This article addresses how vocational knowing and becoming are cultivated in vocational education and training (VET) as part of upper secondary and adult education, as well as in vocational teacher education (VTE). It is based on a study within a Swedish government initiative aimed at promoting the development of school-relevant research and educational practice in partnership between the academia and the school sector and draws on interviews with VET and VTE teachers. Our findings show that VET and VTE teachers share similar ideas of what a good teacher is and does, and how these qualities are cultivated through participation in various communities of practice. VET and VTE teachers also share ideas of what their students need to become skilled professionals. These ideas include critical judgement, the integration of theory and practice, ethical reflection, and the propensity to handle diversity and relate to the Other. We identify and discuss these as aspects of VET and VTE teachers’ vocational phronesis. Implications for VTE include the need for supporting students’ educational journeys, developing teachings strategies for vocational phronesis and reflecting on the purpose of education.

This article reports part of a research project that investigated the learning and social inclusion conditions of ‘newly arrived students’ in Swedish primary schools in two municipalities. Newly arrived students are the category of students who have lived abroad and started their education in Sweden when they were seven years old or older within the last four years. Most of these children and youth have a history of migration. This article focuses firstly on the Swedish migration context, the ‘migration crisis’ in 2015 and the changes in the Swedish reception system that took place soon thereafter and, second, ethnographic observations from Primary Schools of two specific perspectives in education, namely a perspective on ‘Framing of the day and the lesson’ and ‘Study tutoring in the mother tongue in regular teaching’. The results indicated that strong supporting structures and structured social interaction are needed as well as caring and empathy on the part of teachers to promote learning and social inclusion of newly arrived students are required. Furthermore, study tutoring in the mother tongue in regular teaching seems to be important while the study tutors’ view of their mission varies.

På Nord-Yrk 2023 vill vi ta upp insikter från vårt pågående ULF-projekt Att begreppsliggöra yrkeskunnande inom olika praxisgemenskaper, och hur vi kan använda dem för att utveckla våryrkeslärarutbildning och oss som lärarutbildare. ULF-projektet handlar om hur yrkeskunnande kopplat till gymnasial yrkesutbildning och yrkeslärarutbildning begreppsliggörs, medieras och lärs i olika utbildningssammanhang, och i ett livsvitt perspektiv. Exempel på frågor vi har haft som utgångspunkt är: - Vad kan och gör en skicklig yrkeslärare, och vilka processer, erfarenheter, platser och relationer är viktiga för att utveckla dessa färdigheter och förmågor? Frågorna kopplar i sin tur till yrkeskunnande i arbetslivet: Vad kan/gör/utmärker en skicklig yrkesperson? På samma sätt behöver vi som yrkeslärarutbildare rikta dessa frågor mot yrkeslärarutbildningen och oss själva; hur vi förstår och känner igen yrkesskicklighet hos yrkeslärare är en fundamental fråga för hur vi organiserar och gör yrkeslärarutbildning. Exempel på tillämpliga teoretiska begrepp är kunskapsformering (Walton & Ruznyak, 2020), vocational bildung (Tyson, 2017), yrkesblivande (Wyzynska Johansson, 2020) och phronesis (t.ex. Kinsella & Pitman, 2012).Metod Inom ramen för ULF-projektet som har pågått under två läsår, har vi dels intervjuat lärarutbildare (kollegaintervjuer inom gruppen) (N=8) och verksamma yrkeslärare (N=8), dels gjort fallstudier (N=4) i klasser på gymnasier och komvux, där vi bland annat har gjort observationer, samlat in uppgifter och intervjuat elever. Materialet analyseras tematiskt med fokus på hur yrkeskunnande begreppsliggörs och utvecklas i de olika sammanhangen, och hur dessa processer och tankefigurer kan länkas till varandra.Resultat En tematik som framträder genom materialet är Bemyndigande och bildning. Medan vi i intervjuerna med yrkeslärarutbildare och yrkeslärare identifierar detta som en diskurs där agens, omdöme, självständighet, kritiskt tänkande och kreativitet är viktiga aspekter av yrkeskunnandet, ser vi i fallstudierna exempel på hur det görs i undervisningen. Av eleverna själva och i våra analyser av observationer och material, kopplas detta till olika former av arbetsintegrerat lärande som systematiskt integrerar teoretisk som praktisk kunskap och där kroppsligt erfarande och affekter spelar en betydelsefull roll i reflektion och begreppsliggörande. Ett nästa steg blir att använda resultaten som utgångspunkt för praktikutveckling och kollegialt lärande i relation till yrkeslärarutbildningen (t.ex. Billet, 2009).

FramingULF-projektet Att begreppsliggöra yrkeskunnande inom olika praxisgemenskaper syftar till att belysa innebörden och utvecklingen av yrkeskunnande inom olika praxisgemenskaper (Kemmis & Smith, 2008). Lärprocesser i förhållande till tre huvudsakliga aktörer: yrkeslärarutbildare, yrkeslärare samt yrkeselever fokuseras i undersökningen. Studien utgör ett empiriskt bidrag till forskning om hur deltagande i forskningsprocessen kan främja utveckling av professionella lärandegemenskaper (Stoll, 2006) och således även erbjuder potential för att stärka yrkeslärarprogrammets vetenskapliga kvalitet. Den statliga satsningen på praktiknära forskning genom ULF öppnar upp möjligheter för att stärka yrkeslärarprogrammets vetenskapliga kvalitet men medför även nya utmaningar. ULF-projekt kan främja demokratisering av forskning men ställer nya krav på deltagandeprocesser i relation till engagemang och kontinuerlig kollektiv själv-reflexivitet gällande förtrogenhet med forskningsprocessens olika delar, vilket fokuseras i studien (Rönnerman & Salo, 2012). Forskningsfrågorna utgår från ett didaktiskt intresse för sammanflätning av kunskap och blivande som yrkesperson i sammanhang av yrkesutbildning. Teorier om kumulativ kunskapsformering i professionsutbildning där arbetsintegrerat lärande är centralt används i studien (Walton & Rusznyak, 2020). Methodology/MethodProjektet bygger på semi-strukturerade intervjuer med lärarlaget kring yrkeslärarprogrammet på Högskolan Väst (N=10; vårterminen 2021) och med verksamma yrkeslärare som tagit yrkeslärarexamen vid lärosätet (N=9; höstterminen 2021), samt kortare aktionsforskningsstudier (se Rönnerman, 2012) i gymnasial yrkesutbildning (N=4; vårterminen 2022). Ambitionen med dessa är att bidra till kunskapsutveckling inom yrkesdidaktik i kontexten av arbetsintegrerat lärande såväl som till professionsutveckling, samt att skapa långsiktig samverkan mellan högskola och gymnasieskola/vuxenutbildning, bland annat inom ramen för övningsskolor. Outcomes Studiens resultat förväntas bidra till tre kunskapsfält, ett yrkesdidaktiskt, metodologiskt inom praktiknära professionsforskning samt arbetsintegrerat lärande (AiL). Preliminära resultat belyser de olika aktörernas (yrkeslärarutbildares, yrkeslärares och yrkeselevers) kollektiva förståelse av de arenor, relationer, roller och aktiviteter som de anser är betydelsefulla för att utveckla yrkeskunnande och en positiv yrkesidentitet. Lärarutbildarna begripliggör didaktiska handlingar genom att främst positionera dessa mot ämnesdidaktiska men även allmändidaktiska principer, därigenom transformeras studenternas yrkesspecifika kunskaper till ämnesdidaktiskt stoff. Både yrkeslärare och yrkeslärarutbildare betonar olika sätt att bidra till att bemyndiga medmänniskor, till exempel genom att skifta positioner som yrkeslärare i förhandlingar med arbetsplatser. 

Background: Sweden has experienced waves of migration into the country since the end of the WWII. Pull-factors for migration were opportunities to get a job in the industries right after the war as Sweden was not much effected, but also due to the world’s conflicts, effects from the climate change and a desire to live a better life.In recent years, there has been a larger increase in the number of foreign-born. In 2020, just over 2 million people were born abroad, which is 19.7 percent of the population in Sweden. The most common country of birth for foreign-born is currently Syria, followed by Iraq. Finland was for many years the most common country of birth, but is today the third most common country, followed by Poland and Iran. The migration from the African Horn is also quite extensive, where Somalis are the largest group from Africa in Sweden (in 2018 there were more than 100 000 Somali people living in the country). Since the start of the new millennium, Sweden has experienced an intense debate over migration and several new laws have been passed in order to restrict migration. This is also the case in several other European countries. However, Sweden used to be described as one of the Nordic welfare states and have enjoyed an international reputation for combining generous welfare state entitlements with rapid economic growth, low unemployment and very high levels of labor force participation, particularly among women. This welfare model, characterized by generous, non-tested benefits, a strong element of redistribution in the systems and thus high taxes, was developed after the WWII, but had ideological roots in the labor movement back from the late 1800s. One example of the welfare model is that Sweden offers free education from age 6 to19 and also free school lunches. Over the last twenty years the welfare model has been challenged due to globalization and migration and an increase in international financial competition which also have affected education with reduced resources. However, a large body of research show that education plays a significant role in the health and wellbeing as well as for integration in the “new society”, and education is pointed out as one of the most important institutions for newly arrived migrant children. This paper builds on research investigating reception strategies and inclusion for newly arrived children in schools in two municipalities in Sweden, as well as the migrant students own reflections on these issues. The research was carried out over the years 2016-2018.

Methods: The empirical for the study consisted of two parts. The first part built on interviews with educational leaders at primary schools and staff at reception units in the two municipalities, partly through questionnaires (N=39) with supplementary telephone interviews to the principals (N=24). The second part explored the newly arrived migrant students’ reception and conditions for learning and social inclusion out from their perspective. This part of the study is based on ethnographic work from eight school units with different conditions and way of organizing teaching for newly arrived migrant children.

Results: The study showed that there are currently established guidelines and organization for the assessment and reception of newly arrived students in Sweden, however in practice various known and applied. Among the eight school units included in the study were schools with long experience of receiving newly arrived students, and teaching students with different cultural, linguistic and educational backgrounds, but also schools that can be described as ‘monocultural’, whose experience of receiving newly arrived students were very limited. The differences between schools in student composition reflects a school segregation that is linked to housing segregation and strengthened by the free choice of school introduced in the beginning of the 1990s’. The study describes how newly arrived students' everyday lives and conditions for learning and inclusion emerge in the diverse environments and how different structural and organizational conditions have consequences for students' learning and social inclusion.

Contribution

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of how newly arrived parents construct and reconstructed parenthood post-migration; of challenges and opportunities they see in regard to the upbringing and education of their children in a new host-society; how they navigate to provide the best conditions and support for their children given the resources they have access to. Based on the parents’ views, the paper further suggests how parental support might be tailored to meet the needs of newly arrived parents

The paper draws on theories and concepts from research on parenthood in the context of migration and ethnic diversity and on parental engagement in school.

Ochocka & Janzen (2008), explain that international (especially forced) migration involve reconstructing oneself as a parent under new social, cultural, political and existential conditions, a process that entails interpreting and assessing norms and practices in the new context as well as reinterpreting and reassessing notions of parenting that might have been taken more or less for granted in the home-country. What are seen as “natural” and “right” ways to act as a parent in different situations relates to (mostly implicit and taken for granted) ideas about children, family and parenthood, “parental ethno-theories“. These are formed in the cultural contexts of which the parents are part (Harkness & Super (2013). Further, the same kind of parental support may be valued equally but expressed differently in various cultural contexts. Neely & McBarber (2010) conclude from a cross-cultural study that “(s)tudies of supportive parenting based on measures developed, typically, by majority, middle-class scholars in the United States may ignore or misinterpret ethnotheories present in other cultures” (p. 606).

Parents’ engagement in their children’s education has been found in several studies to benefit children’s academic results (Wilder, 2014), especially for children with migration or ethnic minority background (Sibley & Dearing, 2014; Epstein, 2011), and improves children’s attitudes to education and sense of belonging in school (Suarez-Orozco, Onaga, de Lardemelle, 2010). Immigrated parents generally, across educational levels and national backgrounds, consistently show higher educational aspirations for their children and value education higher than native-born parents (Areepattamannil & Lee, 2014).  Even so, studies from different high GPD countries indicate that the relationship between school and parents with migration or minority is often laden with complications Schneider & Arnot, 2018 a; Antony-Newman, 2019). Research on parental engagement across countries shows that the expected and rewarded forms for parents’ involvement in school are typically modelled on the values, life-circumstances and communication-styles of a white national resident middle-class patterns parents (Antony-Newman, 2019). Parents who do not share these circumstances have been found to frequently fail to get their parental resources, support and interaction-modes recognized and validated by school staff (Schneider & Arnot 2018 a; Kim, 2009; Dahlstedt, 2009). On a societal level, due to patterns of downward mobility often associated with migration, migrant parents’ school engagement is oftentimes mitigated by school-segregation and under-resourced communities, as well as by economic scarcity, long shifts and extensive travel time (Antony-Newman, 2019). While these conditions are shared not only by many migrant parents, but also by many in-born ethnic minorities and working-class parents, linguistic obstacles, loss of social networks in connection with the migration process and lack of knowledge about the national education system and cultural norms exacerbate the effects (ibid.). For parents who arrived as refugees, the capacity to support their children’s education may in addition be adversed by pre- peri and post-migration trauma, including the consequences of state migration policies (e.g. deportability, extended asylum-processes, obstacles for family-reunification, undocumentedness (Martin et al., 2018; Wahlström Smith, 2018).

Method

The study is based on data from qualitative interviews with 11 newly arrived parents, 5 women and 6 men, who took part of a five-week study-circle organized by the municipal integration office with the aim to offer parents information about the Swedish school-system and policies that bear on parents’ responsibilities and children’s rights in the family, as well as opportunity to discuss with other parents, and thus strengthen the parents’ capacity to support their children constructively, especially in regard to school. They had resettled in Sweden between 2015 and 2018 and came from Iraq (1), Syria (7), Eritrea (1), and Afghanistan (2). The interviews were semi-structured, based on an interview-guide with open questions, and followed an active mode of interviewing, inviting the participants to reflect and elaborate further on their experiences and views (see e.g. Holstein & Gubrium, 2016). With Dari-speaking participants, interviews were carried out in Persian by researcher 1. For interviews with Arabic-speaking participants, an interpreter was involved. The group-interview was supported by an Arabic-/English-speaking assistant and carried out in mixed languages (Swedish, Arabic and English). All interviews were transcribed and translated into Swedish. The names of participants in our study are pseudonyms. The material was analyzed using a qualitative approach: Both researchers read all transcripts in order to grasp the major themes and variations within themes; in this process we both wrote analytic memos; several meetings were held where the interpretations and outcomes were compared and assessed in regard to the data and to previous research; a common coding scheme was worked out as a result and tested on the material and modified to capture the complexity of the material; the themes were described through accounts of variations and sustained by exemplary quotes from the participants.

Expected Outcomes

The findings reflect that the migration process induces reflections about what it means to be a good parent. These reflections on parenting were paralleled by reflections on the school-system. The parents’ accounts show that they struggled to balance “traditional” norms (e.g. strict parental/teacher control, emphasis on discipline and respectability) which they associated with the former home country, and liberal norms (bi-directional parent-child relationships, child-centered pedagogy, emphasis on independence and democracy) which they attributed to the new. Parents took different positions in this, talking about the normative and political context for education and upbringing as either aligned or opposed to their own parental belief-systems; as either allowing them to relate to their children in a deeper and more authentic way, or alienating the children from their parents and original culture. The parents showed a strong commitment to develop working parental strategies for the new context, but also concern about how losses of economic, social and cultural capital (e.g. downward social mobility, leaving significant parts of social networks behind, lacking adequate linguistic skills and knowledge about the education-system) adversed their capacity. In addition, the parents worried that their children (1) did not get sufficient linguistic support to keep up in the subjects, (2) met low teacher expectations, (3) lacked peers and risked bullying. These concerns reflect real and general challenges that newly arrived families from the global south and with refugee-background typically face in Sweden and other high-gpd countries, well documented through research. Recognizing parents’ engagement and the forms of support they do provide, while also realizing the impact of structural and linguistic conditions on children’s educational situation and parents’ capacity to provide productive support, is fundamental for understanding and defeating observed achievement gaps in the Swedish school-system and in tailoring parental support.

This chapter is divided into five sections. The first section starts with a narrative from one of our research projects on inclusion and equality for newly arrived students in elementary schools, which was a case study in two municipalities in Sweden (Korp et al., 20191). This narrative will be used for discussion on race and racism in the following sections, both in a historical and in a contemporary perspective. As argued by Martin Eriksson, there is quite a lot of research on race and racism in Sweden during the time period 1900–45, but Eriksson looks for research that does not stop at the end of this period, and studies the continuity between current racism and racial intolerance and those of earlier periods (Eriksson 2016, p. 17). This is a discussion we want to contribute to, arguing that racist discourses are vicious social constructions which both live on as historical memories, as well as being constantly renewed (cf. Schierup, Ålund & Neergaard, 2018). The issues of race and racism discussed in this chapter were not at the front of our initial research questions, but came to be an important result in relation to inclusion and equality for newly arrived students in Swedish elementary schools (Korp et al., 2019). The chapter ends with a section on silencing racism in school and how this can be related to a strong welfare state. Reflections on education, racism and silences on racism conclude the chapter.