The international Teach for All programme officially became Teach for Sweden (TFS) in 2013. The basis of the programme was to strengthen a specific teacher leadership discourse in the Swedish education system, and since then, TFS has become an established hub within the Swedish education system. In recent years, the neoliberal Swedish political establishment has made a series of arguments that education, and teachers in particular, have failed, while at the same time overseeing an educational regulatory system that hasn't responded to the needs of schools (Beach and Bagely, 2012; Bylund and Player Koro, 2024). As a result, TFS has been marketed as a leadership programme that aims to solve the problems of contemporary Swedish schools. Despite this, national research on the programme is scarce. In Myer's study (2019), he illustrates how TFS is created as an elite organisation using the symbolic language of the 'Teach For' model, referring to the 'top students' and 'world-class schools'. Dahlström (2013) argues that the leadership associated with TFS is that favoured by the new public management, i.e. a focus on measurable outcomes that reduces teaching to preparing for tests and exams. While the views and voices of TFA graduates have been studied internationally (Brewer & deMarrais, 2015; Matsui, 2015), as well as what counts as knowledge within the TFA organisation (Bailey, 2015), there is a lack of Swedish studies that examine how actors discursively position themselves within the TFS context. Therefore, the aim of this study is to a) analyse the subject positions that are constructed in conversations with TFS graduates and how these positions relate to the teacher subjectivities that this programme produces, and b) what problems these subjectivities seek to support or solve. The theoretical framework is post-structuralist theory with discourse analysis as the methodological approach (Foucault, 1980). Our starting point is a Foucauldian inspired analysis that provides an overarching view of the concept of discourse and gives us a starting point for revealing power relations. Further, the analysis is informed by discursive psychology (Potter & Whetherell, 1987) and discourse theory (Fairclough & Fairclough, 2012). We present an ongoing study comprising interviews with TFS graduates associated with different universities in Sweden. The findings are discussed and discourses identified as part of the ideal model presented as TFS. Based on previous studies, we expect our findings to shed light on how new teacher subjectivities is negotiated and the tensions involved.

Bailey, P. (2015). Consultants of conduct: New actors, new knowledges and new ‘resilient’ subjectivities in the governing of the teacher. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 47(3), 232–250. Beach, D., & Bagley, C. (2013). Changing professional discourses in teacher education policy back towards a training paradigm: a comparative study. European Journal of Teacher Education, 36(4), 379–392. https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2013.815162 Brewer, T.J., & deMarrais, K. (Eds.). (2015). Teach For America counter-narratives: Alumni speak up and speak out. New York: Peter Lang. Bylund, L., & Player-Koro, C. (2024). En politisk vilja att förändra – men vad är problemet? En kritisk läsning av kommittédirektivet om att förbättra lärarutbildningen. Högre utbildning, 14(3), 28–42. https://doi.org/10.23865/hu.v14.6770 Dahlström, L. (2013). Ni är lurade! En kritisk granskning av Teach for Sweden. Skola och Samhälle. Fairclough, N. & Fairclough, I. (2012). Political discourse analysis. A method for advanced students. London: Routhledge Foucault, M. (1980). Power/Knowledge. Selected Interviews and Other Writings. 1972-1977. Gordon, C. (ed). New York: Pantheon Books. Matsui, S. (2015). Learning from counternarratives in Teach For America: Moving from idealism towards hope. New York: Peter Lang. Potter, J & Wetherell, M. (1987). Discourse and social psychology. London: Sage.