Graduate School in Subject Didactics
With this initiative, we want to contribute to helping teachers, parents, politicians and of course children and young people feel proud of their school.
Graduate School in Subject Didactics
Uppsala University has started a graduate school in subject didactics. The graduate school is a response to the many challenges faced by Swedish schools: falling expertise, a shortage of 60,000 teachers, refugee children who are here alone and require care. The list goes on and on.
Uppsala University is making a major investment in a graduate school in subject didactics. With this initiative, we want to contribute to helping teachers, parents, politicians and of course children and young people feel proud of their school. A school which is not constantly under discussion due to problems, but is instead debated and a participant in the debate as a successful example.
We need more knowledge about how various school subjects and experiences can best be taught, and we must teach this information to our student teachers. Achieving this goal requires even more research in subject didactics, and more skilled university teachers in teacher education programmes.
With this graduate school, we want to coordinate and further strengthen the subject-didactic research base in the teacher education programmes at Uppsala University. Regardless of how the situation or solutions for schools are described, we know that one necessary piece of the puzzle for a good school is teachers and their knowledge, and Uppsala University has a major responsibility in this arena. Uppsala University tests student teachers in a large number of subjects each year, and we conduct research on didactics and subject didactics. Uppsala University therefore has unique opportunities to influence the development in schools, and with opportunities and information comes responsibility.
The graduate school’s activities
Three joint courses are given in the graduate school to discuss research issues, method selection, theory, article writing and conferences.
In addition, joint seminars will be arranged in the graduate school with inspiring lectures on various types of subject didactics, with guest researchers from Sweden and abroad as well as researchers from Uppsala University’s various research environments on subject didactics and didactics. Of course, doctoral students’ texts will also be discussed at various seminars.