Pedagogen: teacher eller educationist – en kvalitativ studie om lärarprofessionen

Abstract

During our last term of the teacher education programme, we came across a term that was new to us; teaching as a true profession. In the ongoing debate regarding teaching in general, a lot of room is given to the discussion regarding this matter. It is not, however, a term that has been awarded any room in the teacher education until the very last course. The meaning of this term opened our eyes to the need for a united professionalism in the teaching occupation.

Looking back on our internships, we were able to identify the deficiency of a united professionalism as a source of many of the problems in these schools. Furthermore, the late introduction of this term in the teacher education programme may be a contributing factor to newly graduated teachers having a hard time.

The purpose of this study was to research teachers’ different views and reflections on their occupation through qualitative interviews with six upper secondary school teachers. The questions were based on the definition of professionalism in the teaching occupation through the concepts of educationism (a high level of professionalism) and teacherism (a high level of amateurism). We also wanted to relate these views and reflections to the concept of professionalisation of the teaching occupation in the hope of finding a united teaching profession. Using the conclusions drawn from the analysis, we were able to place the respondents on a scale ranging from professionalism to amateurism. The teachers placed on the professional side of the scale were the ones able to talk about their occupation in a more scientific way. This shows that a professionalisation of the teaching occupation requires, among other things, joint usage of phrases and explanatory models and that these be implemented from early on in the teacher education programme.

Keywords: Educationism, teacherism, profession, meta language, teacher role.