Att hantera lärarbristen

Abstract

Schools in Sweden need to handle an acute lack of teachers. One way to handle this problem is to hire new staff who can work with social and administration tasks, enabling the teachers in school to teach some more classes instead. This study examined two secondary schools in Sweden where this way to solve the problem was tried out. The aim of the study was to highlight possible consequences for teachers’ core practices (teaching), and discuss whether more teaching might involve another sort of teaching. In this analysis, Ryle´s distinction of “achievements” versus “tasks” was being used (Ryle, 1949). Another aim was to highlight possible consequences for teacher-student relationships and possible consequences for the teachers´ working conditions. The empirical base was five focus group interviews with the teachers. The findings indicate that the new work model might turn into a “mechanical teaching”, more of an achievement than a task, in Ryle´s sense. Moreover, while new staff was hired to solve social problems among students, teachers still describe how they handle acute conflicts in the school environment; “because I´m an adult”. Finally, even though the working conditions are still demanding, the clarifying of job boundaries has contributed to less work stress.

Keywords

• teachers´ health, teacher-student relationships, core practicies