Academisation and teachers’ dilemmas

Abstract

In 2010, the Swedish Education Act introduced new provisions stating that education at all levels should ‘rest on scientific grounds and proven experience’. These requirements led to greater policy activities at the state level and enhanced the cooperation emerging between the municipality and higher education as well as between teachers and researchers at both the middle and micro levels. This study was conducted in a Swedish municipality that adopted a local strategy to meet the Education Act’s scientific requirements for teaching. As part of this strategy, together with a university the municipality designed a postgraduate programme, corresponding to a one-year master’s level under the Bologna Agreement, made up of four years of part-time studies and with a focus on practical research and school development. This article examines how a sample of 15 teachers participating in this postgraduate programme, and their school leaders, perceive this policy (namely, education being based on scientific grounds) within the development of the teaching profession’s practice and which dilemmas they face while trying to interpret and handle the Education Act’s provisions in their schools. Our overall theoretical perspectives are those of policy enactment, academic drift and activity theory. The results indicate that the teachers’ participation in the postgraduate course has caused tension among their colleagues. Moreover, the teachers expressed a feeling of being ‘isolated cogs’ in an organisation and lacking supporting structures. For some, their participation is a step in a more individualised project that contributes primarily to their own professional development; for others, it is more of a collective project with which one can ‘lift’ one’s school and colleagues.

Professional and academic knowledge in teachers’ research: An empowering oscillation

“…The work in the municipality has so far been explored in two papers (Hansson and Erixon, 2019; Bergmark, 2019) on topics related to (a) dilemmas that arise when teachers, higher education and the local municipality come into contact in the pursuit of integrating research in school and in the teachers’ practice; (b) changing roles and relationships between researchers and teachers in action research through a philosophical analysis based on the writings of Nel Noddings, especially the ethics of care concept.…”

Morsmålsdidaktisk forskning og profesjonalisert lærerutdanning: Fem nordiske beretninger om 50 års utvikling og kamp

“…Under alla de år jag varit engagerad i lärarutbildningens akademiska utveckling har jag bedrivit forskning inom det svenskdidaktiska området. Det har då handlat om projekt där jag använt romaner om skolan skrivna av utbildade lärare, för att studera upplevelsesidan av den svenska folkskolan under 1900-talet (Erixon, 2002a), diktskrivning som pedagogiskt arbete i gymnasieskolan (Erixon, 2004), hur nya digitala medier förändrat förutsättningar för undervisning i svenskämnet (Elmfeldt & Erixon, 2007;Erixon, 2010Erixon, , 2014Erixon, , 2016, akademiskt skrivande i lärarutbildningen (Erixon Arreman & Erixon, 2015;Erixon & Erixon Arreman, 2017, modersmålsämnet i ett internationellt perspektiv (Green & Erixon, 2020), genomförandet av det så kallade Läslyftet Löfgren & Erixon, 2022), läraryrkets akademisering (Hansson & Erixon, 2019;Bergmark & Erixon, 2019;Erixon & Hansson, 2022) samt lärarutbildningen i Sverige (Erixon & Kallós, 2005;Erixon Arreman & Erixon, 2008) och Namibia (Erixon Arreman, Erixon & Rehn, 2016). Till skillnad från mina kollegor i denna bok är fokus i detta kapitel inte mitt engagemang och min forskning inom svenskdidaktiken, utan lärarutbildningens akademisering och kamp för en rättmätig plats inom akademin, dock vid en institution som bedrev lärarutbildning inom svenskämnet och de samhällsorienterade ämnena.…”