Läxor om och för kulturell mångfald med föräldrars livserfarenheter som resurs – några kritiska aspekter

Abstract in English

The aim of the thesis is to explore how parents’ life experience can become a resource to strengthen teaching about, and for, cultural diversity with the help of homework assignments and teacher feedback. Two of the four articles included are based on data from the Läxprojektet (2004-2006) [The Homework Assignment Project], which was a practicebased, collaborative research project at a multi-lingual and multi-cultural secondary school. The material collected from project and used in this thesis consists of collaborative homework assignments, audio recorded lessons, student texts and interviews with parents, students and teachers. Article A concerns teachers’ feedback during classroom discussions. Results consist of seven categories of feedback and show that all feedback, in contrast to previous research, does not support students’ learning. Article B show that collaborative lessons that are based on parents’ life experience may fulfill the function of boundary objects (Star & Griesemer 1989) between home and school. Article C deals with the relationship between homework and feedback, which is studied in a research review. Article D revealed that issues concerning how cultural diversity was highlighted at the municipal level and in school planning were primarily featured in the municipalities with the highest proportion of multilingual immigrant students. Thesis results suggest that: Feedback is a challenge for teachers when the content of what the students present is unknown. Parents’ life experiences can be a resource in a content-based partnership between home and school. Teaching about cultural diversity is facilitated by the existence of cultural diversity among students and parents. In summary, results indicate that there are several factors that influence whether and how content and teaching about, and for, cultural diversity succeeds in schools. These factors affect the individual level, the classroom level and partially also the municipal level.