Conference Program

Regardless of what labels are put on them, every school in every society has pupils who do not adjust with the realities of the school and the education system. Educational support is a general response to this, as purposeful for equity in education. As such, it is moreover defined as key for sustainable education (Van der Branden, 2012; Bunar et al., 2021). According to the Swedish School Inspectorate (2024) and the Swedish Teachers’ Union (2024), most pupils are provided educational support when in need of it, but as many as a third are not. Based on field work comprising interviews with 118 educational professionals, pupils and their families, the present study contributes to both scholars and practitioners with a Foucauldian inquiry on power dynamics influencing the provision of educational support in the Swedish education system.

Holding provision of educational support as object of study, the object of knowledge is the power dynamics and processes involved in the provision. The empirical data consists of material gathered in three distinct data collections in nine Swedish municipalities and their corresponding LEAs and schools. An initial content analysis (Krippendorff, 2013: 355ff), of policy documents and plans on educational support, was followed by interviews with heads of LEA and principals in the same municipalities. Two lower secondary schools were thereafter entered for an extensive field work during three semesters, holding an ethnographic approach (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2019: 102f). It included observations of classes as well as other domains of everyday life at schools, and interviews with pupils, parents, teachers, special educators, and other school personnel.

The empirical data has been analysed informed by the theoretical realm of Foucault (1972/2002; 1980; 1988), making visible power dynamics involved in and influencing on the provision of educational support. A heavy accountability structure (Bergh, 2015) exerting ‘pressure from above’ on teachers and other school personnel, lead to problematising (Foucault, 1988: 257) school failures in ways that deflect responsibility from these and to the pupils and their families. Provision of educational support is moreover influenced by risks of being held accountable for school failure, making this a priority and reducing the priority of supporting pupils at par with their needs. Discourses and constructions of social change and of ‘Other’ families and pupils who ‘don’t give a damn’, become purposeful for school personnel experiencing time poverty, as to prioritise provision of educational support based on moralising judgements and medical diagnosis, instead of based on pupils’ needs. When such judgements are more prevalent regarding social groups already experiencing more vulnerable situations, the waiving of educational support compounds vulnerability, further distorting academic careers of the pupils and increasing educational inequalities.