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The aim of this article is to shed light on teachers’ actions to counter racism expressed by their colleagues. Based on qualitative interviews with teachers in Swedish upper secondary schools, the article presents a narrative analysis of three teachers. The article highlights the complexity of what it means to be a colleague in anti-racist work and argues that this brings different risks and possibilities for White teachers and for teachers of colour. By relating the narratives to research on racism and teacher professionalism, the article contributes to a better understanding of the prevalence and character of racism expressed by colleagues, and points at the need for further research.

Skolsegregationens negativa konsekvenser har på senare år kommit alltmer i fokus. Den här rapporten har studerat Örebro kommuns arbete med integration och måluppfyllelse vid kommunens skolor, och då specifikt nedläggningen av högstadiet på Vivallaskolan och dess omorganisering till fyra anvisningsskolor i kommunen under 2017–2020.

Forskarna har följt arbetet på de fyra skolorna under två och ett halvt års tid och intervjuat 128 personer: elever, lärare, skolpersonal, skolledning, politiker och tjänstemän – tillsammans bildar de en väv av röster som beskriver från en rad olika perspektiv hur omorganiseringen av Vivallaskolan har uppfattats och vilka effekter det har fått på olika nivåer.

Rapporten visar på både möjligheter och utmaningar att lära av, och genom det kastar den ljus över vilka processer som har bidragit till minskad segregation, samt ökad integration och måluppfyllelse. I en förlängning kan kunskap om dessa processer komma att gynna alla elevers lärande och utveckling.

This paper sheds light on how teachers act and reflect on their actions in response to expressions of racism among colleagues. The empirical data consists of qualitative interviews with 27 high school teachers in Sweden, but, in order to dig deeper into the experiences of teachers, this paper focuses on three teachers (Tove, Fatima and Hannah). The result points at a professional ambivalence on how to act, since there is no common ground among teachers for how to act when colleagues express racism. To act against racism comes at high costs and very much depends on each teacher’s previous experiences of life and work. Consequently, each teacher is provided a unique space and resource base for reflection and action.

In this chapter, we take interest in a specific part of the extensive changes that have been made in the governance of Swedish education during the last two decades: the increase of legal regulations. This increase is a sign of what in earlier research is called juridification, which may lead to a variety of tensions that we currently know too little about. More specifically, the aim of this chapter is to study how juridification of education conditions teachers’ work on the knowledge and values expressed in national policy documents. The empirical material consists of Swedish national education policy texts produced from the early 1990s and onwards. Methodologically, we make use of two theoretical concepts that position teachers’ assignments and possible actions in different ways: management of placement and management of expectation. The results demonstrate that the increase of a juridical language clearly condition teachers’ professional work. In the worst case, the legal concepts may result in more instrumental relationships where teachers focus on their role as assessors and monitors. At the same time, it depends on how the legal concepts are interpreted and enacted by school staff. Here, there is a need of further studies on how different emphasises and combinations of a juridical vocabulary and a pedagogical vocabulary condition the relationships that are formed in local school practices.

How does juridification condition the teaching profession’s work with educational knowledge and values? Over the last twenty years the governance of Swedish education has radically changed. As a specific part of this transformation, the aim of this article is to investigate how juridification conditions the teaching profession’s work with educational knowledge and values as formulated in the national curriculum. The article makes use of two governing logics – the management of placement and the management of expectation – that position teachers’ assignments and possible actions in different ways. The empirical material consists of national policy texts. The analysis points to different dilemmas that result from juridification, namely that teachers are expected to shoulder a decentralized moral responsibility and at the same time be controlled against nationally formulated rights and obligations.

This contribution is based on an ongoing study on teachers' anti-racist actions. The project is based on John Dewey's moral philosophy with an interest in teachers' experiences of racism and anti-racism in education. In the 25 teacher interviews conducted so far, teachers express that they have a moral responsibility to counteract racism among the pupils. But what should they do when a colleague expresses racism?

Our study shows that this is a common experience among the informants, visible in colleagues’ racist jokes, speech and actions. In situation like this, there seems to be an uncertainty about their moral responsibility leading to professional ambivalence. On the one hand, the teachers feel that they are obligated to the values in the curriculum, on the other hand, they are uncertain about whether the moral responsibility could be applied in relation to colleagues.

The interviewed teachers act in relate to this ambivalence in different ways. Some describe their moral responsibility as general and choose to counteract all kinds of racism in school, even among colleagues. Other states that this is beyond their moral responsibility as a teacher, and choose not to act or to inform the principal. The choice not to act has in previous research also been explained in terms of loyalty between colleagues. The uncertainty that occurs among the informants shows how the boundaries of moral responsibility becomes erased when moving from classroom to staff room.

Sessionen fokuserar frågor som berör rasism och antirasism i skolan. Här presenteras fyra papers som fokuserar hur lärare agerar när de upplever olika former av rasism, både bland kollegor och elever som i skolans organisering. Sessionen presenterar preliminära resultat från det pågående forskningsprojektet "How to counteract racism in education" (Vetenskapsrådet), men tar också avstamp i boken "Att motverka rasism i förskolan och skolan" (Arneback & Jämte, 2017). Sessionen är öppen för alla som är intresserade av frågor som berör rasism och antirasism i skolan. Det kommer också lämnas utrymme för gemensamma samtal och frågor kring forskningsfältet i stort.

Paper 1:

Att motverka rasism i skolan (Arneback & Jämte)

Presentationen fokuserar lärares antirasistiska handlingar och visar en palett av didaktiska arbetssätt lärare använder för att möta olika uttryck för rasism i skolan. Vidare fokuseras hur lärares egna erfarenheter av rasism påverkar deras agerande och förståelse av problemet.

Paper 2:

Mediediskurser om rasism och antirasism i skolan (Wiklund)

Lärares antirasistiska arbete är beroende av hur de förstår begreppet rasism och mediers sätt att använda begreppet är viktiga källor för denna förståelse. Dessa antaganden ligger till grund för denna presentation av hur rasism definieras i medietexter om händelser där rasism aktualiseras i skolsammanhang.

Paper 3:

Om kommunikationens möjligheter och begräsningar i arbetet mot rasism (Arneback & Englund)

Bidraget behandlar villkor för lärares agerande i bemötandet av elevers rasistiska uttalanden. Vår teoretiska referens är primärt John Deweys (1922) bok Human Nature and Conduct. Bidraget analyserar den deliberativa kommunikationens möjligheter och gränser i förhållande till elevers potential, klassrumsklimat samt lärares egna kunskaper och upplevda kapacitet.

Paper 4:

Har lärare ett ansvar att agera när kollegor ger uttryck för rasism? (Bergh & Tryggvason)

Uttryck av rasism är utmanande frågor som lärare möter och hanterar i och omkring undervisningen. Läroplanen är tydlig med att lärare har ett ansvar att motverka alla former av rasism i skolan. Men hur agerar lärare när kollegor ger uttryck för rasism? Den här presentationen utforskar ett ansvar som många gånger är osäkert och riskfyllt.