This study examines conversations in a Swedish teachers’ School Rebellion (SR) group on Facebook, a group that attracts members who wish to engage in activism for a different and better Swedish school system and improved conditions for teachers. The phenomenon of teachers’ Rebellion Facebook groups is relatively new. It has emerged in several countries over the past decade and clearly differs from traditional online teacher collaboration and professional development groups. Placing the Swedish SR initiative in the context of discussions on changing teacher professionalism over the last decade, the aim of this study is to examine what content is given presence in SR posts and how it is discussed by members and to determine the extent to which the communication between the participating teachers has the potential to strengthen collective professionalism. To this end, curriculum theory and the concept of deliberative communication are combined to address questions of content and various relations between actors and levels, such as power and responsibility issues. The analysis shows that many topics related to teaching and education appear in the conversations, deliberative approaches vary from what is termed pre-deliberative to deliberative and even counter-deliberative. Although all participants have a voice, the administrators’ role is shown to be of special interest. Based on these findings, the administrators’ responsibility to maintain professional collegial deliberation is discussed as a complex mission of deliberation over political, pedagogical, and practical issues.

This paper explores how teachers in a Swedish teacher "rebellion" group on Facebook discuss institutional expectations related to the use of time in teachers' work. Drawing on a narrative research tradition, group discussions are analyzed as negotiations where teachers co-construct their own narratives about the teaching profession. In this endeavor, the analytical focus is turned towards how the teachers' discussions relate to notions of professional responsibility and accountability. The results highlight that the teachers emphasize a desire to be trusted, but also that they need to deserve such trust by acting responsibly towards the needs of the whole school. Group discussions on these matters illustrate a tension between teachers' individual autonomy and collective responsibility. While the teachers emphasize teaching-related duties as the core part of their work, their narratives about the professional teacher were constructed in argumentations where the room for discussing social and relational aspects of education was limited.

Objective: As an increasing number of children are identified as insufficiently physically active, the school environment has been targeted for efforts to promote physical activity (PA) among inactive children. While research has highlighted teachers’ role in promoting generic school-based daily PA, less is known about the early childhood education teachers’ experiences of physically inactive children and the strategies they use to promote PA. This study’s aim was to explore early childhood education teachers in Sweden’s experiences of physically inactive children and their strategies to promote PA among members of this group in their everyday school settings. Design: Qualitative interview study. Setting: Four small municipalities in Midwest Sweden. Method: Ten teachers working in early childhood education settings participated in individual semi-structured interviews. Data were analysed with a focus on teacher agency and the social, material and cultural resources teachers used to promote PA. Result: Findings indicated that teachers shoulder the worry and unarticulated responsibility for inactive children. This resulted in their use of strategies that varied and which were largely subjective in character. At the same time, teachers expressed how their agency was limited by insufficient resources. Conclusion: Teachers used social, material and cultural resources to promote PA, but their strategies were not informed by evidence or formal guidelines. None of the resources they used were specifically designed for inactive children. Instead, teachers used general resources which they adapted to inactive children’s interests and needs.

This study examines narratives about the teaching profession and teacher unions that Swedish teachers jointly produce in two teachers’ rebellion groups on Facebook, which is followed by a total of around 20,000 teachers. A sample of 33 posts and 2,445 comments were analysed using a narrative approach. The findings highlight narratives in which teachers wish to return to “the good old days”, struggle with everyday frustrations, call for a strike as an immediate solution, and describe hypothetical futures presenting the opportunity for proactive action and call teacher unions to dialogue rather than wait for them to satisfy the teachers’ demands.

The teacher education is often described as being in a performative and standard-based system. Being a teacher educator in this system is a complex task. Teacher educators have to deal with internal demands from students, colleagues and leaders and external demands from state authorities when shaping the education programme in which they teach. This presentation focuses on teacher educators in a Swedish preschool teacher education and aims to explore how commitment to and demands, inside and outside the higher education system, are handled and reflected upon. Results from interviews with teacher educators show among other, efforts to overcome less desirable traditions and how colleagues contribute to tensions but also are perceived as supportive colleagues to learn from. The combined results show how the teacher educators are part of webs of commitments. These webs are regarded as related fields and threads dependent on each other rather than separate parts, making the web/teacher education programme fragile. If any part breaks, the whole programme will be damaged. The discussion relates to how to overcome traditions and making actors in the programme shape a future-directed education together. We argue a need to provide possible tools to make use of deliberation and dialogue, to prepare future preschool teachers as well as the teacher education for public good. 

These results derive from a project on preschool student teachers’ professional development. The basic idea was that issues of democracy – discussed and talked about in different forms and contexts – are vital to become part of teachers’ agency. Thus, the project aimed to explore how the student teachers developed democratic agency during their teacher education.

Theoretically, the project was grounded in an understanding of teacher agency, in which experiences, different contextual aspects as well as temporal dimensions are taken into account. For 7 semesters, a group of 10-20 preschool student teachers in Sweden participated voluntarily in the project throughout their entire teacher education. Our method was to gather regularly in conversations with the students in ‘horizontal networks’. These worked as arenas for the students to challenge their thoughts on democracy and values without being graded for their developing opinions. We were four researchers that, in about 70 occasions, met with the students in such conversations about their future profession. Our roles were to take part of reflections on issues of democracy and teaching profession.

Our main results show that the students developed democratic agency though active participating in horizontal networks. The students themselves were able to describe the value of participating and how they perceived their democratic agency to be more developed compared to non-participating fellow students. The students in focus were able to reflect on issues of democracy in society, how they possibly could act differently in situations with children, colleagues and other actors in the preschool, issues that in previous research have been found to be difficult.

The results demonstrate a need to clearly focus on issues of democracy in the teacher education in order to develop future teachers’ democratic agency, which doubtless has become even more necessary in the present democratically troublesome times.

Research topic/aim: In this presentation, we focus on leadership between colleagues in the working team as well as preschool teachers’ responsibility for teaching in relation to the working team. This can be understood as ‘leadership within the preschool teaching activities’ (Jensen, 2022) The aim is to develop a theoretical understanding of leadership in preschool that takes previous experiences from preschool practice as well as from the teachers into account when arranging teaching activities and planning for the future. 

Theoretical framework: The theoretical framework consists of an ecological approach of Teacher Agency (Priestley, Biesta & Robinson, 2015) in which experiences are central and where cultural, structural and material aspects are considered vital when acting and achieving leadership in preschool.  

Methodology/research design: Through an action research project, preschool teachers will act, document and further discuss leadership activities in preschool with researchers. Insights from such discussions will - through recurring processes - be brought back to practice and enacted in new leadership activities. 

Expected findings: We expect the results to contribute a new understanding of leadership – a responsible leadership, which takes the context, history and temporality into account. Thereby, knowledge about how to enact a responsible leadership can both take advantage of the preschool’s own traditions and experiences and look ahead towards a teaching based on proven experiences and scientific basis.

Relevance to Nordic educational research: The topic is relevant to all Nordic countries as leadership in preschool are relevant and similar within the Nordic education (and other school forms where teachers are expected to shared leadership)

References

Jensen, M. (2022). Ledarskap mitt i verksamheten: Att leda kollegor i förskola, skola och fritidshem. [ Leadership within the teaching activities, in prescjool, school and leisure time centres]. Gleerups

Priestley, M., Biesta, G., & Robinson, S. (2015). Teacher agency: An ecological approach. Bloombury Academic.

This article explores Swedish teachers' and school leaders' Facebook rebellion groups as a medium where professional needs and actions can be formulated. Data consist of interviews with administrators representing the rebellion groups. Based on a theoretical perspective of teacher agency we searched for experiences and visions related to contextual aspects expressed in the groups. The results indicate a common experience of lacking resources among the groups. Through a well-balanced agency, they search for support among politicians in their striving to improve working conditions. However, the groups might develop different conditions for participating due to the formation of group-specific conversational climate about what is desirable and possible to post and discuss. Discussions on work-related issues might certainly be affected and the rebellion groups might contribute to preserve the specificity of each level in the school system. A split in the teachers' rebellion group indicates virtual relationships between professionals are easy to give up in favour of new formations, making the virtual groups vulnerable. The results raise the question about changing cultural aspects and what it means to be a professional teacher/school leader. Will teacher agency in the future be dependent on participation in such social media groups?