The teachers’ and their profession in a virtual and expanding staffs room– social media as a tool for new professional narratives
Project Investigator Annica Löfdahl Hultman
Contributing researchers Andreas Bergh, Örebro university/ Uppsala university and Håkan Löfgren Linköping University
The funding body of the project is The Swedish Research Council [Grant number 2020-03144].
The project focus on Swedish teachers' voices in a virtual and expanding staffs room, the teacher rebellion group (TRG) on Facebook. The goal is to understand what TRG can tell about today’s Swedish school and its teachers. It is important as the teaching profession are constantly in transition, shaped by several stakeholders in education. The aim is to contribute knowledge about teachers' self-initiated commitment, as expressed through TRG, and discuss its importance for the school, the teachers, national and local education policy.
Data consist of TRG posts, dealing with teachers' worries and opportunities in school, from two months during one year. We will spend time within TRG, reading and saving teachers posts, totally about 240 with 7000 comments, and attend physical events and interview some key persons within TRG, from schools and politicians.
The project is at the intersection of classroom- and in digital and social media research as teachers describe their classroom life, within the affordances offered by TRG. Theories from narrative research are used with support from concepts from research on digital and social media. Data are analysed and understood as teachers' narratives about their profession and its conditions.
The three-year project will be conducted by researchers from Karlstad, Linköping and Örebro Universities, holding broad competence in methodological and theoretical studies of teacher profession.
- Löfdahl Hultman, A., Bergh, A., Lennartsdotter, M. & Löfgren, H. (2022): Swedish teachers’ and school leaders’ rebellion groups on Facebook- collective formations and administrators as gatekeepers, Education Inquiry, https://doi.org/10.1080/20004508.2021.2022583
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?
- Löfdahl Hultman, A., & Löfgren, H. (2023). Narratives of Teachers and Teacher Unions in Swedish Facebook Rebellion Groups. Professions and Professionalism, 12(3). https://doi.org/10.7577/pp.5224
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.