Chains of Empowerment or Chains of Disempowerment? Critique, Courage, Agency, and Freedom of Expression as Dimensions of Educator Professionalism
Solveig Østrem is a professor of pedagogy at the Department of Early Childhood Education at Oslo Metropolitan University. For two decades, her research and teaching have focused on the tensions between politics, professional practice, pedagogy, and ethics.
Østrem’s main interest lies in questions related to children’s citizenship and how conceptions of the child influence pedagogical practice. These questions are central to her first book, Barnet som subjekt. Etikk, demokrati og pedagogisk ansvar [The Child as Subject: Ethics, Democracy and Pedagogical Responsibility] (2012), and continue to be a recurring theme throughout her research publications.
Several of Østrem’s studies explore how early childhood teachers’ knowledge—understood as situated, context-dependent, and complex—may come into conflict with political expectations of standardization and simplification. Her keynote at NERA 2026 will include insights from a research project about early childhood teachers who challenge requirements that contradict their professional and ethical judgment. The teachers’ narratives describe what they said no to, why and how they voiced their criticism, and the consequences they faced. The project resulted in a book co-authored with Mari Pettersvold, titled Profesjonell uro. Barnehagelæreres ansvar, integritet og motstand [Professional Disquiet: Early Childhood Teachers’ Responsibility, Integrity and Resistance] (2018).