Teacher shortage in Sweden: time to take action?

In Sweden, the lack of teachers is a national challenge and a societal problem, and the difference between supply and demand for teacher students will increase until 2035. Today, only 7 out of 10 teachers in compulsory school have certification and the variation between schools and regions is great. The overall aim of this article is to explore and analyse the current state of teacher shortage in Sweden. Document analysis was used for reviewing, evaluating and analysing documents, and constructionist thematic analysis was adopted. The results show that there are many different, overlapping or similar factors behind the Swedish teacher shortage and are related to reforms, retention and recruitment. Several curriculum and teacher education reforms have changed and deteriorating work environments and have led to many dropouts for the profession. Low status and the constant poor picture the media portray of Swedish schools and teachers have a strong impact on Sweden’s teacher shortage. Further, political reforms on communalization, decentralization, teacher certification and privatization of schools have changed the structural conditions. Therefore, we call for a change in the attitude towards the teaching profession. Thus, this article provides insights for teachers, teacher educators, policy makers and other stakeholders on the national and international level

Relational pedagogy in a vocational programme in upper secondary school : A way to make more students graduate

In Sweden, many students start but do not graduate from upper secondary school despitepreventive efforts. The reasons for students dropping out of school have been examinedand opposed, but there is still more to be done. The overall aim of this study wasto contextualise and understand teachers’ and students’ experiences and perceptions ofrelational pedagogy in a vocational upper secondary programme in Sweden. The theoreticalframework was relational pedagogy to investigate theoretical knowledge of pedagogicalrelations. The data for this qualitative study was collected through two focusgroup interviews with 10 teachers and 10 individual student interviews. Directed contentanalysis was used to analyse the data in order to pay attention to the core conceptsof relational pedagogy as a theoretical encoding scheme. The findings show that teachersand students find their working and learning atmosphere much safer and more securecompared to earlier; both groups mentioned relational pedagogy as promoting studentparticipation, engagement, and motivation in school. This study contributes withknowledge of how vocational teachers and students perceive working with relationalpedagogy to promote learning and school attendance, but there is still a need to find outmore about how teachers’ relational competence is acquired

Discourses of Including Students with Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties (EBD) in Swedish Mainstream Schools

When students’ behaviours cause difficulties for their teachers, themselves, and the rest of the class, teachers often construct inclusion as problematic. The overall aim of this study was to contribute to the understanding of teachers’ discourses regarding inclusion of students with emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD) in Swedish mainstream schools. The sample of empirical data collected for articles II–IV was derived from focus group interviews of 5–8 mainstream teachers in grades 4–6 in 6 different schools. Article I is a research synthesis on 15 studies that feature the attitudes of teachers from 15 different countries. It frames the entire thesis by examining how teachers perceive students with EBD from other countries, cultures, and times. In this study, neither inclusion nor EBD are said to be so much objectively “real” as socially produced and can be regarded as social constructs. An approach of discourse theory that takes inspiration from Laclau and Mouffe (1985) is applied in articles II–III and is complemented with constructionist thematic analysis. The results revealed that teachers construct meaning and understanding of students in relation to their everyday professional missions in the classroom. Discourses about successfully including students with EBD face problem fixing their meaning as they require new and other types of resources as well as other time distributions, teachers, curricula, and classrooms. The teachers’ discourses revealed a clear gap between policy and practice in the Swedish education system. Discourses that were pragmatic based on everyday reality of the school overpowered the discourses of ensuring equal opportunities for all students and the celebration of diversity. When the wordings of the Swedish steering documents are arbitrary and interpreted differently among various actors within Swedish schools, the teachers feel insecurity, frustration, and inadequacy. Inclusion of students with EBD is a complex and complicated matter that the teachers do not feel competent enough to fully handle. They revealed their frustration with being expected to do something that cannot be done due to practical and economic reasons. When teachers experience failure and dissatisfaction with specific teaching situations, they construct discourses that justify and legitimize that failure. These discourses inevitably have consequences for how the teachers understand and organize their everyday teacher missions.Vid tidpunkten för disputationen var följande delarbete opublicerat: delarbete 1 inskickat.At the time of the doctoral defence the following paper was unpublished: paper 1 submitted.</p

Teachers’ attitudes towards including students with emotional and behavioural difficulties in mainstream school : A systematic research synthesis

Previous research reviews on teachers'attitudes towards inclusive education have shown that students'types of special educational needs influences teachers'attitudes; these reviews have also indicated that, in terms of the inclusion of various groups, teachers are most negative about including students with behavioural problems. This article is a review of the research on teachers'attitudes towards inclusion with regard to students who have special educational needs. It specifically identifies evidence regarding teachers'attitudes towards the inclusion of students with emotional and behavioural difficulty (EBD). For this review, 15 studies, measuring teachers'attitudes from 15 countries, met the inclusion criteria. The results of this synthesis confirmed that most teachers hold negative attitudes towards the inclusion of students with EBD; however, this was not true in all countries. The results also highlight specific explanations for why teachers hold negative attitudes towards including students with EBD in their classrooms. The implication of this synthesis is that teachers feel that their prerequisites for successfully including students with EBD are not being met; this impracticability is most impactful when the teachers nevertheless try to include these students.

Discourses of Including Students with Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties (EBD) in Swedish Mainstream Schools

When students’ behaviours cause difficulties for their teachers, themselves, and the rest of the class, teachers often construct inclusion as problematic. The overall aim of this study was to contribute to the understanding of teachers’ discourses regarding inclusion of students with emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD) in Swedish mainstream schools. The sample of empirical data collected for articles II–IV was derived from focus group interviews of 5–8 mainstream teachers in grades 4–6 in 6 different schools. Article I is a research synthesis on 15 studies that feature the attitudes of teachers from 15 different countries. It frames the entire thesis by examining how teachers perceive students with EBD from other countries, cultures, and times. In this study, neither inclusion nor EBD are said to be so much objectively “real” as socially produced and can be regarded as social constructs. An approach of discourse theory that takes inspiration from Laclau and Mouffe (1985) is applied in articles II–III and is complemented with constructionist thematic analysis. The results revealed that teachers construct meaning and understanding of students in relation to their everyday professional missions in the classroom. Discourses about successfully including students with EBD face problem fixing their meaning as they require new and other types of resources as well as other time distributions, teachers, curricula, and classrooms. The teachers’ discourses revealed a clear gap between policy and practice in the Swedish education system. Discourses that were pragmatic based on everyday reality of the school overpowered the discourses of ensuring equal opportunities for all students and the celebration of diversity. When the wordings of the Swedish steering documents are arbitrary and interpreted differently among various actors within Swedish schools, the teachers feel insecurity, frustration, and inadequacy. Inclusion of students with EBD is a complex and complicated matter that the teachers do not feel competent enough to fully handle. They revealed their frustration with being expected to do something that cannot be done due to practical and economic reasons. When teachers experience failure and dissatisfaction with specific teaching situations, they construct discourses that justify and legitimize that failure. These discourses inevitably have consequences for how the teachers understand and organize their everyday teacher missions.Vid tidpunkten för disputationen var följande delarbete opublicerat: delarbete 1 inskickat.At the time of the doctoral defence the following paper was unpublished: paper 1 submitted.</p

What is Inclusive Didactics? : Teachers´Understanding of Inclusive Didactics for Students with EBD in Swedish Mainstream Schools.

Including students with emotional and behavioral difficulties (EBD) in general education is one of teachers’ greatest challenges and make the dilemma of inclusion displays its most difficult side. This article contributes to the understanding of how teachers in Swedish mainstream schools understand the concept of inclusive didactics for students with EBD. This article employs a directed qualitative content analysis supplemented with descriptive statistics related to the categories of inclusive didactics. Didactic theory was the basis of the predefined categories by which the analysis was completed. Empirical data were collected through 6 focus-group interviews and 37 individual follow-up interviews. The findings indicate that three didactic aspects were dominant in teachers’ understanding of inclusive didactics: Student(s), Methods, and Teacher. Less accentuated were Subject, Rhetoric and Interaction. Thus these teachers’ understanding and previous research is not consistent. The overall conclusion is that the concept of inclusive didactics is complex, complicated, and difficult for teachers to relate to. The descriptions are both vague and simplistic and therefore difficult for teachers to implement. This article clearly highlights that teachers often feel frustrated and inadequate, and blame themselves for the students’ deficiency and failure, thus concluding that strategies for distinct descriptions and teacher practices are needed

A Rapid Transition from Campus to Emergent Distant Education : Effects on Students’ Study Strategies in Higher Education

This article presents a literature review focusing on international research concerning distance education and students’ study strategies during the last 20 years. As distance education in higher education is a steadily growing trend and in particular because the COVID-19 pandemic has escalated the transition from campus education to different forms of distance education, knowledge about students’ study strategies and appropriate teaching strategies has become highly important. With this research review, we aimed to identify patterns and trends in research on distance education focusing students study strategies before and after the pandemic. The research synthesis identified and interpreted similarities and differences in the studies’ designs and findings, which we analyzed using integrative thematic analysis. Students’ study strategies seem to have changed to some extent during the pandemic, with more emphasis on their own responsibility and the need for a developed teaching strategy to align with the changing framework related to the emergency provision of distance education. We concluded that students have to develop metacognitive strategies, because self-regulated learning and a more flexible pedagogy seem to be important in teachers’ transitions and competence in digitalization. Therefore, more research targeting these aspects is needed.