This study explores vocational didactics and embodied knowledge in hairdressing

education by studying how perceptive sensoriality is used by teachers and students in

creating shared understandings of vocational knowledge. Among multiple actions,

touch is distinguished as a central resource in learning the vocation, as it emerges in

interaction between teacher and student related to the ongoing teaching and its

assignment. The data is based on video-recordings displaying how touch is used in

manipulating objects and material, or in assessing qualities and defects. In such

instances, touch becomes a diagnostic criterion (Goodwin, 1997) to investigate how the

material worked with can be evaluated and handled. To bridge the gap between

individual and collective vocational knowledge, metaphors are of use. The results show

two approaches to the teaching of perceptive sensoriality. In order to learn the vocational

subject content the teaching need to provide for and practice the individual’s embodied

sense of touch as well as the vocation’s verbalised collective feel. This is the core of the

didactical challenge.

Vad har stödinsatser för betydelse ur elevers perspektiv? Den här artikeln utgår från en intervjustudie med gymnasieelever om deras erfarenheter av särskilt stöd. Delar av det empiriska materialet har analyserats utifrån en narrativ ansats och teoretiska perspektiv kopplade till makt och identitet. Föreställningar om och innebörd av särskilda behov är komplexa och mångdimensionella. Ur analysen av två elevers berättelser framträder relationella aspekter som trygghet och delaktighet som betydelsefulla för eleverna. Analysen ger också en bild av hur särskilda behov och särskilt stöd är inbäddade i olika former för maktstrukturer där erfarenheter av att vara inkluderad eller exkluderad skapar olika identiteter. Vikten av att bemöta varje elev i behov av särskilt stöd som en unik individ är central i berättelserna. En slutsats som kan dras från resultaten är att en pedagogik som både är relationell och kunskapsutvecklande visar sig vara viktigt för elever i behov av särskilt stöd. Det konceptualiseras med det reciproka begreppsparet tillhörighet och tillblivelse, där inkludering förstås som något långt mer än skolplacering.

Upper secondary students’ experiences of special needs support: Narratives of alienation and belonging

What does the provision of special educational needs actually mean to those concerned and how can their narratives be understood within perspectives of power and identity? This article reports an interview-study with upper secondary school students who have special needs. The empirical material is analyzed with a narrative approach and discussed within perspectives related to power and identity. The meanings and conceptualizations of special educational needs are complex and multifaceted. Grasping it from the participants themselves, with their unique experiences of special educational support, is thus a necessary condition. The results show that support demands much more than placement or special educational training. Teaching and learning must be provided with regards to relational aspects such as thrust and security, and accessible to everyone in a variety of local contexts. By exploring students’ accounts of special needs support, this study develops knowledge about special needs and support as intertwined in systems of power. Their experiences of inclusion and exclusion build identities of winners and losers. All in all, the results give insights to the importance of an understanding of treating each student with special needs as an individual subject/person (someone) and not as categorizing him/her as an object/disability (something). A framework of relational, as well as existential pedagogy that creates spaces for senses of belonging, becoming and being, is central with regards to students’ special educational needs. 

Key words: special needs support, narrative, upper secondary school, identity, power.

The interest in this review lies in two research fields: Special Education and Classroom Assessment and explores if and how these fields interrelate. A review of classroom assessment with regards to special educational needs has not yet been published; the knowledge of the impact of assessment in education concerning students in special needs is thus scarce. Therefore, this study aims to contribute with knowledge about how assessment practices can be understood in relation to special educational needs. From a broad overview of present research within the two fields, 17 articles from 2010 to 2020 were selected and analyzed. The focus of these articles is on content that overlaps in both assessment of knowledge and special needs. Four dyadic themes were found showing practices of inclusive assessment in the research: equity & equivalence, inclusion & access, interaction & relation and self-regulation & identity. These themes are considered important strategies in inclusive assessment practices. Intersections between disability, language- and cultural background as well as class, make visible dimensions of marginalization and special needs on various levels of education. These aspects are informative to policy makers, education staff as well as academic researchers. In addition, they can be approached separately or as entangled areas of knowledge.

The aim of this study is to explore feedback practices and how such actions of assessment emerge from embodied participation in classroom interactions between teachers and students. Using video recordings of teacher and student interactions in hairdressing education, I look at how feedback practices within creative subject content are produced between the participants as social actions situated in interaction, using conversation analysis. Feedback is contingent upon an embodied moment-to-moment monitoring and collaboration between the teacher and student, and is organized as a trajectory from problem detection through exploration until a final solution is found. Feedback within creative subject content is displayed as a multifarious exploration of embodied as well as materially situated professional knowledge. Overall, the findings show how feedback is mutually produced in a process, making tacit dimensions of hairdressers’ knowing explicit. This allows for improving the quality of the work over time in a trajectory of problem solving phases gradually displaying how to assess creative subject content of the material product worked on.

The aim of this study is to explore feedback practices in situated activities and how such actions of assessment emerge from embodied participation in classroom interactions between teachers and students. Using video recordings of teacher and student interactions in hairdressing education, we investigate through conversation analysis how feedback practices such as making loops are initiated and enabled between the participants in situated activities. Feedback in the practice of loops is contingent upon an embodied moment-to-moment monitoring and collaboration between the teacher and student, and is initiated with a concern from the student that is responded to by the teacher, enabling feedback to become a common exploration of professional knowledge. Overall, the findings show how feedback is mutually produced, making visible that salient aspects of the education are emanating from the student’s own concern.