Conference proceeding
Individualisation in the making: policy complexities and tensions of the Municipal Adult Education in Swedish for Immigrants
ESREA 9th Triennial European Research Conference, 19-22 September 2019, Belgrade, Serbia
2019
Abstract
Municipal adult education in Swedish for Immigrants (SFI) is a program expected to serve different purposes on the political, integrative, and educational level. The multifaceted character of SFI creates challenges that have been addressed by a substantial number of studies. Major policy bodies, such as the program syllabus and the latest state evaluation, emphasise individualisation as an effective response to challenges and identify it, among others, with the application of certain methods and tools on behalf of the teachers (e.g., the use of Individual Study Plans), the absence of which leads to reduced quality and is followed by negative outcomes on different levels. Nevertheless, previous research has shown that this line of argumentation ascribes teachers with a disproportionate burden of responsibility, as individualisation is conceptualised in a top-down manner, assuming pre-existing problems that policy is bound to address and a certain type of rationality for teachers as policy implementers.
The paper argues for the need to problematise individualisation as a complex concept, i.e. as an element that both defines the conditions within which SFI is to take place and, most importantly, may potentially go against pre-existing values and practices, pose ethical and ideological challenges to teachers, and require a new sort of teacher competence. By employing Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) we adopt the view of society as a unit of numerous interacting activity systems. Key policies from different periods of the national Swedish and international context have been analysed to uncover tensions within and between elements of the activities in focus, such as contradictory policy inputs or tensions between the expected use of tools and inputs regulating the division of labour with regards to teachers’ work.
The preliminary results identify tensions between policy inputs and, thus, illuminate spaces where individualisation is conceptualised, negotiated, and expected to be acted upon. In situating and examining individualisation vis à vis interacting activities we problematise it by looking into the interplay between policy and teachers’ work in a broader conceptual framework. Dealing with individualisation as a dialectical notion enables us to address it as not only related to individual teachers’ assets and their ability to implement but rather as a source of tensions and an element negotiated within and between various arenas. The search for tensions, in this sense, does not only reveal mismatches in the policy formulation of individualisation but also uncovers potential areas for development by providing a more nuanced image of the concept. In this way, our study adds to the discussion about the restructuring of adult education in Sweden and the possible ways to address contemporary challenges in the field.
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Details
- Title
- Individualisation in the making: policy complexities and tensions of the Municipal Adult Education in Swedish for Immigrants
- Creators
- Dimitrios Papadopoulos - Department of Education and Special EducationKarin Lumsden Wass - Department of Education and Special EducationGun-Britt Wärvik - Department of Education and Special EducationGöteborgs universitet
- Publication Details
- ESREA 9th Triennial European Research Conference, 19-22 September 2019, Belgrade, Serbia
- Conference
- ESREA 9th Triennial European Research Conference, 9th (Belgrade, Serbia, 19 Sep 2019 - 22 Sep 2019)
- Resource Type
- Conference proceeding
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Mathematics
- Identifiers
- 991020532095304721