The following describes how a university programme for adult education is currently developing work with gender inclusion. The case is a folk-high-school teacher-ed-ucation programme, the only one of its kind in Sweden. Teacher edteacher-ed-ucation must take into account the special nature of each form of schooling, in this context folk-high-school education, and this consists of including questions on gender into the programme. Ways of reasoning about and practices of including gender into the folk-high-school teacher-education programme will be described. Questions about how strategies for gender inclusion can be described for folk-high-school teacher-educa-tion programmes guided the collecteacher-educa-tion of the data.
Adapting teacher training to the egalitarian tradition of folk high schools
The first result touches on the relevance of working with gender and equality in the folk-high-school teacher programme. Swedish folk high schools are not as regulated as compulsory schools. For example, there is no national curriculum. The range of courses and programmes taught at folk high school is very wide. In some courses, students can study core subjects they might have missed in senior high school, other programmes cover mostly aesthetic subjects, and these courses in music, theatre, and so on are regarded as quite avant-garde.3 Many folk high schools collaborate closely with generally educative and autonomous study circles. Other fields that my inter-view partners mentioned are vocational training courses and courses that provide higher education credits. In other words, folk-high-school teachers must be trained to meet a very diverse student group (see Bernhard & Andersson, 2017). Attitudinal development is regarded as important in facilitating these meetings. Meetings and encounters traditionally play a central role in folk high schools, both in regard to the meeting between teachers and students and between students themselves.
“Yes, I think that comes close to the characteristic of folk high schools. This means that you talk about the meeting very much and the meeting is central between the teacher and the participant but also between the participants. And you talk a lot about tolerance and respect, and folk high schools have always worked with such a type of inclusion, if you consider that folk high schools have always been heterogeneous environments, where many different people have been able to meet. I think, from a gender perspective, Medborgarskolan in Fagersta, which you have probably read about [is a good example], gathering women only but from very different social classes, and they were sleeping in the same dormitory, which was enormously unique. This kind of 3 Such programmes were studied in the PhD Dissertation: ”Skolning i Jazz” (Nylander, 2014).
thought has been a part of the history of folk high schools and remains so; if you have a course for people with a certain disability, you do not have them sleep in one building and the other people in another one, but you mix them, because one thinks there is a point in meeting different experiences and conditions and so on”. (Joint interview with directors of study, 24 August 2017)
Folk high schools are described as quite egalitarian institutions. There is a long tra-dition of folk high schools as a meeting point for men and women of different class backgrounds. Equity is central, at least as it relates to meetings of different social classes. Nowadays, gender equity is regarded as very elementary and, therefore, the teacher training for folk-high-school teachers must also reflect this spirit. The pro-gramme directors expressed that this is why they want to further explore questions on how current folk-high-school teacher education includes a gender perspective and approaches questions about gender and equality when preparing future folk-high-school teachers for their profession.
During the interview, I asked the directors of study for a description of how they work with questions related to gender and equity in the programme. The results are summarised according to four topics: a) introducing gender content, b) working with norms, c) gender sensitive teaching and professional practice, and d) further educa-tion for university teachers.
Introducing gender content
The goal of including gender content into different courses is to shed light on the respective field or topic from a gender perspective. To use an example from the pre-school teacher-education programme; when students were learning to use digital technology for teaching young children, it became very useful for them to under-stand how stereotyped presentations of boys and girls and children with different ethnicities were prevalent in many apps. This understanding became important in order to guide children in their choice of material in accordance with the preschools’
task of counteracting traditional gender roles (Kreitz-Sandberg, 2016). Another ex-ample from secondary school teaching is a course on study assessment. Students on this course read an article about teachers’ gendered expectations of boys’ and girls’ grades. In the following, I will describe how a gender content is according to the interview partners and the course documents included into the folk-high-school teacher-education programme.
Regarding the question if there are specific contents that the students need to master in relation to gender and equality, the programme directors refer to the first course in the programme. Folkbildning’s basic values are important content in the course “Folkbildning as a Social and Local Reality”. One goal of the course is to de-scribe how folkbildning’s ideas and basic values are expressed. Examples of these basic values are democracy, equality, equity, diversity, and human rights. In this context, it is also appropriate to problematize patriarchal traditions in folk high schools. The
history of folk high schools is, as one of my interview partners says: “full of old man (full av gubbar)”. Students sometimes react to this fact and make critical comments.
The patriarchal tradition of boarding schools can be illustrated with the fact that a man was the head of a boarding school, and his wife often took the role as house mother. This fact reflects the anticipated role of men and women in the home and in society. But there were also women’s folk high schools. Berit Larsson’s (2010) book on women’s folk high schools is an example of course literature highlighting this and providing a gender focus on folkbildning. However, just as important as the gender focus is an awareness of social differences. In the above-mentioned egalitarian tradi-tion, meetings between women of different class backgrounds were regarded as very crucial.
Earlier studies on working with gender as a content have highlighted the impor-tance of introducing gender topics early in the programme (Fogelberg, Eriksson, &
Karlson, 2006). In the folk-high-school teacher programme we obtained an example of gender content being introduced in the first course. There was some course lit-erature and an examination that touched on diversity later during the programme.
Another example of course literature that takes gender content into account is De los Reyes and Mulinari’s book on intersectionality (2005). This is on the literature list for the second study practice course (vfu), but in the course of studies, it is not clear how the book is to be used by the students. In the discussion with the directors of study it became evident, however, that gender was not a primary focus of the programme.
A focus on intersectionality in this course allows to somehow shed light on gender but also on other social categories like class or ethnicity. Much more than equality between women and men equity between different social group is in focus. And the key phrase in the course documents is norm-critical thinking.
Working with norms
The programme directors described the two-fold purpose of the programme. On one hand, the programme is to train professional and skilled teachers. A good un-derstanding of democracy and equity is regarded as part of this mission. On the other hand, the programme is also to provide academic training and career paths within higher education and research training. Critical thinking is, according to the programme directors, regarded as a central part of the course of study. In connection with these descriptions, the term norm criticism is frequently mentioned. Norm-crit-ical perspective is regarded as important in the newly revised programme. This is evident in the interview and in the course documents where the term “norm critical”
is used a number of times. The programme syllabus gives the following description:
Great heterogeneity among the participants in terms of age, ethnicity, (work) life expe-rience, study orientation, previous experience of studies and much more is characteris-tic for folk high schools. Issues related to inclusion are important in the programme as well as issues related to norm criticism and intersectionality. Folk-high-school teacher
education is to contribute to the students developing an understanding of the variation that occurs in the participants’ preconditions, abilities, and experiences. (Course of study, folk-high-school teacher programme, Dnr LiU-2016–01782, author’s transla-tion)
This paragraph describes the heterogeneity of participants in folk high schools in terms of age, ethnicity, (working) life experience, field of study, earlier study experi-ences and much more, but, interestingly, gender is not mentioned. Questions regard-ing inclusion are seen as important in the programme as well as norm-critical per-spectives and intersectionality. The folk-high-school teacher-education programme is to contribute to students’ understanding of the existing variation in participants’
preconditions, abilities, and experiences. As shown above, it is not completely clear how intersectionality is addressed in the programme, but the syllabus illustrates the relevance devoted to these perspectives.
Norm-critical perspectives have a self-evident relation to understandings of in-tersectionality. The importance of norm-critical perspectives is explicit in some of the courses. For example, the syllabus for course no. 2 includes the statement that the course embraces norm-critical perspectives on teaching and learning. The goal of course no. 3 is that students are to be able to describe, analyse, and reflect on different teaching strategies and their consequences for adult education pedagogy and norm-critical perspectives. How is that being realized or examined? The course documents, like syllabi and course of study, do not provide any information. How-ever, during the interview, the directors of the study explained that a workshop had been included in the course, where a coach who had experience of working with norm-critical exercises visited the students and worked with exercises regarding norms and values. During the interview, there developed a discussion of whether teachers in folk high schools would need this type of didactical ability. Students in the programme had a textbook to their help edited by the anti-bullying organisation Friends (Brade, Engström, Sörensdotter, & Wiktorsson, 2011) that critically intro-duces how one can reflect on different norms that may influence teaching and meet-ings with and between students. Basically, the book is adapted for work with school students, but according to the programme directors, it also works well for adults.
The idea is that attitudes and values need to be critically revisited in order to work with ones’ ability to meet students beyond prejudice, regardless of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, function/ability or other categories and dimensions.
Many of the scholars who have applied norm-critical positions in their research focus on sexuality and related norms and provide a critical perspective on hetero-normativity in teacher education (e.g. Reimers, 2006). Norm-critical perspectives can be regarded as a recently popular feminist school in Sweden. However, since norm-critical thinking has become more mainstream and when it is being applied in the context of equality policies, gender differences are often in the centre (cf. www.
includegender.org).4 Norm-critical perspectives were also popular with teachers in the folk-high-school teacher-education programme. Working with norms fits into the tradition of the folk-high-school teacher programme, where – as I understand – a variety of teaching methods have been applied that address the whole person and that are not limited to academic studies. However, there have also been critical discourses on limits or may be also risks of methods that aim at changing student’s basic values. Nordvall (2013) described that some students advocated more gender stereotype opinions after participating in a course on gender roles in education. Ped-agogical challenges to students to revisit their norms were discussed lively in the interview. It was not regarded as an easy but necessary part of the studies. Summariz-ing, norm-critical perspectives seem to fit well traditions in folk high school teacher education to challenge and try to find ways of problematizing living and learning together of diverse groups.
Gender-sensitive teaching and professional practice
30 of 60 ECTS of the folk-high-school teacher programme cover school practical studies (vfu). Teaching and meeting students in the folk high school is at the heart of these practical studies. One of the central topics for the teaching practice are social relationships. The syllabus states:
“In the course, which has a participant focus, the students are to develop their abil-ity to understand how social relations influence a group at a folk high school and develop their ability to solve conflicts that can occur. This also includes reflecting on how different function variables influence the students’ study situation and how a folk-high-school teacher can contribute to a good study environment for all participants.”
(Course syllabus, author’s translation)
The goals specify that students must be able to describe, analyse, and demonstrate an understanding of social relations and their relevance in teaching and learning processes. Students need to be able to work constructively with conflicts that can occur in teaching situations. This goal has – among others – also a gender dimension.
Gender-sensitive and also gender-aware teaching are terms often used in teaching context (Lahelma, 2011). Gender-sensitive teaching or “gender as a form” has been described as important for university education (Bondestam, 2004; Fogelberg, Eriks-son, & KarlEriks-son, 2006), meaning that the form or pattern of meeting a student group needs to be coloured by equality and equity thinking. Teachers need, for example,
4 This website is the English language version of the jamstall.nu, a Swedish national resource for gender equality. It was launched 2009, and the following actors are working together and providing resources: the Swedish Secretariat for Gender Research, the County Admin-istrative Board, the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR), the Swedish Gender Equality Agency, and the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems (VINNOVA).
to be aware of possibly gender-specific communication patterns with consequences that different groups or persons take different amounts of space in the classroom setting. This is obviously a traditional example that can have changed in present-day classroom settings (e.g. Kreitz-Sandberg, 2013). However, in the interviews, more traditional gender roles of students are also described especially in the intersection with ethnicity in connection to school-practical studies. Many of the students in the folk-high-school teacher’s programme have already worked for a length of time in folk high schools or other pedagogical contexts. One expectation is that teacher stu-dents who meet gender-sensitive instruction and norm-critical perspectives in the university classroom will develop these approaches further in their own pedagogical practices.
University pedagogy
Another topic eminent in the interview was the question of how university teachers in the field of adult education can prepare for working with gender inclusion in their courses. Obviously, all teachers participate in compulsory courses for teaching in higher education at the Centre for University Pedagogy, and some relevant aspects should be covered there. However, the question whether gender inclusion is syste-matically part of these compulsory courses is beyond the scope of this study.
As the most relevant place of learning and adopting a genuine gender perspective, the programme directors mentioned the division’s research seminars. There are a number of doctoral students and colleagues who touch on gender and norms in their research. This provides a climate in which gender is part of academic communication and identity and in which university teachers become familiar with research-based gender discourses. That should also be a good precondition for teachers including respective topics and norm-critical perspectives into their university teaching. Or, as one of the programme directors self-critically states: “the opposite might be true; as far as gender seems to be eminent in both research and some students’ perspective, one might underestimate the need to work systematically with the topic in courses and programmes”.