Vocational education can have a significant role and important function in preparing students for work in professional fields where sexual harassment is common. Assistant nurses constitute a group that is at great risk of being subjected to sexual harassment by patients. Yet little is known about how vocational students training for the job react to the violations. The research question guiding this study is: How do students undergoing training for the assistant nurse vocation describe their reactions to being subjected to sexual harassment from patients and care recipients? The empirical material consists of focus group interviews with vocational students undergoing assistant nurse training in Swedish upper secondary school. The students who took part in the focus groups were in their third and final educational year. The groups comprised a total of 42 students, 32 women and 10 men. The students described three types of reaction; (1) experiencing discomfort and powerlessness, (2) trying to distract or interrupt and (3) speaking out. Speaking out is the reaction that may be considered the most appropriate, while at the same time being the one that is the most difficult to reconcile with prevailing femininity norms, implying that such a strategy can be perceived as impossible for those young women at risk of being subjected to sexual harassment.

Syftet med denna studie är att utforska lärares erfarenheter av att hantera föräldrakontakter i ett digitaliserat samhälle och vilken inverkan detta kan ha på lärares arbetsmiljö. Följande forskningsfråga vägleder studien: Hur beskriver lärarna sin användning av digitala teknologier för att hantera föräldrakontakter och upprätthålla gränser mellan privat- och arbetsliv? Data genererades genom 17 semistrukturerade intervjuer med lärare. Studiens teoretiska utgångspunkt utgörs av Rosas teori om social acceleration. En central utgångspunkt för studien är att en av de viktigaste förändringsfaktorerna för utbildning, och därmed också för utbildningsvetenskaplig forskning, är digitaliseringen och det växande beroendet av digitala teknologier i de flesta dagliga aktiviteter. Digitaliseringen har avsevärt förändrat kommunikationslandskapet, vilket har bidragit till att interaktion och distribution av information och kunskap har blivit mer komplex. Detta är väl i linje med Rosas argument att teknologisk acceleration leder till samhällsförändringar, vilket i sin tur påverkar människors livstempo. Denna acceleration har även påverkat föräldrars kommunikation med lärare, föräldrars engagemang och hur lärare hanterar föräldrakontakter. Preliminära resultat belyser lärarnas nyanserande beskrivningar av hur de hanterar föräldrakontakter. Vidare framkommer att det finns föräldrar som av olika anledningar begränsas i att ta del av viktig information, vilket är problematiskt eftersom det reproducerar och förstärker ojämlika villkor för elever i skolan. Utmaningarna för lärarna verkar vara relaterade till digitala teknologiers inverkan på att upprätthålla gränsen mellan arbete och fritid – för vissa har gränsen blivit suddig, medan andra använder digitala teknologier för att upprätthålla en strikt gräns mellan arbete och fritid.

Skola och vårdnadshavare har ett gemensamt ansvar att skapa goda förutsättningar för elevers utveckling och lärande. Samarbete mellan föräldrar och lärare kan främja elevers välmående och prestationer i skolan. Relationer mellan lärare och föräldrar är dock komplexa, där lärare och föräldrar kan ha olika uppfattningar om föräldraengagemangets betydelse, funktion och mål. Det finns begränsad kunskap om hur lärare hanterar det spänningsfält som kan uppstå när enskilda vårdnadshavare utmanar lärares professionella uppdrag genom att exempelvis ifrågasätta lärares kompetens eller förmåga att tillgodose det enskilda barnets behov. Denna studie syftar till att undersöka: Hur navigerar lärare i skolans vardag med avseende på hanteringen av föräldrakontakter?

För att analysera lärares handlingsutrymme när det gäller hanteringen av föräldrakontakter utgår studien från teorier om lärares agency. Det innebär att uppmärksamhet riktas mot hur lärares handlingsutrymme både möjliggörs och begränsas genom ett samspel mellan tidigare erfarenheter, mål och värderingar, samt tillgängliga kulturella, strukturella och materiella resurser. Det empiriska materialet utgörs av 17 semistrukturerade intervjuer med lärare i högstadiet. Preliminära resultat visar att omsorg om elevernas bästa vanligtvis styr hur lärare hanterar föräldrakontakter. Detta leder till betydande ansträngningar från lärare att etablera förtroendefulla samarbeten och vara lättillgängliga, särskilt när kontakterna gäller elever som riskerar att inte nå målen. Tidigare erfarenheter av ifrågasättande och misstro från föräldrar kan göra att lärare lägger mycket tid på att motivera professionella bedömningar. Resultaten visar också hur lärare prioriterar bland begränsade resurser för att kunna möta föräldrars krav avseende individuella elever och samtidigt tillgodose alla elevers behov.

Borgonovi, F., & Montt, G. (2012). Parental involvement in selected PISA countries and economies. OECD Education Working Papers, No. 73. OECD Publishing.

Epstein, J. L. (2018). School, family, and community partnerships in teachers’ professional work. Journal of Education for Teaching, 44(3), 397–406. 

Hedlin, M., & Frank, E. (2022). They want a reply immediately!: Teachers talk about contact between home and school. Journal of Teacher Education and Educators, 11(2), 271–289.

Priestley, M., Biesta, G., & Robinson, S. (2015). Teacher agency: what is it and why does it matter? I R. Kneyber & J. Evers (Red.), Flip the System: Changing Education from the Bottom Up (s. 134–148). Routledge.

Priestley, M., Edwards, R., Priestly, A., & Miller, K. (2012). Teacher agency in curriculum making: Agents of change and spaces for manoeuvre. Curriculum Inquiry, 42(2), 191–214. 

The purpose of this study is to explore Swedish secondary school teachers' experiences ofparental involvement in their children's education, with a particular focus on how thisintersects with teachers' professionalism. While positive relationships between teachers andparents have historically been seen as essential for students' educational outcomes, recentresearch has highlighted the potential challenges that excessive parental involvement canpose for teachers' professional responsibilities (Dahl, 2017). In Sweden, such parentalinteractions are increasingly seen as problematic, with reports from teachers' unionsindicating that parents make unreasonable demands, such as influencing grading decisionsor showing excessive concern for their own child's progress (Lärarförbundet, 2020).Teachers report that these problems have increased over time (Hedlin & Frank, 2022).This study applies the theoretical framework of teacher professionalism, conceptualized as abalance between two logics: professional responsibility and professional accountability(Englund & Solbrekke, 2015). Professional responsibility is based on trust and a commitmentto act in the interests of concrete others, i.e. citizens, while professional accountabilityimplies that teachers must report and explain their actions to external actors such asparents, school management and society. The study uses these logics to explore howteachers navigate and manage the different approaches to parental involvement Empiricaldata were collected through 17 semi-structured interviews with secondary school teachers.During these interviews, participants engaged with vignettes depicting hypothetical scenariosof teacher-parent interactions, allowing for reflective discussion of their strategies andperceptions. The findings contribute to an understanding of how teachers balancemaintaining their professional autonomy while responding to parental expectations, and offerinsights into the evolving nature of teacher professionalism in an educational context.

References

Dahl, K. (2017). Too much parental cooperation? Parent–teacher cooperation and how itinfluences professional responsibility among Danish schoolteachers. Power and Education, 9(3), 177-191.

Englund, & Solbrekke (2015). Om innebörder i lärarprofessionalism. Pedagogisk forskning i Sverige, 20(3-4), 168-194.

Hedlin, M., & Frank, E. (2022). “They Want a Reply Immediately!” Teachers’ PerceptionsAbout Contact Between Home and School. Journal of Teacher Education and Educators,11(2), 271-288.

Lärarförbundet (2020). Varannan lärare utsätts för orimliga föräldrakrav. 

The aim is to investigate what the aspects are that contribute to students, training to become assistant nurses, get accustomed to being subjected to sexual harassment from care recipients. Learning a vocation in a workplace means being socialized into the job and the vocational culture (Colley et al. 2003). Researchers who have investigated violence and threats in healthcare speak of normalization processes, employees are socialized into a context where they are expected to tolerate aggression. It is therefore pointed out that this must be understood in relation to organizational and structural factors (Reyes 2014). Hence, the present study focuses the upper secondary Health and Social Care programme as an institution. Neo-institutional theory sheds light on how social actions are created and channeled through institutional arrangements. Institution is understood as a social order with accepted patterns of action. Institutionalization is a social process that means that individuals within, for example, an organization or a professional field, will gain a largely shared view of social reality, which in turn leads to the formulation of appropriate ways of acting in different situations and contexts. This means that informal or formal rules for how one should behave are created (DiMaggio & Powell 1991; Johansson 2006). 

The empirical material for the study consists of semi-structured individual interviews with twelve vocational teachers and ten assistant nurses who act as practice supervisors for students in the Health and Social Care programme. During the interviews, an interview guide was used and we also asked the participants to comment on vignettes that consisted of fictitious cases that we had constructed based on previously conducted interviews with nursing students. By using cases based on conditions that students in our previous research have described, the vignettes appeared realistic at the same time as they were fictitious and hypothetical. The material has been analyzed in accordance with thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke 2006; Bryan 2008). 

According to the vocational teachers and supervisors who have participated in this study, sexual harassment from patients and care recipients is part of the institutionalized vocational role and vocational culture. Two aspects that enable sexual harassment by care recipients to be part of the vocational culture are, firstly, that the assistant nurse is expected to tolerate the care recipient's behavior and, secondly, that there is silence around sexual harassment. Without both of these aspects, sexual harassment would hardly be part of the vocational culture.

References – only the most important references (max 100 words)

Braun, V. & Clarke, V. 2006. Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3:2.

Bryman, Alan (2008). Social research methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Colley, H., James, D., Tedder, M. & Diment, K. (2003). Learning as Becoming in Vocational Education and Training. Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 55: 4.

DiMaggio, P. & Powell, W. (1991). The New Institutionalism i organizational analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Johansson, R. (2006). Nyinstitutionell organisationsteori. Grape, Blom & Johansson (red.). Organisation och omvärld: Lund: Studentlitteratur.

Reyes de los, P. (2014). Rädd på jobbet? Genus, hot och våld i arbetslivet. Stockholm: AFA. 

There are positive associations between parent-teacher collaboration and students’ well-being and achievement in school (Epstein, 2018; Borgonovi & Montt, 2012). Policies in many countries state that parental involvement should be an integral part of the school routine and teachers’ work. According to the Swedish curriculum, guardians and schools share responsibility for creating good conditions for students’ development and learning. However, parent-teacher relations are complex as teachers and parents often hold different views of the functions of parental involvement. Moreover, due to a lack of school routines and common guidelines, teachers are often left to develop their own strategies to manage parental involvement (Hedlin & Frank, 2022). This study addresses the question: How do teachers navigate their context with respect to the management of parental involvement? It explores teachers’ perspectives and experiences, drawing upon an ecological view of teacher agency (Priestley et al., 2015) that understands agency as achieved through the interplay of previous experience, aspirations, and available cultural, structural, and material resources.

Analysis of 17 interviews with teachers reveals that the best interests of their students typically guide teacher-parent relations. This results in substantial efforts from teachers to establish trustful collaborations and be readily available, especially to parents of children at risk of low achievement. However, experiences of sometimes being questioned and distrusted by parents make teachers spend significant time on demonstrating a solid foundation for professional judgments. The results also show that teachers prioritize among limited resources to meet parents’ demands regarding individual students while caring for the needs of all students. This can be understood in light of the undermining of school as a universal institution in Sweden, which has led to the possibility for resourceful parents to exert a large influence in school, at the expense of educational equity (Englund, 2009).

References

Borgonovi, F., & Montt, G. (2012). Parental involvement in selected PISA countries and economies. OECD Education Working Papers, No. 73. OECD Publishing.

Englund, T. (2009). The general school system as a universal or a particular institution and its role in the formation of social capital. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 53(1), 17-33.

Epstein, J. L. (2018). School, family, and community partnerships in teachers’ professional work. Journal of Education for Teaching, 44(3), 397-406.

Hedlin, M., & Frank, E. (2022). They want a reply immediately!: Teachers talk about contact between home and school. Journal of Teacher Education and Educators, 11(2), 271-289.

Priestley, M., Biesta, G., & Robinson, S. (2015). Teacher agency: what is it and why does it matter? In R. Kneyber & J. Evers (Eds.), Flip the System: Changing Education from the Bottom Up. Routledge.

 The aim of this study is to explore teachers’ experiences of parental involvement in a digital era and its impact on their work environment. The research question guiding the study is: How do teachers describe their use of digital technologies in communication with parents and in relation to different boundary strategies? Data were generated through 17 in-depth interviews with teachers. The theoretical foundation informing the study is Rosa’s theory of social acceleration (Rosa, 2003). A central point is that digitization and the growing reliance on digital technologies in daily activities are significant game-changers for education and for educational research (Säljö, 2018). Digitization has significantly altered the communicational landscape, making interaction and information distribution more complex (Jewitt, 2011). This aligns with Rosa’s argument that technological acceleration leads to social change acceleration, which in turn impacts the “pace of life” (Rosa, 2003, p. 12). Consequently, this also affects parent’s communication with teachers, parental involvement and how teachers handle parental contacts (Alieva, 2021; Hedlin & Frank, 2022; Krumsvik et al., 2016). Preliminary results highlight teachers’ nuanced descriptions of handling parents’ communication and involvement in a digital era, addressing both challenges and opportunities in relation to their work environment. The challenges seem to be related to the impact of digital technologies on the boundary between work and leisure time – for some teachers, it has become blurred. Meanwhile, other teachers’ use digital technologies to uphold a strict boundary between work and leisure time. Furthermore, there is a noted difference in how parents use digital technologies. A significant issue is that some parents lack “BankID” a simple electronic form of identification required to log in to digital platforms. As a result, these parents are limited in their ability to be involved in their children’s education because they cannot access all the available information.