Epsilon Open Archive

Abstract

Abstract in English after this introduction in Swedish: Skolträdgården är ett nygammalt pedagogiskt verktyg med sina rötter i den gamla folkskolan. I tre delstudier diskuteras olika förutsättningar för skol-trädgårdsverksamhet i dagens skola. Särskilt intresse riktas mot vad som händer när pedagoger, planerare, fastighetsförvaltare, skötselentreprenörer och andra aktörer som berörs av skolans utemiljö samverkar. Framtids-verkstaden prövas som metod för att involvera aktörer i lokal skolgårdsutveckling med siktet inställt på ändamålsenliga utemiljöer för lärande, lek och rörelse. Slutsatsen är att aktörssamverkan kan leda till förändrade attityder till skolgården som pedagogiskt rum – både bland aktörer utanför skolan och bland pedagogerna själva. Abstract The thesis discusses three separate studies regarding understanding for the greening of school grounds, with special attention paid to the impact and im-portance of school gardening in relation to more traditional work in school. The research work is dominated by qualitative methods and the data collected from totally fourteen infant and junior schools (thirteen Swedish schools and one British). The tradition of school gardening in Sweden dates back to the establishment of elementary schools in the early nineteenth century. The school garden can be seen as both a historically rooted and action-orientated instrument for school teaching which has always been regarded as a pleasure for the eye and soul. From having once filled a function of food supply today’s school garden-ing is regarded primarily as a sensuous experience that can be used as an edu-cational tool in different socio-cultural learning situations about for example nature’s ecocycle, environmental issues and sustainable development. The aim of the school garden has thus shifted from being an end to a means. The empirical findings from an interview investigation on school gardening in modern-day Sweden in our time call attention to teachers’ experienced lack of support for greening competencies. This was a main reason behind the idea to test collaborative learning as a tool for answering the teachers’ demands. A process-orientated case study in two Swedish cities, based on future workshops as a platform for local capacity building, was arranged. The case study was carried through in interaction between stakeholders in the in-school context and stakeholders from outside the local school, such as school ground planners and school ground administrators. The empirical findings indicate that using the future workshop as a research method is a way to involve the stakeholders as subjects in the production of new knowledge. This means a collaborative production of both articulated and tacit knowledge that can result in new approaches to school ground manage-ment and to the use of the school ground. The thesis indicates that new ap-proaches could help a school make its outdoor environment more suitable for educational purposes, including gardening.