Johan Prytz

Telephone:: +46 18 471 22 67
E-mail:: johan.prytz@edu.uu.se
Visiting address:: Von Kraemers allé 1 A
752 37 Uppsala
Postal address:: Box 2136
750 02 Uppsala

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Short presentation

I am professor in curriculum studies (didaktik) with specialization in mathematics. My research is largely about the history of mathematics education, but also implementation of innovations. I mainly teach the department's courses in mathematics education.

Research

Curriculum studies (didaktik in Swedish) concerns teaching, learning, and the content to be taught or learnt. It is a broad field that encompasses the teaching situation, the learning process and a variety of contextual factors that affect teaching and learning. My research has mainly been about mathematics education, focusing on curriculum reforms, governance and attempts to bring about change and innovation in teaching. Very often I have used a historical perspective on these issues.

My important results concern explanations of which factors have influenced the success or failure of reforms. One of the more interesting results is that the design of formal mathematics curricula can influence the quality of teaching and students' learning. Of course, the design of the curriculum is not the only success factor, but it is certainly not a peripheral factor. A more concrete result in this regard is an explanation of why Swedish school mathematics could be so successful in the 1980s and early 1990s; an important factor was the design of the curriculum with subject-specific language, relatively much detail, and a clear line of progression, as well as the long-term research and development work that was behind it. Another important result is an explanation of why the Swedish New Math reform of the 1960s and 1970s failed and in what respect that reform was a failure.

In relation to research in didactics in general, my historical perspective is a basis for making important contributions. Change and reform processes within school systems tend to be protracted in time and the conditions for implementation may have been created long before the reform was prepared. In addition, some consequences of reforms may only become visible long after the reform has been officially completed. So, to gain a deeper and more complete understanding of reform processes within school systems, a historical perspective is required. The historical perspective also offers comparison between different cases in time, which can provide unique insights into contemporary phenomena that are not possible to achieve with non-historical studies.