Constructions of teachers within Government Official Reports on teacher education in Sweden 1952-1999
Owe Lindberg
ÖrebroUniversity
Department of Education
Paper presented at ECER at Crete in September 2004
Abstract
This paper deals with constructions of the teacher within reform proposals on teacher education in Sweden, put forward between 1952 and 1999.[1] During the period these constructions undergoes changes in many ways and aspects and my interest is to find major changes in the overall construction of the teacher and understand them in a societal perspective. I will discuss the changing constructions of the teacher in three steps. In the first step I will make a comparative reading of the reports in relation to how they deal with important aspects of teachers, teachers work, schools and society.[2] In the second step I will try to make sense of my readings in relation to Stephen Toulmins’ analysis of the modern project in Kosmopolis (1995).[3] In the third step, finally, I will discuss alternative ways to construct the teacher at the turn of the millennium in the perspective of Toulmins’ concept “the third modernity”.
Introduction
During the period 1952-1999 four major committees on teacher education put forward reform proposals in Sweden. The proposals were published in four Swedish Government Official Reports[4] – SOU 1952:33, SOU 1965:29, SOU 1978:86 and SOU 1999:63.[5] All four committees deal with teacher education for wide age ranges. The first one included primary and, as far as subjects that were part of the traditional grammar school teacher education is concerned, secondary and upper secondary. The last one included teacher education for all subjects and age groups except teacher education for aviation teachers, folk high school teachers and special needs teachers. The latter is a post-graduate teacher education in Sweden.
Parts of the reports focus on issues like why teacher education needs to be changed, what aspects needs to be considered in the change process and what demands and challenges schools and teachers are likely to be confronted to in the future. Through these discussions the reports also engage in a construction process of the teacher. Even if the construction of the teacher is not an explicit end product it is a very important aspect of the reports. Perhaps one could even say that the construction of the teacher is a cornerstone or prerequisite for the reform proposals. The ultimate goal of every teacher education reform is to create educational arrangements that can ‘produce’ the desired teachers. And the ‘desired teacher’ is a product of the reform documents. The construction of the teacher is therefore, as I see it, a crucial but often overlooked aspect of the reform proposals.[6]
The period under discussion is a period of great changes within the education system in Sweden. We went from a situation with a divided school system where compulsory schooling was restricted to seven years and where just a small proportion of the age group continued their studies in grammar schools and an even smaller proportion entered universities or other higher education to a situation with a comprehensive school system with nine years of compulsory schooling but where almost all students spend twelve years and where almost half of the age group continue their studies at university level. Having that in mind it seems reasonable that the teacher that comes out of the 1999 report is different from the one that comes out of the 1952 report. The period under discussion is also a period of great societal changes regarding e.g. labour market, family situations, norms, values and ethnic composition of the population. Also from this perspective it seems reasonable that the teacher constructed at the end of the period differs from the one constructed at the beginning of the period. And so they do. The teacher that comes out of the construction process of SOU 1999:62 is distinctly different from the one that comes out of SOU 1952:33. In short, we start with a situation where teachers are constructed as members of the teaching profession, with strong common interests, a well-defined societal mission and a collectively owned repertoire of ways to deal with the challenges of the profession and end up in a situation where teachers are constructed as individuals – almost out of touch with a profession – who have to manage their life as teachers almost entirely on their own and relying on their personal ability rather than on a collectively owned base of knowledge. But, and this is the reason for my paper, these changes in the construction of the teacher are not, at least not in a transparent way, related to changes in school and society during the period.
Titles and texts: readings from a comparative perspective
Lets first look at the titles of the four reports
1952:33The First School of Education[7]
1965:29The National Programme for Teacher Education[8]
1978:86Teachers for a School System in Development[9]
1999:63To Learn and Lead: A Teacher Education Programme for Co-operation and Development[10]
The four reports describe a change from a situation where titles are short and self-evident, SOU 1952:33 and SOU 1965:29[11], to a situation where titles are longer and arguing in character, above all SOU 1999:63 but also SOU 1978:86. Furthermore, the four keywords of the 1999 report – learn, lead, co-operation and development – are all part, not only and not mainly of an educational discourse but, of a general discourse about changes and demands in society today and they can – all together or separately – be used to describe a number of university programmes.
This change from self-evidence to argumentation and from a specific framing to a non, or at least much less, specific framing can be apprehended in different ways. It can be seen as a simple reflection of a changed societal situation for teachers and teacher education but it can also be seen as one out of several possible ways for the state to deal with teachers and teacher education in a changed societal context. No matter which way we chose, the fact that the two latter titles are longer and more arguing in character is worth noticing. Is the meaning, character or function of teachers work and teacher education, we may ask, something that have to be argued for today in a way that was not needed 40 or 50 years ago? And if so, why?
I will now turn to the content of the reports to see what the texts tell us and how they corresponds with the titles. At first a somewhat paradoxical picture emerges. In the two first reports, and specifically the first one, there is a very strong emphasis on change and development. But not change in general or a non-directed development. It is the change and development brought forward by the ‘school reform’ that is in focus. SOU 1952:33 talks about the ‘proceeding school reform (p 19), (systematic) ‘work with educational progress’ (p 19), ‘laboratories’ (p 26), ‘experimental work’ (p 26), ‘experimental schools’ (p 28) etc. The ‘proceeding school reform’ is the great change of the Swedish school system from a segregated class-based system to a comprehensive school system that was intended to create equal opportunities for all regardless of background and geographic location. The reform period, which was preceded and accompanied by a lot of experimental work, came to an end with the reformation of the upper secondary level at the turn of the sixties.
In the two last reports, both written after the ending of the reform period, the emphasis on development is, despite their titles, not at all that strong, at least not if development is seen as a process with a specific direction. Instead there is a lot of talk about change and changed conditions and changes that are to come but of which we don’t know very much. The emphasis on change raises other questions than the emphasis on reform. The becoming teacher in SOU 1952:33 and SOU 1965:29 needs e.g. to be well informed about the main ideas of and reasons for the school reform. Otherwise he or she cannot be an agent for the reformation of the school system.
Those who shall work within our school system must be knowledgeable about why the school system is being reformed and why the reformation that is now about to be implemented has got its specific characteristics. Without knowledge about the development that has led to the present situation and knowledge about the motives and values underpinning the changes, the teacher will be uncomprehending to his own task as a teacher. (SOU 1965:29, p 92, my translation)
Finally the becoming teacher should, through his studies in education, be made aware that he as a teacher will contribute to an ever ongoing school reform and will be given comparable responsibilities. It is the teachers, individually and in corpore, who are the carriers of progress in the school system. This is not done without problems, what is progress, what is stagnation, what is setbacks in the efforts to develop school work? The teacher should on the basis of his education with scientific insight be able to judge the problems of the work with educational progress. And the findings of the educational science, the public debate and the co-operation with other teachers shall help and guide him in this work. (SOU 1965:29 p 97f, my translation)
In SOU 1978:68 the becoming teacher is no longer, at least not in the same distinctive way, part of a collectively set reform agenda with an ever ongoing school reform. Rather he or she has to face an ‘ever changing society’ which changes the conditions for schools and teacher and therefore he or she needs to develop a readiness to deal with change. In chapter 4 ‘The Role of the Teacher and the Goal of Teacher Education’ the first presented task of teacher education is titled ‘Readiness to Deal with Changes’.
The changes leads to consequences … . They put new demands on schools to change and renew themselves with regard to content, methods etc. To some part this renewal can be achieved through revisions of national curricula, which will result in changed demands on teachers. But more and more the school staff will be responsible for ongoing changes within schools – within the frames of the national curriculum. (SOU 1978:86, p 83)
The closest we can get to a distinct collective project that could replace the school reform is the idea of a basic educational view that is intended to be the common professional basis for action. However, a basic educational view, even if it could bring teachers together and make them part of the same project, has not the same visibility and character of a goal to strive at as the school reform. It is, in this sense, more oriented towards the individual teacher than towards collective goals that are to be achieved.
In this quote an equivalent to the plural form of teacher, the school staff, appears. Or better, a new term that could be an equivalent to teachers is introduced. Whether the expression ‘the school staff’ refers to the same population as the expression ‘teachers’ is not possible to tell. In the last report from the period, SOU 1999:63, ‘the school staff’ is replaced by ‘the staff’. ‘The staff’ is a very frequent plural form for teachers in SOU 1999:63 but here it is obvious that other groups are included too. Exactly which groups is however impossible to say since there is no explicit distinction between the teachers and the staff. One can only notice the usage and when doing so it becomes obvious that almost every time collective decision-making and similar issues are discussed the plural form is ‘the staff’. So, if ‘the staff’, as I read it, also includes other groups, then teachers are no longer the exclusive agenda setting group as it was in the first two reports. It should also be mentioned that a third term, parallel to teachers and staff, is introduced in the report – the professionals. So, at the turn of the millennium we have three different terms that all refers to teachers as a group but at the same time do it in different ways and sometimes also include other groups. The addition of one more plural form parallel to teachers can be seen as a further indication of a gradually less exclusive situation for teachers as school workers.
This change in denotation of teachers can be seen as part of another change over time. Within the two first reports, and most visible in SOU 1952:33, the discussion centres around the teaching profession. It is toward teachers as members of the teaching profession, not teachers as individuals that the reform proposals are directed. Even when the individual teacher is focused it is obvious that the individual teacher is situated in and dependent on a context with teacher colleagues, like in the last quote from SOU 1965:29 above. This distinct focus on teachers as members of the teaching profession is closely connected to the ‘proceeding school reform’.[12] When the school reform is no longer one of the cornerstones for the construction of the teacher and the school reform is not either replaced by some other project where the teachers as members of the teaching profession have a specific task or mission it seems as though there is a shift in focus from the teaching profession to the individual teacher. The stress of readiness to deal with changes in SOU 1978:86 can be seen as an example of this shift. Another example from the same report is the stress on personal development. Teacher education should promote and contribute to personal development. In SOU 1999:63 the focus is almost entirely on the individual teacher and the readiness to deal with changes has turned into a situation where the professional group has very little to offer. In the most far-reaching formulation SOU 1999:63 states that
The [teachers] work tasks will be more personally determined than role-determined. Rather than to take on a role, or be part of a tradition, every teacher must conquer and earn his or her role – and thereby his or her authority. (SOU 1999:63, p 52)
Within such a line of reasoning the idea of a profession, to paraphrase Lennon & McCartny, almost ‘seems to vanish in the haze’. The formulation in the quote is very radical. If the teaching profession offers nothing for newly educated teachers to lean on one have to ask whether there is a profession. Even if the formulations are not that radical all through the report, the teacher that comes out of SOU 1999:63 is a teacher that stands alone and has, to a large extent, to rely on his or her own personal capacity.[13] We can also notice another aspect of the usage, the phrase ‘every teacher must’. There are many descriptions of that kind in the report painting a picture of uncontrollable and unstoppable changes, which forces the teacher to act in specific ways or directions. Such descriptions bear a risk that the teacher is turned into a victim, exposed to forces out of his or her control. The solution in the report is to make the teacher a strong individual, an individual capable of handling these uncontrollable and unstoppable changes. And he or she is a strong individual not primarily through his or her teacher education but through his or her personal competence. Thereby the teacher of SOU 1999:63 comes to be somewhat of a lonesome hero or a renaissance person.
One last change with relevance for the construction of the teacher should be mentioned, the variation in the classroom that the teacher is constructed to meet and deal with. In the first report, SOU 1952:33, the variation that teachers in the reformed school have to face is labelled ‘an unsorted student material’. For subject teachers with a background in the grammar school this is a new experience and challenge, for elementary school teachers this is a well-known experience but an experience which, as SOU 1965:29 puts it, often have been handled as though the groups were homogenous. In SOU 1965:29 this intellectual variation among the students is an important issue, not least in terms of how teachers should deal with it. The main road to success is called individualisation. In SOU 1978:86 the whole language of individualisation is gone. The perspective is in a sense broader, schools are no longer just institutions for preparation for the future but places to live in and therefore schools and teachers have a responsibility for all aspects of the students development and needs to show greater consideration for individual differences. In SOU 1999:63, finally, variation is about individual uniqueness and cultural differences. Teachers must be prepared to meet their students as on the one hand unique individuals and on the other hand individuals with differing cultural identities. Here we can see a gradual change over the four reports but at the same time a break between the two first and the two last reports in terms of the main character of the variation.
To sum up.
(i)Within the four reports there is a change in context for the construction of the teacher from a specific school reform to a non-specific school development.
(ii)These different contexts attribute different meanings to the teacher. The construction of the teacher as an agent for and embedded in the proceeding school reform in the first report gives the teacher a meaning that is almost inseparable from the great post war efforts to create a more equal society with a reformed education system as an important vehicle.