Young peoples expansive learning from the margins of education

Young peoples expansive learning from the margins of education Chair Line Lerche Mørck, Discussant Kevin O’Connor

Time shedule 14.05: Eli: Expanding meaning in learning 14.25: Laila: Processes of marginalisation in relation to participation 14.45: Kevin starts up with themes for first plenum discussion 15.00: Line: Producing New Intercultural Education Communities 15.20: Lutine: A contextual approach to studying refugee schooling 15.40: Kevin starts up 2. plenum discussion

All fourpapers Analysize learning from the margins of educational practice in the Nordic countries We all explore how we might develop educational practice in a direction of being more meaningful and paving the way beyond marginalisation and ethnic othering Explore dilemmas, struggles or doublebinds from the perspectives of the young people and their teachers

EXPANDING MEANING IN LEARNING Eli Marie Killi Ph.d student National Support System for Special Education, Norway Aarhus University, Denmark 06.09.2011 eli.marie.killi@statped.no

Meaning - Sense Leonti'ev: meaning and sense Wenger: negotiating meaning Dreier: 1.person perspective

ERIC 06.09.2011 eli.marie.killi@statped.no

The neuropsychological report: • (…)the examination shows neuropsychological problems regarding psycho-motor tempo and executive functions. The tempo problems are seen in complex visual-motor and visual-constructive demands, demands regarding visual selective attention and visual problem-solving. The neuropsychological test profile shows good language skills; this opposed to reduced capacity within executive functions, tempo and some visual demands, will be challenging to the school regarding adapted education (2008, my translation). 06.09.2011 eli.marie.killi@statped.no

Neurobiological constraints Eric’s neurobiological constraints arise from the problematic mismatch and exist in the relation between the biological, the psychological and social practice level. Neurobiological constraints include the biological reality of Eric’s brain injury, his motor, perceptual and cognitive impairments as they are expressed in particular social practices, and their dialectical relations with Eric’s motives and the cultural-historical built in age-graded expectations to his development and his activity (Bøttcher 2010, p. 17). 06.09.2011 eli.marie.killi@statped.no

Problematic mismatches • Dilemmas • Double-binds • Struggles 06.09.2011 eli.marie.killi@statped.no

Dilemmas 06.09.2011 eli.marie.killi@statped.no

Eric: “I very easily “fall out” if I find something [else] that interests me more or less. [...] I have some difficulties when ... ability to concentrate, is it? And so ... isn’t it called coordination, to do a number of things simultaneously, different things? [...] And I am perhaps more slow to learn” 06.09.2011 eli.marie.killi@statped.no

Eric:“At first [the teacher] talks about it [the theme], then writes it on the blackboard and perhaps gives us a piece of paper which tells us what to do. And so, perhaps ... We perhaps get one exercise at a time, instead of all the exercises at the same time. Or some exercises ... five exercises on one piece of paper and five exercises on another piece of paper, instead of all ten on the same one, because then one becomes perhaps more motivated to finish” 06.09.2011 eli.marie.killi@statped.no

Eric : • “I have my own opinions about things, but in a way it can be compared to ... [e.g.] if I am told to do things [think for myself] then it doesn’t come to mind.” 06.09.2011 eli.marie.killi@statped.no

“I must admit, I am the type, at least when dealing with themes in social subjects and the like, who prefers exercises that ask for concrete answers [that you can find in the textbook] instead of ‘think for yourself’ exercises” Eric: 06.09.2011 eli.marie.killi@statped.no

Double-binds 06.09.2011 eli.marie.killi@statped.no

Teacher: • “he is like, programmed in a way, the program tells him how he ought to behave, and the situation tells him what to do. […] But this almost involves loosing himself." 06.09.2011 eli.marie.killi@statped.no

Eric: “There was perhaps a bit too much fuss around me in a way, compared to … No, I am not sure that the others perceived it that way, but I felt it like being like … it was well meant, so I will not complain. But Linn (the teacher) first came to give me one instruction and then she returned to give me one more. And she did it all to be kind. But I felt, in a way, that it was too much fuss.” Researcher: “Too much attention?” Eric:“Yes, but I don’t know if anyone noticed, perhaps I was as anonymous as my classmates were, but …” 06.09.2011 eli.marie.killi@statped.no

Researcher: “But you felt uncomfortable?” • Eric:“Yes. At the same time, I … and it is not that I have anything against it really … but when ... I am one person and you sit next to me, and so … that is okay, but it is enough with one adult person at a time. And I don’t say this to be cheeky or something like that. Or … but it is somehow enough; either only you or only Linn in her job, not both jobs at the same time. It is well meant, from both of you, but one service at a time will do!” 06.09.2011 eli.marie.killi@statped.no

Struggles 06.09.2011 eli.marie.killi@statped.no

“I make small gestures and grimaces to prevent unpleasant things from happening,” and he also told me, “I say things to myself, in my head, the opposite of what I want to happen, to prevent it from happening.” . “I was afraid that something bad should happen to her, and I thought that if I sat scrolling, nothing bad could happen to her: Eric: 06.09.2011 eli.marie.killi@statped.no

Eric: • “By telling others about it, I already feel better,” • “I thought it was best to deal with it now, instead of it getting worse when I grow older and get a job.” 06.09.2011 eli.marie.killi@statped.no

Conclusion • To expand meaning in learning demands willingness to accept the pupil as a subject, as well as satisfactory competence to understand the young people’s behavior with regard to their changed cerebral premises after injury, including satisfactory competence to understand the relation between the biological, the psychological and social practise level after ABI. 06.09.2011 eli.marie.killi@statped.no

Thank You! 06.09.2011 eli.marie.killi@statped.no

Processes of marginalization in relation to participation Laila Colding Lagermann

Processes of marginalization in relation to the participation of Amir and Saad • Marginalization (Mørck 2006; 2003; Wenger 1998) • Participation (Wenger 1998; Lave & Wenger 1991) • Non- and mis interpellation (Hage 2011) • Ambigius-participation (Lagermann 2008)

Participation and non-participation Amir was not not-participating; he was indeed participating in the school-life, in certain ways – he was `hanging out with friends´. Amir was in other words participating, not directed or oriented towards the teaching or formal learning, but with an aim to “be with friends”; to participate in the community of “friends”.

Non-interpellation (Hage 2011) Amir is in somewaysnon-interpellated: when his ways to participateor not participate is ignored by teachers and co-students, as ifhe is non-existing

Mis-interpellation(Hage 2011) Amir is mis-interpellated when the school interpellate him as belonging to the collectivity of the school ‘like everybody else’, only to remind him shortly after he responds to this interpellation, that he is actually not part of the ‘everybody’, by treating him differently than ‘everybody else’.

Community with ``the guys´´ vs. the school – when ideologies of practice clash • Ideology of community withfriends: - Participation as opposed to authorities (Willis), in this case the school. - Havingfun • Ideology of community of school and school practice: • A mainly individualized and conforming participation where the student is striving for excellence in order to cooperatewith the teacher in terms of the educational system (the school) (Mørck 2006: 85)

Diverging ideologies of practice It is important that is not left to the individual young person to relate him- or herself to these contrasting communities and to solely solve the resulting conflicts, since it is almost impossible for them to fend for themselves, and the risk of being marginalized is, if so, increasingly bigger.

Producing New Intercultural Education Communities Associate Proffessor Line Lerche Mørck

Ghassan Hage: ”Today we are increasingly faced with colonial and postcolonial relations which call for an ‘ability to live with’ rather than forms of negation. If we look at the Arab-Israeli conflict, or at the encounter between the West and Muslim immigrants, one of the primary tasks of transcending these conflicts is to transcend the affective states that only see solutions in forms of negating the other”. (Hage, 2010: 128)

Integrating interpellation within the traditions of social praxis theory • Hage uses interpellation primarily linked to ideologies, and more closely to its original use by Althusser (1971), than I do. • In continuation of Nissen (in press), I reinterpret Althussers (1994) notion of interpellation by relating it to recognition and participation within communities of practice. • But I also develop the social praxis theory further, theorizing how positive and negative interpellation and practice ideologies are related to communities of practice.

Critique is: “the transformation of a given ideological form, a transformation which both presupposes and posits a distinct form of community, and which thus, at the same time, objectifies anew, that is, produces another ideological form. In other words, critique is the transformation of subjects mediated by their objectivation.” (Nissen, 2004: 4).

Practice-ideologies (Mørck 2011, in press) Ways we think and act; pointing directions for rights versus wrongs within communities of practice. Members are neither completely determined by practice-ideologies, nor by dominating discourse. Sometimes practice-ideologies differ from actual actions of the members of a community.

The practice-ideology within the cooking workshop • “Here in our kitchen we make a lot of fun, we joke with each other, we tease each other, and we talk ‘man to man’: talking openly and straight forward to each other, almost like family and friends, also when it is about conflicts and problems in our lives. But there are things we must not do: such as eating the food before it is served, doing ravage to our place and treating other pupils with persistent disrespect”. (Mørck in press).

Positive modes of interpellation • “Interpellation is the (repeated) moment when the subject recognizes herself as recognized in this unique but universal identity, and with this responsibility, that is, in the meaningfulness defined in the ideology.” (Nissen in press: 172)

Positive interpellation is a subjectification process involving critique and recognition, and changing and developing meaningful practice ideologies, which breaks with racialized processes of interpellation.

Racialized processes of interpellation (Hage 2010) Non-interpellation: linked with the experience of invisibility, the racialized feel ignored and non-existent. Negative interpellation: the racialized is definitely noticed and made visible; defined by negative characteristics; ‘lazy, dirty, thief, social problem. Mis-interpellation: A drama in two acts: interpellated as belonging like everybody else, then: ‘Piss of. You are not part of us’.

Young peoples expansive learning from the margins of education