Emma Arneback

About Emma Arneback

Emma Arneback is Docent of Education at Örebro University and is active within the research fields of Didactics, Curriculum Theory and Educational Philosophy. Central hubs in her research are change processes initiated in order to create more equal opportunities in educational contexts. What actions are taken to reduce the occurrence of racism, school segregation and social imbalance – how can these actions be understood and what opportunities and obstacles are created by different actions?

Research interests

Racism and anti-racism in eduction:
Arneback’s dissertation”With ’Violations’ as a Yardstick. Planned Responses to Expressions of Racism in Upper Secondary Schools” (2012) was produced within this area of interest. An interest that she has further developed through research, developmental work, and investigation assignments.

Together with Jan Jämte, she has written a book and designed an online education on "How to Couneract racism in preschool and school". During 2016-2020, Arneback was research leader for the project "How to Counteract Racism in Education. A qualitative study of teachers’ anti-racist actions", funded by the Swedish Research Council.

A research interest that Arneback has developed over time – on account of previous research results – is how the juridification of education conditions teachers’ and students’ actions in school.

To challenge segregation through education:
In recent times, Arneback has become more interested in how organisation and implementation of education in different ways can contribute to a decline in segregation within the educational system – and within society at large.

During 2018-2021 she’s part of a municipality funded project "Challenging Segregation through Education". In the project, consequences of a municipal policy decision, aiming at ending (school) segregation and create conditions required for increased goal achievement and integration, are studied. During 2021-2024, the project will be followed up by a VR-funded project that studies and compares various local initiatives to challenging school segregation.

Education and widening participation:
A third research interest is how education in different ways can enable a broader participation. During 2020-2022, she is working on a project, funded by Arbetsförmedlingen, which studies how course participants at “Snabbspåret” (the fast track), an education for teachers with a teaching degree from abroad, have experienced and been influenced by their education.

During 2018-2020 (sep), Arneback was the research leader of the project "The Line Between Secondary and Higher Education”, which study if and how Line 14 has contributed to broadened participation and how non-tradtional students experience the meeting with higher education.

Previously, Arneback participated in a research project, funded by the Swedish Research Council, which studied teacher students’ encounters with higher education. Focus in the project was on studying the students’ different struggles with academic writing and the professional identities the students developed within higher education over time (see “Kampen om texten”, VR, 2012-2016).

Teaching

Arneback is teaching classes within teacher education. She also supervises PHD-students and student essays written within her research area. 

Administrative Assignments
Editorial member for the educational journal Utbildning & Demokrati. Tidskrift för didaktik och utbildningspolitik.

Member of the steering committee for the research environment, Education and Democracy.