Trans in School : A study of teachers’ and trans-gender students’ stories of encounters, and of possibilities and obstacles for recognition in Upper Secondary Schools in Sweden

This (master thesis) examines teachers’ and transgender students’ accounts of meeting and encountering each other and what possibilities and obstacles for recognition that their stories portray. The study and analysis are based on interviews with three students and three teachers at different upper secondary schools in Sweden (carried out during the fall of 2020). The analysis is grounded in Axel Honneths (2003) theory of recognition and aided by Carl-Göran Heidegrens (2009) analytical levels of recognition. The findings show how students’ experience recognition and misrecognition in school and in encounters with their teachers as well as how different aspects of teacher-student encounters affect trans and queer students’ everyday life in upper secondary school. The teachers’ accounts support these findings and the analysis sheds light on potential underlying reasons for acts of, or students’ experiences of, misrecognition. Such reasons include: Teachers’ knowledge gaps concerning (LGB)TQ issues, fear of ‘touching’ upon the subjects, their own need for recognition and difficulties to take the others’ perspective. The study concludes the need for school strategies that, among other things, aim to fill in teachers’ knowledge gaps concerning (LGB)TQ issues in order to better recognize trans* and queer students.Denna uppsats syftar att undersöka lärares och (trans)elevers berättelser om möten med varandra i förhållande till erkännande och att vara elev på gymnasienivå med normöverskrivande könsidentitet. Materialet består av kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer med tre (trans)elever och tre gymnasielärare i samhällskunskap, vilket analyseras utifrån Axel Honneths (2003) teorier och olika former av erkännande samt Carl-Göran Heidegrens (2009) tre analysnivåer av erkännande. Resultatet visar hur elever upplever icke-erkännande och missaktning relaterat till att vara trans i skolan. Lärarnas bemötande och erkännandepraktik framstår bland annat bero på icke-erkännande förhållningssätt och attityder; rädslor och kunskapsluckor; samt brist på stöd och erkännande. Analysen tyder på lärares svårigheter att se bortom normativa föreställningar och hegemoniska diskurser om kön, framförallt grundade i den institutionaliserade erkännandeordningen som leder till en praktik som är skadliga för transelevers välbefinnande i skolan. Studien visar framförallt på behovet av mer fortbildning och kollegiala diskussioner om hbtq-frågors implementering i undervisningen för att bättre erkänna transelever

”Vi har ju en likabehandlingsvecka”. Om lärares erfarenheter av likabehandlingsarbete och likabehandlingsplanen på en högstadieskola i Malmö

The Swedish Law requires every school to construct and annually revise an equality plan that is intended to facilitate the work for equality and the prevention of discrimination and how to deal with discriminating practices. Through a poststructuralist queer and norm critical theory I have analyzed four interviews, observation material and the schools equality plan to answer the question of how middle school teachers work with this plan and with equality in their school. I have found that the plan does not necessarily facilitate the work and in contrary rather hides inequalities through its presence. The equality plan mainly fails to do what it aims at due to the lack of awareness of the plan and a common language surrounding power structures and equality, which in part has its underlying cause in the absence of support from the schools management. The lack of a common language and awareness of how power and normative aspects work is partly demonstrated through the understanding of the Swedish word for equality (likabehandling) which aimed at treating everyone the same, not at treating every one as equals