The current study examined whether different motives for entering teacher education and different coping strategies in distressful situations during teacher training were associated with teacher efficacy among student teachers. A sample of 517 Swedish student teachers completed a questionnaire. According to the findings from multivariate regression analysis, student teachers who scored higher in intrinsic and altruistic motives and cognitive restructuring, and lower in self-criticism, tended to show greater teacher efficacy.

The present study focuses on challenges to the work of teachers as a result of a Swedish educational reform that mandates schools guarantee pupils receive early learning support concerning reading, writing, and number sense. The outcome of reforms is connected to how teachers achieve agency in their work , and we use the ecolo- gical model of teacher agency as an overarching theoretical frame- work and analytical dimension. The study involved interviews with 14 teachers, and the focus was on a) how teachers identify pupils in need of support and how this support is carried out, (b) how teachers would like this identification to be carried out, and how teachers would like to support pupils with weak number sense. Teachers described a ‘dilemmatic space’ (cf. Fransson and Grannäs 2013), which affects how they achieved agency in developing pupils’ num- ber sense. The dilemmatic space described by teachers in this study is framed by necessary priorities pertaining to the cultural, structural, and material conditions of the current situation. According to the study’s results, whether teachers should perform the assessment merits discussion. The study concludes there is a risk that conducting assessments and offering support risks cancelling each other out.

Både i forskning och i media finns det gott om exempel på de svårigheter som kan vara förknippade med att vara ny lärare. Under de senaste tre decennierna har olika typer av stöd utvecklats och implementerats för nya lärare internationellt. Det vanligaste stödet är att få en mentor, där en mer erfaren lärare ger råd till en yngre kollega. Trots goda intentioner har denna typ av stöd ibland fokuserat på brister hos den nyblivna läraren, vilket kan ha flera negativa och till och med kontraproduktiva bieffekter. Den här artikeln fokuserar på tre alternativa beskrivningar av lärare i början av karriären som beskrivs av Kelchtermans (2019). Dessa beskrivningar inkluderar den nyblivna läraren som en meningsskapande aktör, som en nätverkare och som en tillgång för skolan.

Specialpedagogens uppdrag och roll innefattar många olika ansvarsområden och arbetsuppgifter. Rektor är den som sätter ramar och därmed också skapar förutsättningar för hur det specialpedagogiska arbetet ska utformas på den skola där specialpedagogen är verksam. Det verkar vanligt att specialpedagoger själva är med och skriver sina egna arbetsbeskrivningar. Specialpedagogers uppdrag kan därmed komma att bli format i förhandlingen som sker mellan rektor och specialpedagog. Denna artikel tar utgångspunkt i ett examensarbete av Franzén och Ek Andersson (2023) för att diskutera rollen som en specialpedagog kan få på en skola.

Early career teachers have been discussed as being particularly vulnerable to stress and emotional challenges. Even though there has been an increased understanding of the practice shock, and utilization of mentors during the beginning for early career teachers, the start of the profession for early career teacher is still considered as filled with stress and emotional challenges. Kelchtermans (2019) describe the deficit-thinking about early career teachers, as they are considered not capable enough. Instead, Kelchtermans propose early career teachers should be considered not from what they lack, but rather from a perspective of their strengths and potential. This relates to the ongoing identity processes of early career teachers that they find their sense of themselves as teachers in the working conditions that the experience. The ongoing identity process and consistent dilemmas of early career teachers influence the early career teachers coping strategies.The aim of the following study was toinvestigate how challenges of beginning teachers in their second year, with a focus on their continuous teacher identity development. In the study, I adopted Constructivist Grounded Theory (CGT), as this together with symbolic interactionism offers a theory-method package with a focus on social processes, and participants perspectives. In addition, CGT engages in understanding the participant as an agentic person, resolving problems in relation to their main concern.Methodological designIn the study, 23 early career teachers were interviewed. The interviews focused on challenges the early career teachers experienced during their second year of teaching. The interviews were analysed utilizing CGT methods.Expected conclusions/findingsThe findings show consistent dilemmas of continuous teacher identity construction, where the participants describe two main dilemmas that they needed to work with. These were boundary demarcations as well as settling for less. Boundary demarcations focused on not engaging too much in pupils, as well as finding a role where challenges did not affect the participants. Settle for less involved lowering expectations of the influence they wanted to have over pupils. To regulate to need for boundary demarcations the early career teachers described wearing a mask, creating a professional self that was not as affected by events as the personal self. In relation to settling for less, early career teachers described needing to regulate their will to get across to pupils. This means that they thought they should not blame themselves too much if the pupils did not care to listen to what they had to say. These strategies to regulate are discussed as a way of coping with experienced challenges and what this means to the teacher identity, moving from an ideal position into being a little more experienced teacher. The reported research is relevant to Nordic Educational Research since it addresses the challenges of new teachers, and is of use to understand how subjective interpretations of the professional role is influenced by experienced challenges.

The Education Act in both Sweden and Norway stipulates that schools must enable all pupils to develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes that form the basis for continued learning and active participation in working life and society (Opplæringslova, 1998; SFS 2010:800, 2010). 

In a report of Scandinavian research published between 2008–2017, Kermit (2018) concludes that children and adolescents with HL perform below peers in school, and that they often struggle with social relationships in kindergarten and school, thus running a higher risk of psychosocial problems compared to peers with typical hearing. It has been found that children and adolescents with HL are not involved in making decisions about their learning environment, including special needs education support.

We conducted a pilot study using the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), investigating how psychosocial health in children who are deaf/hard-of-hearing (D/HH) in Norway, was related to peer relationships and educational support as reported by their guardians.

As a follow up to the surveys, we will conduct focus group interviews with teachers of children who D/HH to investigate their experiences of the educational support for, and psychosocial health of, these children.

Preliminary results from the surveys showed that guardians reported significantly higher SDQ scores (M= 10.5) than the normative data (M= 5.8). Descriptive data for our sample showed that children in compulsory integrated school scored higher on both internal (emotional, hyperactivity) (M=6.20) and external (peer problems, conduct) (M=5.12) scales than children attending school for hard-of-hearing (Internal M= 3.83, External M= 3.67). 

Additional statistical analysis will be presented and discussed within Bronfenbrenner’s Socio-Ecological Framework as a sensitizing concept. Further implications and future research will be discussed.

Student teachers commonly report encountering emotional chal- lenges in work placements during teacher education. Even so, the perspective of mentoring teachers has been given little attention regarding the student teachers’ emotional challenges. In this study, the authors’ aim is to investigate what mentoring teachers perceive to be the emotional challenges student teachers face and what support they think they can offer student teachers. A sample of 25 Swedish mentoring teachers participated in an interview study. According to the findings, the mentoring teachers reported three main emotional challenges that they perceived that student tea- chers encounter: conflicts with/among pupils, encountering diverse pupil populations and dealing with failure. Mentoring teachers’ reports can be understood in the light of their idea of what work placement should be. Their rationales included the need for stu- dent teachers to be either exposed to ‘reality’ or protected from worst-case scenarios.