a distinct feature of utbildningsvetenskap/utdanningsvitenskap. So two years after
the decision to establish the committee at VR, Lundgren and Fransson ( 2003 )
published a report,financed and published by VR in which‘utbildningsvetenskap’
‘-its concepts and their context’were explained. Their conclusion was that“a clear
tendency that‘utbildningsvetenskap’forms a collective term, that includes different
directions of research about education”(p. 105). They also somewhat confess in the
report that their conclusion is not satisfactory since, we will say, it does not add any
clearness to the situation of exactly what utbildningsvetenskap/utdanningsvitenskap
could be which is not already part of educational traditions of thought covered by
the disciplines of pedagogik and pedagogikk.
At Uppsala University, Lidegran and Broady ( 2003 : 2) produced a report on
what was said to be possibly going on at the university under the heading of
‘utbildningsvetenskap’. They found that such research was indeed going on in all of
the faculties including medicine and science. As a basis for their survey, they used a
definition established by the newly established faculty board of
‘utbildningsvetenskap’:
...the board chooses to understand‘utbildningsvetenskap’as a broad term for a kind of
research within a multiplicity of disciplines at the university which is directed to - or could
be directed to - ́bildning’[Bildung],‘utbildning’[institutionalised education],‘fostran’
[value based upbringing] and‘lärande’[learning]. At least in principle‘utbildningsveten-
skap’thereby has a place in all areas of research, faculties and departments, and are at the
same time - with its outspoken foci on schools and society - deeply engaged in a practice
outside the university. (Lidegran and Broady 2003 :p.2)This would result, so was the hope, in stronger knowledge base for different types
of educational systems and thereby give teacher education a base in research. We
can indeed see that utbildningsvetenskap/utdanningsvitenskap is research that
mainly is concerned with systems of education, and/or their contents over time.
Ironically, though, this had led to a situation in which what is considered educa-
tional research in other faculties than educational ones, essentially is formed within
traditions of knowledge and research within those faculties and then applied to
educational issues. Disciplines such as medicine, law, sociology, psychology, etc.,
are of course formed in relation to issues of medicine, law, socialization and what
Rose ( 1998 ) called sciences of the‘psy-’, and thenappliedto educational issues. In
consequence alienating those issues from long standing traditions of knowledge and
research in pedagogik(k) in which they have their rightful place. But also, and this
is maybe worse, reduce those issues to other issues than educational ones. In effect
depriving teacher education of educational knowledge.
A similar tendency can be seen in Norway, when, for example, the educational
historian Alfred Oftedal Telhaug was head of the National Academic Committee for
pedagogikk under the auspices of The Research Council of Norway from 1995 to
- One of his objectives as leader was to create a multidisciplinary profile in
terms of educational research, i.e. he wished to give room for multiplefields and
disciplines other than pedagogikk concerning the researchfield of education, such
fields and disciplines as economics, law, political science, sociology, anthropology
and history (Saeverot 2014 ). By doing so he wanted to share thefinancial resources
12 Doing Harm to Educational Knowledge: The Struggle over Teacher... 183