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European Journal of Teacher Education
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cete20
Migrant teachers and the negotiation of a (new)
teaching identity
Elin Ennerberg & Catarina Economou
To cite this article: Elin Ennerberg & Catarina Economou (2020): Migrant teachers and
the negotiation of a (new) teaching identity, European Journal of Teacher Education, DOI: 10.1080/02619768.2020.1788536
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2020.1788536
© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Published online: 30 Jun 2020.
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ARTICLE
Migrant teachers and the negotiation of a (new) teaching
identity
Elin Ennerberg a and Catarina Economou b
aDepartment of Society, Culture and Identity, Malmö University, Malmö, Sweden; bDepartment of Culture, Languages and Media, Malmö University, Malmö, Sweden
ABSTRACT
Employment of newly arrived migrants can be seen as one of the key aspects to managing both national labour market needs and the inclusion of individuals in both work and society. In Sweden, efforts to manage recent migration – for example, from Syria – has resulted in various labour market ‘fast tracks’ that aim to facilitate labour market integration. In this article, we consider how indivi-dual migrants attempt to negotiate the new national demands of professional identity to become teachers in Sweden by following a Swedish introduction course to teaching. The study builds on qualitative interviews and fieldwork following two different cohorts of students.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 7 February 2020 Accepted 21 June 2020
KEYWORDS
Migration; identity work; teaching; labour market; Sweden
Introduction
The identity work of professionals relates to the demands of taking on a particular vocational role, thus implying a certain adaptation of the individual’s own wishes and habits. For migrants with a previous work history, entering a new national labour market can pose particular challenges in terms of re-claiming and re-working one’s new profes-sional identity. Moreover, migrant teachers may experience issues related to accultura-tion, that is challenges related to adopting or adapting to different values and norms of the dominant society (Smith and Guerra 2006). While acculturation is not the prime topic of this article, socialisation into a different culture can be seen as one possible challenge in a professional area such as teaching.
This article addresses the identity work of migrant teachers entering a labour market course aimed at facilitating entry into the Swedish school system. The professional (re-) training course allows for a discussion of how identity work is negotiated and discussed collectively by migrants entering the same situation of being forced to re-train in a different national arena, but at the same time carrying different expectations, back-grounds and strategies.
The purpose of this study is to examine how migrant teachers from Arabic-speaking countries entering the introduction course to re-train as teachers in Sweden manage and experience the different teaching norms and teaching environment. By using qualitative
CONTACT Elin Ennerberg Elin.Ennerberg@mau.se Department of Society, Culture and Identity, Malmö University, Malmö, Sweden
https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2020.1788536
© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any med-ium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
data based on ethnography and interviews with participants and course educators, we consider different aspects of the experiences and negotiations of how the new teaching environment is presented and experienced. Primarily, this data is interpreted in relation to theories of identity work. The article is guided by the following research questions:
How do migrant teachers interpret the new teaching environment through the fast track course?
How do migrant teachers negotiate their identity as teachers?
Background
The background to the educational measure for newly arrived migrant teachers is the increase in asylum seekers in Sweden in 2015 following the war in Syria. Prior to 2015, an introduction programme was already in place for newly arrived migrants who, over two years, can participate in Swedish language courses and civic education and labour market activities. Due to the increased migration, the Swedish government in 2015 announced different ‘fast tracks’. These would not only be linked to the introduction programme but also take account of the specific competencies brought by individual migrants in areas where the Swedish labour market was in need of labour power. One such fast track was the teaching fast track.
The teaching profession in Sweden has been challenged in different ways over the past few decades. At the same time, the Swedish school system has undergone several reforms, particularly in terms of a shift in responsibility from the state to municipalities and private actors. Meanwhile, Swedish pupils have been underperforming on interna-tional tests (such as the PISA test) in comparison to other countries, and pupils frequently report that they experience concentration problems in the classroom (OECD 2015). Like other countries in the Global North, the value of education seems to have changed, and this can be seen to influence both the learning environment and the status of the teaching profession.
At the same time, a national shortage of 40 000 full-time positions is forecasted for the coming decades (Skolverket 2017), which has led to a number of government initiatives aimed at making the profession more attractive (Regeringen 2018). One such measure was the introduction of a new teacher category for excellent teachers. Other measures included opening up new ways to enter the profession in the form of various teacher training courses that build on previous degree certificates (Skolverket 2014).
The teaching fast track can therefore be seen in the light of both attempting to secure future recruitment of teachers and to more rapidly shift migrants into the labour market.
Fast-track course for teachers
The teaching fast track was devised as a 26-week education course coordinated by the Public Employment Service, but provided by six different universities. The fast track for teachers and pre-school teachers was specifically aimed at newly arrived migrants who met certain criteria in addition to speaking Arabic: They must either be currently enrolled
in the Swedish introduction programme, have finished their introduction within the last 12 months, or have received a Swedish residence permit within the last three years. During the 26 weeks, the participants spend two days a week at the university learning about the Swedish educational system, two days doing work experience at a school, and one day at the university learning the Swedish language. The fast-track course has no Swedish language requirement; however, after completing this 26-week course, the participants who aim to work in Swedish schools do not receive a formal qualification. Instead, they enter a process of completing advanced Swedish studies. It is also during this time that the individual teaching certificates from their home universities are vali-dated in terms of how well they comply with a Swedish teaching degree. For many individuals, this means that they are required to participate in further higher education courses for up to two years1 in order to receive a Swedish teacher certificate.
Previous studies
In previous studies of migrant teachers, some discussions have focused on the difficulties of integrating migrant teachers’ qualifications and skills into national educational systems. Obstacles such as limited transferability of certificates, bureaucratic procedures regarding validation, and the discrimination and undervaluation of teachers’ skills are debated in various studies (Cho 2016; Georgi 2016; Karakasoglu and Dogmus 2016; Ratkovic and Pietka-Nykaza 2016; Schneider and Schmidt 2016). However, the role of the migrant teacher in providing an opportunity for diversifying the teaching force has also been seen in more positive terms, where individual teachers are regarded as being able to contribute by acting as role models for migrant students – they take on the role of bridge- builders between migrant parents and the school system or language translators (Georgi
2016; Schmidt and Janusch 2016). However, in practice, while some teachers are comfor-table taking on a particular responsibility for teaching migrant students, others reject this position as discriminatory and prefer to focus on maintaining a professional identity unrelated to their migrant background (Bressler and Rotter 2017; Georgi 2016; Lander and Sheikh Zaheerali 2016). From a Swedish context, Bigestans (2015) studied teachers with a migrant background who after certification had found employment in a Swedish school. Her results show that challenges for this group included teaching in the Swedish language, but also coming to terms with teaching in a new educational system where there are differences in teacher-learner relationships. Another Swedish study highlights the ways in which teachers with a migrant background are often identified as being a particular resource in terms of teaching students of a migrant background. The teachers’ full knowledge and subject expertise is thus downplayed in favour of their social role as ‘bridge-builders’ (Jönsson and Rubinstein Reich 2006).
In relation to other vocations, other researchers have emphasised the multiple con-flicting demands individuals can face relating to ethnicity. For example, female entrepre-neurs from Turkey and Morocco were seen as having to negotiate their public role with the norms of family honour and motherhood (Essers and Benschop 2007). Other studies show how employees from a Muslim background attempted to balance religious beliefs with employment norms in ways that minimised conflict, leading in certain instances to compromises, such as women choosing not to wear a headscarf at work (Berger, Essers, and Himi 2017).
Theoretical framework
Individual identity has been scrutinised in relation to developments of late modernity, both in terms of how societal transformations influence what we perceive individual identity to mean and also how individuals make sense of their own selves in a society where the notion of the ‘autobiographical self’ emphasises continuous self-development and a reflexive self (Giddens 1991). The construction of identities can be especially important in relation to learning in the educational and labour market context, where individuals need to navigate different transitions from and to education and work in trajectories that in contemporary society typically involve both more emphasis on indivi-dual choice and a more fractured and unpredictable work and educational career (Ecclestone, Biesta, and Hughes 2010).
Identity work studies often focus on how individuals take on and negotiate a certain role within their working life, where participation in the organisation of work, such as performing certain tasks or entering certain groups, allows the indivi-dual to construct a ‘work-related self’ (Dutton, Roberts, and Bednar 2010, 266), which thus may be more or less in line with individuals’ own perceptions of which roles they feel comfortable with.
Identity work is often identified as taking place during times of uncertainty, where individuals have a need to either create or revise their identities (Ashforth 2001). For example, individual transitions between work or occupations may necessitate identity work to allow individuals to reflect upon their work position or create a (new) occupa-tional identity. Similarly, identity work can occur when individuals’ identities are in some type of ‘crises’, i.e. when individuals more actively are forced to problematise or negotiate their identities due to internal or external circumstances such as unemployment (Riach and Loretto 2009). Similarly, migration can be seen as a form of crisis that forces individuals not only to move, but also to start anew in terms of language learning and having to find new work opportunities.
While identities are ‘work in progress’ in the sense that they are not fixed or stable entities, the fluidity, or flexibility, of individual identity is likely to come to the fore at certain times in an individual’s working life. The motives for identity work to occur can be wide- ranging and sometimes contradictory. For example, identity work can be seen as necessary for individuals to maintain a certain continuity with their self, at the same time as identity work also occurs due to individuals’ need to emphasise their distinctiveness in relation to others (Kreiner, Hollensbe, and Sheep 2006). Other researchers point to individuals’ desire for belonging as a reason for engaging in identity work (Lambert et al. 2013).
The identity work individuals participate in can involve in what Lepisto, Crosina, and Pratt (2015) conceptualise and summarise as “adding, ‘retaining’ or ‘subtract-ing’ an identity.2 ‘Adding’ can be seen when individuals either take on a new form of identity or enhance elements of their existing identity to better fit a new situation. For example, individuals can be socialised into performing a new role that requires imitation of other professionals’ behaviour (Ibarra 1999). A different process is the retaining of an identity, whereby individuals attempt to maintain or strengthen their existing identities. One example is Wei (2012) who shows how artists use different strategies to reinforce their professional identity and their sense of artistic integrity. Finally, individuals may subtract their identities by losing part of
their identity. For example, Lutgen-Sandvik (2008) shows how work-place bullying practices can lead some individuals to leave work and fail to build up a new work identity.
Identity work must also be seen in the context of structures surrounding the individual. For example, being able to engage in identity work or to successfully claim an identity can be dependent on being able to be granted the claimed identity (Ibarra and Petriglieri 2010). Professional knowledge, for example, needs to be legitimised by others – either formally, for example, through validation or granting of certificates, a process that is often shaped by different interest groups (Abbott
1988) – but also in terms of gaining access to a job in line with one’s professional qualifications. In other cases, however, individuals’ ‘working identity’ has been seen as negotiated or upheld even in instances where individuals have been in unemploy-ment (Riach and Loretto 2009; Willott and Griffin 2004).
Migration can be seen as a situation where individuals are forced to negotiate their identities in different ways. Apart from the process of leaving their homes and nations, forced migration means that individuals also experience an occupational loss that needs to be managed in the new home country (Cohen, Arnold., and O’Neill 2011). This transition forces individuals to manage with an initial period of unemployment and thereafter decide whether to attempt to take up their previous career in a new context or pursue alternative options. Regardless of whether the individual migrant manages to reclaim their previous occupational status, this process can thus be seen as necessarily involving some form of identity work through the individual’s transition due to migration (Akay 2016). In the case of non-Western migrants entering European labour markets, identity work can also be associated with stereotypical attitudes towards migrants or religious groups, such as Muslims, at the same time as the ‘whiteness’ of national institutions and workplaces often remain unproblematised (Kamenou and Fearfull 2006). In these instances, individuals are placed in a situation where they need to consider whether or not to adapt their identity: avoiding situations that may cause conflicts, or rejecting and resisting certain working cultures and practices (Berger, Essers, and Himi 2017).
In this study, we consider the participation of the individual teachers in the introduc-tion to teaching as identity work, where the individuals test, reflect on and negotiate their role as teachers in a new national context. These negotiations relate not only to the idealised picture of what teaching in a Swedish school system may entail, but also to their practical experiences, which they reflect upon collectively and individually. The purpose of the article is therefore to analyse how teachers in the introduction course either add to, retain or subtract their previous teaching identity when encountering the Swedish school system in theory and in practice.
By analysing this topic in relation to theories of identity work, this study aims to add to these discussions by examining more closely how the teaching profession is negotiated by teachers who are faced with entering a new national occupational context in which they are not yet employed as teachers. The theoretical contribu-tion sheds light on how collective discussions can shape the process of identity work. In particular, we use the concepts of adding, retaining and subtracting to consider how identity work can be interpreted from a migration perspective, when individuals need to manage new professional expectations that are, in a sense, ‘nationally’ coded.
Methodology
This study was carried out from late 2017 to early 2019. It followed two different cohorts of teachers for six months on both occasions. The first cohort initially comprised 35 partici-pants from Syria (16 men and 19 women), but two did not continue after the first two days. The participants had been in Sweden for a period of three months to two years, and they had basic knowledge of Swedish. In the second cohort, the majority of participants were from Syria, but a small number from other Middle Eastern countries.3 This group consisted of 43 participants (13 men and 30 women).4 All participants were given the option to opt-out of the research at any time. Two participants in the second cohort chose not to take part.
The material collected includes non-participatory observations where one of the researchers followed the groups during their course 1–4 times per week, 8 focus group interviews with 32 participants, 25 semi-structured interviews with 27 participants and 14 interviews with educators/and course coordinators. In addition, non-participatory obser-vations and semi-structured interviews were conducted at the schools where the partici-pants were fulfiling their work experience requirements, with the employed teachers serving as supervisors during the practicum. The aim of the qualitative data collection was to gain an understanding of the participants’ own experiences (Kvale 2007). Most of the material was collected separately by the two different researchers; however, the data analysis was conducted by both authors.
After the data was collected for the first group, the interview guides were discussed by both authors and amended in order to focus more on certain questions that had arisen during the first round of fieldwork. Following the second round of data collection, the material was organised thematically, based on a number of preconceived themes follow-ing the research questions. Subsequent readfollow-ing of the themes led to a partial reorganisa-tion of the data material (Swain 2018). Finally, the material was coded using Nvivo 12 (Nohl 2010). During the analysis, the scope of the study became more limited.
The chosen methods have certain shortcomings. The findings of this study are limited to the perspectives of the participants and university teachers in this program. Nevertheless, these accounts are indicative of the kinds of challenges and barriers they face as well as the opportunities presented to them. Another challenge identified regards language. As the authors do not speak Arabic, translation and interpretation were used whenever possible, but sometimes informal interviews were conducted in Swedish or English. This could have led to a bias in the material, as the participants with a higher level of Swedish or English were better able to make their views heard. Moreover, the inter-views with an interpreter may be of a lower quality due to the researchers not being able to follow the discussion in an unfiltered way. Interpretation can also raise further chal-lenges, for example, that of interpreters’ shaping the research process through their own understanding of a field (Bergen 2018). It should also be noted that while the quotes have been transcribed verbatim – in cases where the participants’ Swedish has been under-standable, but containing certain grammatical or other errors – the researchers have carefully edited the quotes to preserve the intended meaning and to ensure clarity by using correct grammar and terminology in the translation. Another possible limitation of the research is the position of the participants. Due to their social status as students at the university, it is possible that they did refrain from raising certain issues with the
researchers who could be interpreted as teaching staff or representatives of the higher education institute. Nevertheless, during the course of the research, participants on the course frequently approached one of the researchers with information or subjective evaluations of the course that they wanted to highlight. This would imply that at least some of the participants saw the research as independent from the course. Neither of the researchers took part in any of the teaching at the course. Outside of the course, however, one of the researchers is employed in the same academic department as some of the teachers in the course, and were thus formally colleagues, but with different teaching responsibilities.
Results
In the following sections, we discuss in detail how individuals negotiate the professional teacher identity as presented in the course and perceived through work experience in schools. For example, the thematic lectures at the university focus on the Swedish educational system and what it means to be a teacher in Sweden. Moreover, the ‘Swedish’ teacher identity is compared and contrasted to the individual teacher’s previous experiences of the profession and is discussed in relation to their work experience in Swedish schools. Throughout the course, many of the participants discuss their experi-ences in a very engaged manner, and different opinions abound, particularly whether the Swedish and Middle Eastern teacher role can be seen as inherently different, and whether or not the ‘Swedish teacher’ is a desirable and/or attainable ideal. In a sense, then, the group discussions can be seen as a collective, self-reflective identity work where indivi-duals are actively making sense of and negotiating possible ways to maintain or construct their teacher identity in a new national context. However, the discussions are also grounded in a common experience of unemployment – where many of the participants encounter insecurity in terms of whether they will be able to enter the Swedish labour market as teachers or in schools – outside the framework of the course work experience.
Discussions regarding the Swedish teaching role and individuals’ past and present experiences took place on many different levels, or according to various themes. Some themes were of a more practical nature, concerning, for example, administration or routines, whereas others themes were more ideological or value-oriented. However, these themes were often linked by the central issue of teacher identity, which touched upon both these more mundane issues and the broader pedagogical visions discussed in the course.
Setting out the visions – idealised Swedish teachers?
During the course at the university, the participants are required to focus on aspects such as values and the history of the Swedish school system. One of the course coordinators comments:
I think the content is great, and it connects well with our teaching education system because it’s taken from the teaching regulations. These are things that all students should have when they graduate as teachers; it’s just that we deal with the content in different ways depending on your background, so to speak. So it’s not really anything in this course that you can’t find in any teacher education. (course coordinator)
The focus on values is exemplified in the course plan (and teaching guidelines). Suggestions for themes relating to values include connecting these to human rights, gender, ethnicity and class (Arbetsförmedlingen 2016). The values discussed are not portrayed as exclusively Swedish values, but rather in line with a certain Western enlight-enment tradition that emphasises human rights and democracy (Kymlicka 1996, 2010). Nonetheless, for some educators and course participants, Swedish society and the Swedish school system are interpreted as significantly different from their own previous experience:
The matter of democracy, freedom and equality – these three points are really a challenge in the course. And it’s a challenge to the teachers because they are coming from areas or countries where they lack these points. Lack of equality: There’s no equality between men and women – they’re not the same, [so] it’s a challenge. How can I accept that here? How can I treat children equally? So, this is changing behaviour, and it is hard and takes time. (male respondent 1)
The [Swedish system] is good. Good rules, good points, good opinions, good treatment. We have to follow it because it’s the Swedish system, but I think it’s good. It makes the children safe. It’s very good for children. But we can also see that there might need to be some stricter regulations of children here because we hear from our friends that children in schools here don’t follow rules. [. . .] For example, I’ve heard that children put their feet on the table; and when the teachers tell the children to stop, they don’t. They don’t reply. And the teachers feel bad that the children don’t respect them. I believe that the rules should be a little bit stricter towards the children so that they respect the teachers. Then the teachers can give more and teach better. (male respondent 2)
The two male participants above represent two different views of how to interpret the Swedish school system. In the first quote, the teacher argues that what he sees in the Swedish system is a fundamentally different way of teaching, meaning that the individual teachers entering the system from different traditions will need to adapt both their own values and ideas as well as their teaching practices. Becoming a teacher in the new national context can thus be seen as a complex socialisation process. In contrast, the other teacher also acknowledges what he sees as differences between the Swedish school system and his former school system. In this description, however, the values presented as the ideals are not seen as unproblematic, as they, in his account, lead to problematic consequences of how children disrespect the teacher. While the first teacher thus con-siders that the teachers themselves need to adapt in order to fit into the system, the second teacher argues that the system needs to change in order to achieve better learning outcomes for the students. Here, the teaching identity is also at the forefront of the narrative. However, the second teacher’s identity as a teacher is primarily directed towards the teacher being able to successfully transmit knowledge to students where a particular learning environment is needed for this to take place.
In contrast, a female participant in her early 30 s explains that she has always found the teaching career difficult and challenging:
I think it’s very difficult to work as a teacher; and my sister is a teacher, so I always talk to her about the difficulties. I can’t handle conflicts with the children, but she always says, “After a while all problems will be [snaps her fingers and make a swishing sound] . . . It will get easier. You will go into the classroom and teach the children just the same as you do laundry at home, and you will get used to that work as well.” (female respondent 1)
In this participant’s account, prior to coming to Sweden, she has had to work with and build up a teaching identity and a teacher role in order to manage the daily demands of working with students. In this sense, attempting to adjust to the demands of the profes-sion can be seen as continuing in a new national setting, rather than suddenly appearing. Similarly, for younger teachers in the sample, the idea of re-training and learning new skills in the Swedish context was often portrayed as less problematic. This could imply that their former teaching identity was still being shaped and opening up for possibilities of continuing to more easily ‘craft’ this role.
Facing the Swedish teaching system
The work experience in the fast-track course was an opportunity for the participants to see how the issues discussed in the university course were managed at a Swedish school in practice. For many, the introductory information of the Swedish educational system could serve as a deterrent to adopting the Swedish teacher role:
Maybe it’s easier than what they say. They tell us about the laws and what we must do, but maybe in school there is more flexibility about that. I don’t know exactly. But when they are talking like this, I feel I can’t be a teacher here, really, really. (female respondent 2).
The female participant in this focus group interview is referring to the information they have received in the theoretical classes regarding the Swedish laws and legislations, for example, to what extent teachers can manage students that disturb the classroom teaching. These legal limitations are interpreted by participants as difficult to grasp and to manage in practice. And many participants comment during the lectures that they would find it difficult to handle students who disrupt the class for fear of making a mistake and breaching their legal responsibility. Here, the question of what entails being a teacher in a Swedish context is reflected upon as involving a new way of teaching that goes beyond validating skills and achieving a certain language level. Instead, it necessitates an almost new professional identity.
This potentially new professional identity was disseminated in many of the lectures at the university, particularly when students met some of the university teachers with a foreign background. In these meetings, experiences from the practicum were often points of discussion, with participants asking for advice on how to interpret certain events. One of the participants reflects on these exchanges:
Yes, it was easier, we are coming from the same culture, the same background. That’s why s/ he says, “In this case, don’t do this. I know you will be nervous and you will . . . (gestures), but you should be calm and talk like this.” And we’re like, oh my God, we can’t do that. He said, “Yeah, yeah, you can do it! If I can do it, you can do it!” That’s why, because s/he could understand how the school works in our countries. It’s almost the same system in Syria, Iraq or Palestine. Most Arab systems have the same system, so that’s why he could understand what we might think if this happens. She/he would say, “No, don’t do that. You don’t have the right to do that. Calm down” . . . (laughs). (female respondent 2)
These classroom discussions often became vivid discussions where participants shared their own stories both from Swedish schools and their home countries, and they often disagreed both in regards to the portrayals and potential solutions to problems. In one sense, the sharing of experiences can be seen as a form of ‘collective identity work’, where
different subtleties in the Swedish teaching role were laid bare and disseminated by participants and, to some extent, interpreted with the help of teachers. The encounter with the Swedish school system can thus be seen as a formative experience, that allowed participants to individually and collectively reflect on their identities as teacher.
Relying on previous experience
Other participants put forward their own experience as something that they can rely on when they meet students in a new context:
The first time a teacher meets the students is very important: it’s the first impression. Secondly, the teacher’s personality plays a big part. There are some teachers who enter the classroom and they’re not serious. And the students, they get that first impression and then they start creating problems. There are different ways to give children information. For example, as a teacher I treat all my students as if they were my children. I want what’s best for them, and I have looked after them all, individually. Even if they were many, I looked after them because I have a message as a teacher: I want to give them the best education. (female respondent 3)
This veteran female teacher thus uses her experience and knowledge not only about her own teaching career, but also about the school context to reflect on how different teaching practices, but also a teacher’s identity, can influence the interaction with students. For this teacher, the strong teaching identity crafted through many years of experience is thus expected to be able to be carried into a new context, instead of being seen as a new identity that needs to be constructed. Similarly, a male participant with long teaching experience describes using his time at the work experience helping pupils:
I worked as a teacher in a primary school in Syria. Here, when I did my work experience, I was in grade 1, so the same level. I feel happy there because I understand what they are saying. They use simple words in Year 1. I also cooperated with my supervisor, and sometimes I could teach maths or Swedish. The children were happy when I helped them, and sometimes my supervisor relied on me because 75 % of the children spoke Arabic. (male respondent 3) Particularly for the male respondents, the practicum at schools seem to have been a positive experience, one that reinforced their teacher identity and allowed them to, at least partly, reclaim their teaching identity. However, this experience was also mixed with the insecurity of whether they would be allowed to find a more permanent position. Their professional identity as teachers on the one hand and their position as migrants on the other hand, could be seen as creating a sense of a ‘blended identity’, depending both on positionality and professional status. In this sense, their teaching identity could not be fully reclaimed; rather, they were dependent on structural factors of being given the opportunity to work as teachers again.
Discussion
From the themes above, we can see that the migrant teachers have different ways of managing the new professional expectations of being a teacher in Sweden. Previous research on identity work has focused on the processes of ‘adding’, ‘retaining’ or ‘sub-tracting’ one’s own identity. In our study we have shown how identity work related to
one’s professional status can be managed as a process of ‘collective identity work’, where the negotiations and sharing of understanding enabled individuals to together interpret and negotiate their experiences of a new national school system. The fact that this identity work could be performed collectively does not imply, however, that the partici-pants shared the same experiences of the new teaching environment. Instead, we have shown a range of different interpretations from participants. In a way, the interpretations of how the school system worked can be seen as a justification of managing identity work link between experience and adaptability?
‘Adding’ to the former identity can be seen in cases where individuals attempted to enrich or expand their former teaching identity to further incorporate the parts of the Swedish teaching role that they found valuable. For example, many teachers were attempting to learn how to teach in a more ‘child-centred’ manner. They focused on the positive aspects of what they labelled a more inclusive or democratic teaching and learning environment. This could be seen as attempting to achieve a more ‘blended identity’.
For other participants, to retain their previous knowledge and identify with their former teaching role seemed more important than adding to their previous knowl-edge. The ‘collective identity work’ could here be used as a way to defend and maintain one’s previous convictions in discussions, with the aim of stabilising this professional identity in the classroom. For example, these participants used their own knowledge and experience to question some of the aspects of the Swedish school system and/or teaching role that they found problematic and that did not fit into what they saw as successful teaching.
For some teachers, doubts about their ability to find employment in the Swedish system could be seen, at least partly, as a need to subtract the teaching identity from their own identity. In these cases, the need to subtract their identity as teachers came less as a response to the school system as being inherently different or not acceptable. Rather, it was more from the belief that entering the school system through employment would be impossible due to lack of language skills and being able to validate skills and gain a teacher certificate. Overall, we argue that the collective processes and discussions of the particular demands and prac-tices relating to a professional identity can be important for understanding how individuals use identity work to come to terms to a changing identity. In this case, it also shows the intertwined processes of acclaiming both one’s professional identity and one’s status as a migrant in a new national context.
From these different responses or strategies, we can also confirm previous research in that the constraints and opportunities are often related to being granted an identity (Ibarra and Petriglieri 2010), and thus closely related to the (national) professional boundaries that restrict access to the profession. Here, the ability to engage in identity work and to attempt to take on a full teaching identity can be seen as constrained by structural factors and only fully available to those teachers who manage to gain paid employment after taking part in the course. However, even the teachers who did not fully find these opportunities as being realistic or attainable for them personally often found that the course provided them with an opportunity to engage in identity work on a more personal level, in terms of better understanding both the Swedish school system and, thereby, society. Their engagement in education was something that led them to reflect on different opportunities, such as finding
other work in schools as teaching assistants, using their knowledge to better support their students, and utilising their knowledge to be able to, for their children, navigate a school system that had, prior to the course, been seen as difficult to understand. The migration status of the participants in the course could, as we have seen, be seen as an obstacle to being able to work in a Swedish school. At the same time, the teacher identity and experience of participants could be transformed into a potentially richer teaching identity – dependent, however, upon whether individuals managed to find employment in Swedish schools. In this sense, the negotiation of the teaching identity and the work of the individuals to negotiate or transform their professional identity was nonetheless at the early stages, as participants were waiting to be granted the claimed identity, both as teachers, but crucially, also as employees in a new country. In this sense, the identity work could be seen as directed both towards the teaching profession, but also as moving on from the identity of unemployed migrants to finding employment and a sense of belonging.
Notes
1. One already existing programme, ULV, or Foreign Teachers Further Education, provides individuals with a somewhat similar program to the Fast Track education; after an introduction to the Swedish school system, participants follow an individual study route.
2. The studies cited by Lepisto, Crosina, and Pratt (2015) often use other terminology to describe the phenomenon.
3. Due to anonymity concerns, the countries will not be identified.
4. In the first group, 2 participants left the course; and in the second group, 3 participants left the course.
Disclosure statement
We acknowledge that no financial interest or benefit has arisen from the direct applications of our research.
Notes on contributors
Elin Ennerberg is an associate senior lecturer at the Department of Society, Culture and Identity at Malmö University, Sweden. She holds a PhD in Sociology from Lund University, Sweden, where she wrote her dissertation on labour market and integration policy.
Catarina Economou is Doctor of Philosophy in Subject Matter Education and works as a Senior lecturer of Swedish, Swedish as A Second Language with a Didactic Perspective at the Faculty of Education and Society, Department of Culture, Language and Media, Malmö University. She is also a legitimised teacher in Swedish, Swedish as A Second Language and English.
ORCID
Elin Ennerberg http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0161-9193 Catarina Economou http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1228-4525
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