ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the teaching profession of SFI (Swedish for Immigrants) at ABF Adult Education (AAE), a procured education with roots in the Swedish WEA, Workers’ Educational Association. The education organiser has formed an education strongly characterised by market thinking. Current market logic has resulted that earlier welfare thinking with its public service values and equality ideals has been replaced by neoliberalism’s focus on “efficiency”, “competition”, “flexibility” and “entrepreneurship”. Some of these consequences for both participants and teachers will be discussed in this chapter. Our data include interviews with teachers, students, principals and civil servants; field notes from classroom observations with tendering and accounting perpetually present; local school plans; website material; and policy documents. In contrast to more orthodox organisational studies, “a bottom-up” perspective has been used, emphasising the local context and focusing on the discursive dimensions of policy processes and how various actors “tell their stories”. Theoretically, a narrative approach has been applied with additional interest in an overall discursive frame of reference. Through the stories, insight has been gained into the Teachers' opposition to and varying strategies for confronting different dilemmas. Also, profession research is included in the analysis – notably organisational professionalism as opposed to occupational professionalism.
