CONTENT AND PEDAGOGICAL DISCOURSES IN TEACHERS’ CPD MARKET: A STUDY OF INVOICE-GENERATING CPD INITIATIVES

en studie av insatser som genererar fakturor

Abstract

The aim of this article is to explore the content of teachers’ CPD. In particular, it focuses on how CPD content relates to teachers’ dual task of equipping pupils with knowledge and values. Theoretically, the study is based on Basil Bernstein’s concept of pedagogical discourse and the related analytical concepts of instructional and regulative discourse. The article employs a ‘follow the money’ approach; data were collected from invoices for teachers’ CPD in three Swedish municipalities. Since municipal invoices are official documents in Sweden, CPD invoices for compulsory and upper secondary school teachers from 2018 to 2019 were requested from each municipality. Of the submitted invoices, 679 were determined to be relevant to the study, but 170 of these were excluded from the analysis, as they did not concern teaching. Information was extracted from the invoices and coded into a SPSS file that includes several variables. This study examines six main variables: pedagogical discourse, CPD content, school subject, CPD actor, school type and desired changes. The variable of pedagogical discourse was further divided into the following five sub-categories: instructional subject discourse (pupils’ acquisition of subject matter knowledge); instructional competence discourse (pupils’ development of basic skills or competences); regulative discourse (pupils’ behaviour, identity, attitude etc.); discourse blend (CPD focusing on both instructional and regulative discourses) and other (CPD not related to teaching). The data were analysed using descriptive statistics, mainly via cross tabulations computed in SPSS, to explore the distribution of invoices across the main variables and the relationships among the variables.

The results illustrate the degree to which CPD content focuses on instructional or regulative discourse. We identified 188 invoices (37%) related to regulative discourse. Here, most content relates to conflict management and other forms of challenging student behaviour. We identified 127 invoices (25%) relating to instructional subject discourse; most were related to mathematics, VET subjects or physical education. We identified 95 invoices (19%) related to instructional competence discourse. Most of these focus on programs and materials that aim to support pupils with counting, reading, writing and communication disabilities. We identified 99 invoices (19%) related to a blend of discourses; the patterns here reinforce those identified in the other discursive categories.

The results also illustrate several relationships among discursive orientation, school type (compulsory vs upper secondary school) and type of CPD actor. For example, compulsory school teachers receive more CPD from commercial actors than upper secondary school teachers. Meanwhile, upper secondary school teachers receive more CPD from universities and other interested organizations. We also found that upper secondary school teachers receive more subject-specific CPD than compulsory school teachers, who, in turn, are more engaged in activities that concern pupils’ behaviour. Finally, we find that the content of teachers’ CPD is characterized by intra-individual ambitions for pupils’ change rather than by ambitions for intergroup change, or equalizing differences among sociologically defined groups. The study concludes that the CPD offered to teachers in the studied municipalities reflects teachers’ dual task, which is characterized by reproduction of social class.