Silvia Edling

Doing good? Interpreting teachers’ given and felt responsibilities for pupils’ well-being in an age of measurement

The purpose of this study is to theoretically discuss a specific aspect of teachers’ responsibilities: their responsibility for pupils’ or children’s well-being. We ask two interrelated questions: firstly, how might (Swedish) teachers’ sense of responsibilities for their pupils’ well-being be understood in relation to ethical theory? Secondly, what does this insight bring to the discussion of teachers’ professional responsibility within the global discourse of educational policy that increasingly stresses accountability and efficiency in an ‘age of measurement?’ Education can be described as an intervention in a pupil’s life, motivated by the idea that it will somehow improve it. When one implements this intervention, from a legal/political perspective, it boils down to a series of responsibilities assigned to teachers, as expressed in current policy documents. However, an exploration of empirical examples in a Swedish context of teachers’ sense of responsibility for their pupils’ or children’s well-being, expressed in everyday situations, indicates that the matter is complex. In order to find tools with which to better understand such expressions, we turn to the field of ethics. A thorough inquiry into the various reasoning regarding responsibility reveals that responsibility as socially defined and given is not sufficient to capture the intimacy and relational uncertainties of the teachers’ stories, which is why we turn to the writings of Lévinas and his ethics of responsibility. His ethical language helps to capture relational processes that cannot be predefined and that are based on an infinite sense of responsibility for the other person. We continue by discussing and problematising the increasing demands for measurability and accountability in the field of teachers’ professionalism. Here, we illuminate risks involved with the movement towards the fixed and calculable, since it overlooks the intricate ways in which teachers’ given and felt responsibilities are woven together.

Ideological governing forms in education and teacher education: a comparative study between highly secular Sweden and highly non-secular Republic of Ireland

There is an abundance of cross-national quantitative studies of ‘what works’ in education and teacher education in the international literature. However, there is a paucity of cross-national studies in relation to ideological governing forms in education and teacher education, what is perceived as worthwhile and desirable. This study seeks to address this gap in the literature through a comparative socio-historical meta-analysis of ideological governing forms in education and teacher education, in Sweden and the Republic of Ireland, from the mid-19th century to contemporary times. The study uses categories of governance, ideology, emancipation and democracy as linkage points to examine similarities and differences in contextual, moral and cultural politics. Despite significant differences between a highly secular education system in Sweden and a highly non-secular system of education in the Republic of Ireland, findings show remarkable similarities in the shaping of ideological governing forms over this long historical timeline, signalling a contemporary governance turn towards scientific rationalism and moral conservatism more typically associated with the 1960s.

Between curriculum complexity and stereotypes: exploring stereotypes of teachers and education in media as a question of structural violence

The paper highlights four tendencies in the media reporting of teachers and education: (a) recurring patterns of defining education in crisis, (b) mantling responsibility as exterior spokespersons for education and teachers, (c) excluding teachers’ and educational researchers’ knowledge and experiences in the media and (d) simplifying the notion of a good and bad teacher through stereotypes and dualistic frameworks that overlook task and relational complexity. In this paper, I explore how the simplifications of teachers and education that are often presented in the media can be interpreted as structural violence. In the light of these tendencies, research on structural violence helps to remind us that: (a) teachers are unwillingly forced into a paradoxical (in)visibility, (b) they are squeezed in-between two pressuring external demands, namely the complexities in their professional assignment that are politically steered and stereotypes of the good and bad teacher produced by, in this case, the media, (c) they risk wasting time and energy on addressing prejudices that have nothing to do with the specific work they are expected to do and (d) the logic of binary stereotypes is a power issue that brands teachers into a position of permanent failure.

The paradox of meaning well while causing harm: a discussion about the limits of tolerance within democratic societies

Curriculum guidelines in many democratic countries argue for the need to practice tolerance as a means to creating peaceful relations. Through moral education, young people are believed to be able to develop a way of being that respects plurality and decreases interpersonal violence in society. But where do students’ personal involvements or the issue of unpredictability accompanying inter-personal relations fit into the discussion? This article draws on four young people’s narratives as starting points to discuss the gap between progressive educational ideals and embodied ideals when it comes to stimulating peaceful relationships. The study indicates that these youths see themselves as persons who do not want to expose others to strong emotions (similar to the educational ideals of being tolerant), while at the same time struggling with strong emotions that tend to hurt themselves and/or others and paralyse their ability to actively interfere when people are being hurt. In order to understand these findings, Julia Kristeva’s notion of ego ideal and the abject are used as analytical tools. Her reasoning contributes to understanding inconsistencies in (young) people’s responses to others as significant to acknowledge when it comes to opposing oppression—inconsistencies which otherwise tend to be treated as temporal setbacks in the progression toward human perfection.

Education for the other: policy and provision for Muslim children in the UK and Swedish education systems

Abstract The European Convention on Human Rights has been signed by both the UK and Sweden as well as other European states, providing legal justification for accommodating the educational needs of religious minorities. This legal entitlement is explored in the paper, with particular reference to parental choice for schools based on an Islamic ethos. How the UK and Sweden have responded to accommodate the religious convictions of Muslim families is the focus of discussion, drawing on historical and policy backgrounds. The paper also draws on the theoretical work of Kumashiro and the concept of ‘Education for the Other’, examining the positioning of minority groups within the broad context of a multicultural society and the challenge of accommodating religious convictions in a climate of increasing support for cultural assimilation.

Why Not Simply Use the Best Theory? A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Notion of Plurality in Three Texts Used at a Teacher Education Institution in Sweden:

Drawing on ambitions to contest violence in education, this article challenges ideas that student teachers only need to rely on evidence-based theory in their future profession. This is accomplished by analysing and comparing theories of plurality as described in three texts used in courses at one teacher education institution in Sweden. The texts express three different theoretical discourses of approaching social challenges regarding violence, plurality in education, and teacher expectations. Hence, since violence is played out in a variety of ways, the logic of evidence-based research is insufficient when it comes to handling plurality.

Student teachers’ task perceptions of democracy in their future profession – a critical discourse analysis of students’ course texts

The education system is still important for establishing and maintaining democracy in society. In relation to this, it is reasonable to suggest that teachers’ different interpretations of their mis ...

Teachers’ democratic assignment: a critical discourse analysis of teacher education policies in Ireland and Sweden

ABSTRACT The needs of a globalized economy are rapidly changing what is legitimated as school knowledge and values, and calling up new understandings of teachers’ role in stimulating democratic spaces. We have termed this Teachers’ Democratic Assignment. We examine changing notions of teachers’ democratic assignment in Ireland and Sweden using a Critical Discourse Analysis. We tested our hypothesis that teachers’ democratic assignment has changed in unprecedented ways using an analysis of policy documents in teacher education. Our findings reported a substantive converging paradigm shift from a predominantly progressive (reconstructivist) curriculum discourse where democracy was seen as inextricably linked to everyday practice in the early years of this century, to a more essentialist (perennialist) discourse in recent times. The findings will have interest for a wider audience and have implications for the role of democracy in teacher education as well as the question of education as a social responsibility for a vibrant democracy.

Democracy and Emancipation in Teacher Education: A Summative Content Analysis of Teacher Educators' Democratic Assignment Expressed in Policies for Teacher Education in Sweden and Ireland between 2000-2010.

How questions concerning democracy and emancipation thread through teacher education is currently under theorized and there is a paucity of cross-national studies examining the problem. In this study, we draw from a number of theoretical frameworks for their discursive positioning of democracy and emancipation in teacher education and what we are calling teacher educators’ democratic assignment. The framework allowed us to identify key words which we then used for a limited content analysis of policy documents in two European countries, Sweden and the Republic of Ireland, in two separate timelines 2000/2002 and 2010/2012. Our findings indicate that despite significant cultural and contextual differences between the two education systems, key words linked to democracy and emancipation have significantly decreased in policy documentation in both countries in this timeline. This prompts our hypothesis that a paradigm shift has occurred in the discursive positioning of teacher educators’ democratic assignment. The findings suggest the need for a deeper discourse analysis of the four documents as the next phase in the research design. The findings while tentative have implications, well beyond two nation states, for contemporary issues in teacher education and society that require collective consciousness and action.

Children’s rights and violence : A case analysis at a Swedish boarding school

Drawing on the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the article highlights various conceptions of violence at a Swedish boarding school and is based on a critical discourse analysis of different educational and media documents. The investigation indicates that ambitions to protect children from violence need to overcome the dichotomy of private and public in order to protect children affected by violence in the borderland between the private and public spheres.