2024
Jens Erik Kristensen, Aarhus universitet, Danmark for the article: Pædagogik og/eller uddannelsesforskning og uddannelsesvidenskab? Danske konstellationer og spændinger, Nordic Studies in Education, 42(1), 30-49. DOI: https://doi.org/10.23865/nse.v42.3796
Kristensen’s paper takes a critical point of view at the Anglo-American understanding of educational research which has gradually spread under the term ‘educational sciences’ to the Scandinavian countries. According to the arguments in the paper, this interdisciplinary way of structuring educational research places education within a sociological, economic and political framework of understanding. This social scientific understanding of education will, according to the paper, undermine pedagogy as an independent research discipline at the universities and as an independent subject area in the teacher education programmes. In extension of this, the paper shows that the English concept of ‘education’ has become ‘uddannelse’ in the Danish context. The paper then reveals that the concept of ‘uddannelse’ is highly unclear and that it is used for political and economic matters. These conditions make it very difficult, if not impossible, to state what educational research and educational sciences are sciences of.
Kristensen’s paper makes an excellent conclusion to a long career in academia which has been characterised by major structural and conceptual transformations in the field of pedagogy. The strength of the paper is that it provides a profound critical analysis of this transformation, a criticism that comes from both outside and inside. While the critique from the outside occurs through descriptive causal explanations, the critique from the inside occurs by way of close readings, in which purposes, goals and motives of the phenomena are put into the framework of understanding. Through this outer perspective and in-close view, the normative influences are reduced, thus making the criticism more valid. All in all, Kristensen’s contribution falls within the main criterion of the Ahlström Award in that it reveals¾in a critical and scientific manner¾weaknesses in the new ways of structuring research, concerning fields that are related to school, pedagogy and education. The paper is a vibrant contribution when it comes to developing self-understanding of the subject and discipline of pedagogy, and it provides us with scientific reasons to continue developing answers to the very big question: why pedagogy?
2022
Frode Restad, OsloMet – Storbyuniversitetet . For artikkelen: Is There a Hole in the Whole-School Approach? A Critical Review of Curriculum Understanding in Bullying Research, Nordic Studies in Education, vol. 40, 4 /2020
This article is awarded The Ahlström Award because it has developed an outstanding and critical scientific contribution to NERA’s journal Nordic Studies in Education. By way of a critical research review of 29 studies, the article uncovers a possible underutilization of curriculum knowledge in bullying research. It is argued, through a clear and concise structure, that lacks of conceptual clarity and gaps in understanding the curriculum may obstruct the development of new and innovative approaches to prevent bullying in schools. Through its critical point of view, the article has thus found a possible knowledge gap that should be filled when it comes to bullying research connected to schools; namely, to include a clearer and broader understanding of the curriculum dimensions and narratives.
2019
Thomas Aastrup Rømer. Aarhus Universitet. For artikkelen: Kritik af John Hatties teori om visible learning. Nordic Studies in Education, vol. 37, 1/2017.
Since the publication of the book Visible learning: a synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement in 2009, John Hattie has had a major impact on Western education. Thus Hattie’s theories have been discussed eagerly by educational researchers and others. Thomas Aastrup Rømer’s paper – Kritik af John Hatties teori om visible learning – is an important contribution to this discussion. Specifically, the paper makes a precise and subtle critique of Hattie‘s work, hernce revealing several weaknesses in the methods and theoretical frameworks used by Hattie. Rømer and his critical contribution inform us that we should never take educational theories for granted; rather, educational theories should always be made subject to further research and debate.
2017
Educational leadership for sustained multi-level school development in Finland. A non-affirmative approach, Nordic Studies in Education, vol. 36, 2/2016
Michael Uljens, Rolf Sundqvist & Ann-Sofie Smeds-Nylund
”Educational leadership for sustained multi-level school development in Finland. A non-affirmative approach” documents important and sobering findings on the topic of educational leadership. The existence of regional differences are properly documented, in connection with both Nordic and international research. Whilst traditional research in educational leadership relates to the premise that ”pupil’s social and cultural background is one of the strongest predictors of school achievement” (p. 104), the authors of ”Educational leadership for sustained multi-level school development in Finland” make room for new questions and perspectives in a research field that has roughly moved in the same direction; or, as the authors themselves claim: “Although parental education predicts school performance well, some of the best scoring PISA pupils in Finland are found in rural regions with a relatively low parental educational level” (p. 105). Therefore, the article highlights the importance to develop understandings of how school success is related to regional conditions, and not only to parental education. As such, the authors create important knowledge that makes important contributions to the field of research on educational leadership by focusing on internal processes in schools in cooperation with regional conditions.
2015
Dennis Beach, Marianne Dovemark, Anneli Schwartz and Elisabet Öhrn receive the Ahlström Award for 2015 for the article ‘Complexities and Contradictions of Educational Inclusion: A Meta-Ethnographic Analysis.’ published in Nordic Studies in Education, 2013, no 4, p. 254-268.
The authors have an exciting and innovative approach to the theme of educational inclusion. Their article is both resilient and original, opening up new perspectives in a field that has changed a lot in recent years due to socio-economic changes, new developments in school policy and increased migration. The article also provides interesting suggestions for a discussion that not only goes on in the Nordic countries, but also internationally. As such, the article provides an important contribution in both the Nordic and the international debate. The article is well structured, and is characterized by an analysis which is clear and consistent. The use of method is innovative and helps to grasp important details which have previously been overlooked.
2013
Hansjörg Hohr, University of Oslo receives the Ahlström Award for 2013 for the article ‘Aesthetic quality in scientific experience: The problem of reference in John Dewey’s aesthetics’ published in Nordic Studies in Education, 2012, no 3-4, p. 196-208.
2011
Staffan Larsson receives the Ahlström Award for 2011 for the article ‘An emerging economy of publications and citations’ published in Nordic Studies in Education, 2009, no 1, p. 34-52.
2009
The Ahlström Award was not granted.
2007
Hannu Simola, University of Helsinki, Finland receives the Ahlström award for 2007 for the article “The Finnish miracle of Pisa: historical and sociological remarks on teaching and teacher education” published in Comparative Education 41:4, November 2005, pp 455-470.
The article is a well written, broadly based text adding new perspectives to the understanding of the success of the Finish comprehensive school in international measurements of school achievement. The article discusses the Finnish school, its teachers, their education and status in the light of historical and geopolitical aspects of Finnish societal development. A particular focus is on the development of the Finnish school in a country where de-industrialisation took place rather late and where different aspects of modernisation happened extremely fast in a homogeneous society which still is characterised by traditional and collectivistic ideals.
The article brings a much needed alternative perspective to our understanding of a current educational issue and presents a research based and independent position.
(The Jury: Ingrid Carlgren & Gunnar Handal)
2005
Yngve Troye Nordkvelle, Faculty of Social Science, Lillehammer University College. For the article “Didactics: From Classical rethoric to kitchen-latin”, Published in Culture & Society, 2002, 11(3), 315-330.
The statement of the jury: “Yngve Troye Nordkvelle is writing about such a theme that has been under research about 300 hundred years and still he has succeded to present some new viewpoints. The theme itself is a kind of watershed between European and Anglo-American approaches to the study of education.”
2003
Elina Lahelma, Department of Education, University of Helsinki. For the article School is for “Meeting Friends: secondary school as lived and remembered”, published in British Journal of Sociology of Education, 2002, 23(3), p. 367-381.
The statement of the jury: “New aspects of young people´s manifold and ambivalent feelings towards school are revealed in this article, based upon data gathered by a variety of creatively combined methods.”
2001
Dennis Beach, Institutionen för pedagogik och didaktik, Göteborgs universitet. För artikeln “Alienation and Fetish in Science Education”, publicerad i Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 1999, 43 (2), s 157-172.
Juryns motivering var: “Artikkelen bruker et marxistisk perspektiv på en kreativ måte som er eksemplarisk i sin forening av empirisk konkretisering og teoretisk tolkning. Den er også spennende i sin uortodoxa kombinasjon av tolkningsteori og studieobjekt.”
1999
Steinar Kvale, Psykologisk institut, Århus universitet. För artikeln “Research apprenticeship”, publicerad i Nordisk Pedagogik, 1997, 17(3), s 186-194. Se vidare Nordisk Pedagogik, nr 4 1999 s 272.
Juryns motivering var: “Artiklen indeholder en tankevækkende kritik af konventionel tilrettelæggelse af forskerutddannelsen og sætter spørgsmålstegn ved rationaliteten bag moderne uddannelsestænkning i almindelighed.”
1997
Ingrid Carlgren, Institutionen för lärarutbildning, Uppsala universitet. För artikeln “National curriculum as a social compromise or discursive politics? Some reflections on a curriculum-making process”, publicerad i Journal of Curriculum Studies, 1995, 27(4), s 411-430. Se vidare Nordisk Pedagogik, nr 2 1997 s 126.
Juryns motivering var: “Artikkelen trekker inn et nytt perspektiv på hvordan den konkrete og administrative læreplanutviklingsprosessen foregår. Samtidig representerer den en skarp kritikk av hvordan sentrale aktører håndterer et nasjonalt ansvar på en tilfeldig og ufaglig måte.”
