Anne-Mette Bjøru – presentation and paper proposal

[Anne-Mette BjøruParticipant]

Institutional affiliation
I am in my last year of PhD-studies at the Department of Education at UiT-The Arctic University of Norway, Campus Alta, Northern Norway.

Training background
I have a double master’s degree: one in English literature from the University of Tromsø, Norway, where I analysed two novels written by Nigerian authors looking at post-colonial discourses and the term globalisation. The second one is in Special Education from Finnmark University College, Norway; a qualitative study based on interviews with upper secondary school pupils about their experiences with dropout.

Main themes of investigation
My PhD is also about upper secondary school dropout. It is an article based thesis including three works; one theoretical book-chapter which introduces some of Bauman’s terms, one article based on upper secondary school pupils’ texts, and another article based on individual interviews with upper secondary school pupils. There are many studies on upper secondary school dropout, but they mainly focus on pupils who have dropped out. The new aspect in my study is that I have worked with pupils who have very low absence from school and passing grades in all subjects, to learn from (what I call) motivated pupils about school dropout and what prevents them from dropping out.

A paper intended to write
I have started an article where I investigate the Norwegian Framework for Education and White papers to see how the term ‘dropout’ is used and described in these documents. I would like to do a comparative piece of work where the so-called Nordic model of Education is compared to (an)other European context(s).

The starting knowledge-base (empirical materials, theory, methodology, etc.)
I have some knowledge-base about the Norwegian and Nordic frameworks and models for education. I have also studied some of the European Commission’s framework for Education and its work on Early School Leaving (ESL).

The knowledge needed to complete the paper
I would spend some time to better understand document analysis and mastering the tools needed to do a thorough and solid document analysis. It would be interesting to do an empirical study, based on observations and/or interviews in Norway and another European country – to do a comparative study that is rooted in the practice field, and not merely on documents and theory.

[Author]

Posts