Abstract

Authors: Linnéa Bengtsson & Evelina NemethTitle: When students’ sense of entitlement affect teachers’ work environmentA comparative interview-study with experienced and less experienced upper secondary schoolteachers. 

Students’ values, rights, and principles are a widely researched phenomenon. Not many studies, however, focus on the impact or experiences of teachers that are at the frontline of this behaviour. Moreover, previous research and its ensuing discussion has mainly focused on pedagogical aspects, thus centralizing its focus, and overlooking the wider spectra. Essential parts of this wider spectra is students’ ‘sense of entitlement’, analysed from the teacher perspective, taking into account the effects of this entitlement on the teacher profession as well. The aim of this study is therefore to provide an understanding of Swedish upper secondary teachers’ experiences and encounters regarding how students can express a ‘sense of entitlement’ and the subsequent effects that this has on teachers’ working environment. The theoretical framework for the study is based on Durkheim’s sociological framework moral education as well as the ‘new’ sociology of moral to analyse and discuss the results. The study is based on sixteen interviews with upper secondary teachers in Sweden and centres on their experiences, where seven of them have been categorized as less experienced whereas the nine remaining have been categorized as more experienced within the profession. The results indicated three themes, with the interviewees categorizing their experiences into “students’ lack of self-responsibility”, “an individualistic mindset”, and “a confusing power-dynamic”. The study’s results reveal that all interviewees expressed how students’ entitlement harbour consequences on their working environment; in terms of the themes outlined above. Additionally, the aspect of work experience proved itself central in emphasizing nuances and differences between the interviewees’ views and coping strategies, both in terms of dealing with their individual working environments but also in student encounters.