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April 28th 2010 the Swedish parliament decided that the combined teacher exam will be divided into four parts. This means that the education for preschool teachers and primary school teachers will have to be separated and future teachers will have to decide before their studies what ages they want to work with. To investigate if this could affect the quality of the choice I have interviewed 5 new teachers from the combined teachers program about what ages they wanted to teach before they began to study and what ages they wanted to teach after completed studies. I did this to see whether the choice was influenced by the educations or not. It turned out that all 5 had an idea of what ages they wanted to teach in before they began the educations and only one of my interviewees changed her mind during the studies. The others felt that their choice was confirmed during the educations. It was mainly during the practical training that they received an idea of what it was like to work as a teacher. Four of them received a positive image of what it was like to work in preschool, while several of them said they got negative experiences from primary school. This could be one of the reasons why four of the five interviewees work in preschool today. The person who changed her mind changed from wanting to work in primary to wanting to work in preschool after the practical training. The interviewees chose the profession that they perceived filled their need of affection, appreciation and acknowledgement. They also thought that the profession they opted out seemed more difficult than the profession they have today. They identified themselves no more or less with any career before they began the studies and feel today that they can only identify with the profession they want, which in all except one case, is the profession they’ve got. The idea of what teachers are like changed during the studies and became more positive and reality based. All interviewees got more knowledge about teachers and their work during the studies and had a better understanding to base their decision on after completed studies.

This doctoral dissertation investigates the challenges “foreign teachers” experience in the encounter with the Swedish school and the possibilities they have to manage challenges and to establish their legitimacy. The participants of this study were newly employed in the pre-school, the primary school and the secondary school. The material includes interviews with 21 teachers and complementing observations at the workplaces of five of these teachers. Principals and colleagues have also been interviewed as well as administrators and teacher educators of supplementary teacher training programs. The shift of language of instruction was reported as causing challenges and demanded time and energy from the teachers in preparing the lessons. Here the teachers mentioned knowledge and correct use of the subject specific vocabulary and the ability to use everyday language in the process of building a bridge to the language of the subjects. Difficulties in the interaction with colleagues and parents were reported; when being positioned as less competent due to their second language speaker status. Some examples also reveal that everyday interaction demands knowledge of social practices that are not always familiar to these teachers. The value of individual assets (e.g. professional experience, profound subject knowledge and multilingualism) is enhanced when school principals recognize the resources of these teachers and make use of them in the communities of practice at school. In using activity theory, difficulties in the interaction with students or problems with questioning parents could be analyzed with regard to communities of practice, rule systems or division of labor in the activities of the school. This thesis emphasizes the importance of a critical discussion of existing norms, values and hierarchies in local school contexts if schools in Sweden in general are to be seen as learning and working contexts for teachers as well as students of all backgrounds. / Flerspråkighet Litteractitet Utbildning (FLU)

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