Anticipations of practice-near school research in Sweden

Abstract

Practice-near research has been on the agenda in education policy during the last few years in Sweden. The research is supposed to make the academy and school collaborate and the expectations are high. This article aims to give an account of different kinds of expectations of practice-near research, and the underlying perceived problems it is supposed to solve, in the Swedish educational context. Drawing from theories from the research field sociology of expectations and Carol Bacchi’s discourse analytic WPR approach (What’s the problem represented to be?), different kinds of documents on practice-near research were analysed. Five anticipatory narratives about practice-near research were identified: practice-near research for ensuring a school based on ‘scientific knowledge and proven experience’, as a cure of educational research of little relevance, for increasing teaching efficiency, for making teacher education research-based, and for increasing attractiveness of the teaching profession. The article concludes with a discussion of the anticipatory narratives related to discourses of change and education crisis.