet” - have gained acceptance as catchword for systematic and at the same time modest cooperation across subjects to contribute to common professional qualification of new teachers. A multidisciplinary orchestration of curricula, teaching, and assignments have been key features in the cooperation between subjects also including placement periods. The presentation will elaborate on key phases and contributions of the local collaboration as well as on the partly common and party subject based didactic repertoire that have been developing.

A guiding idea in the collaboratory efforts have been that more open approaches to todays world of specialized knowledge might also be helpful for further understanding of common grounds and common educational tasks. This orientation can be seen as a move towards a Mode 2 notion of crossdisciplinary collaboration. From this understanding it is relevant to approach the education of general teachers as a professional education within the core areas of the modern system of disciplines.

A recurrent pattern have been that ‘outsiders’ have met the cooperative efforts with a fragmented reception, combining positive evaluation of particular features with little attention toward the collaborative framework. In recent national policies as well as in teacher education research (Haug 2010) the traditional pattern with pedagogy alone in the function as the professional and the epistemic glue in the program, have gained position as dominant strategy to prevent fragmentation. Attempts to bring focus on multidisciplinary as a Mode2 alternative to the more onesided knowledge strategies, have yet had difficulty in gaining more systematic attention. The paper will elaborate on ways to analyse this predominance of less differentiated knowledge strategies in teacher education.

Background literature
Bjarnø, V. et. al: Flerfaglig samarbeid i fagdelt lærerutdanning. Mimeo. Oslo University College, 2011
Gibbons, M et al.: The New Production of Knowledge. London 1994
Haug, P (red.): Kvalfisering til læraryrket. Oslo 2010
Hudson, B, P. Zgaga and B. Åstrand (ed.) Advancing Quality Cultures for Teacher Education in Europe: Tensions and Opportunities. Umeå 2010