To Örebro University

General description of the research theme

During recent years many educational reforms have been carried through. The overall explicit ambition outspoken is to reach a higher quality. One crucial component of the complex situation is the role of the teacher. Teachers have to act as professionals it is said, but what does that imply? Is the central aspect that the teachers have to reach what in sociological terms usually is called professionalization, a more autonomous role and higher status, free from directives from other instances than themselves or is the central aspect that the teachers should reach a kind of moral professionalism, being pedagogically knowledgeable and able of encountering students from different social groups?

Purpose and/or research questions In the case of the Swedish educational development during the last decades the question of teachers as professionals have become more and more central, but, as exemplified, the meaning of that concept has been in flux. What might the ’first-teacher-reform’ lead to in terms of teacher professionalism and professionalization? In our paper we will try to show how there are many contradictory aspects of professionalization and professionalism woven into the recent reforms and we will exemplify this by analyzing the ‘first-teacher-reform’ specifically.                   

Theoretical and methodology framework

We will relate our analysis to the theoretical debate on how to use the concepts of (teacher) professionalism and professionalization and try to show the implications of different meanings of these concepts in a field of force between accountability and professional responsibility.

 (Expected) conclusions/findings

We mean that the above mentioned contradictions (1) partly are built into the terms of professionalism and professionalization, but also that (2) the concept of teachers as professionals is used as a rhetorical term with many different meanings. We will also show (3) how the concept of teachers as professionals, using professionalization and professionalism and linked to the recent educational situation in Sweden, interplays and is combined with different views of the role of the teachers and the meanings with schooling and that these different views also are connected to different political visions of schooling.