Per Andersson

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at Linköping University

In this article we investigate the implications of a market orientation of adult education for teachers’ work with the curriculum and for the goals and purposes of education. By focusing on municipal adult education (MAE) in Sweden, we provide a unique case. Firstly, Sweden has one of the most market oriented systems in the world, and secondly, the...

National policy states that Swedish adult education should be flexible and individualized, based on students' needs. However, adult education in Sweden is a municipal responsibility with a high level of decentralization. Drawing on national policies, this study focuses on how the concepts of flexibility and individualization are enacted locally and...

Swedish municipal adult education has many providers. The overall responsibility for this service still lies with the municipalities, entailing the enactment of national policy with respect to providers. This study puts focus on the discursive enactment of policy concerning quality in adult education. Five discourses on quality are identified throu...

In the integration of skilled migrants, recognition of their prior learning is a key factor. One concern is the object of the recognition process, the formal and the actual competence of the individual. Another concern is the subject of the process, the migrant. Starting from the individual and her/his experience and competence entails a different...

I denna forskningsrapport presenteras en omfattande studie av hur lärare verksamma inom komvux olika skolformsdelar tolkar och tillämpar de läroplansanknutna styrdokumenten i sin undervisning. Med hjälp av läroplansteoretiska begrepp diskuteras resultat från en enkät som har besvarats av 1321 lärare och intervjuer som har genomförts med 63 lärare....

Context: This study is about vocational education and training for adults within municipal adult education (MAE). Sweden has a long tradition of adult education, and has one of the world's highest proportions of participants in adult education. The Swedish education system is characterised by extensive marketisation with many private actors, partic...

The aim of this study is to analyse how formal adult education in Sweden is enacted locally. For this analysis, the data consist of a nationwide survey sent to Swedish municipalities, background data on municipalities from public statistics and interviews with representatives of 20 municipalities. Swedish formal adult education, which includes gene...

The aim of this study is to describe and analyse how municipal adult education (MAE) in Sweden is enacted at the intersection of course organisation, student selection and course content. For this analysis, the data consist of a nationwide survey sent to Swedish municipalities, interviews with school leaders from 20 municipalities and in-depth inte...

Quality is a main issue when practices of validation are developed. In the Nordic countries, a model of quality assurance in validation has been introduced, to be applied in the development of validation practices. The model puts the individual at the centre and introduces eight factors for quality: information, preconditions, documentation, coordi...

In the integration of highly skilled refugees, recognition of their prior learning is a key factor. One concern is the object of the recognition process, the formal and the actual competence of the individual. Another concern is the subject of the process, the refugee. Starting from the individual and her/his experience and competence entails a dif...

Validation, or recognition of prior learning, involves an idea of ‘making learning visible’ – of valuing knowledge irrespective of how, when and where it is learnt. This chapter presents a phenomenographic analysis of how a group of caretakers from a Swedish property management company experience participation in a validation initiative focusing on...

Validering är en form av kunskapsbedömning som i första hand riktar sig till vuxna. Den erbjuder möjligheten att få erkännande för sina kunskaper även om de har utvecklats på andra sätt än genom utbildning. Vad är validering? Varifrån kommer intresset för denna företeelse? Hur kan utvecklingen komma att se ut när det gäller validering?

Changes in working life require development in vocational education and training (VET) to retain industrial currency. VET teachers are key actors in VET, and their continuing professional development (CPD) in vocational subjects is central to the currency of VET. This study is situated in Sweden, with a mainly school-based VET system where VET teac...

In this issue we present seven peer-reviewed research articles covering differ-ent aspects of vocational education and training in the Nordic countries. There are three articles from Norway, two from Finland, and two from Sweden. To make the findings accessible to a broader audience, we encourage publication in English, and in this issue three of t...

A central part of Swedish vocational teachers' work concerns their students' work-based learning (WBL). The focus of this article is the character of the relational work carried out by teachers of vocational education and training (VET) concerning WBL. The qualitative study is based on 15 interviews with teachers on the upper-secondary level Child...

The International Journal for Research in Vocational Education and Training (IJRVET) is a double blind peer-reviewed journal for VET-related research. This journal provides full open electronic access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the science community and the public supports a greater global exchange of k...

Welcome to a new volume of the Nordic Journal of Vocational Education and Training. In this first issue of 2018 we are proud to present a new associate editor of our journal. Associate professor Hedvig Skonhoft Johannesen from OsloMet - Oslo Metropolitan University in Norway has joined the editorial group, and we look forward to fruitful cooperatio...

Context: Teachers in vocational education and training (VET teachers) have specific conditions for their continuing professional development (CPD). They have a background in an initial occupation, in which they now teach and train the next generation. Thus, as VET teachers, they are expected to master the knowledge and skills of that occupation, ev...

Given that it is a delicate task to meet the educational needs of adult emergent readers in a second language setting, this study serves to explore the teaching practice of teachers working with learners of initial literacy and second language. Based on a situated learning perspective, data from 16 lesson observations of nine teachers is analysed....

Contemporary work-life changes rapidly, and vocational education and training (VET) teachers need to keep up-to-date with changing knowledge demands and technological developments. This article concerns VET teachers’ continuing professional development (CPD) related to the specific vocations for which they teach. The aim is to analyse VET teachers’...

This article reports on VET teachers' engagements in boundary processes between schools and workplaces in connection with students' workplace learning, the conditions for such boundary processes, and how these activities may enable VET teachers' continuing professional development (CPD). Thirty VET teachers have been interviewed and their replies h...

Context: Teachers in vocational education and training (VET teachers) have specific conditions for their continuing professional development (CPD). They have a background in an initial occupation, in which they now teach and train the next generation. Thus, as VET teachers, they are expected to master the knowledge and skills of that occupation, ev...

This article focuses on Swedish folk high schools' participants with disabilities, and their learning environment within adult education. Facilitating factors are presented and discussed, as well as developmental factors regarding the adjustment of the learning environment. The basis for this empirical study is data from Statistics Sweden and a sel...

Welcome to the Nordic Journal of Vocational Education and Training (NJVET). With this journal, we want to create a forum for research on vocational and professional education and training, with a particular focus on issues at stake for vocational education and training (VET) in the Nordic countries. The journal is published online and open access,...

This study investigates continuing professional development (CPD) of vocational teachers, with a focus on recurrent participation. Vocational teachers need to be competent as teachers and in relation to their vocational teaching subject. Reformation of Swedish vocational education in order to strengthen the working-life connection imposes demands o...

This study concerns the continuing professional development (CPD) of vocational teachers. As a starting point, vocational teaching as a profession is based on a type of dual professionalism. Thus, the conditions of vocational teachers’ competence in their teaching subject differ from those of other groups of teachers. In this article, we analyse vo...

In the last two decades recognition of prior learning (RPL) has emerged as a widespread practice as well as field of research around the world (cf. Evans, 2000; Andersson & Harris, 2006; Harris et al., 2011, 2014; Andersson et al., 2013). Generally, RPL signifies practices where people have their prior learning and experiences – from work and from...

Denna artikel tar upp några olika teoretiska perspektiv som kan användas och har använts för att förstå bedömning som företeelse i pedagogiska sammanhang. Diskussionen tar sin utgångspunkt i ett exempel på bedömning som förekommer främst inom utbildning för vuxna, nämligen validering. Inledningsvis ges en definition av validering, som kort sagt han...

Folkhögskollärarna framstår som folkbildare med ett visst uppdrag. Men hur förhåller sig folkhögskollärarna till den idégrund som finns för skolans verksamhet? Per Andersson har undersökt hur lärarna ser på sitt arbete, kompetensbehoven samt förhållandet mellan individens utveckling och den samhälleliga inriktningen.

Sweden has a two-step selection process for admission to higher education. Eligibility is assessed to ensure that the candidates have the ability to take the course/programme. Selections are made based in part on other measures. The focus here is eligibility, particularly the 25:4 scheme, a measure introduced to widen access to higher education in...

Purpose Work‐place learning takes place in many settings and in different ways, resulting in knowledge and skills of different kinds. The recognition process in the work place is however often implicit and seldom discussed in terms of recognition of prior learning (RPL). The aim of this paper is to give examples of how the knowledge/skills of emplo...

The qualification of adult educators is a central aspect of the quality of adult education. However, within current policy discourses and adult education research on the professional development of prospective adult educators, little attention is paid to teacher qualification when compared to other fields of education and training. In this study, w...

This article focuses on a process of recognition of prior learning (RPL) in higher education. It is based on experiences from a project carried out in collaboration between the University of Lund, Linköping University and two trade unions in Sweden. The aim of the project was to find ways of recognising prior learning for accreditation of course cr...

Studenters reella kompetens kan ligga till grund för tillgodoräknanden i högre utbildning, men har även betydelse för den pedagogiska processen i en utbildning. Här diskuteras hur den reella kompetensen kan ses som en resurs i dessa båda avseenden. Begreppen reell kompetens och lärande behandlas, liksom relationen mellan erfarenheter, lärande och e...

The general idea of prior learning assessment (PLA) is about giving recognition to prior learning, irrespective of when, where, and how learning has taken place. However, the provision of PLA around the world varies, when it comes to terms used, history, aims, approaches, methods, etc. The most common aims of PLA are social justice, economic develo...

This article focuses on the tensions between mobility, knowledge and recognition, and what the impact of migration could be on lifelong education and society. This is discussed with the case of Sweden as the starting point. The main issue in Sweden concerning migration is the admission of refugees. Sweden has had a relatively open policy concerning...

This article analyses the trajectories into teacher education of a group of child minders who are studying to become pre-school teachers. The specific focus is what impact their prior experiences and learning from pre-school have on their trajectories, and how these experiences and learning are recognised in the first year of teacher education. A s...

Despite claims that prior learning assessment and recognition (PLAR) can act as a transformative social mechanism and a means of social inclusion, this study reports that PLAR has become a serious barrier to adult learning rather than a facilitator. Drawing from Foucault’s concept of governmentality, the study examines the difficulties that immigra...

This article discusses the relation between experience and learning in the context of recognition of prior learning (RPL) and from an experiential constructivist perspective. The study is based on a case of in-service training, based on RPL, in the care sector for elderly people. The data consist of interviews with actors in this process, which hav...

The recognition of prior learning (RPL) has been a part of adult education policy and practice for a long time, but in different ways and in different times and places. In Sweden, RPL has been an explicit part of the policy since 1996. This policy analysis starts with the current Swedish policy concerning RPL. The figures of thought expressed in of...

The purpose of this article is to describe and analyze how recognition of prior learning acts as a dividing practice and a technique for inclusion/exclusion of immigrants in their vocations in Swedish working life. It is a qualitative study of three pilot programs in Swedish urban centers, and the data consist of interviews and documents pertaining...

This article focuses on the recognition of prior learning and the figure of thought it represents in Swedish policy on adult education. It can be seen as a technique for governing the adult learner and a way of fabricating the subject. We are tracing this thought back in time to see how it has changed and what it consists of. The material analysed...

This article presents an empirical example of what a process of mobilisation and disciplination could mean in practice. The example is taken from a ‘validation’ initiative (recognition of prior learning) among a small group of unemployed people in Sweden. An ethnographic approach means that data were collected, mainly through observations and inter...

Recognition of prior learning (RPL) involves an idea of ‘making learning visible’—of valuing knowledge irrespective of how, when and where it is learnt. This is a phenomenographic analysis of how a group of caretakers from a Swedish property management company experience participation in an RPL initiative focusing on their vocational competence. Th...

This article focuses on the recognition of prior learning and the figure of thought it represents in Swedish policy on adult education. It can be seen as a technique for governing the adult learner and a way of fabricating the subject. We are tracing this thought back in time to see how it has changed and what it consists of. The material analysed...

Initiatives in the recognition of prior learning (RPL) have been taken in Sweden in recent years, mainly focusing on prior vocational learning among immigrants. The government started different projects to find methods for recognising a person's prior learning in the field of vocational competence. This article presents a study of how these project...

Summary: s. 273-296. LiU-IPP-STU--68--SE. Disputats.

Detta paper presenterar och diskuterar hur två studieförbund beskriver sitt folkbildningsupp-drag i mötet med den moderna informationstekniken och vad den betyder för verksamhetens organisation. På vilka sätt inverkar tekniken och hur den används när man ser på sig själva och sin verksamhet? Vilken bild ger personer verksamma i studieförbunden loka...