The current study is based on previous research on educational restructuring (Ball, 2008). What impact is such restructuring having on teachers’ work and student outcome?  A restructured educational system, among other things, has the aim of providing an openness which will enable its ”customers” to make well informed choices. This in turn is supposed to lead to “variation as well as innovation producing a better school system” (Lindblad 2010:68). The focus of this study is teachers’ work in Finland and Sweden – two Nordic countries with similarities in educational structures and policies (Johannesson et al, 2002). However, they show different trajectories concerning educational outcomes in international comparisons carried out by e.g. the OECD, where Finnish education is regarded more successful (Simola, 2005) than Swedish education.

In this paper we are interested in examining how teachers’ experience of New Public Management (NPM) and of Teacher Collegiality (TC) varies between teachers in Sweden and Finland, since each of these two and partly conflicting ways of organising schooling are usually said to have an impact on students’ results.  Thus, we put forward two questions:

1. Is teachers’ work in Finland more characterized by NPM compared to Swedish teachers?

This could be expected due to the NPM stress on and hope for more efficient schooling. If the answer is yes, this is in support of NPM strategies and neo-liberal ideas on schooling.

1. Is teachers’ work in Finland characterized by more collegiality compared to teachers’ work in Sweden?

This could be expected, given ideas on teacher learning communities (McLaughlin, 2006) and would support strategies for professional communities (Lomos, 2010) focusing on cooperation and collegiality and their beneficiary impact on student results.

Theory

The current study is based on theories on teacher professional work as developed by e.g. McLaughlin (2001, 2006), Freidson (2001), and Cohen (2011). McLaughlin argues that there is a connection between teacher professionalism and student success and that teacher professionalism can only come from work within a school where teachers work and learn together. Different definitions of teacher learning communities exist, but “they all feature a common image of a professional community where teachers work collaboratively to reflect on their practice, examine evidence about the relationship between practice and student outcomes, and make changes that improve teaching and learning for the particular students in their classes” (Talbert, J.E., & McLaughlin, M.W. 2006:4).

The study is also based on notions concerning ongoing reconfiguration of the teaching profession (Foss Lindblad & Lindblad, 2009). It was noted that educational restructuring had quite different trajectories (Goodson & Lindblad, 2011) moving towards increasing similarities on one side and increasing emphasis on differences and competitions on the other side. Here we are examining the eventual and varying impact of such trajectories on teachers’ work.

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