Läraragens i mötet mellan lärares professionalism och styrning av skolan

Abstract

Teachers’ significant role as professionals is being discussed increasingly in the Swedish debate about schools and education, and is emphasised in the Swedish National School Commission’s report of 2017. This study was aimed at exploring teachers’ talk when they discussed a policy document and to relate this to teachers’ professionalism.

The theoretical point of departure of this research was the concept of teacher agency, based on an ecological perspective (Priestley et al., 2015a). Agency is characterised primarily by intentionality. This means that the acting is governed by a purpose and that there is a capacity to formulate possible options for action in this direction. Agency is also influenced by contextual factors, such as culture, as well as social and material structures. Therefore, in order to fully understand agency, the interaction between individual capacity and contextual factors must be taken into account (Priestley et al., 2015a).

The method of the study was individual interviews and focus group conversations. The individual interviews were used to gain knowledge of teachers’ experiences and understandings of texts like the series of General Advice published by the Swedish National Agency for Education. The focus group conversations made it possible to capture not only individual statements but also the process within the group, as the conversation involved discussions on, and interpretations of, various steering documents that are part of the teaching profession.

The results were categorised and the following themes were identified: initiation of reading and discussing texts, the function of texts such as these, availability, time and responsibility. Although many of the teachers expressed a strong responsibility and concern for pupils’ achievement, they problematised their responsibilities when it comes to reading texts such as these. Some argued that it is the responsibility of the school management to initiate, implement and provide space for these kinds of readings. Several teachers also pointed out that they rarely find colleagues with whom to discuss texts such as these. However, the results also show that when teachers interact and discuss policy texts, such as the General Advice, different types of teacher agency are expressed. The findings are in line with those discussed by Priestley et al. (2015a) and their ecological conceptualisation of teacher agency. Different influences and factors allow or restrict teacher agency. The examples in this study show that teacher agency is not one form of action based on one kind of knowledge; for each situation, there are different possibilities for action.