Paper presented at the ECER – Crete, 22–15 September 2004
Restructuring teacher education in Sweden
An empirical exploration of implications of the 2001 teacher education programme reform for affording student teachers’ professional identity development
By Finn Calander
Finn Calander: Department of Education, Uppsala University. Box 2109, S75002 Uppsala, Sweden. Tel. +46702055988; e-mail: . The lärom research project on the Internet:
Restructuring teacher education in Sweden
An empirical exploration of implications of the 2001 teacher education programme reform for affording student teachers’ professional identity development
Finn Calander / Department of Education, UppsalaUniversity
e-mail:
Abstract: The Swedish teacher education reform implemented in 2001 changed a previously diversified system into a unitary programme for all student teachers. In spring 2002 nineteen educators at three teacher education centres were interviewed using a professional life history approach. Analysis of stories told showed two recurring and dominant themes: Stories of “growing distances” in terms of a) personal relations, b) different contents, was interpreted as an ongoing shift from an oral towards a textual culture in teacher education. “Academisation” meant that research based knowledge was perceived to dominate over professional practical knowledge. Interviewees perceived the unitary programme as fragmentised with a weakened professional “core”; a result of reorganisation as well as programme structure and “academisation”. Drawing on the concepts local and region from Giddens’ theory of structuration, two modes of structuring teacher education as a region inside a surrounding university landscape were constructed, illustrating implications of teacher education restructuring. A) The Ptolomeian mode referred to structuring preceding the reform. This mode meant that the region of teacher education was constituted by a core-region (mainly represented by a department of teacher education) strongly linked to semi-regions (schools involved in student teachers’ work experience periods) and sub-regions (mainly represented by different university departments). B) The network mode referred to interviewees’ perceptions of recent changes. The (emerging) network-region has neither a core-region nor sub-regions. It consists of interdependent regions connected by nodes in a web. This mode-shift implied the following: 1) The network mode suggests that students’ previous schooling and dispositions to a greater extent will influence their paths through teacher education, indicating overall erosion of occupation-specific collective foundations for identity development. 2) The network mode suggests that prospective “class-teachers’” (Bachelors of Education after 3.5 years) professional identity development will be de-coupled from occupation-specific “core fields of knowledge”. 3) The network mode suggests de-stabilisation of the region of teacher education as a whole.
Introduction and aim of paper[1]
This paper concerns teacher-training educators’ experiences of Swedish teacher education in relation to student teachers’ development of professional identity during their period of education.[2] I draw on Giddens’ structuration theory to define the notion of professional identitydevelopment, as well as in the following data analysis. Professional identity development thus means the process of acquiring theinterpretative scheme, the didactical modes of teaching, and the norms “belonging” to a certain teacher collective (Giddens, 1984).[3] These professional identities are associated with specific roles within demarcated teacher collectives. Professional identities are developed in the interplay between structural properties of society, including its education system, and social interaction between teachers in schools. When it comes to student teachers, it is social interactions between teacher educators and students at the teacher education centres that are of importance. One must not forget that previous schooling (Lortie, 1975) and students’ dispositions (Bourdieu, 1986) are impacting on the identity process (figure 1).
Figure 1. Teacher education as a region inside the higher education landscape. Student teachers’ professional identity is developed in the interplay between structural properties of the education system (including the landscape) and social interaction in schools and teacher education centres. Student teachers also bring dispositions and experiences from previous schooling into teacher education, impacting on professional identity development.
The higher education system is here understood as an all-embracing landscape. Inside the boundaries of this landscape, actors (organisations, collective bodies, and individuals) inhabit specific regions, constituted by physical (geographically demarcated space/s inside and outside of buildings) as well as symbolic places (different fields of knowledge) thereby positioning themselves, and moving along different paths through time-space (Giddens, 1984).[4] For the purposes of this paper I use the concept of local landscape to denote the regional university/university college locally providing higher education.
The aim of the paper is to explore implications for the Swedish unitary teacher education programme to act as an agent for affording student teachers’ professional identity development during their period of education. The main point of departure is interview-data from the soon to be concluded research project titled lärom.
Background
From a state perspective, since the late seventies, boundaries (grounded in traditions, culture etc.) between professional groups of teachers have been seen as problematic. They are perceived to complicate co-operation and collaboration between different teachers and to hinder school development (SOU 1975:76; 1978:86; 1985:22; 1991:54; 1994:45; 1997:21; 1997:157; 1997:121; 1999:63). Of course, such boundaries emanate from different professional identities, often making relations between different teacher groups tricky to handle (Munkhammar, 2001; Calander, 1999; 2000; Mostert, 1996; Hansen, 1995; Kruse & Seashore Louis 1995; Ahlstrand, 1994; Söderlund, 1993; Haug, 1992).
In 1977 Swedish teacher education, previously the responsibility of dedicated teacher education colleges was incorporated into the university system.[5] At least this was true administratively and formally, but not necessarily intellectually and professionally. Training was divided into different programs for different kinds of teachers. Each of these programmes had close links to the professional collective student teachers’ aimed at entering. The different programmes for prospective pre-school teachers, leisure-time pedagogues and teachers for primary school, became almost exclusively the responsibility of specific departments of teacher education in the university/university college organisation. To varying degrees, student teachers for secondary and upper secondary school studied their subjects outside this department. Student subject teachers often studied their subject matters at different university/university college departments at the various university/university college departments dedicated to the various subjects, receiving their teacher qualification after one year of education and didactics studies at the department of teacher education. In that way the scientific and school-subject matters studied gained more weight in student subject-teachers’ development of professional identity, than it had for student class-teachers’. Irrespective of the program they were studying, student teachers, by attending for a year at the department of education, were expected to learn and incorporate the traditions and belief systems relevant to hers/his professional choice. At the end of teacher education, the student teacher was assumed to have developed a specific professional identity, at least this was the rationale of institutional organisation.
As in many Western countries, in Sweden the nineties was a period when the education system was rapidly restructured (Dale, 1997; Lindblad & Popkewitz, 1999; 2000; 2001; Lundahl, 2000; Lindblad & Callewaert, 2004; Callewaert & Lindblad, 2004, at this conference). At the same time there was a rising concern regarding the problem of recruiting competent teachers in the near future. Since a great number of in-service teachers are soon due to retire, it was argued, there arise a general need to produce a new cadre of young teachers. Since 1997/98 there also has been a declining trend in the number of in-service teachers with a professional qualification. Today, roughly 20–25 percent of in-service teachers in municipal schools are without qualification. In independent compulsory sector one in three do not have a teaching qualification while almost 50 percent in independent upper secondary schools do not (Skolverket, 2003). The question of non-qualified teachers teaching is also a gendered issue. Twice as many non-qualified in-service teachers are male than female (year 2002 statistics from The Swedish Teachers’ Union web-site: Young teachers (34 years of age or younger) are over-represented among those without a professional qualification (Lärarförbundet & Lärarnas Riksförbund, 2004).
Neither is a professional qualification an absolute requirement for being allowed to teach in Swedish schools.[6] In the heated debate on schooling voices from positions and camps have expressed concern at the declining quality in teaching and in teacher education programmes. Many also pointed to the problem of a decline in the social status of the corps of teachers. The proposed solution to both these (alleged) problems was the reform of teacher education that was implemented at the dawning of the new millennium. To that end a government commission was appointed in April 1997, delivering its report exactly two years later (SOU 1999:63). The proposals put forward in the government bill following the report (Regeringens proposition 1999:2000:135) were accepted by the parliamentary late 2000, and the reform was implemented in the autumn term of 2001 (see Lindberg, 2002, for an analysis of the rationales behind the reform).
The teacher education reform of 2001 organised all teaching categories into a single unitary program. The category of teacher a student teacher might eventually become is no longer decided beforehand in all cases. Depending on the student’s individual choice of courses she/he moves towards one of two “exits”. The first Exit leads to a degree of 120–160 points (Bachelor of Education after 3.5 years) that qualifies for work in pre-school, pre-school class, leisure time centre and primary school. The second Exit leads to a degree of 180–220 points (Master of Education after 4.5 years) qualifying for work in secondary and upper secondary school.[7] The specific content of an “exit” diploma, in terms of the courses a student has read, can, in theory if not in reality, be as many as the number of student teachers exiting a programme. Student teachers today are no longer as restricted by the structures of specific teacher-education programmes, as before the reform. Instead, they will come to a number of crossroads where they will have to choose the future direction of her/his studies. Each student teacher’s choice of direction paves the way for what eventually will constitute a more or less individual path through the unitary teacher education programme. One main road they all have to walk, one time or another during the period of teacher education, is represented by 60 credits (three terms) common for all student teachers regardless of eventual professional orientation. However, in reality only approximately 30–40 points are actually common, since some of these studies are linked to students’ professional orientations. The reformed programme also requires that student teachers write a degree dissertation, comprising 10 credits, or ten weeks work, (formerly 5), making teaching degree comparable to other undergraduate bachelor degree programmes.
Thus, in Sweden the context for professional identity development during pre-service teacher education has organisationally been radically changed by the recent reform. However, it is important to keep in mind that for practical as well as cultural reasons, the extent of student teachers’ freedom of choice varies widely between different teacher education providers. Also, it is important not to forget that many changes, seemingly deep cutting, might in reality well be just superficial ripples on the surface. We do not as yet know what has happened in teacher education practice (if anything), or what will happen in the future, apart from the indication that what we are looking at seems to be a very different type of professional socialisation.
Therefore, in view of the above background, let us explore some changes Swedish teacher education has undergone during the last ten to 25 years according to the lärom data.
The lärom study
In October 2002 a questionnaire was distributed to 1246 students doing their first term in the teacher education programmes in Gävle, Karlstad and Uppsala (overall response rate = 73%, N= 904). No significant differences in background data were found between responding and non-responding students. In addition to demographic data, respondents’ views on a) teachers’ and students’ (pupils’) work, b) the roles of parents and principals, and c) the privatisation of schools and parent/student freedom of choice were elicited. Using cluster analysis as the main analytic tool different student dispositions towards school and teachers’ work and student attitudes towards restructuring were constructed (Calander, 2003; 2004b).
We also interviewed 19 teacher educators – seven in Uppsala, six in Gävle and six in Karlstad[8] – using a professional life history approach. These were chosen so that their various positions in the teacher education programs at the various university/university colleges would differ as much as possible. Interviewees differed in regard to education level (PhD or not), own experience as a schoolteacher, experience as a teacher educator, teaching subject, gender and age. They were asked to tell about their experiences of teacher education, their workday, work changes, experience of student teachers etc. Their stories were then analysed with a focus, not so much on their differing opinions and experiences, but on what the stories told us of Swedish teacher education and student teachers in general and strands of changes over time (Calander, 2004a).
When analysing implications of the teacher education reform, we must not forget that data relative local organisation and teacher education practices are almost, exclusively grounded in this very small sample of educators’ experiences as told to us during interviews.[9] So, the conclusions following below can only be tentative and diffusely outlined.
A changing recruitment pattern to teacher education
Between 1993 and 1998 various changes in recruitment patterns to teacher education in Sweden occurred. In the period studied measures of student teachers’ “merit capital” (school grades and results from national university aptitude tests) diminished as well as their cultural capital (indicated by parents’ occupation and level of education) (Börjesson, 2003). Of the 904 freshmen student teachers in this study, about 50 percent come from working class or lower middle class homes. Over 40 percent have school grades below average (30 percent above).[10] Among those who have done the national university aptitude test differences are even greater. Twenty eight (28%) percent achieved low or very low scores, 14 percent achieving high or very high scores (Calander, 2003). We conclude that the student teachers as a whole possess reduced social and merit capital, when compared over time and with other university student group and that this has been accentuated in recent years. However, the reduction of “merit capital” is not evenly distributed among student teachers. The “merit capital”-loss being largest among those studying in the (at the time existing) program for upper secondary student teachers, whereas there was no such loss among those studying the pre-school teacher programme (Börjesson, 2003). From the aspect of “merit capital”, student teachers today are more like one another regardless of professional orientation.
The majority of student teachers are women (77 percent). Only one in ten male student teachers aspires to teach at pre- and/or primary school, whereas about 35 percent of those wanting to teach at secondary and/or upper secondary are male. While the College/Universities in this study show some variation in the age of their freshmen students (see Gill & Jonsson, 2004, at this conference), young or very young students tend to dominate the researched cohort. Forty-two (42%) percent of the students are 21 years or younger (70 percent 25 years or younger).[11] At the other end of “the age span” we find about 19 percent “old” students (31 years or older). For many of these students their teacher education involves retraining from an earlier occupation. Twenty-five (25%) percent have children of their own and 39 percent are married or cohabiting.
About 40 percent of the student teachers in the lärom study indicated an initial professional preference. It could be argued that even before their period of teacher education these students had formed a nascent professional identity (Calander, 2003; 2004b; Wikström & Calander, 2004, at this conference). This in itself is not remarkable. Student teachers throughout the world have always “known” what being a teacher is like and should be like through their experiences of being pupils themselves (Lortie, 1975). The important thing here is that these different dispositions and nascent identities have arisen in a new (or reformed) teacher education context. Put bluntly one could say that one aim of teacher education is to “de-“ or “reprogram” student teachers from their pre-formed orientations and expectations of the teaching profession.
As a group student teachers’ dispositions (Bourdieu, 1986) have changed in later years. Compared to other higher education programmes teacher education, in general, recruits childless young women from social strata with reduced cultural capital. As mentioned above, student teachers also possess less “merit capital” when compared to university students as a whole (Börjesson, 2003; Börjesson & Broady, 2004). Substantial minorities, however, break the rule by being older and often having children of their own. Like many other countries, teacher education in Sweden is highly gender skewed, nearly three quarters of recruits being women. Swedish teacher education of today is a higher education option that attracts the daughters of the working and lower middle classes.
Professional identity develops in an interaction between students and educators in a context of the special curriculum content of education programs and the culture and organisation of those programmes (cf. Kvalbein, 1999; also see Gill & Jonsson, 2003). Who “The Student” is, is an important “factor” in the context of teacher education, and, as we have seen, the identifying characteristics of this “Student” have been changing, not all of them equally, however. It is reasonable to conclude that this will have implications for teacher educators’ efforts to impart a developing professional identity during the period of pre-service teacher education.
Teacher educators’ experiences of teacher education today
What “has happened to” teacher education over time and what does the current reform mean, from teacher educators’ points of view? Three different interviewers from three different teacher education programs (Uppsala, Karlstad, Gävle) conducted the interviews. For obvious reasons the stories told by interviewees tend to differ in various respects. But there are some recurrent themes throughout the interviews.[12] The story they tell is outlined along two dominant themes below.[13]