Stockholm university
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Eva InsulanderSenior lecturer

About me

Eva Insulander is an Associate professor and senior lecturer at the Department of Education at Stockholm University. Her research focuses mostly on designs for learning, with an interest in social semiotics and multimodal analysis of educational communication, primarily in the context of museum and history education. She has been involved in several research projects focusing on museums as arenas for learning and communication. She is a member of the research group Utbildningshistoria och utbildningssociologi and also section editor of the peer-reviewed open access journal Designs for learning. 

Presently, Insulander is leading a project funded by the Swedish research council: "Collections and education: A historical study of the relation between schools and museums 1880-1980". It is a four year-grant 2022-2025 together with David Thorsén, SU.

Insulander is also leading a project funded by the Swedish national heritage board: "Exhibition materialities: Effects of digitization for meaning-making". It is a three year-grant 2023-2025 together with Fredrik Lindstrand, Konstfack University of arts, craft and design. The Swedish National Maritime and Transport Museums are partners in the project.

She is also part of a collaborative project with Gothenburg Museums and Art gallery, funded by the Anna Ahrenberg Foundation, "The potentials of Museum Education", which runs from August 2024 to March 2025. Klar Grinell is leading the project.

Teaching

Current teaching at the Dept. of Education

  • Curriculum Studies II - To record and assess knowledge formation/Teacher training/Graduate level

  • School in Society/Teacher training/Graduate level

  • Degree Project, in General Education Studies in Didactic Science/Didactic science/Graduate level/Supervision

  • Critical Studies of the Construction Knowledge about Educational
    Phenomenon in current research/Master's programme in didactic science
  • Advanced Research Methodology in Multimodal Analysis /Master's programme in didactic science

  • Advanced level literature course/Master's programme in didactic science

  • Master ́s Thesis in Didactics for Master Degree/Masters programme in didactic science/Supervision

  • PhD Programme in education/Supervision

Research

Her research focuses mostly on designs for learning, with an interest in social semiotics and multimodal analysis of educational communication, primarily in the context of museum and history education. She has been involved in several research projects focusing on museums as arenas for learning and communication. She is a member of the research group Utbildningshistoria och utbildningssociologi and also associate editor of the peer-reviewed open access journal Designs for learning. 

Research projects

Museums - digitization and its effects for meaning-making

Digitization has had a transformative impact on museum practices in recent years, including the work with exhibitions. The aim of this project is to produce knowledge about the effects of digitization in relation to the exhibition medium and to visitors' meaning-making.

Två pojkar tittar på digital karta

Publications

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

  • Skola på museum: Ernst Klein och Nordiska museets undervisningsavdelning 1929–1938

    2024. David Thorsén, Eva Insulander. Nordic Journal of Educational History 11 (1), 103-131

    Article

    This article examines the dynamic relationship between schools and museums during the 1930s. It investigates how elementary school teachers and students became a prioritized audience for Nordiska museet in Stockholm by analyzing the foundation of the museum’s teaching department (“undervisningsavdelningen”) and the work of the museum’s first lecturer Ernst Klein (1887–1937). Material from the museum’s archive reveals how a mutual beneficial relationship was established between the museum and local schools in the 1930s and how visits to the museum gradually was included in the elementary school curriculum. The study cast new light on the reciprocal development of the two institutions in the interwar years and stresses the importance of local circumstances and individual actors’ initiatives when analyzing past teaching practices.

    Read more about Skola på museum: Ernst Klein och Nordiska museets undervisningsavdelning 1929–1938

  • Teaching through objects and collections: The case of Strängnäs Secondary Grammar School and school museum 1830-1960

    2023. Eva Insulander, David Thorsén. Multimodality & Society

    Article

    This paper aims to introduce educational history to multimodal studies by combining a source-oriented approach with multimodal social semiotics. We trace the role of objects and collections in teaching and learning, and focus on Strängnäs Secondary Grammar School in Sweden 1830-1960 as a case example. Closely examining original documents, remaining physical objects, and examples of their situated use as represented in photographs and drawings, the paper provides a nuanced perspective on how object-based pedagogy was applied. It traces how objects and artefacts were incorporated into the school’s collections, by the actions of different actors, in processes of recontextualisation and framing. The activity types that we use as examples, include: drawing lessons in art, weapons practice in physical education, plant collecting in botany, and map exercises in history. These examples show how objects and their meaning potential were used in teaching and learning, and how they realized certain discourses of schooling. Based on our examples, we can see how educational discourses such as progressivism came to have different impact in different subjects. While an authoritarian and national discourse prevailed in art and physical education, a scientific and progressive discourse seem to have been established in botany and history. By combining multimodality with historical research, we can understand meaning-making within a larger context of sociocultural practices and sociopolitical forces.

    Read more about Teaching through objects and collections

  • Att bli lärare

    2023. .

    Book (ed)

    Att bli lärare är en grundläggande och heltäckande bok som blivande lärare kan använda genom hela utbildningen. Den ger en aktuell bild av läraryrkets möjligheter och utmaningar men blickar också framåt.

    Boken består av fem olika delar som var och en är kopplade till aktuell forskning:

    DEL 1 På väg mot lärarrollen (ledarskap, bedömning och inkludering)DEL 2 Lärandeperspektivet (hur kan man organisera meningsfullt lärande?)DEL 3 Professionen (uppdrag, framväxt och kunskapsgrund)DEL 4 På väg mot framtiden (hur organiserar vi en skola för framtiden?)DEL 5 Tre internationella utblickar (Finland, Chile och Singapore)Sammantaget ger texterna hela den bredd av kunskaper som en lärare behöver tillägna sig under utbildningen. Boken är ett stöd i den utbildningsvetenskapliga kärnan (UVK) men fungerar också som en första introduktion till de ämnesdidaktiska frågorna. Mot bakgrund av covid-19-pandemin och en ny läroplan (Lgr22) finns i den tredje upplagan tillägg bland annat gällande datalitteracitet, normkritisk pedagogik, kunskapsområdet sexualitet, samtycke och relationer samt riktlinjer för betygssättning.

    Boken kan användas som en ingång för att få översikt över ett område och som en uppslagsbok för olika centrala frågor som kan dyka upp under utbildningens gång. Till boken hör också digitala case som ger möjlighet att öva förmågan att samtala med en elev, en lärarkollega eller en förälder om olika dilemman som blivande lärare kan komma att möta i sin framtida yrkesutövning.

    Read more about Att bli lärare

  • Exhibition development through cross-institutional collaborative design

    2022. Eva Insulander, Eva Svärdemo Åberg. Designs for research, teaching and learning, 137-148

    Chapter

    This chapter sheds light on a cross-institutional collaborative design process between museum professionals and university researchers. It draws upon a study of a series of design workshops at a large natural history museum in Sweden, where professionals at the museum and educational researchers from the university interacted and reflected upon critical incidents in the exhibition development process.

    Read more about Exhibition development through cross-institutional collaborative design

  • The touring science centre- an example of collaboration between a museum and a school

    2022. Eva Insulander, Lisa Öhman. Designs for research, teaching and learning, 123-136

    Chapter

    Museums have a long history of partnering with schools through field trips, outreach programs and curriculum support. While schools turn to museums for expert knowledge, unique learning resources, and out-of-school experiences, museums wish to attract new groups of visitors to engage in their exhibitions and activities. Both the museum and the school are central knowledge institutions, each however guided by a distinct institutional logic. They have different roles to play in society, which may facilitate or hinder collaboration between them. While the museum’s collections form the basis of its activities, the curriculum and educational tasks are at the centre of the school. This study is based on the analysis of documentation of science-centred activities focused on programming with teachers and pupils in grades 4–6, in a context of cultural diversity.

    Read more about The touring science centre- an example of collaboration between a museum and a school

  • Assessment in Transformation

    2022. Eva Insulander (et al.). Educare - Vetenskapliga skrifter 6 (1), 132-153

    Article

    Using data from focus group interviews, this study aims to analyze the perceived opportunities and challenges encountered by groups of secondary school teachers regarding the assessment of multimodal texts. Previous research has shown that digital technologies introduce new kinds of texts in the classroom. The possibility of combining verbal text with image, sound, and movement has an impact on students’ text production. However, the changing role of writing on the screen has left teachers uncertain of how to assess these new forms of texts. Apart from attending to digital competence, assessing multimodal texts may involve following writing conventions and organizing text using different resources and components. Quality in multimodal texts may concern using multimodal components to communicate complex ideas effectively, which may or may not be noticed by teachers. The data is based on group interviews with 11 secondary school teachers at two different schools. The study conducted a thematic content analysis using the analytical concepts of transformation, recognition, design, and form and meaning. Findings show that teachers find it challenging to acknowledge certain qualities in students’ multimodal texts without support from the steering documents. On the other hand, they notice opportunities to follow students’ learning processes. In addition, they stress an increased opportunity and need for shared assessment across school subjects. The article concludes with a discussion of tensions regarding opportunities and challenges when assessing students’ multimodal texts in relation to the different subject syllabuses.

    Read more about Assessment in Transformation

  • Sites for learning and knowledge representations – the Middle Ages

    2021. Eva Insulander, Fredrik Lindstrand, Staffan Selander. Designs for research, teaching and learning, 111-123

    Chapter

    In this chapter, the focus is on knowledge representations in different sites of learning. We will give some examples of formal, semi-formal, and non-formal institutional framings, as well as of choices of representational resources—both in terms of designs for learning and play, and designs in learning. The knowledge area is the Middle Ages, a period which reappears in books, music, films, and games in late-modern contexts. This chapter is thereby also an example of learning outside and inside schools, and of how different institutional logics and choices of material resources affect which type of knowledge that is valued, and what is seen as signs of learning.

    Read more about Sites for learning and knowledge representations – the Middle Ages

  • Designs for learning - designs in learning

    2021. Staffan Selander (et al.). Learning as Social Practice, 30-69

    Chapter

    In the modern era during the twentieth century, much has been written about teaching and learning. However, much of this seems obsolete in our contemporary hybrid society. Interaction design focuses on theory-informed, collaborative work between researchers and the users, as in the example of museums below or, as in a school context, between teachers and learners. Learning Design Sequences is a theoretical map for the purpose of analyzing significant incidents in learning process, in a process of meaning-making. The chivalrous reward chart is designed as a printable sheet presenting the 12 “rules” of the chivalrous code multimodally, in writing and images. Pelf was navigating through space making selections from the modes and media available in the exhibition, in a process of meaning-making. Language, mathematic symbols and musical notation are examples of sign systems often regarded as objective knowledge representations enabling us to communicate our understanding of specific aspects of the world.

    Read more about Designs for learning - designs in learning

  • Multimodal analys av klassrumsinteraktion

    2021. Eva Insulander (et al.).

    Book

    Den här boken ger en introduktion till multimodal analys av klassrumsinteraktion, och vägledning i socialsemiotik respektive etnometodologisk samtalsanalys. De två utgångspunkterna kan antas för att studera interaktion och skapa underlag för analys och tolkning av fenomen som undervisning, lärande och bedömning samt sociala relationer (fenomen som uppmärksammas inom UVK-kurser).

     Boken redogör för forskningsprocessens olika steg såsom problemformulering, metoder för datainsamling och analys och erbjuder särskilt verktyg för att genomföra praktiknära studier på vetenskaplig grund. I boken presenteras hur två skilda teoretiska och metodologiska utgångspunkter resulterar i olika undersökningsbara frågor, begreppsanvändning och analysmodeller för studier av interaktion.

    Här uppmärksammas vikten av ett multimodalt perspektiv på interaktion då språkliga, kroppsliga och materiella aspekter får betydelser för analys och tolkning av olika fenomen.

    Read more about Multimodal analys av klassrumsinteraktion

  • Representations of migration, borders and memories in exhibitions

    2019. Eva Insulander. Museum & Society 17 (1), 117-132

    Article

    Many museums and galleries today address migration stories in their exhibitions. In this article, a methodological framework based on a multimodal social semiotic approach is used for the analysis of the meaning potentials of exhibitions. A particular focus is directed towards how the conceptions of migration, borders and memory represent themselves multimodally, in terms of general structure, orchestration of semiotic resources, the use of figurative language and explicit/ implicit values. This methodological framework helped uncover hidden messages of interests and ideologies in different exhibitions. The study contributes to research on multimodal texts and exhibitions, as well as educational research.

    Read more about Representations of migration, borders and memories in exhibitions

  • Teacher agency in professional development programmes – A case study of professional development material and collegial discussion

    2019. Eva Insulander, Daniel Brehmer, Andreas Ryve. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction 23

    Article

    This article offers insight into teacher agency in professional development programmes, focusing on a national policy initiative in Sweden aiming to provide in-depth professional development for mathematics teachers. Data was produced from video observations from two collegial discussions with one group of teachers, during the professional development programme. We closely analyse forms of agency in the collegial discussions in relation to the affordances of the professional development materials. The analysis shows a complex relationship between possibilities for independent judgement as constructed in curriculum materials, teachers' agency, and the coach's role in collegial discussions. Contrary to previous research, the findings indicate that opportunities for facilitating enactment in professional development materials do not necessarily lead to teacher agency. The results of the study are discussed in relation to the Swedish educational context.

    Read more about Teacher agency in professional development programmes – A case study of professional development material and collegial discussion

  • Designing Multimodal Texts about the Middle Ages

    2017. Eva Insulander, Fredrik Lindstrand, Staffan Selander. Journal of Educational Media, Memory and Society 9 (2), 1-14

    Article

    Multimedial and multimodal communication arouse interest in many fields of research today. By contrast, little attention is paid to multimodality in relation to designs for learning, especially in relation to representations of knowledge on an aggregated level. By analyzing three multimodal texts about the Middle Ages, including a textbook, a film series and a museum exhibition, this article provides insight into the role of multimodal designs for learning in a school context.

    Read more about Designing Multimodal Texts about the Middle Ages

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