Preschool Teachers of Tomorrow

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Institutionen för pedagogik, didaktik och utbildningsstudier Department of Education

Preschool Teachers of Tomorrow

The trajectories, perception, and intentions of Sweden’s preschool student teachers

Allison Borgstam

Master’s thesis in Sociology of Education Nr. 19

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Abstract

This paper focuses on preschool student teachers in Sweden. Underpinned by Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological concepts, the motivations and trajectories which led them to enter the preschool teacher field, their perception of their education, and how they plan to teach once they become teachers is specifically researched in relation to social origin. Preschool teacher education has undergone many changes in recent decades which have led to higher academic demands in a field which is not traditionally theoretically based, and little research which looks into how this affects those training to become preschool teachers has been done. Through a survey of 125 respondents and seven interviews with students at two different university-colleges, the students are discussed based on their different types of capital and social origin. The life trajectories and habitus, which are shaped by their capital and social origin, is explored to describe their perception of their education and their opinions on how they plan to teach their students once they graduate. By doing so, the study reveals the pattern of trajectories which lead people to preschool teacher education occurs through either a break from their low social origin or through choices which took them further away from their high capital assets and led them to preschool teacher education as a last option. Differences in perception of preschool teacher education and the increased academic demands made on them is also seen to be characteristic based on those with a social origin with high capital assets against those who grew up with little to no capital. Finally, it is shown that regardless of social origin the high academic demands placed on preschool teachers does little to change their perception of what and how a preschool teacher should educate.

Supervisor: Mikael Palme Examiner: Mikael Börjesson Defended: April 27, 2021

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Table of Contents

1. BACKGROUND ... 5

1.1. OPPOSINGOPINIONS ... 7

2. RESEARCH QUESTIONS ... 11

3. LITERATURE REVIEW ... 13

3.1. TEACHEREDUCATION ... 13

3.2. WHAT ITMEANS TO BE ATEACHER– TEACHERIDENTITY ... 15

3.3. SOCIALORIGIN ANDHIGHEREDUCATION ... 17

3.4. DIFFERINGPERCEPTIONS ... 20

4. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ...23

4.1. HABITUS ... 23

4.2. CAPITAL AND SOCIAL ORIGIN... 24

4.3. SYMBOLIC VIOLENCE...25

5. METHODS AND DATA COLLECTION ... 27

5.1. DESIGN ... 27

5.1.1. Questionnaire Design ... 27

5.1.2. Interview Design ... 28

5.2. VALIDITY/RELIABILITY ... 29

5.3. ETHICALASPECTS ... 29

5.4. METHODOLOGICALCHALLENGES ANDLIMITATIONS ... 30

6. SOCIAL CLASSIFICATION CONFIGURATION ... 31

7. QUANTITATIVE RESULTS ...33

7.1 SOCIAL ORIGIN COMPOSITION ... 33

7.1.1. What is most important for preschool teachers to impart on their students? ... 33

7.1.2. Preschool teachers vs elementary school teachers education expectations ... 34

7.1.3. Preschool teacher expectations... 34

7.1.4. What preschool teachers plan to focus on ... 34

7.1.5. The purpose of preschool ... 34

7.1.6. Higher academic demands ...35

7.2. SUMMARY ...35

8. QUALITATIVE RESULTS ... 37

8.1 INTERVIEWEE SUMMARIES ... 37

8.1.1. Sara... 37

8.1.2. Cara ... 38

8.1.3. Amanda ... 39

8.1.4. Sannah ... 40

8.1.5. Veronika ... 41

8.1.6. Julia ... 42

8.1.7. Zelda ... 43

8.2. INTERVIEWEE CATEGORISATION ... 44

9. ANALYSIS ... 47

9.1. STUDENTS’ TRAJECTORIES ... 47

9.1.1. The break ... 48

9.1.2. Last choice... 49

9.2. STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR EDUCATION ... 51

9.2.1. Students with either mostly economic or cultural capital ... 51

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Allison Borgstam: Preschool Teachers of Tomorrow

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9.2.2. Student with weak resources ...52

9.2.3. Outlier students ...53

9.3. HOW THEY PLAN TO TEACH ...53

10.CONCLUSION ... 55

10.1 SUMMARY OF ANALYSIS ... 55

10.2 DISCUSSION ... 56

10.2.1. Preschool teacher education and students’ trajectories ... 56

10.2.2. Students’ perception towards their education ... 57

10.2.3. Students’ conception of their future teaching ... 58

REFERENCES ... 61

APPENDIX 1: CHARTS AND GRAPHS ...65

FIGURE1 ... 65

FIGURE2 ... 66

FIGURE3 ...67

FIGURE4 ... 68

FIGURE5 ... 69

APPENDIX 2: INTERVIEW GUIDE ...70

APPENDIX 3: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE ... 71

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1. Background

Over the last 20 years, Sweden has seen a shift in how preschool education is conducted as well as in the preparation expectations for preschool teachers.¹ In 1996, the Swedish preschool, which accepts children between the ages of one to five years old, was brought into the educational system under the Ministry of Education². Preschool at this time was still considered a childcare institution with a curriculum focused on learn-through-play based activities to stimulate conditions for development and democratic learning.³ However, Swedish policies of today have added to the original preschool mission by placing more emphasis on academics, namely reading, writing and arithmetic. This change in focus creates greater demands for preschools to hire educators who have a pedagogical practice which is based on school readiness while still continuing to provide the democratic and developmental standards previously practiced⁴. Much of these changes can be attested to the increased global competition which many countries education systems face today.⁵

With increased international scrutiny placed on a national level, schools are now, more than ever, trying to raise the level of education and test scores of their pupils.⁶ This is part of what Pasi Sahlberg calls the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), which since the 1980s has brought global policy changes and educational reform to the international and national education sectors with an aim of guaranteeing a successful school system.⁷ Much of these reforms rely largely on the education and skills of teachers to impart a more standardized education across the globe and an elevated expectation for teacher education has been seen over recent decades.⁸ In his book of collected works titled, Education Policy and Social Class (2006), Stephen Ball gives the opinion that the processes of reform have changed what it means to be a teacher.⁹ He goes on to say that the “older ethics” of teacher cooperation and professional judgement have been replaced by the ethics of competition and performance with ethical decision making and moral judgement run on the motivations of performance.¹⁰ We might consider this increased emphasis on academics in preschool as the reworking of the older ethics of preschool teacher education.

There has also been a modification on what it means to be taught at a preschool level through increased academic demands for both students and teachers.

The term “edu-care” is a Swedish preschool model which explains that care and learning belong together and are dependent on each other and must be anchored in the curriculum for preschool. Although edu-care was mentioned in earlier documents by the Swedish National Agency for Education, or Skolverket, it was in 2018 when Skolverket first introduced the word edu-care into their

1 Sheridan et al., “Preschool Teaching in Sweden – a Profession in Change,” 416.

2 Pramling Samuelsson and Sheridan, “A Turning point or a Backward Slide,” 219.

3 Taylor, “Redefining Undervisning for Swedish Preschool,” 3.

4 Taylor, 4.

5 Taylor, 3.

6 Ball, Junemann, and Santori, Edu.Net, 2.

7 Ball, Junemann, and Santori, 2.

8 Ball, Junemann, and Santori, 134.

9 Ball, Education Policy and Social Class, 145.

10 Ball, 146.

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core curriculum for compulsory education, which includes preschool.¹¹ This new edu-care ideal has created increased demands on the standards for teacher licensing which would unite practice and theory to create a teacher-as- researcher approach.¹² This means that, based on changed requirements, we now see the preschool teacher profession undergoing a change, both in what Ball defines as the change in older ethics and what it means to be a teacher, but also in what Sonja Sheridan describes as the world’s perception of what constitutes a competent preschool teacher.¹³

Sheridan, et al. outline the new expectations for preschool teacher education under the 2011 Swedish policy changes as consisting of 3.5 years of academics with experience in the classroom¹⁴. After the 2018 revision of Skolverket’s national curriculum guideline for preschool education,¹⁵ academics has been placed at the head of table and preschool teachers must change their own education in response. Preschool teachers are expected to graduate with knowledge, skills, and approaches which allow for the developmental care of children while also developing the ability to teach science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), language and didactics, as well as have knowledge on how to document student progress through evaluation¹⁶. Sheridan, et al.’s study found that despite increased policy demands for more academics in preschool teacher education, most teachers tend to place a higher value on imparting social competences, such as teaching ethical values based on democratic ideologies, and developmental focuses, which include confidence building and emotional aptitude.¹⁷

The largest change for preschool teacher education came about in the year 2000 when the Swedish government passed a bill stating that pedagogy and teacher preparation would no longer be taught based on the grade each teacher planned to teach.¹⁸ Now all teachers would be taught under one general preparation program and that meant that the different academic expectations for student teachers no longer varied between future preschool, primary, or secondary teachers.¹⁹ Because of these changes, Sheridan, et al. point out that the credibility of a proficient preschool teacher today involves not only knowledge of the society’s values and ideologies, but now also must focus on elementary educational goals based on theory and pedagogical awareness.²⁰ This means big changes for a preschool teaching profession which traditionally was not academically based and focused more on teaching developmental and social skills in the classroom.²¹ The Swedish preschool system now incorporates two educational approaches, the first being a social pedagogical approach which

11 Skolverket, Curriculum for the compulsory school, preschool class and school-age educare 2011, revised 2018.

12 Ezer, Gilat, and Sagee, “Perception of Teacher Education and Professional Identity among Novice Teachers,” 393.

14 Sheridan et al., 418.

15 Skolverket, Curriculum for the compulsory school, preschool class and school-age educare 2011, revised 2018.

17 Sheridan et al., 434.

18 Johanna Einarsdottir and Wagner, Nordic Childhoods and Early Education, 54.

19 Johanna Einarsdottir and Wagner, 64.

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is developmentally based, and the second being a pre-primary approach which is more academic in nature.²² Most OECD countries today, Sweden included, have seen new policies and regulations which raise the qualification levels of the early childhood education (ECE) workforce.²³ However, this has led to much confusion within the preschool education field on an international scale as those in favor of academics and those in favor of social and developmental competences, both for their own education and the education of the children, are at odds.

However, preferences in teaching style alone are not the only guidelines preschool teachers must follow to gain access to the field, and teaching styles are not the only divisions found among educators, the question of curriculum is also a hotly contested issue.²⁴ What traditionally focused on pupil-centered pedagogy as well as learn-through-play, now has a heavy emphasis on learning not only reading and writing skills but digital skills as well. This means more training hours and increased academic education for preschool teachers at a time when many Swedish teachers believe their profession to be one which is not highly valued in society and 18.0% of teachers regretting their decision to enter the field.²⁵ With so many recent policy and education requirement changes, it can be difficult for many to welcome the alterations; and such changes can even create feelings of resistance and unease among those in the field.²⁶ Those undergoing preschool teacher education tend to feel a similar conflict towards their own education in relation to what is being taught to them and what they want to learn.

1.1. Opposing Opinions

Existing literature reveals the conflict between epistemological approaches to teacher education²⁷, the disagreements about preschool pedagogy²⁸, the tension between educational policy and practice, as well as diverging views as regards to what constitutes a competent teacher in light of these policy changes.²⁹ Ezer, et al. apply vocabulary from the area of epistemology to explain different means to carry out teacher education which either focus on “positivist” or “constructivist”

approaches,³⁰ and argue that understanding the perceived relevance of one over the other can help to understand how future preschool teachers plan to organize their classrooms. The authors seek to show that student teachers prefer the

“constructivist” approach, one which underlines knowledge constructions through active classroom participation, while in practice the “positivist”

approach, which is more frontal instruction based, is more readily used in the

23 Jackson, “Beyond the Piece of Paper,” 796.

24 Lortie, Schoolteacher: A Sociological Study, 67.

25 OECD, “Improving Schools in Sweden: An OECD Perspective,” 40.

26 European Network for Improving Research and Development of Educational Leadership and Management et al., Educational Leaders as Change Agents, 20.

27 Ezer, Gilat, and Sagee, “Perception of Teacher Education and Professional Identity among Novice Teachers.”

28 Taylor, “Redefining Undervisning for Swedish Preschool.”

29 Sheridan et al., “Preschool Teaching in Sweden – a Profession in Change.”

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classroom³¹. These incongruent processes of knowledge acquisition and the differing perceptions of preference to one over the other can, according to Ezer, et al., lead to very different teaching styles once these student teachers enter the classroom. This aligns with the view of Lortie that unless incoming teachers are given specific training experiences to offset their own individual beliefs and experiences, the teaching profession might risk being staffed by people who do not concern themselves with creating a shared culture.³²

In 1975, Lortie showed that the increase in theoretical coursework was more poorly received by student teachers in the United States while practical experience was more valued,³³ however the academization of preschool teacher education has only increased over the years. The original goal for many Nordic countries was to increase the number of highly qualified teaching professionals in both compulsory and preschool levels but it ended with the blending of teaching methods for different learning ages who require different teaching styles.³⁴ The changes also meant an extra year and a half of general education for preschool teachers at the university level which according to Lortie’s research, does little to impart practical experiences for teachers coming into the field when compared with classroom experience.³⁵ The concern now is that preschool students enter a classroom which has a first grade teaching style and that teachers will no longer know how to guide a classroom with traditional preschool methodology.³⁶

Similar policy changes are happening in Australia, with higher qualification expectations being placed on incoming preschool teachers and more pressure put on existing preschool teachers to return to school to increase their academic and theoretical knowledge.³⁷ Those who cannot attain a high enough level of tertiary education are made to be classroom assistants while those with a university degree are now called preschool teachers. Yet there is still resistance from teachers to accept these changes claiming that these new policies are insulting and not necessary as it insinuates that they are bad at their job without the university degree.³⁸ We can think of this as a push back against the pedagogical changes which do not align with the original preschool mission.

Many preschool teachers perceive competency within their profession to be

“constituted in the intersection of values, knowledge and ideologies on different system levels”.³⁹ This approach is understood by Ezer, et al., as a

“constructivist” approach of education where more informal and value-based teaching methods are used⁴⁰ and pure academics are largely unnecessary.

Most research here looks at the opinions of existing preschool teachers and assistant teachers. There is currently scant research which looks to understand the perception of pre-service preschool teachers especially as related to Sweden’s changed standards for their education nor how that education can

31 Ezer, Gilat, and Sagee, 394.

33 Ibid, 68.

37 Jackson, “Beyond the Piece of Paper.”

38 Ibid, 801.

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have effects on how they plan to teach once they are certified. Social origin can create certain trajectories for people to enter into the preschool field and it can also affect their perception of their own education as well as the way they should teach once they are certified and teaching in the classrooms. Looking into the specific perceptions of these topics and the social origin basis for them is the aim of this thesis.

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2. Research Questions

The following research questions will narrow the discussion towards three main topics: life trajectories which led to reasons for entering preschool education, perceptions towards the education that preschool teachers receive, perceptions of what a preschool teacher should teach.

1) What differences exist between the life trajectories of preschool student teachers with different social origins which led them to become a preschool teacher?

a. What differences exist with respect to motives?

b.What is the impact of students’ different assets?

2) What is the perception of preschool teacher training from the eyes of student teacher with different social origin?

a. How do students perceive the increase in the program’s academic demands?

b.How do students perceive the balance between social, developmental and academic goals in teacher education?

3) What differences between student teacher with different social origin exist with regard to their perception of what a preschool teacher should teach their students?

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3. Literature Review

The first section, “Teacher Education” looks to explore where the disagreements in what is being taught to teachers comes from while also looking at changes to teacher education programs which have been made to try and correct the problems. This gives way for a deeper understanding of how teacher training is then perceived by those currently in the program. The second section, “What it Means to be a Teacher,” details how teachers develop a sense of self through both personal and social experiences. This offers an indication of how future teachers construct their idea of what kind of a teacher they will be and what they plan to teach their students in the future. Section three, “Social Origin and Higher Education,” helps to understand what leads a person to become a teacher and how perceptions of increased academic demands on preschool teacher education is understood through past experiences. The final section,

“Differing Perceptions,” shows how these perceptions lead to different teaching practices once student teachers are in the classroom.

3.1. Teacher Education

The pedagogy of teacher education is a relatively new field of study as it was only in the past 20 years when a number of researchers started taking note and studying the topic.^{41 42} Several studies have found that the actual education of a teacher has little impact on how teachers teach once in the workforce and this has led to a larger question of finding an effective pedagogy for teaching teachers.⁴³ Murray and Male refer to two different types of teaching by using the terms first and second order teaching.⁴⁴ First order teaching refers to teachers who teach students in school while second order teaching denotes those who teach prospective teachers.⁴⁵ They are fundamentally different in nature and this section focusses on second order teaching, or teacher educators. In essence, second order teaching should, according to Korthagen, be seen as teaching about teaching with the aim of promoting learning about teaching.⁴⁶ This difference in how teachers learn to teach and how students are taught by teachers has had little attention until recently and it is suggested that this can be problematic mainly in that adults have a need to see the practicality and utility in what they are learning.⁴⁷

In second order teaching, theory is often taught before any field work is offered to students of education as it is meant to help enrich the experience while working in the field. However, it is seldom that the teacher educator is actually in the field nor knows what the practice implies.⁴⁸ Theory-into-practice style of teaching, with learned theories expected to carry over and be applied in

41 Korthagen, Loughran, and Russell, “Developing Fundamental Principles for Teacher Education Programs and Practices.”

42 Russell and Loughran, Enacting a Pedagogy of Teacher Education.

43 Korthagen, “Pedagogy of Teacher Education,” 311.

44 Murray and Male, “Becoming a Teacher Educator.”

45 Ibid, 139.

46 Korthagen, “Pedagogy of Teacher Education,” 312.

47 Ibid, 312.

48 Bullough, “Practicing Theory and Theorizing Practice in Teacher Education,” 20.

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practice, is seen by Korthagen, et al, as inadequate and highly limited.⁴⁹ In the same way, Korthagen, et al, also see that teaching a more practical method of reflective practices and having student teachers write behavioral objectives has done much to help move the education programs forward.⁵⁰ Graduates of teacher education programs, school administration, parents and politicians have been pressing for a new structure and practice of teacher education on an international scale as many complain of the irrelevance of teacher preparation as it stands today.⁵¹ Many are demanding a close in the gap which might link theory and practice and stop the struggle felt by numerous prospective and existing teachers.⁵² Studies today are framed around answering the question of how this can be done.

In an attempt to create more empirically based research on the topic, Korthagen, et al., studied three different programs in the Netherlands, Canada, and Australia.⁵³ All three have the stereotypical structure of traditional teacher education programs with curriculum method and educational foundational subjects which lead to a teaching experience, or practicum, at the end - this is the theory-based practice method which was under scrutiny.⁵⁴ Their findings concluded with seven principles which suggest guidelines and options, rather than procedures and rules, for teacher educators who are willing to reconstruct teacher education⁵⁵. The seven principles can be narrowed down to three main components: what kind of views and knowledge are leading the practices of teacher educators, the structure of the program and specific practices, and the quality of the organization as well as staff.⁵⁶ All three are related and must be changed together in order to see effective results. Korthagen, et al., stress that the third component is one which is most needed and most ignored, professional development for teacher educators along with the other two components might see change in how teachers are taught to teach.⁵⁷ And yet, some still propose that nothing can truly change the effectiveness of teacher education or make a change the way a prospective teacher will teach.

A large meta-study done by Cochran-Smith and Zeichner (2005), analyzed almost all the North American research on teacher education effectiveness and found that no real evidence exists to show that certain approaches to teacher education work better than others.⁵⁸ They even question whether it makes a difference at all as to how a teacher will teach once in the classroom. However, this study used a high level of abstraction when studying teacher education program approaches and according to Brouwer and Korthagen, one must look at the specific principles which guide the teaching tactics in a program to understand more clearly how they can lead to positive outcomes for the

49 Korthagen, Loughran, and Russell, “Developing Fundamental Principles for Teacher Education Programs and Practices,” 1021.

50 Ibid, 1038.

51 Ibid, 1021.

52 Ibid, 1020.

53 Ibid

54 Ibid, 1022.

55 Ibid, 1039.

56 Ibid, 1037.

57 Ibid, 1038.

58 AERA Panel on Research and Teacher Education, Cochran-Smith, and Zeichner, Studying Teacher Education.

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graduates of teacher education programs.⁵⁹ In short, there is a need for identifying these principles especially so a bridge might be found between practice and theory which could meet expectations and needs of teacher educators as well as their students.⁶⁰ Because pedagogic education on teachers rarely works to impact how teachers teach in the classroom, Bullough stresses that researchers must begin to look at the self or identity of a teacher to understand how to find a worthwhile teacher education.⁶¹ This means answering the question of what it means to be a teacher and how personal beliefs and experiences come into play a role in the understanding of how a preschool should be run.

3.2. What it Means to be a Teacher – Teacher Identity

Teacher identity and what it means to be a teacher is a complex topic of study which involves several components including identity and the self, the power of discourse, the role of emotions in shaping identity, agency, and the importance of self-reflection. As Beauchamp and Thomas argue, a teacher will go through several shifts, whether consciously or not, in their search for professional identity as they progress from student to teacher then again based on their interactions with their school and communities more broadly.⁶² A greater understanding of teacher identity could help improve the way in which teacher education programs are imagined.⁶³

What it means to be a teacher is defined in many ways, Bullough makes a compelling argument that to teach is to communicate and be connected with others who have different experiences from their own and to build a sense of belonging and community.⁶⁴ This is also what Lortie calls the “shared ordeal,”

which is not often taught in teacher education.⁶⁵ Alsup describes a teacher as widely perceived to be someone who goes above and beyond in the service of the young people they work with without proper compensation or expectation of reward.⁶⁶ What it means to be a teacher is also shaped by society and the training which student teachers undergo, an example of this is given by Dewey’s conveyance of the common understanding of educational theory that school education and discipline is done with the aim of forming character.⁶⁷ While he was speaking to the character of school children, this can also be applied to teachers and their education: the forming of a certain teacher character.

Beijaard, et al.’s, assert that what it means to be a teacher is a question of identity and cultural background which gives way for personal and cultural values, norms, and structures.⁶⁸ Teachers are expected to be and think a certain way which is considered to be professional and yet teachers differ in how they

59 Brouwer and Korthagen, “Can Teacher Education Make a Difference?,” 158–61.

60 Korthagen, Loughran, and Russell, “Developing Fundamental Principles for Teacher Education Programs and Practices,” 1037.

62 Beauchamp and Thomas, “Understanding Teacher Identity,” 175.

63 Ibid, 176.

66 Alsup, Teacher Identity Discourses, 20.

67 Dewey, Democracy and Education, 501.

68 Beijaard, Meijer, and Verloop, “Reconsidering Research on Teachers’ Professional Identity,” 123.

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manage those professional characteristics based on personal beliefs, background, and how much value they place on the prescribed teacher characteristics.⁶⁹ What it means to be a teacher varies from one to another and, along with professional identity, is an ongoing process which is constantly being grappled with and reinterpreted and is inextricably linked to social origin.

Socioculturally, teacher identity can be seen as both a product and process in that it is both the result of influences on a teacher as well as a type of continued collaboration within teacher development.⁷⁰ It is seen by Olsen as a collection of consequences resulting from present and past constructs of self along with a person’s social positioning and meaning systems which are intertwined to create a teacher’s actions in any given context.⁷¹ The centrality of the concept of self for the teaching profession is shown here and it can be understood as the multiple dimensions of identity through Sachs definition of the term:

Teacher professional identity then stands at the core of the teaching profession. It provides a framework for teachers to construct their own ideas of ‘how to be’, ‘how to act’ and ‘how to understand’ their work and their place in society. Importantly, teacher identity is not something that is fixed nor is it imposed; rather it is negotiated through experience and the sense that is made of that experience.⁷²

This displays the importance of the constant negotiation of identity and how it is always being reshaped by experience. The development of identity for teachers involves an understanding of the self, both outside of and inside of a context, – a school or a classroom – which means one must examine the self in relation to others.⁷³

One needs social settings where one can learn to monitor one’s actions according to assumed roles which were learned through communication within the social environment which can be hindered or helped by one’s social origin.

Zembylas affirms that knowing what is appropriate behavior and following these norms, and ways of communicating, reinforces the hegemony of the rules themselves without ever being talked about.⁷⁴ In this way, identity is not strictly knowable in itself and it has a social base as much as an individual one, a personal and a professional side which constitutes becoming and being a teacher.⁷⁵

Professional identity is not only related to what society thinks and expects a teacher to do and know, but also on what a teacher has experienced in their work and lives based on personal background.⁷⁶ As discussed above, the professional identity of a teacher is highly shaped by their personal experiences, or social origin, and so it is worth looking into how social origin is distributed among the teacher class as it can shape the self of a teacher and in doing so, the very conception they hold of how a classroom should be run.

69 Beijaard, Meijer, and Verloop, 122.

70 Ibid, 123.

71 Olsen, Teaching What They Learn, Learning What They Live, 139.

72 Sachs, “Teacher Education and the Development of Professional Identity: Learning to Be a Teacher,” 15.

73 Beauchamp and Thomas, “Understanding Teacher Identity,” 178.

74 Zembylas, 112.

75 Beijaard, Meijer, and Verloop, “Reconsidering Research on Teachers’ Professional Identity,” 113.

76 Ibid, 108.

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3.3. Social Origin and Higher Education

Spiliopoulou, et al, argue that social origin can have long reaching effects on a person’s life choices such as the choice to attend university, whether top tier or other, as well as the field of study.⁷⁷ Studies have shown that social origin has influence on future occupational positions as well as possibilities for educational experiences and outcomes.⁷⁸ Mainly this results in more pragmatic choices being made by middle- and working- class people while those at the top can strive to select studies with higher social and academic status.⁷⁹ Even when those from lower social classes do gain access to tertiary education, there is evidence that differentiation within groups is still reproduced, i.e. in the type of institution or field of study, and social mobility is limited.⁸⁰ Brooks and Waters were able to show in their research how social origin can also lead to very different experiences once in university. In their study on UK students, those from higher socioeconomic backgrounds were more able to choose a study abroad program, just for the sake of the experience.⁸¹ They could enjoy the safety net of their parent’s financial resources and were able to make choices based on their privileges which were then reproduced by their choices.⁸² On the other hand, Lehmann’s Canadian study showed how working-class students are sometimes washed out of the tertiary options all together, instead choosing vocational alternatives which allow them to avoid the feeling of not belonging in the university field.⁸³ Many students from working-class origins feel they would not be able to communicate or relate with their fellow pupils who would have come from higher and more privileged social classes.⁸⁴ Along with education choice and experiences, social origin can also affect a person’s success rate once in university.⁸⁵

Stratification within universities is notable with social and academic selectivity differing based on recruitment tactics and acceptance rates of each university.⁸⁶ Beyond this, Davies and Guppy state that hierarchy within a university, which is based on which program a person studies, leads to great inequalities in power, prestige, and economic payoffs afforded to students and graduates.⁸⁷ Generally speaking, the engineering and business faculties tend to be more esteemed and principal over the humanities or social sciences. In this way, upward mobility is seen but in a very dominated fashion, meaning mobility

77 Spiliopoulou, Koustourakis, and Asimaki, “Factors Influencing the Formation of the Educational Choices of Individuals of Different Social Origin,” 22.

78 Jacob, Klein, and Iannelli, “The Impact of Social Origin on Graduates’ Early Occupational Destinations—

An Anglo-German Comparison,” 460.

79 Spiliopoulou, Koustourakis, and Asimaki, “Factors Influencing the Formation of the Educational Choices of Individuals of Different Social Origin,” 22.

80 Jacob, Klein, and Iannelli, “The Impact of Social Origin on Graduates’ Early Occupational Destinations—

An Anglo-German Comparison,” 460.

81 Brooks and Waters, Student Mobilities, Migration and the Internationalization of Higher Education, 108.

82 Ibid, 168.

83 Lehmann, “‘I Just Didn’t Feel like I Fit in’: The Role of Habitus in University Dropout Decision,” 106.

84 Ibid, 96.

85 Erikson and Jonsson, “Social Origin as an Interest-Bearing Asset.”

86 Davies and Guppy, “Fields of Study, College Selectivity, and Student Inequalities in Higher Education,”

1418.

87Ibid, 1419.

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is always moving in an upward trend and never leaving those at the top lower than where they started.

A study on ability and mobility done by Esping-Andersen and Cimentada found that Nordic countries have more egalitarian mobility patterns as well as significant upward mobility for those of low social origin however, there is little downward mobility for those from a more privileged origin.⁸⁸ This points to the claim that, at least in the Nordic countries, many of the disadvantages which were once associated with low social origin may have largely disappeared while advantages of high social origin persist.⁸⁹ However, in most other countries surveyed, the effects of social origin have not abated much.⁹⁰

In their findings, Esping-Andersen and Cimentada conclude that social origin, whether it be parents’ education, income or social status, is not the sole determinant of a person’s social mobility. In fact, educational capability and achievements are highly affected by social skills and cognitive abilities with some even saying that social skills are of more importance than cognitive skills, especially for those from a low-socioeconomic status (SES) origin.⁹¹ Within Scandinavian countries, we see an asymmetric trend of social mobility which does not lend itself to a completely meritocratic system due to what Esping- Andersen and Cimentada call the “glass floor” effect which protects those at the top from falling to the bottom.⁹² They point largely to a family’s social networks and higher likelihood of tertiary level education pursuance as likely sources for why this glass floor refuses to break. With more resources at hand, the privileged strata can invest more into the maintenance of their children’s social standing.⁹³ This is corroborated in Erikson and Jonsson’s work which points to persisting social origin effects in Sweden.⁹⁴ Namely, a high social origin leads most often to a “good education” and a “good job” with high income, showing that the rewards of coming from an advantaged social origin only increase over time.⁹⁵ They point to social networks as the instruments which parents, family members, and friends use to improve a person’s educational and labor-market opportunities whether it be through strong or weak ties.⁹⁶ Favoritism is also at work here where those at the top want to hire people who are “one of us” and have a similar lifestyle or origin.⁹⁷

Hansen’s findings looked at university students in Norway and found that social class origin effects how well students do in university, i.e. grades., and this is true for almost every field of study.⁹⁸ She found that this is not purely based on a meritocratic ideal which universities use to shield their bias in favor of those of higher social origin.⁹⁹ It is in fact due to the familiarity and familiar

88 Esping-Andersen and Cimentada, “Ability and Mobility,” 13.

89 Esping-Andersen and Wagner, “Asymmetries in the Opportunity Structure. Intergenerational Mobility Trends in Europe,” 484.

90 Esping-Andersen and Cimentada, “Ability and Mobility,” 14.

91 Ibid, 14.

92 Ibid, 23.

93 Eibid, 23.

94 Erikson and Jonsson, “Social Origin as an Interest-Bearing Asset,” 31.

95 Ibid, 32.

96 Ibid, 32.

97 Ibid, 32.

98 Hansen, “Closure in an Open Profession. The Impact of Social Origin on the Educational and Occupational Success of Graduates of Law in Norway,” 288.

99 Ibid, 506.

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culture which taught upper class students about appropriate speech, appearance and style of writing that universities praise and which lower-class students do not receive in their upbringing. ¹⁰⁰ With the opening of higher education, more lower-class students have been afforded the possibility of social mobility through higher education, however the incongruities in selection of programs based on social origin are still highly hierarchical. If educational choice is linked to desires to maintain a family social position, then those with higher social origins will begin aiming high and avoid fields which are being devaluated.¹⁰¹

Hansen points out that student teachers are more and more coming from lower social origins than before and this has happened while the social status of the teaching profession is also in decline.¹⁰² Jones showed in his study from 1956 that this is a trend which is not new; universities were then developing a tendency to recruit teachers from lower social origins which at the time was not seen before, as of 1956 Jones could see a shift beginning in the social origin of high school.¹⁰³ It is also noteworthy that teachers from lower social origins had jobs outside of teaching before becoming teachers and Jones speculates that it might be due to an initial resistance towards the higher level of education and training it required.¹⁰⁴ Jones moreover points to a steering of certain social class groups into certain occupational positions based on their social origin,¹⁰⁵ i.e., those from lower social origins are being drawn to the teaching profession just as those from higher social origins are looking to other fields. These findings are corroborated by With in her research on Norwegian teaching recruitment and the changed impacts of social origin from 1975-2010.¹⁰⁶

With found that the teaching profession’s social status is in decline and this could be in part due to the declining social selection to teacher education.¹⁰⁷ The decline of pay, number of applicants, and the lowered entry requirements into teacher education have also led the way to the drop in the status of teachers.¹⁰⁸ The increased demand on teachers through repeated reforms, increased workloads and negative media coverage could also be a cause for the devaluing of the profession and decrease in job attractiveness.¹⁰⁹ The feeling of a lack of social value, notably in the West, is corroborated in a 2018 study done by the Varkey Foundation which looked at the social status of teachers in 21 countries based on public opinions towards their social status, pay, trustability, and desirability of teaching as a profession. Part of this study found that the majority (50%) of countries related teachers’ social status to that of a social worker.¹¹⁰ The study points out that factors which may have influenced respondents’

answers are related to the fact that in many countries, teachers are employed as civil servants and their pay, contracts, and pensions all reflect that. Fifty percent of the countries surveyed found teaching to be a job which “deals with people on a personal supportive basis,” and thus only as high in status as that of a social

100 Hansen, 507.

101 With, “Recruitment to Teaching,” 164.

102 Ibid, 164.

103 Jones, “The Social Origins of High School Teachers in a Canadian City,” 532.

104 Ibid, 532.

105 Ibid, 529.

106 With, “Recruitment to Teaching.”

107 Ibid, 163.

108 Ibid, 163.

109 Ibid, 175.

110Dolton et al., “Global Teacher Status Index 2018,” 34.

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worker.¹¹¹ Not only are teachers feeling underappreciated despite increased demands from the state, they also earn 76% less than others with tertiary degrees who are also working full time¹¹². In the Swedish context, With concluded that the declining selectivity into teacher education is attributed to increased marketization and professionalization of the teaching profession.¹¹³ Social origin can affect not only the choice to enter teacher education, but also how a teacher perceives educational expectations and policy changes.

3.4. Differing Perceptions

According to Rochat, there are two main schools of thought on the theory of perception. The internalist view can be understood as reconstructionist, in that it is based on ones senses and mental reconstruction, in essence it is formed purely in the mind.¹¹⁴ Here the environment and social origin play little role and the development of self originates from within.¹¹⁵ The second school of thought is more of an ecological approach in which perspective is much more perceptual and formed not in one’s head but in one’s environment.¹¹⁶ According to Gibson, perception exists outside the individual and is prepared through evolution and organized within one’s environment.¹¹⁷ Rochat says that the self is a concept which comes about based on the integration between these two, the first- and third- person perspectives create the self.¹¹⁸ The self “becomes objectified in social transactions” and the development of self and perspective is more based on the external and is filtered through the “evaluative eyes of others.”¹¹⁹ This means that when we think of ourselves and when we perceive the world around us, it is done with “others in mind” and cannot be done wholly objectively.

John Dewey classifies the self and perception as one which is identified through a certain project, in that, “we grow as we choose the projects by which we create our identities.”¹²⁰ Here Dewey was considering the emphasis which is placed on perception and consciousness when the ordinary running of things is disturbed especially concerning the way one believes education should be run.¹²¹ He defined one’s identification with the self and opinion as related to a person’s interest and this relates to how preschool teachers are developing their opinion on what it means to be a teacher and how classrooms should be run. Their own vested interest in preserving the old preschool pedagogies can be seen in existing research into perception of how preschool education should be done.

One example of an attempt to preserve old preschool pedagogies is seen in Ezer, et al’s, research which found that the educational policy push for academics leaves preschool teachers placing more importance on moral development. By taking a sample of 97 student teachers at the end of their

111 Dolton et al., 34.

112 European Commission and Directorate-General for Education, Education and Training Monitor 2019, 276.

113 With, “Recruitment to Teaching,” 177.

114 Rochat, Others in Mind: Social Origins of Self-Consciousness, 10.

115 Ibid, 12.

116 Ibid, 10.

117 Ibid, 10.

118 Ibid, 14.

119 Ibid, 11.

120 Dewey, Democracy and Education, 404.

121 Ibid, 404.

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studies, Ezer, et al. concluded preschool teaching is perceived to be a role which should impart values based on active classroom cooperation with less consideration for actual academics.¹²² Because there is little guidance in the 2011 Swedish school law as to how the increased demand for academics should be carried out, teachers and municipalities are left to decide for themselves what the goals should be for the classroom curriculum based on their own beliefs and knowledge which is leaving schools with different outcomes.¹²³ In order to understand these differences in perspectives on teaching missions, Shelbi Taylor conducted interviews with two pre-service and three in-service preschool teachers to uncover the recurring and conflicting themes in their perception of what it means to be a preschool teacher in Sweden.¹²⁴ Taylor describes Swedish preschool didactics to be in a struggle between a goal-rational practice which revolves around asking questions which lead to correct answers, and goal- relational practice which encourages students to answer questions through open engagement which can result in many interpretations and answers.¹²⁵ Goal- rational can be thought of as a more academic pursuit which, similar to Ezer, et al.’s positivist approach¹²⁶, places importance on the teacher as the sole imparter of knowledge.¹²⁷ Goal-relational practices, however, can be thought of in a more constructivist approach under Ezer, et al.’s definition,¹²⁸ which Taylor argues can highlight the legacy of democracy and inclusion which has long been celebrated in Swedish preschool.¹²⁹

The research by Lauglo looks at questions of social origin and commitments that secondary teachers in Norway had towards teaching as a career while they were at university, as well as varying professional attitudes.¹³⁰ He found that those from a lower social origin were somewhat more likely to have developed a commitment to the teaching career earlier.¹³¹ This attitude and commitment to the profession while in university can vary and, according to Lauglo, is often dependent on social origin.¹³² Those from a lower social background tend to have early and strong desires to go into teaching while the others see it as a second option.¹³³ These differing commitments mean that despite new Swedish education policy, contradictions between the perception of how and what preschool teachers should learn and teach are being manifested in different ways across Swedish classrooms and, according to Taylor, this could be a result of past experiences and the perceived self, i.e. perception is shaped by heritage and social capital.¹³⁴

122 Ezer, Gilat, and Sagee, “Perception of Teacher Education and Professional Identity among Novice Teachers.”

124 Taylor, “Redefining Undervisning for Swedish Preschool,” 13–14.

125 Ibid, 11.

130 Lauglo, “Teachers’ Social Origins, Career Commitment During University, and Occupational Attitudes.”

131 Ibid, 287.

132 Ibid 296.

133 Ibid, 296.

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4. Theoretical Framework

This paper will draw largely upon the concepts by Bourdieu which describe the inequalities in the education system as caused by relational factors corresponding to social origin.¹³⁵ Bourdieu’s concepts of capital, both cultural and economic, will be used to see where these (mainly) women are coming from socioeconomically as a way to understand the kinds of capital and habitus/dispositions they possess in relation to why they entered the preschool teacher field and their perception of the increased academic demands.

Adding the perspective of Bourdieu’s cultural and economic capital as the relational factor for conflicting perceptions of preschool teacher training in Sweden is important because their reason for entering the field and their conceptions of teaching can be understood relationally to their type of capital and cultural background which, when placed in the context of academic demands, lead to the new working definitions of what it means to teach preschool in Sweden.

When understanding the ideas by Bourdieu it is important to remember that each concept is related to the others and therefore one cannot be understood without the other and, in fact some might even consider them, especially habitus, to be blurred.¹³⁶ To this, Bourdieu would argue that sociology aims to create a science out of the vague, he postulates that concepts are better understood as “polymorphic, supple and adaptable, rather than defined, calibrated and used rigidly.”¹³⁷ It is with this in mind that the following section will take a narrowed definition of each of the terms to be used in this paper’s analysis of its findings.

4.1. Habitus

Although individual agents may be planning specific actions, the habitus itself is unconsciously reproducing the conditions of that planning; we can point to an individual’s past experiences as influencing everyday actions as an example of this.¹³⁸ It is a source of strategies¹³⁹ and is based on relational social structures (sex, age, or class), which they are a product of and which they also often reproduce.¹⁴⁰ Bourdieu’s concept of habitus can be understood as the set of dispositions which work together to create a culturally based logic of practice and judgement. It influences the choices and attainment of a person’s goals through “a system of lasting, transposable predispositions that unifies past experiences, functions at every moment as a matrix of perceptions, makes it possible to achieve various tasks.”¹⁴¹ This means that choices are highly influenced by the habitus which is developed through the accumulation of experiences¹⁴² and is the embodied form of a person’s cultural capital.¹⁴³ It is

135 Bourdieu and Passeron, The Inheritors, 25.

136 Bourdieu and Wacquant, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, 23.

137 Ibid, 23.

138 Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice, 53.

139 Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, 72.

140 Ibid, 97.

141 Ibid, 83.

142 Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice.

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learned through the body as well as through social experiences which go beyond intellect or consciously learned behaviour.¹⁴⁴ Although individuals might not have the same exact experiences, they can share similar ones and “each individual system of dispositions may be seen as a structural variant of all the other group or class habitus, expressing the difference between trajectories and positions inside or outside the class.”¹⁴⁵

This is important for this paper’s conclusions because the habitus plays a role in not only professional trajectories but also unconscious perceptions of the very field, and education, in which preschool student teachers invest in. A large and immediate impact on how student teachers plan to teach in the future comes from the social recruitment of students because the habitus creates a code of conduct and perceptions which are united based on social background and social experiences, and it works to reproduce its own conditions.¹⁴⁶

4.2. Capital and social origin

In Bourdieu’s early work, The Inheritors, he speaks of social origin as a major factor in what makes someone enter higher education or not, his early thoughts on habitus, although in this book the term is not yet coined, are what makes a certain future natural for some and not others.¹⁴⁷ A person’s attitude and ability are related to their social origin and some people, those in a higher social position, come into school with a disposition that is more recognised and valued while others do not.¹⁴⁸ Bourdieu explains that social origin is the one condition which can extend to all levels of a student’s experience and this is because the symbolic capital, and dispositions which they bring with them will either conform or clash with the dominant culture.¹⁴⁹ These ‘dominant’ social classes are supported and favored by schools as they already possess the cultural resources which schools favor. In short, the bourgeoisie culture is more closely related to the culture of the school and therefore those from a working-class origin are forced to try and adopt this way of being which is wholly different from their own upbringings, primary habitus.¹⁵⁰

Bourdieu’s understanding of social origin and inherited attitudes, is understood in relation to family and individual social history and is very much structured by the world which people themselves helped to create.¹⁵¹ Social origin can determine what kind of capital a student brings into the school and this then reflects in the amount of resources they are able to utilize which is recognized in their new social world. Bourdieu’s early work explains that the cultural habits which are passed down by family members contribute to elimination from higher education those who are hindered because of a past which does not offer the recognised form of capital, or “gifts”, needed to succeed

143 Bourdieu, Distinction, 65–68.

144 Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, 94–95.

145 Ibid, 86.

146 Bourdieu and Passeron, 161.

147 Bourdieu and Passeron, The Inheritors, 3.

148 Ibid, 8–13.

149 Ibid, 12.

150 Ibid, 76–78.

151 Bourdieu and Passeron, Reproduction in Education, Society, and Culture, 148.