Eleonor Bredlöv Eknor

Preschool Didactics, Research Methods and Research Ethics (7.5 credits)
Course coordinator, lectures, seminar teaching, assessment of examination assignments

Degree Project (15 credits)
Supervision, examination

UB50lY Children's Living Conditions and Ethical Encounters in Preschool (7.5 credits)
Course lecturer

UB606Y Documentation, Assessment and Quality Work (11.5 credits)
Course lecturer, seminar teaching, assessment of examination assignments

UB205M Degree Project for Master’s Degree (Advanced level)
Course coordination, supervision, examination

UB454F Critical Discourse Analysis and Debates on Preschool (7.5 credits, advanced level)
Course lecturer, seminar teaching, examination

The aim of my doctoral dissertation was to answer the question: How are vocational and gendered subjectivities produced in vocational education for the beauty industry? Drawing on Foucault and poststructuralist feminist theory, this question was explored across four articles. The empirical material consisted of recruitment and marketing materials for beauty education, interviews with students in skin and spa therapy programs, and observations of practical training sessions. These educational arrangements are closely tied to the economic sector of the beauty industry, yet remain largely unexplored in research. The articles examine different aspects of subjectivity formation: the first article shows how the potential beauty student is constructed through processes of individualisation and responsibilisation in recruitment; the second explores how a scientific and caring professional identity emerges; the third illustrates how students in skin and spa therapy learn to adopt a critical gaze on bodies; and the fourth demonstrates how students are shaped as emotional workers, drawing on Hochschild’s concept of "emotional labour." The findings highlight how (medical) scientific knowledge functions as a resource in the production of the professional therapist, mobilising power and gender relations while simultaneously rendering other forms of knowledge invisible. However, relational and caring aspects of this work and learning are also made visible through the ways in which broader discourses of femininity are taken up and mobilised as students are shaped into professionals.

In my postdoctoral project, I investigated how care is represented in Swedish preschool teacher education textbooks. Using a poststructural approach inspired by Foucault, the study demonstrates how care is shaped through three dominant regularities: as a value in itself, as a form of system critique, and as a societal good aligned with neoliberal ideals. The study highlights how dominant discourses shape understandings of professionalism and practice, while also pointing to spaces for resistance and alternative interpretations. I also conducted a study on how students are positioned and self-position as "the right person for the job" through reflective practices during the practicum component of preschool teacher education, and how these processes are gendered within a feminised educational context. Using a poststructural and feminist framework, 16 transcribed triadic conversations were analysed, revealing how the preschool teacher subject is shaped through joy and dedication, individualisation—where self-reflection and confession play key roles—and hands-on action. The study shows that reflective practices are not neutral pedagogical tools but function as disciplinary techniques that shape professional subjectivities in line with gendered ideals of care, responsibility, and continuous self-improvement.

Publications

Peer-reviewed articles

Bredlöv, Eleonor. (2016). Shaping the female student. An analysis of Swedish beauty school recruitment texts. Studies in Continuing Education, 38(2): 243-258. https://doi.org/10.1080/0158037X.2015.1113165

Bredlöv, Eleonor. (2016). Constructing a professional. Gendered knowledge in the (self-)positioning of skin and spa therapy students, Gender & Education, 29(7): 890-906. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2016.1185094

Linder Eknor, Eleonor. (2017). Learning a critical gaze. Producing gendered bodies in skin and spa therapy education and training, Journal of Vocational Education and Training, https://doi.org/10.1080/13636820.2017.1394354

Bredlöv, Eleonor. (2021) Becoming an emotional worker and student: exploring skin and spa therapy education and training, Studies in Continuing Education, DOI: 10.1080/0158037X.2020.1865300

Dissertation

Bredlöv, Eleonor. (2018) Shaped for beauty: Vocational and gendered subjectivities in private education for the beauty industry. Dissertation, Linköping university press. https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1245837/FULLTEXT01.pdf

Other publications

Bredlöv, Eleonor. "Feministiska perspektiv på yrkesroller och professionalitet i pedagogiskt arbete med yngre barn." I Björkman, Lotta, och Sotevik, Lena (red.) (2023), Normkritiska perspektiv i pedagogisk verksamhet: förskola, fritidshem och skolans tidigare år. Upplaga 1 Lund: Studentlitteratur.

Bredlöv, Eleonor, Camilla Forsberg, Lina Rahm & Sara Vestergren (2016). Open issue: Introduction, Confero: Essays on Education, Philosophy and Politics, vol. 4(1), s. 5-8. doi:10.2624/confero.2001-4562.160626intro

Bredlöv Eknor, Eleonor, Sofia Nordmark & Sofia Nyström (2019). Att organisera för och driva ett regionsöverskridande flernivåprojekt: Utvärdering av projektorganisationen i #jagmed. Linköpings universitet /region Östergötland.

Aman, Robert, Eleonor Bredlöv Eknor & Sofia Österborg Wiklund (2020). ”Normkritiska perspektiv på vuxenpedagogik och utbildning.” I Om vuxenutbildning och vuxnas studier: en grundbok / [ed] Andreas Fejes, Karolina Muhrman, Sofia Nyström, Lund: Studentlitteratur AB, 2020, 1, , s. 380s. 299-316.