The focus of this presentation is on vocational tasks students of floristry in Swedish upper secondary school get access to during workplace-based learning (WPL), and if and how these tasks align with school tasks. The presentation draws on the notion that tasks are driving learning activities (Lindberg, 2003). The data material consists of interviews with students, supervisors and vocational teachers, as well as photographs and texts used at the workplaces and in school. The presentation builds on an ongoing research project on integration in vocational education conducted within the frame of Stockholm Teaching & 74 Learning Studies, a platform for collaboration between researchers and teachers. The results indicate that while customer service becomes visible as an important aspect of vocational knowing in floristry during WPL, economic aspects of vocational knowing remain hidden for the students. Thus, the results point to an area of development within floristry education.

The Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet, VR), has funded the National Graduate School in Visual Arts and Sloyd Education, FoBoS) (Sw. Nationella forskarskolan i bildpedagogik och slöjdpedagogik). This graduate school is a collaboration between Gothenburg University, Stockholm University and Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design. The work with the Graduate school began in 2019 and the first PhD students for Degree of Licentiate started in January 2020. FoBoS have contributed to practice-based research and quality in higher education in the subjects Visual Art and Sloyd Education and in this way contributed to establishing the subjects on postgraduate level by producing new researchers.

There is an urgent need to do more research in Sloyd and Visual Arts Education in Sweden. The current situation in these minor school subjects is limited. Lack of research programs as well as doctoral positions means that these studies seldom can build an autonomous research environment with advisors which can support the subject’s specific inquiries, theories and methods. There is also a lack of educators in Swedish universities in subject didactics in general (The Research Council, 2023).

FoBoS has been part of the strategic investment in graduate schools that has been important for “the supply of skills and to further strengthen the field of educational science as well as the scientific basis of teacher education and the school” (The Research Council, 2023 p. 6). Secure resources for career paths for new researchers and building excellent research environments as a result of the national research schools, subject didactic research, research on learning processes, on professions and professional training. Collaborative doctoral students are important as there is still a "weak connection between research on teaching and the teachers' everyday school life, as well as insufficient conditions to use knowledge from research and proven experience in the activities" (The Research Council, 2023 p. 14).

In this Roundtable discussion we in the steering group of FoBoS share our experiences of our work with the graduate school, in particular challenges in supporting the development of research in this area. Some of these challenges relate to structural conditions and how support for research and graduate schools is organized. Other challenges are how to create possibilities for continued trajectories from licentiate studies to doctoral studies, as well as onwards towards post-doctoral positions. What does the future look like for postgraduate education in the subjects and in higher education? What are the conditions for producing more researchers, career opportunities and postdocs? Despite an increased number of PhD:s in educational science, there is a great shortage of researchers for teacher training, even in the aesthetic subjects "to meet the societal challenges that characterize schools and higher education today" (The Research Council, 2023 p. 6). We in the steering group for FoBoS are interested in discussing how to create new opportunities for more research and researchers in Sloyd and Visual Arts. We invite you in our Roundtable discussion.

References

The Research Council [Vetenskapsrådet] (2023). Forskningsöversikt 2023. Utbildningsvetenskap. Stockholm.

This article explores assessment actions – as an aspect of classroom communication – and how they are expressed in sloyd teaching; with a formative aim centering on pupils’ learning and (the teacher’s) own teaching practice, respectively. In this context, the teacher holds a central role, mediating sloyd knowing through (communicative) verbal and physical actions, acting as an authoritative guide for pupils’ learning, by making perceptually tacit knowing discernable thanks to pre-established confidence for the teacher in question. Besides authoritative guiding, another theoretical starting point of the article is sociomateriality; a perspective considering physical objects as resulting from connections and activity, hence influencing on the (more) social sphere of actions and activity. The method used is multimodal interaction analysis of three video-recorded sequences of teacher/pupil interaction in a sloyd-classroom setting. To sum up, the findings of the article display how formative assessment in the sloyd context consists of the teacher adapting questions posed to ascertain the knowing of the pupil, then waiting to see how/what/if the pupil performs, whilst being provided – gentle but ample – authoritative guiding to help in the process. The main contribution of the study is establishing the role of formative assessment within sloyd education. The research project has been conducted within the framework of Stockholm Teaching and Learning Studies (STLS), entailing the active involvement of the teacher in question as co-author of the article.Key words: assessment actions, formative assessment, sloyd teaching, authoritative guiding, sociomateriality, communicative resources