Swedish School Teachers Research Articles

Perceptions of donor-conceived families: a survey study on the perspectives of teachers

Research regarding donor-conceived families has mainly focused on processes within the family unit. Research on social factors affecting the family from outside is rare. Focusing on individuals’ difficulties without acknowledging external social factors is, however, misleading when the subjects studied belong to a stigmatised group. As openness about donor conception is increasingly encouraged, donor-conceived families will interact more with their social networks. Yet uncertainty around the societal perceptions of their family building, alongside fear of stigma, can make parents insecure about disclosure. This survey study assessed awareness, knowledge, attitudes and behaviour regarding donor-conceived families among 151 Belgian and 67 Swedish school teachers. Teachers had a basic awareness of donor-conceived families, yet limited understanding of the implications of donor conception for the families. While an open attitude towards donor-conceived families existed, the value of privacy affected interactions. Differences were observed in relation to the different forms of donor-conceived families. Implications for practice are discussed.

Covid-19 and Crisis-Prompted Distance Education in Sweden

This study represents the first research effort to explore the transition from traditional teaching into distance teaching in Swedish schools enforced by covid-19. Governments made gradual and injudicious decisions to impede the spread of the pandemic (covid-19) in 2020. The enactment of new measures affected critical societal functions and included travel restrictions, closing of borders, school closures and lockdowns of entire countries worldwide. Social distancing became the new reality for many, and for many teachers and students, the school closure prompted a rapid transition from traditional to distance education. This study aims to capture the early stages of that transition. We distributed a questionnaire to teachers’ (n = 153) to gain insights into teacher and school preparedness, plans to deliver distance education, and teachers’ experience when making this transition. Results show that the school preparedness was mainly related to technical aspects, and that teachers lack pedagogical strategies needed in the emerging learning landscape of distance education. Findings reveal four distinct pedagogical activities central for distance education in a crisis, and many challenges faced during the transition. While preparedness to ensure continuity of education was halting, schools and teachers worked with tremendous effort to overcome the challenges. Results expand on previous findings on school closure during virus outbreaks and may in the short-term support teachers and school leaders in making informed decisions during the shift into distance education. The study may also inform the development of preparedness plans for schools, and offers a historical documentation.

Pedagogic Being in a Neoliberal School Market: Developing Pedagogical Tact Through Lived Experience

Exploring teaching as an upper secondary school teacher through lived experience offers pedagogical insights that have been challenged over a period of 25 years, when neoliberal educational policies gradually transformed the conditions for teaching in Swedish schools. The article is grounded in the assumption that the teaching profession is complex and there are multiple tacit dimensions inherent in being and becoming a teacher. Several of these dimensions are captured by the notion of pedagogical tact and have to be learned through practice. However, over the past few decades, the implementation of neoliberal policies in the Swedish education sector have changed the conditions for teaching, and created an area of tension between the teacher’s pedagogical alignment and the educational practices influenced by neoliberal values. The aim of the study is to describe how the author experienced these tensions, and what they meant for her becoming and being a teacher in three different pedagogical sites: a higher education preparatory program, a vocational preparatory program, and in adult education. The description is grounded in the lifeworld phenomenological approach and carried out through personal narrative.

Burnout among Swedish school teachers - a cross-sectional analysis.

BackgroundTeachers are at high risk of stress-related disorders. This study aimed to examine the occurrence of burnout in a sample of Swedish school-teachers, to test a combined measure of three burnout dimensions on the individual level, to characterize associations between burnout and factors encountered during work and leisure time, and to explore any differences between the genders.MethodsA questionnaire of occupational, sociodemographic and life-style factors was answered by 490 teachers in school years 4–9. Outcome measures were (a) the single burnout dimensions of exhaustion, cynicism and professional efficacy (Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey), and (b) a combined measure based on high or low values in the three dimensions. The combined measure was used to stratify the study population into four levels (0–3) of burnout. Multivariable Poisson regression was applied on level 2 + 3 vs. level 0 + 1, for variables that we considered as relevant risk factors for burn out.ResultsHalf of the teachers reported low values in all three dimensions (level 0), whereas 15 were classified as having high burnout in at least two out of the three dimensions (level 2 + 3), and 4 % in all three dimensions (level 3). Almost all psychosocial factors were incrementally more unfavourably reported through the rising levels of burnout, and so were dissatisfaction with the computer workstation, pain, sleep problems and lack of personal recovery. There was no association between gender and rising levels of overall burnout (p > 0.30). Low self-efficacy, poor leadership, high job demands and teaching in higher grades were the variables most clearly associated with burnout in multivariable Poisson regression.ConclusionsEven if circa 50 % of the teachers appear do well with respect to burnout, the results points to the need of implementing multifaceted countermeasures that may serve to reduce burnout.

Certification of Teachers: Tensions in a New Signature Reform

Professional certification or registration is a designation earned by an individual. It is an authorization materialized as a document bearing the signature of a person given the authority to “sign off” professionals. A signed document also signals the “professionalism” of the profession by indicating the capacities that are expected of a professional and the competencies that are required for the successful exercise of an occupation—the desirable components of professional practice. However, the implications and logics of a signing process vary according to different factors, such as status, jurisdiction and societal legitimacy. Drawing on a case from Sweden, this paper investigates and critically discusses the logics of the recent reform of certification of Swedish school teachers. Applying a theoretical distinction between the logics of professional “responsibility” and “accountability,” we indicate embedded consequences for the signing process and teacher professionalism.
 

What controls the teaching of friluftsliv? Analysing a pedagogic discourse within Swedish physical education

Research indicates that outdoor teaching practices within a physical education (PE) context are controlled by several factors with the potential to weaken or strengthen PE teachers' communication of pedagogic messages. Drawing on 12 qualitative interviews with PE teachers in compulsory schools in Sweden, the findings in this study suggest that factors claimed to control teachers' pedagogic communication of friluftsliv (the Scandinavian equivalent to outdoor education) are based on the construction of a dominating pedagogic discourse for outdoor teaching in Swedish schools. Inspired by Basil Bernstein's theoretical concepts of the pedagogic device, the analysis of this discourse indicates that Swedish PE teachers and PE teacher education appear to reproduce friluftsliv as a teaching practice carried out in a remote wilderness setting involving specific equipment, financial resources and a certain amount of risk. In relation to these results, alternative ways to think of outdoor teaching in relation to the achievement of the national aims in Swedish PE are discussed.

The conditions for establishment of an ideological dilemma: antagonistic discourses and over-determined identity in school music teaching

This article presents an analysis of video documentation of music teaching in Swedish schools. The article is based on a larger research project, funded by The Swedish Research Council, the purpose of which has been to study how market aesthetics and students’ everyday culture are applied to the teaching of music. The introduction presents a background for the study's focus on music teaching in relation to issues of student influence. Next, the theoretical and methodological starting points are presented. With discourse psychological microanalysis as a point of departure, the ideological dilemma that has emerged in the analysis of the videos is then identified and discussed. In addition, the different types of subject positions contained in the studied discursive practice are problematized. The article concludes with a discussion of a number of factors that contribute to the establishment of ideological dilemmas in school practitioners of music education.

What is valued in friluftsliv within PE teacher education?—Swedish PE teacher educators’ thoughts about friluftsliv analysed through the perspective of Pierre Bourdieu

The value assigned to friluftsliv (activities similar to outdoor education) in physical education teacher education (PETE) and in the physical education (PE) syllabus in Sweden does not seem to result in the implementation of friluftsliv in the practice of teaching in Swedish schools. This study investigates how the identified values of friluftsliv, expressed in interviews with 17 PE teacher educators in Sweden, reflect struggles for legitimate and privileged knowledge in PETE. The exploration of friluftsliv within PETE reveals positions that appear to be an effect of the dominating logic of sport within Swedish PETE and the limited influence of the academic field. The educational consequences of the identified values are analysed and discussed from a socio-cultural perspective.

Re‐Interpreting Teaching: A Divided Task in Self‐Regulated Teaching Practices

The article concerns the increased use of self‐regulated teaching in Swedish schools, where teachers perceive self‐regulated teaching as an ideal way of organising schoolwork. Students make their own plans concerning time, content, grades and their own learning. What and how to learn is no longer a question for the teacher only. If self‐regulated teaching is institutionalised, there is good cause to reinterpret the concept of teaching. Based on data from a longitudinal study, this new teaching practice and its consequences is discussed. For the analysis, activity theory has been used. Self‐regulated teaching is realised by a division of labour between teacher and students. Main results are that issues of comprehensiveness and equity are at risk in radical self‐regulated teaching.

Flerstämmighet, skolan och samhällsuppdraget

This article is a response to the report from the national inspection of the role of reading and writing in teaching in Swedish schools carried out by the National Agency for Education in 1998. In the inspection report, ‘polyphony’, a way of thinking inspired by the work of Bakhtin, his coworkers and later his disciples, is central to an analysis of the teaching situation. In this article, the discussion about polyphony is extended with a discussion about the role of ‘dialogism’. It is argued that polyphony and dialogism play a central and significant role in the analysis and understanding of what it means to support and enrich students’ language development.

Exploring High Ability in Egalitarian Settings: Swedish School Teachers and Gifted Students

Recent research suggests that highly able students who are integrated in traditional classrooms need teachers who possess specific characteristics. The knowledge of such characteristics provides an important understanding when studying the implementation of gified education in a setting such as Sweden which does not recognize giftedness as a reason for special provision. The present study explored differences between characteristics identified by Terrell, Kress, and Croft (1988) as discriminating successful teachers of the gifted from less successful teachers and a sample of Swedish teachers in the Swedish comprehensive school system (N = 232). A translated and adapted version of the Teacher Perceiver Inventory (TPI) served as basis for the comparison. Results showed that characteristics deemed particularly significant for successful American teachers of gified children were ranked relatively low in terms of importance by Swedish teachers.