University of Gothenburg
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Martin Harling

Avd-/Sektionschef, Inst

Unit for General Didactics and Pedagogic
Work
Telephone
+46 31-786 66 36
+46 700-89 62 90
Mail
martin.harling@ped.gu.se
Visiting address
Läroverksgatan 15
41120 Göteborg
Postal address
Box 300
40530 Göteborg

Senior Lecturer

Management
Telephone
+46 31-786 66 36
+46 700-89 62 90
Mail
martin.harling@ped.gu.se
Visiting address
Läroverksgatan 15
41120 Göteborg
Postal address
Box 300
40530 Göteborg

About Martin Harling

Research interests My main interest concerns political dimensions of pedagogy, education and teaching. This applies, among other things, to how individuals and populations are shaped and controlled in various pedagogical practices. In a school context, this translates to how students are increasingly perceived as customers and how knowledge is transformed into goods. The increasing marketization of the school world in recent decades is thus a central research interest.

In the spring of 2017, I defended my dissertation Choosing Subjects : A Study on Upper Secondary School Choice, School Fairs and the Battle for the Future at Linköping University. Here, the market logics of education were analyzed, in particular in the context of so-called upper secondary school fairs. A main result of the dissertation is that the logic of the market seems to legitimize an increased inequality and differentiation among the school's students.

Between 2019-2021, I will be the research leader for a network funded by FORTE that consists of international researchers, activists and unaccompanied young people. The network is entitled "After the crisis: migration, education and working life in interdisciplinary light".

Together with my colleague Ola Strandler, I lead a research project called "The Invisible: on problematic school absenteeism and efforts in a local context", which will run between 2020 and 2022. The project is conducted in collaboration with staff at a school and aims to analyze different actors’ understanding of the phenomenon of problematic school absenteeism, as well as developing robust tools for working with the problem.

Teaching interests I teach courses in pedagogy and special education, as well as teacher education programs. My lectures are about the marketization of education, about (in) equality, poststructuralist theory, subject-formation and discourse analysis. I also teach about educational sociological traditions, curriculum theory, and questions about normality and deviation. I am more than happy to supervise essays in the above areas.

Network In addition to leading the network "After the crisis", I participate in IDPP's ongoing seminar work and have collaborations with researchers from Linköping University and UW Madison in the USA. I actively participate in the research group KRUF (Critical Educational Research), at IDPP.

Keywords Educational sociology, curriculum theory, poststructuralism, discourse analysis, exclusion and inclusion.