Stockholm university
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Per AnderhagAffiliated researcher

About me

My research interest revolves around taste, aesthetics, and learning science. Within the framework of Stockholm Teaching & Learning Studies, where I lead the network in science and technology, I do research together with practicing teachers with the aim of generating a practice-based knowledge base. I am thus also interested in how didactic models can be designed, developed, and made useful for teachers. This is also the focal point of an ongoing research project I'm currently involved in: How can teachers in science for younger students  be provided with opportunities to better support students from non-academic backgrounds with Swedish as a second language? (Skolfi, 2022-2025)

I am associate supervisor for two doctoral students, Nhu Truong and Patrik Lindholm.

 

Publications

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

  • Den praktiknära forskningens bidrag till läraryrkets kunskapsbas: en analys av kunskapsprodukter från kollaborativ didaktisk forskning

    2023. Per Anderhag (et al.). Pedagogisk forskning i Sverige

    Article

    Denna studie fokuserar hur praktiknära forskning kan bidra till att utveckla lärarprofessionens kunskapsbas; genom att undersöka vilka slags kunskapspro-dukter som genereras i didaktisk undervisningsutvecklande forskning där lärare och forskare arbetar tillsammans. Datamaterialet består av vetenskapligt publice-rade artiklar från forskningsmiljön Stockholm Teaching & Learning Studies (STLS). Genom en innehållsanalys har fyra (i−iv) kategorier av kunskapsprodukter identi-fierats: (i) Beskrivningar av kunnanden, (ii) Undervisningsdesign, (iii) Didaktiska exempeloch (iv) Metodologiska redskap. Beskrivningar av kunnandensynliggör vad som kännetecknar kunnanden inom olika ämnesområden. Undervisningsdesign preciserar relationer mellan undervisningens utformning och elevers lärande. Didaktiska exempel innefattar rika beskrivningar av undervisning och elevers lärande som grund för didaktisk reflektion. Metodologiska redskap fokuserar på att kombinera och pröva metoder för planering och analys av undervisning. Resultatet kan ses som en typologi över vilka olika slags kunskaper som praktiknära forskning kan bidra med.

    Read more about Den praktiknära forskningens bidrag till läraryrkets kunskapsbas

  • How does a science teacher distinguish himself as a good professional? An inquiry into the aesthetics of taste for teaching

    2022. Paulo Lima Junior, Per Anderhag, Per-Olof Wickman. International Journal of Science Education 44 (5), 815-832

    Article

    This paper introduces the notion of taste for teaching a subject, especially science, as a conceptual framework to analyse the aesthetics of teacher development as a lifelong process. We draw on the work of Pierre Bourdieu and John Dewey in order to account for how teachers distinguish admirable practices and, in doing so, distinguish themselves as inspiring professionals. In order to illustrate this framework, we report a narrative inquiry on the life story of Tomas, a white man nationally prized for his science teaching. This inquiry was inspired by sociological portraits recommended by Bernard Lahire. Results indicate how a practical disposition (as opposed to a theoretical one) played an important role in developing Tomas's individual taste for science teaching, producing a strong continuity between his early experiences as a masculine boy raised in a family of construction workers, on the one hand, and his later experiences as a biologist and a science teacher enacting inquiry-based activities. The significance of the findings for science education is discussed.

    Read more about How does a science teacher distinguish himself as a good professional? An inquiry into the aesthetics of taste for teaching

  • Kod som teknisk lösning: en studie om grundskoleeleversuppfattningar av ändamålsenlighet i derasspontana programspråk

    2021. Per Anderhag (et al.). NorDiNa 17 (1), 113-129

    Article

    This study examines primary school students’ perception of functionality in their spontaneous programminglanguage for controlling a simple robot. Classroom activities were designed in order to create opportunitiesfor the students (year 1 and year 4) to discuss and develop together with their teachers a sharedprogramming language for controlling a simple robot. The students spontaneously used (a) natural language,(b) images or (c) symbols when they created their programming language. The findings show thatthe students primarily perceived a code’s functionality as a question of readability, rather than how wellit fit the purpose of controlling the robot. Possible consequences of the findings for teaching in technologyeducation are discussed.

    Read more about Kod som teknisk lösning

  • Why Do Secondary School Students Lose Their Interest in Science? Or Does it Never Emerge? A Possible and Overlooked Explanation

    2016. Per Anderhag (et al.). Science Education 100 (5), 791-813

    Article

    In this paper, we review research on how students' interest in science changes through the primary to secondary school transition. In the literature, the findings generally show that primary students enjoy science but come to lose interest during secondary school. As this claim is based mainly on interview and questionnaire data, that is on secondary reports from students about their interest in science, these results are reexamined through our own extensive material from primary and secondary school on how interest is constituted through classroom discourse. Our results suggest the possibility that primary students do not lose their interest in science, but rather that an interest in science is never constituted. The overview indicates that studies relying on interviews and questionnaires make it difficult to ascertain what the actual object of interest is when students act in the science classroom. The possibility suggested should, if valid, have consequences for science education and be worthy of further examination.

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  • How can teaching make a difference to students’ interest in science? Including Bourdieuan field analysis

    2015. Per Anderhag, Per-Olof Wickman, Karim Mikael Hamza. Cultural Studies of Science Education 10 (2), 377-380

    Article

    In this article we respond to the discussion by Alexandra Schindel Dimick regarding how the taste analysis presented in our feature article can be expanded within a Bourdieuan framework. Here we acknowledge the significance of field theory to introduce wider reflexivity on the kind of taste that is constituted in the science classroom, while we at the same time emphasize the importance of differentiating between how taste is reproduced versus how it is changed through teaching. The contribution of our methodology is mainly to offer the possibility to empirically analyze changes in this taste, and how teaching can make a difference in regard to students’ home backgrounds. However, our last two steps of our taste analysis include asking questions about how the taste developing in the classroom relates more widely in society. Schindel Dimick shows how these two steps can be productively expanded by a wider societal field analysis.

    Read more about How can teaching make a difference to students’ interest in science? Including Bourdieuan field analysis

  • Signs of taste for science: a methodology for studying the constitution of interest in the science classroom

    2015. Per Anderhag, Per-Olof Wickman, Karim Mikael Hamza. Cultural Studies of Science Education 10 (2), 339-368

    Article

    In this paper we present a methodological approach for analyzing the transformation of interest in science through classroom talk and action. To this end, we use the construct of taste for scienceas a social and communicative operationalization, or proxy, to the more psychologically oriented construct of interest. To gain a taste for science as part of school science activities means developing habits of performing and valuing certain distinctions about ways to talk, act and be that are jointly construed as belonging in the school science classroom. In this view, to learn science is not only about learning the curriculum content, but also about learning a normative and aesthetic content in terms of habits of distinguishing and valuing. The approach thus complements previous studies on students’ interest in science, by making it possible to analyze how taste for science is constituted, moment-by-moment, through talk and action in the science classroom. In developing the method, we supplement theoretical constructs coming from pragmatism and Pierre Bourdieu with empirical data from a lower secondary science classroom. The application of the method to this classroom demonstrates the potential that the approach has for analyzing how conceptual, normative, and aesthetic distinctions within the science classroom interact in the constitution of taste for, and thereby potentially also in the development of interest in science among students.

    Read more about Signs of taste for science

  • What can a teacher do to support students’ interest in science?: A study of the constitution of taste in a science classroom

    2015. Per Anderhag, Karim Mikael Hamza, Per-Olof Wickman. Research in science education 45 (5), 749-784

    Article

    In this study, we examined how a teacher may make a difference to the way interest develops in a science classroom, especially for students from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds. We adopted a methodology based on the concept of taste for science drawing on the work of John Dewey and Pierre Bourdieu. We investigated through transcripts from video recordings how such a taste is socially constituted in a 9th grade (ages 15–16) science classroom, where there was evidence that the teacher was making a positive difference to students’ post-compulsory school choice with regard to science. Salient findings regarding how this teacher supported students’ interest are summarized. For example, the teacher consistently followed up how the students acknowledged and enjoyed purposes, norms, and values of the science practice and so ensuing that they could participate successfully. During these instances, feelings and personal contributions of the students were also acknowledged and made continuous with the scientific practice. The results were compared with earlier research, implications are discussed, and some suggestions are given about how these can be used by teachers in order to support student interest.

    Read more about What can a teacher do to support students’ interest in science?

  • Syften och tillfälligheter i högstadie- och gymnasielaborationen: en studie om hur elever handlar i relation till aktivitetens mål

    2014. Per Anderhag (et al.). NorDiNa 10 (1), 63-76

    Article

    Purposes and contingencies in the lower and upper secondary school lab

    Studies have shown that students’ awareness of the goals and purposes of the laboratory activity is important for their possibility to participate in and learn from the activity. While practical activities often have been considered to be a central part of science education, relatively few studies have examined laboratory work in situ. In this paper we addressed these issues by examining (a) what purposes are distinguished when students’ work with a laboratory assignment and (b) how these purposes are made continuous with the teacher’s aim with the assignment. The data was based on classroom observations from two ordinary laboratory settings, one from a chemistry class in lower secondary school and one from a physics class in the natural science programme in upper secondary school. Although both student groups acknowledged their teacher’s intentions with the practical and could act towards the more student centered purposes of the activity, e.g. describe what happens with the copper and measure the speed of a small vessel respectively, there were differences regarding the possibilities the students had to act toward the activity’s final aim. The results showed that these factors can be referred to the amount of purposes introduced by the teacher as well as those that arose because of contingences, and the connection of these purposes to students’ prior experiences.

    Read more about Syften och tillfälligheter i högstadie- och gymnasielaborationen

  • Students' choice of post-compulsory science: In search of schools that compensate for the socio-economic background of their students

    2013. Per Anderhag (et al.). International Journal of Science Education 35 (18), 3141-3160

    Article

    It is commonly argued that socio-economic inequalities can explain many of the differences in achievement and participation in science education that have been reported among countries and among schools within a country. We addressed this issue by examining (a) the relationship between variables associated with socio-economic background and application frequencies to the Swedish Natural Science Programme (NSP) in upper secondary school and (b) whether there are lower secondary schools in Sweden that seem to compensate for these variables. Data from Statistics Sweden (SCB) covering the whole population of 106,483 ninth-grade students were used to calculate the probability for each student to apply to the NSP. Our results indicate that the variables, such as parental educational level and grades, have explanatory power, but with varying effect for different subpopulations of students. For example, grades in mathematics have a greater impact than grades in science for females’ choice of the NSP. The opposite holds for male students. Out of 1,342 schools, 158 deviated significantly from predicted, that is, the students in these schools applied to the NSP in greater or lesser extent than expected. The number of deviating schools is greater than predicted by pure random variation. This suggests that variables of socio-economic background are only a partial explanation of the application frequencies, and that the deviation needs to be investigated further. Our findings suggest that in order to understand why schools deviate positively and so compensate for the socio-economic background of their students, we need to study their practices more closely

    Read more about Students' choice of post-compulsory science

  • Aesthetic experience in technology education – the role of aesthetics for learning in lower secondary school robotic programming

    2024. Maria Andrée (et al.). Frontiers in Education 9

    Article

    Introduction: Within the technology education research field, aesthetics has primarily been treated as either related to artifacts, design processes and innovation, or as related to students’ enjoyment, appreciation, and participation in technology and technology education. This study focuses on the role of aesthetics in technology learning more specifically the learning of programming. Previous research has pointed to aesthetics as important for the learning of programming, e.g., that programming activities in higher education typically involve experiences of frustration. While previous research is primarily based on student reports, there is a need for further exploration of processes of learning to program. The aim of this study is to explore the role of aesthetics for student learning to program in and what these processes may mean in relation to a disciplinary aesthetics of the technology subject.

    Methods: The study was part of a design-based study with the overall purpose to develop the teaching of programming in lower secondary school. Data was collected from a programming task designed and implemented in school-year 9 (the students were aged 15–16) in Technology in two lower secondary classes. In total, three teachers participated in the implementation. The students pair-programmed Lego robots that should perform specific movements, such as following a curved line. Each group recorded their coding process along with audio, resulting in videos that documented the gradual evolution of their programs. These videos, capturing the real-time programming and associated student and teacher conversations, serve as the data for this study. In order to analyze the role of aesthetics in classroom conversations a Practical Epistemology Analysis was applied.

    Results: The results show that aesthetic judgments were important for orienting learning toward (1) the movement of the robot and (2) the ways to be in the programming activity. During the programming activity, the students expressed feelings of frustration but also joy and humor.

    Discussion: The findings concur with previous research and contribute to further understanding the role of negative and positive aesthetic experiences in the teaching and learning of programming. The importance of the objects of aesthetic experience found in this study are discussed as part of a disciplinary aesthetic of programming.

    Read more about Aesthetic experience in technology education – the role of aesthetics for learning in lower secondary school robotic programming

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