Educational ideas constructed and legitimized by actors in education policy are embedded in multiple underlying assumptions and ideas about education in a globalized institutional context. Hence, conceptualization and critical examination of different phenomena in education policy are imperative in terms of understanding change and in terms of understanding globalization processes through the lens of transnational influences from policy actors e.g. the OECD – the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development(Lundahl & Alexiadou, 2019; Steiner-Khamsi & Waldow, 2012; Wahlström & Sundberg, 2017). Teacher professionalism is the subject of diffused ideas at the transnational level, within a ‘crisis discourse’ in education, influencing policy formation of ideas at the national level (Nordin, 2016). Moreover, several ideas related to e.g. teachers’ institutional conditions and teacher shortage have been endorsed in the Swedish education system over the last years – e.g. the idea of teacher assistants (see e.g. Lindqvist, 2020). The aim of this paper is to critically examine actors’ discursive construction and legitimation of the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ in education policy through the lens of Vivien Schmidt’s Discursive Institutionalism (2008, 2010) and strands in Curriculum Theory in an analytical framework (see e.g. Wahlström & Sundberg, 2017). The questions in focus are two-fold; firstly, how is the idea of ’the teacher assistant’ constructed through discourses in education policy at the national level against the backdrop of the transnational level?; secondly, how is the idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ discursively legitimized in education policy by actors at the national against the backdrop of the transnational level?.

Discursive Institutionalist approaches have gained momentum during the latest years in education research within the field of Curriculum Theory, Didaktik and Educational leadership (see e.g. Wahlström & Sundberg, 2017; Uljens & Ylimaki, 2017). A Discursive Institutionalist orientation focuses ideas and discourses in understanding change in institutions by highlighting the discursive interplay between ideas, discourses and actors at different levels. The institutions are both constructed and structured concurrently through actors and through institutional structures inherent in context. Thereby, innated institutional discourses in context constrain the frame of new ideas in policy (Schmidt, 2008). Accordingly, through a Discursive Institutionalist lens (2008, 2010) the idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ is regarded as dynamic and complex in its contextualization in education policy. Hence, intertwined in a range of normative ideas, concepts and underlying assumptions about what the idea of the ‘teacher assistant’ ‘is and ought to be’ (Schmidt, 2010) and what a teacher ‘is and ought to be’ (Ibid.) in the educational institution.

Moreover, in the Swedish School Commission’s report (Swedish Ministry of Education and Research, 2017), influenced by the OECD-report Improving Schools in Sweden – An OECD-Perspective (2015), the idea of teacher assistants is contextualized within the overarching aim of the report i.e. proposed objectives to endorse teachers’ professional development and ‘teacher quality’ promoting institutional conditions to emphasize teachers’ ‘core responsibility’ in terms of teaching. Furthermore, a national professional program for teachers’ professional development is presented as a comprehensive substantive strategy (Swedish Ministry of Education and Research, 2018; Swedish National Agency for Education, 2020) influenced by a comprehensive reform proposed by the OECD (2015). Thus, creating a ‘policy space’ for policy formation of ideas to raise ‘teacher quality’ at the national level - e.g. the idea of teacher assistants. However, embedded in discourses on ‘teacher quality’ (see Nordin & Wahlström, 2019) are normative ideas about why 'teacher quality’ is an objective and what ‘teacher quality’ is and ought to be.

Methodologically, this paper explores the possibility to critically examine the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ through the lens of Discursive Institutionalism (DI) along with strands in Curriculum Theory (CT) in an analytical framework (see e.g. Wahlström & Sundberg, 2017). Combining DI and CT allows for the focus on actors’ discursive construction and legitimation of the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ at the national against the backdrop of the transnational level. Accordingly, imbued in an understanding of the institutional context of education in its wider cultural framing since education policy and education is known to be influenced by transnational policies in complex ways; thus, not merely a national matter (Steiner-Khamsi & Waldow, 2012; Lundahl & Alexiadou, 2019). The paper highlights critical examination through the lens of DI (Schmidt, 2008, 2010) with the theoretical concepts of ‘policy ideas’, ‘programmatic ideas’ and ‘philosophical ideas’ used as analytical tools along with ‘coordinative discourse’ and communicative discourse’ used as theoretical lenses in the analysis. In the analytical framework DI is combined with CT in terms of discursive construction and legitimation of the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ by focusing on a systematic analysis at the national level in relation to the transnational level. CT contributes to a deeper understanding of policy ideas and discourses as signified by multiple and sometimes contested meanings along with emphasizing how ideas and discourses animate other ideas between levels (see e.g. Wahlström & Sundberg, 2017). Furthermore, actors in focus, in terms of discursive construction and legitimation, are the national policy actors of the Swedish Government (Ministry of Education and Research, School Commission) and the Swedish National Agency for Education along with the transnational policy actor of the OECD. Accordingly, critically examining the policy idea, on the basis of a systematic analysis of ten official policy documents at the national level against the backdrop of five policy documents at the transnational level. Moreover, education policy ideas and initiatives are diffused between and translated at different levels in the education system. Therefore, policy ideas, as that of ‘the teacher assistant’ can be characterized as a multi-level matter with embedded tensions and dilemmas within and between levels; thus, making the case for an analysis at different levels integrating DI with CT (see e.g. Uljens & Ylimaki, 2017; Wahlström & Sundberg, 2017).

The discursive construction and legitimation of the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ emerge as threefold in its tensions, intertwined in actors’ coordinative and communicative discourses, in terms of either governing towards the ‘inner work’ of teaching processes or towards institutional structures for school improvement encompassing teaching processes. In addition, tensions emerge in terms of underlying assumptions (philosophical ideas) about what is and what ought to be (Schmidt, 2010) regarding teachers, education and the idea of ‘the teacher assistant’. Furthermore, coordinative discourses on the idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ and on teachers’ professional development indicate differentiation within and between roles and responsibilities in the Swedish education system (OECD, 2015; Swedish Ministry of Education and Research, 2017, 2018). Hence, intertwined in the premises of differentiation in roles and responsibilities the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ discursively enhances teachers’ 'core responsibility' of teaching. Accordingly, the idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ is conceptually and discursively dependent on teachers’ 'core responsibility' of teaching along with the shaping of institutional conditions to endorse teachers’ professional development in a proposed national professional program. Thus, further endorsing institutional discourses on ‘teacher quality’. In a wider sense, the analysis sheds light on further ideas on differentiation along with simplification and standardisation regarding teachers' work. Finally, the idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ is discursively intertwined in ‘assisting’ the educational institution in terms of school achievement illustrated in the analysis. Thus, teachers’ focus on and responsibility for teaching is conveyed as imperative in order for the education system to succeed. Thereby, legitimizing and institutionalizing the idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ as one of the ideas in the nexus between teacher accountability and school accountability, in coordinative discourses, endorsing the systemic relation between teachers and the education system within proposed comprehensive educational strategies in education policy.

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