Kommunal tverrfagleg praksis for betre medverknad og samhandling med born og unge - Offentleg ph.d.

Project summary

In the autumn of 2027, a new school for grades 1–7 will be completed in a medium-sized Norwegian municipality. Co-creation, one of the municipality’s core values, will be a central part of the public process related to the planning of the school. Through an action-research-oriented design, the aim is to facilitate co-creation with the different stakeholders involved in the development. School pupils are among the stakeholders who will participate in developing plans/drawings for the new school. The purpose of the PhD project is to investigate how the co-creation between the pupils and the other stakeholders takes place and contributes to innovation and sustainability. When it comes to school development, it is challenging to create innovative and sustainable schools within an education system that is constantly changing. This requires flexible and adaptable school buildings developed through dialogue between designers, pupils, and educators (Rokhshid, 2020). Co-creation is characterised by the active involvement of citizens based on partnership and shared responsibility between public authorities and citizens. The “ordinary” citizen possesses valuable knowledge that can contribute to improving the quality of public services (Voorberg et al., 2015). In this context, children and young people, like adults, have the right to be heard and to participate in decisions that concern them, now and in the future (the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child; the Norwegian Constitution §§ 105, 109; the Planning and Building Act, 2008 § 5-1; the Education Act, 1998 §§ 1, 1–2.3). The core curriculum for primary education also emphasises that pupils should develop competence in democracy, citizenship, and sustainable development (Ministry of Education and Research, 2020). The PhD project is designed as an action research project in which I act as the action researcher together with pupils and other co-researchers who will form the project’s research group. The research group will generate knowledge about co-creation with children and young people and their ability and opportunity to contribute to innovative and sustainable schools, in line with several of the UN Sustainable Development Goals: 3. Good health and well-being, 4. Quality education, 5. Gender equality, 11. Sustainable cities and communities, 13. Climate action, 17. Partnerships for the goals (UN, 2015).