Conference:
ECER 2008
Format:
Paper
Session Information
PRE_D7, Preconference; Paper Session D7
Paper Session
Time:
2008-09-08
14:45-16:15
Room:
CE 04
Chair:
Ingolfur Asgeir Johannesson
Contribution
CHANGING DEMANDS AND RESPONSIBILITIES IN THE TEACHING PROFESSION?
In this presentation, aspects of change in the teaching profession will be discussed. The study is part of a Swedish research programme; "Changing Sex/Gender Orders in School and Education (G3P)", involving a collaboration between researchers at Gothenburg University, Umeå University, College of Borås and College of Malmö.The teorethical frame of reference includes a gender perspective, where "femininity" and "masculinity" are seen as social constructions and humans as actively "doing gender".
In research about teachers and teachers' work, occupational demands and responsibilities are often described as widening over time. It is maintained that the administrative tasks are increased. In Sweden, teachers are also expected to transform national curricula goals into so called "local work plans" at the specific school, as well as document the outcome. Further more, teachers are expected to work not only with their classes and subjects, but also strive to make progress for their workplace in general. In my interviw based study among teachers in grade 3 to 5 in compulsory school in an urban municipality, these tendencies are confirmed. The interviewed teachers, seven men and seven women, have between five and forty years of work experience and represent four different schools. When these teachers discuss aspects of change, social dimensions are emphasized. Often, expressions as "in areas like this" or "in schools like this", are used. These pronouncements are linked to aspects of gender and to the pupils' social background and ethnicity. The social dimensions are, on one hand, described as hard to handle, but on the other hand as a source to challenge and satisfaction in work.
To contextualize the interview results, I have related them to a national questionnaire based study, elaborated by the G3P project group, and answered by 1716 teachers from a nationally representative sample in preschool and compulsory school. On a scale from 1 to 5, these teachers have estimated if, and in that case, to what degree, their responsibilities have changed regarding a number of aspects, since they started to work as teachers. What can be said about differences and similarities between teachers in different kinds of municipalities? What kind of gender based patterns become apparent? Are there any evident tendencies when opinions among teachers in preschool and compulsory school are compared? Do the teachers' comprehensions differ, according to how many years of work experience they have? In the analysis, different kinds of techiques to categorize the data have been used.
Method
My research is two fold: I have done an interview based study and related the results to a questionnaire based study.
Expected Outcomes
My aim is to see if the teachers' comprehensions regarding aspects of change in their work differ, according to factors as gender, if they work in preschool or compulsory school or what kind of municipality they work in.
References
Previous presented Papers: "A gender perspective on teachers' views of the teaching profession" - Presented at NFPF Conference in Örebro 2005. "The profession of teaching through a gender perspective" - Presented at NFPF Conference in Oslo 2006.
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.