”Same same, but different”. A genealogical study of the construction of the ideal school in Swedish teacher education policy 1940-2008

Author(s):

Lena Sjöberg

Conference:

ECER 2010

Network:

10. Teacher Education Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

10 SES 09 D, Research on Programmes and Pedagogical Approaches in Teacher Education

Paper Session

Time:

2010-08-27

08:30-10:00

Room:

AUDITORIUM XIII, Päärakennus / Main Building

Chair:

Hazel Hagger

Contribution

The study concerns how the ideal or ’good school’, is constructed genealogically through discursive governing. The starting point of the analysis is the reform proposal for a new teacher training programme in Sweden (HUT 07 eller SOU 2008:109) which is closely connected to the European trend of improving european education competitiveness (See for example the Lisbon treaty). The approach is genealogical in order to be able to study, from a perspective on power, how the ’good teacher’, the ’good pupil’ and the’ good school’ are constructed in current and previous policy documents in relation to the vision of the ’good society’. By also studying historical policy documents, I seek to trace continuity as well as renewal in discourses regarding teachers, pupils and schools/education systems in current policy practices. More precisely, the study concerns the following questions: • How is the ’good teacher’ portrayed in the policy texts, or, in other words, how is the teacher subject constructed and positioned? • How are the pupils constructed and positioned in the texts? • How is the content of the teacher’s knowledge described and constructed? That is, how are epistemological assumptions such as approach to knowledge and learning described? • What societal functions are the abovementioned questions related to? That is, what visions or problem representations are the teacher, the pupil and the school a part of and supposedly should help solving or developing?

Method

The theoretical and methodological approaches used in this study come mainly from Michel Foucault (1977, 1980, 1990, 1993), Stephen J. Ball (1994, 2007, 2008) and Carol Bacchi (1999, 2000). Hence, I use a discourse theoretical and a policy sociological approach when I read and analyze the studied texts. The concept of discourse which I use originates in Foucault (1977, 1982), who considers discourses to be linguistic and/or institutional constructs which constitute and produce various forms of ‘truths’. These are central in the governing of practices and/or individuals (subjects) and populations. As a basis for the analyses, I have studied government commissions and government bills focusing on the teacher training programme, starting with the commission report of 1940. Thus, a total of six government commissions have been scrutinized together with as many bills.

Expected Outcomes

The results show how policy proposals from previous policy periods have been discursively reused in HUT 07 (1948-1965), but also historically opposed ways of constructing the ’good’ teacher, the ’good’ pupil and the ’good ’school (mainly during the period 1978-1984). Despite of the similarities in the descriptions of the ideal school subjects and the ideal school knowledge between these two periods, the policy texts express completely different societal visions. I therefore claim that it from a genealogical perspective is possible to see significant similarities (same same), but also large differences (different) in the projection of the ’good’ school during the studied period of time. As a consequence, the expectations are very different regarding what the individual teacher and pupil in school should live up to in the school practice.

References

Bacchi, Carol. (2000). Policy as discourse: what does it mean? Where does it get us? Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education, 21(1), 45-57. Ball, Stephen, J. (1994). Educational reform. A critical and post-structural approach. Buckingham: Open university press. Ball, Stephen, J. (2003). The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Education Policy, 18(2), s 215-228. Ball, Stephen, J. (2007). Education plc. Understanding private sector participation in public sector education. London & New York: Routledge. Ball, Stephen, J. (2008). The education debate. Bristol: The Policy Press. Foucault, Michel. (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. London: Allan Lane. Foucault, Michel (1991): Governmentality. I Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon & Peter Miller, red: The Foucault effect: studies in governmentality: with two lectures by and an interview with Michel Foucault, s 87-104. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Nóvoa, Antonio & Lawn, Martin, red: (2002): Fabricating Europe. The formation of on education space. London: Kluwer Academid Publishers. Ozga, Jenny & Lingard, Bob (2007): Globalisation, education and politics. I Bob Lingard & Jenny Ozga, red: The RoutledgeFalmer Reader in Education Policy and Politics. London & New York: Routledge.

Author Information

Lena Sjöberg

University of Gothenburg/University West

Trollhättan

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