Positioning oneself in relation to sources and context – Enactments of independence in undergraduate supervision

Independence is becoming an increasingly important factor in Swedish higher education, especially in relation to undergraduate degree projects. Despite this, there is no shared understanding of what independence is or whether it is to be found in the finished text or in the supervision interaction. In this article I look at one specific definition of independence: the ability to position oneself and one’s work in relation to sources. Three supervision meetings are analysed, selected from a larger body of recorded material from teacher education courses in Sweden. I explore how independence can be enacted in the supervision of undergraduate degree projects, drawing on the analytical framework of appraisal. The theoretical framework is derived from the socio-cultural and dialogical perspective, which proposes that learning and understanding develop in context through interaction and dialogue. Independence, from this perspective, is something that can be explored in enactments in interactions of different kinds. The findings show that the students use different resources in order to relate to sources on different levels, and these levels could be related to independence in different ways.