Øyvind Wiik Halvorsen

• teacher professionalism
• ethics in teaching
• professional knowledge
• philosophy of education and teaching

Research interests: My main research interests can be placed under the heading of foundational questions in teacher professionalism and teaching.

I am especially interested in professional ethics, professional knowledge, and the role of identity and subjectivity in teaching. I work both theoretically and empirically and see benefits in philosophical perspectives informing and being informed by empirical research.

Currently my work is for the most part related to ethics in teaching, for example with empirical projects on how teacher education can strengthen students’ ethical awareness. Further, I plan to explore ethics as a social practice, paying attention to how formal structures, organizational cultures, and artefacts, such as shared language and concepts, shape the engagement with ethical aspects of teachers’ work. Moreover, I am interested in the abilities and know-how needed in order to do ethics as a professional activity in teaching. Here, the contribution and content of teacher education, both campus activity and practicum, is of interest.

Theoretically, I draw on traditions in normative ethics (virtue ethics, deontology), philosophy of language and action, as well as literature on professionalism.

My educational background is in the humanities. I am a teacher (lektor), with subjects Norwegian and history, and have a PhD in education (pedagogikk), with a thesis on teacher agency.       

Contact information:

E-mail: oyvind.halvorsen@uib.no

Webpage at UiB: https://www.uib.no/personer/%C3%98yvind.Wiik.Halvorsen