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Helene Louise Friis Ratner

Helene Ratner 2011
PhD fellow , cand.soc. (Political Communication and Management)
Helene Louise Friis Ratner

Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy

Porcelænshaven 18A
DK-2000 Frederiksberg
Tel.: +45 3815 3679
Cell phone: +45 3082 6019
Fax:+45 3815 3635
E-mail: hr.lpf@cbs.dk



Link to this homepage: uk.cbs.dk/staff/ratner


Over the last decade, inclusion of pupils with special needs has become an issue of political and financial importance in Denmark. Despite numerous political declarations of intent since the early 1990s, the number of pupils referred to special needs education has grown. This may partly be an unintended consequence of a well-established system of referrals and diagnostics; but it may also be a sign of a general notion of normality that is becoming still more delimited.
“Inclusion” is a complex agenda, which centres the management and organization of the pedagogic professionalism and economic means. It is often suggested that the hindrance to achieve an inclusive school resides with existing “school cultures” as well as in teachers “routines” and “views of children”. Teachers, thus, are encouraged to reflect on their practice in order to change it towards a more inclusive one.
With my PhD-project, I explore, through ethnography, how the teachers’ reflection becomes an object of management when inclusion is a goal. How does management work strategically in an everyday practice characterized by ambiguity and conflicts? How is the pupil, the teacher and the manager put at stake when the ideal of reflection aims at dissolving the existing? Theoretically, I draw my inspiration from Science and technology studies to explore the qualitative aspects of how managers and teachers work with - and constitute - information, knowledge, and practice. A large part of my thesis additionally discusses “anthropology at home”, in particular reflexive questions of “informants” already studying themselves with anthropological concepts such as “culture” and “relations”

Primary research areas

  • Inclusive school management
  • Change management through reflection technologies
  • Strategy as practice and "fire fighting"
  • Public management reforms
  • Actornetwork-theory (ANT) & Post-ANT
  • Science, Tachnology and Society (STS)
  • Anthropology of knowledge
  • Reflexivity debates (anthropology and STS)


Selected publications

  • Ratner, Helene (2011) "Skolelederen gennem ild og vand: Når strategi og brandslukning mødes" i Ledelse af uddannelse : At lede det potentielle. red. / Malou Juelskjær ; Hanne Knudsen ; Justine Grønbæk Pors ; Dorthe Staunæs. Frederiksberg : Samfundslitteratur, s. 27-52.
  • Ratner, Helene (2009) “Suggestive Objects at Work: A New Form of Organizational Spirituality?”i Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory nr. 19: 105-121
  • Ratner, Helene, Bang, Tobias, Kohl, Katrine og Viftrup, Stephan (2010) ”Et Spørgsmål om Vilje: En Analyse af DR’s Integrationskampagne ’Job for Alle’”, i Social Kritik nr. 121: 44-55


Last updated by Anje Schmidt 18/11/2011