Artikeln fokuserar den diskursiva förskjutningen av begreppet ’lärarprofessionalism’. Den ’professionella’ läraren ’uppstod’ i statliga policydokument i slutet av 1980-talet, i samband med avreglering och decentralisering av utbildningssystemet. Syftet med denna artikel är nu att utifrån ett kritiskt policysociologiskt perspektiv (Ball 1994, 2007, 2008) analysera talet om de ’professionella’ lärarna, eller den så kallade ’lärarprofessionalismen’.

 Det empiriska material som analyseras i studien omfattar texter där policyproducenten är staten (genom direktiv, utredningar och propositioner) och Sveriges största lärarfackliga organisation, Lärarförbundet. Jag har också valt att studera policytexter under två olika tidsperioder, 1995-2000 samt 2007-2008. Studien resulterar i att talet från de båda policyproducenterna kraftigt har förändrats eller förskjutits mellan de båda perioderna, och där lärarna idag styrs utifrån ett nytt ’conduct of conduct’ där yttre styrningsteknologier och en utökad performativitet påverkar lärarnas arbete och påstådda ’professionalitet’. Jag vågar därför påstå att lärarna inte har möjlighet att vara professionella, trots talet om ’lärarprofessionalism’.

From a classical sociological perspective, the teaching profession has never fulfilled the criteria characteristic of a profession. In the nineteen nineties, however, the Swedish government began for the first time to describe teachers as 'professionals' in articulations of its educational policy. Further, the rhetoric of teachers as 'professionals' is also emphasised in the policy texts drawn up at the time of the teacher education reform in 2001. At the same time one of the teacher unions, 'Lärarförbundet', launched a high profile campaign under the banner 'Teachers lift Sweden´(Lärarna lyfter Sverige) aimed at professionalizing the teaching profession and enhancing the status of the profession.

This article has its focus on the rhetoric of the 'professional' teacher and adopts a critical policy sociological perspective inspired by Stephen J. Ball (1994, 2007, 2008). My aim has been to study how the teachers, through discursive, naturalizing and normalizing practices, are represented as 'professionals' and, consequently, are disciplined through governmental technologies, including performative technologies (Ball 1994, 2002, 2003, 2007, 2008; Foucault 1977, 1991, 2003). I also make visible the discursive transition to which the professional' teacher is submitted in the policy texts during the time span between 1995 and 2008. The producers of the empirical material are both the Swedish government (government bills and proposals) and policy texts from the largest teacher union in Sweden, 'Lärarförbundet'. Altogether, five governmental and seven policy texts from thethe teacher union are analysed.

Teacher education stands in the face of yet another reform. On December 3rd 2008 the most recent report on the future content and organization of teacher education was presented. This proposal will have substantial consequences for the country’s teacher education institutions. The aim of the current study is, from a discourse theory perspective, to scrutinize the way in which the most recent reform of teacher education – HUT 07 – constructs and positions the ‘good’ teacher, pupil and school in relation to the ‘good’ society, or, put another way, the ideal societal picture which ‘good’ teachers and schools should provide the blueprint for. HUT 07 is studied from a historical, genealogical perspective in an attempt to trace continuity and change in the articulation of policy. The results of the study reveal, amongst other things, a close discursive connection between the rationality of knowledge and the pupil- teacher-subject articulated in HUT 07 and articulations of the same a half century previously. It is not, however, possible to draw absolute similarities between the two reform periods, due to the fact that they are based on opposing rationalities deriving from different societal visions and norms.