Maria Hjalmarsson, professor of Educational Work
”My research interest lies in after-school/leisure centres as educational arenas and recreational instructors’ profession and work, which I have studied from the perspectives of gender, social work ethics and policy theory inspired by sociology of education.”
Maria Hjalmarsson was born in Karlstad, but grew up in Forshaga. After graduating as a recreational instructor at the former Karlstad University College in the mid-1990s, she moved to Gothenburg, working there in her profession for seven years. At the beginning of the 2000s, she went back to university to study a one-year Master programme in pedagogy with an emphasis on education management at Gothenburg University. At the same time she was engaged in an educational project for Romani people in a suburb. The Master programme was her introduction to doctoral studies in Gothenburg, and in 2009 she defended her doctoral thesis titled, ”Gender Order of the Teaching Profession: A Study of Teachers’ Perception of Tasks, Competence and Expectations”.
Shortly after this event, she returned to Forshaga and has now been working at Karlstad University for ten years.
”My research interest lies in after-school/leisure centres as educational arenas and recreational instructors’ profession and work, which I have studied from the perspectives of gender, social work ethics and policy theory inspired by sociology of education. My research has largely involved how the profession and work are affected by gender order, change of governance of education and schools, and performance requirements, that is, high quality education and not least making quality visible in a viable way.”
Maria Hjalmarsson thinks that after-school/leisure centre research is scarce, to say the least. Although after-school activities fall under the same curricula as primary education and constitute a large part of childhood for over 85% of young school-children in Sweden, this area has hardly been addressed at all in education research.
”My research is used in primary school teacher education with specialisation in after-school centres at higher institutions authorised to award degrees for this programme and in professional development for practising staff. My research has also been used to discuss care-related issues in the teacher profession generally, and for recreational instructors specifically as a manifestation of professional competence”.
For two years, Maria Hjalmarsson was the project leader of the one-year further training called ”Recreational Centre Pedagogy” for after-school staff, organised by the Regional Development Centre, RUC, at Karlstad University.
”I am proud and grateful for the chance to lead a one-year further training initiative that was unique at the time and included giving research lectures as well as working with the target group of recreational instructors in their local practices. No less than 80% of the target group was reached. To my knowledge, there has been no further initiative of this kind anywhere in Sweden.
In her spare time Maria Hjalmarsson gets new energy from being with her daughter at the riding-school, working out at the gym and being with her friends.