Helle Plauborg – författare

Dialogues on Agential Realism is built up around dialogues with key scholars in the field: Magdalena Górska, Astrid Schrader, Elizabeth de Freitas, Ericka Johnson and Karen Barad. The book investigates agential realist-inspired research practices and provides illustrations of what response-able knowledge production may involve.

Based on thorough readings of the scholars’ work, careful dialogues concerning the challenges, messiness, thrill and inventiveness of research processes are brought to the fore. The dialogues with Górska, Schrader, de Freitas and Johnson were based on specific research projects, which drew inspiration from agential realist theory, in combination with the ideas of other thinkers. The dialogue with Barad focuses on the continuous development of agential realism. In addition, the book consists of a chapter that introduces agential realism and a closing chapter focusing on some of the main insights agential realism has to offer in relation research practices.

The book offers new entry points to agential realism and the conduct of research. It may vitalize methodological prudence and creativity and spark new and previously unimagined ways of thinking and doing research. As such, it will be an essential resource to both newcomers and scholars and students who are already familiar with the theory of agential realism.

Dialogues on Agential Realism is built up around dialogues with key scholars in the field: Magdalena Górska, Astrid Schrader, Elizabeth de Freitas, Ericka Johnson and Karen Barad. The book investigates agential realist-inspired research practices and provides illustrations of what response-able knowledge production may involve.

Based on thorough readings of the scholars’ work, careful dialogues concerning the challenges, messiness, thrill and inventiveness of research processes are brought to the fore. The dialogues with Górska, Schrader, de Freitas and Johnson were based on specific research projects, which drew inspiration from agential realist theory, in combination with the ideas of other thinkers. The dialogue with Barad focuses on the continuous development of agential realism. In addition, the book consists of a chapter that introduces agential realism and a closing chapter focusing on some of the main insights agential realism has to offer in relation research practices.

The book offers new entry points to agential realism and the conduct of research. It may vitalize methodological prudence and creativity and spark new and previously unimagined ways of thinking and doing research. As such, it will be an essential resource to both newcomers and scholars and students who are already familiar with the theory of agential realism.

The working and career lives of teachers have changed radically over the last two decades. Reforms have turned education into a commodity and pupils into ‘consumers’. Yet not since 1992 has there been a comprehensive overview of research findings on teachers’ working lives. This anthology plugs the gap by collecting various scholarly contributions and perspectives on teachers’ career trajectories and work lives.

The material includes an introduction to previous research within the field, presents a range of contemporary research and offers suggestions as to what lies ahead. Among the contributors are leading educational academics who describe a variety of national contexts, illustrating how problems and challenges relating to the teaching profession manifest themselves and are tackled in different countries.

The anthology also shows just how many aspects of teachers’ career trajectories and work lives transcend national boundaries. Common international themes include stronger ties between education and the economy, and a growing importance placed on how students’ skills relate to the perceived needs of the labour market. There is also a greater degree of political interference in curriculum goals and processes, and an expanding obsession with evaluation.

In many countries, a whole generation of teachers are reaching retirement age, ‘changing the guard’ with a crop of new young recruits who are ever harder to attract. At a time when there is an increasing focus on issues such as teacher recruitment, retention and professional development, this anthology offers insight and inspiration to teacher educators and educational policy makers as well as to current and prospective teachers. It also aims at encouraging research into the field of teachers’ working lives.