Norms and niches: Voices in higher education

This article is based on observations that I made in 1998/99 in mother-tongue classes in a Danish university. I found that in the most frequently used methods of teaching either the teacher lectured, and accordingly the teacher was the key character, or students made presentations, in which case students were key characters. I understand this kind of teaching as a construction, and in my discussion I relate it to stage theory. In my view these lectures resemble a traditional dramatic play built on a conflict and on an interruptive form in the dialogues. But I have also observed another kind of teaching, an undramatic one in which the dialogues have a more associative form. These two forms of constructions are discussed in relation to the concepts "teaching" and "learning", and in relation to the categories "man"/"woman" and the code "masculine"/"feminine".