Table of Contents

List of tables; Acknowledgements; 1. Introduction: the learning lives of Groruddalen; 2. Groruddalen: Norway goes global; 3. From studying young people to creating narratives of learning lives; 4. Negotiating cultural identities: outdoor play, classroom discussions, and future orientation; 5. Learning identities: on the boundaries between work and play; 6. Forming learning identities through narrative; 7. Making choices to make a 'future': how community, the valley and the nation frame possibilities; 8. Schooling for tolerance: dealing with conflict and controversy; 9. Conclusion: the learning lives of new Norwegians; Appendices: 1. The education system in Norway: schools, levels, and transitions; 2. A map of Groruddalen; References.

Promotional Information

This book explores how 'learning identities' are forged through complex interplays between young people and their communities.

About the Author

Ola Erstad is Professor and Head of the Department of Education at the University of Oslo. He has published on issues of technology and education, particularly on media literacy and twenty-first-century skills. Øystein Gilje is Associate Professor in the Department of Teacher Education and School Research at the University of Oslo. He works in the fields of multimodal literacy and educational ethnography, and has published on technology, identity and moving images. Hans Christian Arnseth is Associate Professor in the Department of Education at the University of Oslo. He is an expert in the field of computer-supported collaborative learning, and the consequences of developments in ICT for learning and literacy. Julian Sefton-Green is Principal Research Fellow in the Department of Media and Communication at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and research associate at the University of Oslo. He has published on media education, new technologies, creativity, digital cultures and informal learning.

Reviews

'Erstad, Gilje, Sefton-Green and their colleagues have gathered an extraordinary data set, following young people across the many contexts that make up their lives and tracing how they learn and become new types of people through linkages across domains. They offer a compelling account of how self, family, school, community and other influences together produce the trajectories of human lives as they are actually lived.' Stanton Wortham, Boston College

'In this compelling book, Erstad and his colleagues welcome the reader to the Grorud Valley in Norway, where we meet children and youth as they negotiate significant points of transition. This text profoundly honors the Norwegian concept of 'Bildung' as the authors capture the children's knowledge and interactions in the world as they move through school.” Catherine Compton-Lilly, University of Wisconsin, Madison