Classroom research: Methodology, categories and coding

The purpose of this text is to frame the methodological considerations developed in two research projects focused on classroom research. The first project is titled Understanding curriculum reforms – A theory-oriented evaluation of the Swedish curriculum reform Lgr 11 (years 2014–2017), and the second project has the title Exploring the elusive teaching gap – Equity and knowledge segregation in teaching processes (years 2018–2020). Both projects are financed by the Swedish Research Council. In the research projects, empirical data are collected from curriculum events in the classroom. The task is therefore about developing an analytical framework to investigate various organisational repertoires (frame factors) that are actualised with a curriculum; for example, factors such as content-orientation, teaching space and temporal organisation of the teaching. It is also about how a curriculum takes shape in the classroom and which different communicative repertoires (teaching talk including listening and learning talk including listening) are activated in relation to different content focuses, as well as how such repertoires can be described based on comparative typologies/categories. The focus of the research is the coding of data relating to knowledge perceptions and forms of knowledge, which is a more challenging task. All the recorded lessons relate to teaching in a full class. The coding scheme can be found in the last chapter in this anthology