Being a Swedish teacher in practice: analysing migrant teachers’ interactions and negotiation of national values

Abstract

National values or imagined communities are often reflected in a country’s educational system. In this paper, a teaching course for migrant teachers in Sweden is used to reflect on how some of these national values and practices are presented and subsequently negotiated by course leaders and course participants. While measures that emphasise national values are often criticised as assimilationist, building partly on Goffman’s work it is argued that a discussion of national values can also serve to unveil hidden rituals that are otherwise taken for granted, while also pointing both to the potential usefulness and pitfalls of civic education. For example, while course teachers try to avoid presenting the Swedish value system as superior to that of other countries, certain ‘sacred’ national values, such as a commitment to gender equality, are seen as non-negotiable. For participants, their previous teaching identity can be used both as a resource in navigating the course and for work practice. But for some participants, their previous teaching identity is seen as in need of adjustment in order for them to follow Swedish teaching and school ‘rituals’.