The Good Enough Teacher - Lärares tolkningar av det kompensatoriska uppdraget i relation till likvärdighetsuppdraget

Abstract

“Good enough teacher” is a comment made by a respondent in one of the interviews for this study. The teacher refers to the strategic workflow he or she developed regarding compensation and equality. The comment captured the three main arguments and results of this study in an accurate way. At the same time it mediates that you need (only) to be “good enough” to be a successful teacher in regards to compensation and equality. Which is equally comforting as it is though provoking. The following study is an inquiry into this “good enough” teachers work as well as the mission of compensation and equality within the Swedish school system. On the basis of the result I argue that there are merits to the hypothesis of the study. Teachers do interoperate the mission of compensation as conflicting with the mission of equality in three ways related to the arguments of the following study. 1. Successful students get less of teachers time. Because teachers strive to achieve the equality principal of “just enough”. 2. Teachers work in a demand surplus for education. This leads to a natural selection and feelings that fluctuate between pride and insufficient. 3. If the teacher survives the natural selection it most likely means that he or she has simplified the missions of compensation. This effects the equality of the education because it brings a workflow starting with the teachers conditions and needs, not the students.