No Alternative for Swedish Teachers?: the legitimation of state-capital interests through discourses of teacher professionalism

Author(s):

Alison Milner(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

ERG SES H 09, Professionalism and Education

Paper Session

Time:

2016-08-23

11:00-12:30

Room:

OB-H1.12

Chair:

Edwin Keiner

Contribution

In this paper, I will explore the Swedish state response to the current national teacher recruitment crisis and examine how education policy formulated in the context of neoliberal globalisation legitimates political, economic or organisational, rather than professional, interests. I will argue that, despite claims to the promotion of an alternative discourse of teacher professionalism, neoliberal ideologies continue to permeate the policy texts of the centre-left government. Finally, I will establish how Swedish policymakers attempt to gain the consent of teachers through appeals to occupational professionalism and highlight spaces where practitioners may reject these hegemonic discourses.

The symbiotic relationship between the state and professions is highlighted in much scholarly research. The state has played an important role in the legitimation of professions (Fourcade, 2013; Kuhlmann, 2013), and the earliest processes of professionalisation were said to parallel both the development of capitalist economies and the expansion of the welfare state (Brandsen and Honingh, 2013). Yet, the context of professional work has changed significantly in recent years. Supra-national organisations now contribute to the legitimation of professional power in individual nation-states and neoliberal policies of decentralisation, deregulation and privatisation have increased the role of organisations, both public and private sector, at sub-national level (Faulconbridge and Muzio, 2011). More and more, social service professionals are employed within profit-making companies operating according to capitalist principles (Derber, 1983). Despite the evident challenges of neoliberalism to the legitimacy of states and professions, the claim that 'there is no alternative' remains constant (Harvey, 2005). Yet, whilst there is considerable empirical research into the impact of organisations on professions' daily working practices, particularly in the fields of law and accountancy in Anglo-Saxon contexts, there is little known of their influence on discourses of teacher professionalism at policy level in Continental Europe.

Previous theoretical studies have made the distinction between an occupational professionalism based on normative values of altruism and dedicated service (Freidson, 2001; Parsons, 1939) and another characterised by ideological claims to monopoly knowledge and status (Larson, 1997). Lately, scholars have claimed that both forms have been reconstituted through the logic of the market to serve hegemonic interests and facilitate occupational change and control (Evetts, 2011; Fournier, 1999). Whilst these analyses are useful as a heuristic device for exploring developments of teacher professionalism, there is a need to develop a better understanding of the iterative processes whereby shifting discourses of teacher professionalism are reflected in policy in different contexts and, ultimately, whose interests these discourses serve. Thus, whilst adding to the limited empirical research in the field, this pilot project, conducted as part of a comparative study of teacher professionalism in Sweden and England, attempts to provide new insights into the discourses selected by a minority coalition government within a decentralised education system. Drawing on the theory of Antonio Gramsci (1971), this study will examine how policy discourses reproduce Swedish state hegemony through the promotion of 'common sense' ideologies and the consent of teachers to occupational change. It will address the following questions: What are the hegemonic discourses of teacher professionalism within Swedish education policy? To what extent do these discourses legitimate state or capital interests? How does the political elite attempt to gain the consent of teachers?

Method

This critical, interpretive study employed Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as a methodology. As CDA attends specifically to the exercise of power through discourse (Van Dijk, 1993) and claims to reveal the social injustices which are produced, reproduced, legitimated and challenged by texts (Rogers, Malancharuvil-Berkes, Mosley, Hui and O'Garro Joseph, 2005), it was an effective approach for determining how teacher professionalism was construed from above within Swedish policy. Data was collected via documentary research. For the purpose of this study, a 'document' represented two genres of text: a political party manifesto or a government minister speech. All documents were available within the public domain, downloaded and stored electronically for subsequent analysis. To ensure comparability of units of analysis, three written policy documents from both the Socialdemokraterna (the Social Democrats) and Miljöpartiet de Gröna (the Green Party) were selected. The oral document was an official speech by Gustav Fridolin, Deputy Leader of the Green Party and current Minister for Education in the red-green coalition. Ultimately, a longitudinal and multi-genre approach enabled a more rigorous analysis of the inter-discursive features of texts and possible shifts in semiosis as a condition for social change (Fairclough, 2010). Following Fairclough's (2010) three-dimensional framework, each discursive event was analysed at the level of text, discourse practice and social practice. Fairclough's (2010) own approach to CDA draws on Halliday's (2004) theory of Systemic Functional Linguistics. Thus, language was analysed in its entirety to understand how meaning is made through the functional organisation of structure and systemic patterns of choice. As the research questions focus on power relations, political legitimacy and consent, grammatical functions which relate to power, status and agency were chosen for analysis: mood, modality, lexical and grammatical status, and projection. To establish how interdiscursivity functions, this study examined the degree of lexical cohesion in and between policy documents. Finally, attention was given to logogenesis and how meaning was created as the texts developed.

Expected Outcomes

Beyond the reconstitution of discourses of managerial professionalism and its resultant bureaucratisation of teachers' work, this study reveals that neoliberal ideologies continue to permeate discourses through government attempts to define teacher subjectivities. Even so, there is space for teachers to reject these interpretations. Although limited in scale, the findings raise important issues for teachers, trade unions and policymakers; they reveal how occupational change and control is implicit within discourses of teacher professionalism, yet, problematic without the consent of the most important social actors. In terms of its contribution to my future research, this pilot study raises a number of methodological issues. Most importantly, an analysis of only macro-level contexts and micro-level texts negates the possibility for meso-level interpretations. Sweden has a highly decentralised system in which local actors have a great deal of autonomy in the interpretation of national policy. Indeed, discourses of teacher professionalism might be recontextualised to serve local interests. A future study should therefore include organisation policy documents (municipalities and free schools) to examine how national policy discourses of teacher professionalism are reconstructed at local level and the degree to which multiple hegemonic discourses exist. Yet, even with a more thorough approach to documentary analysis, this research does not consider the role of social actors within the policy-making process. Elite interviews with Swedish policymakers would not only give voice to those involved in the production of the texts, but enable analysis of the alliances and stakeholder relationships formed as part of inter-organisational networks. Further, interviews with trade union representatives would reveal the extent to which professions as organisations are active in their own professional project.

References

Brandsen T. and Honingh M. (2013) Professionals and Shifts in Governance in International Journal of Public Administration, 36:12, 876-883. DOI: 10.1080/01900692.2013.798809. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01900692.2013.78809. Derber C. (1983) Managing Professionals: Ideological Proletarianization and Post-Industrial Labour in Theory and Society, 12:3, 309-341. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/657441. Evetts J. (2011) A new professionalism? Challenges and opportunities in Current Sociology, 59:4, 406-422. DOI: 10.1177/0011392111402585. Available at: www.csi.sagepub.com. Fairclough N. (2010) Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language (Second Edition). Abingdon: Routledge. Faulconbridge J. and Muzio D. (2011) Professions in a globalizing world: Towards a transnational sociology of the professions in International Sociology, 27:1, 136-152. DOI: 10.117/0268580911423059. Fourcade M. (2006) The Construction of a Global Profession: The Transnationalization of Economics in American Journal of Sociology, 112:1, 145-194. Fournier V. (1999) The appeal to 'professionalism' as a disciplinary mechanism in The Sociological Review, 47:2, 280-307. DOI: 10.1111/1467-954X.00173. Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-954X.00173/pdf. Freidson E. (2001) Professionalism: The Third Logic. Oxford: Polity Press Gramsci A. (1971) Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. London: SAGE. Halliday M.A.K. (2004) An Introduction to Functional Grammar: Third Edition. London: Hodder Arnold. Harvey D. (2005) A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kuhlmann E. (2013) Sociology of Professions: Towards International Context-Sensitive Approaches in South African Review of Sociology, 44:2, 7-17. DOI: 10.1080/21528586.2013.802534. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21528586.2013.802534. Larson M.S. (1977) The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis. London: University of California Press Ltd. Muzio D. and Kirkpatrick I. (2011) Introduction: Professions and organizations - a conceptual framework in Current Sociology, 59:4, 389-405. DOI: 10.1177/0011392111402584. Parsons T. (1939) The Professions and Social Structure in Social Forces, 17:4, 457-467. Available at: www.jstor.org/stable/2570695. Rogers R., Malancharuvil-Berkes E., Mosley M., Hui D. and O'Garro Joseph G. (2005) Critical Discourse Analysis in Education: A Review of the Literature in Review of Educational Research, 75:3, 365-416. Available at: http://rer.aera.net. Van Dijk T.A. (1993) Principles of Critical Discourse Analysis in Discourse and Society, 4:2, 249-283. DOI: 10.1177/0957926593004002006. Available at: http://das.sagepub.com/content/4/2/249.full.pdf.html.

Author Information

Alison Milner (presenting / submitting)

University of Nottingham, United Kingdom

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