Freja Morris
Researcher
Tenacious Documents : Exploring the Allure of Documentation in Swedish Compulsory Schools
Ihärdiga dokument : En studie om dokumentationens dragningskraft i svenska grundskolor
Author
Summary, in English
The Swedish education authorities are up against a tenacious problem. Teachers have for years expressed dissatisfaction over increasingly prolific and pervasive demands for documentation that hijacks time that could have been invested in pupils’ learning. Over the past 15 years different Swedish governments have sought to remedy this problem but to no avail. The ‘burden of documentation’, as it is commonly referred to in Sweden, persists. The Swedish education system is not unique in facing this problem, but offers a particularly germane case for the study of it due to the concerted efforts, and joint failure, by actors from across the chain of governance to solve the problem. This thesis sets out, then, to understand the tenacity of documents through exploring the allure of documentation in Swedish compulsory schools. It asks how documents and the work of documentation alternately, and at times simultaneously, come to be understood as solutions to problems and as problems in and of themselves.
Methodologically and theoretically, the problem is approached by foregrounding the documents as material semiotic artefacts. Through ethnographic fieldwork at schools, semi-structured interviews with school staff and document analysis, the thesis employs a performative understanding of documents, where documents and the practices that go with them are conceptualised as multifaceted, unpredictable and constitutive of the social relations that they enable and enact. The arguments that emerge draw on Science and Technology Studies, Institutional Ethnography and ethnographic, or practice-oriented, approaches to documents.
The analytical chapters demonstrate how documents tend to have multiple purposes, both intended and unintended. These multiple purposes often appear as self evidently co-existing in the manner they are outlined by various key actors who define teachers’ document demands, such as governing educational agencies and digital learning platforms. In practice, however, they are frequently in considerable tension and conflict with one another. What is more, despite being deeply concerned with the everyday ongoings at schools, the teachers experience that the documents tend to become detached from the very processes that they are meant to be implicated in, such as quality work or counteracting degrading behaviour. This thesis examines how this detachment and distancing happens in the everyday ongoings of schools.
The thesis concludes that we must understand these tenacious documents as existing in an unresolvable tension between realising democratic ideals and perpetuating domination. It is argued that this tension does not primarily exist on an ideological or ideational level but is socio-materially produced in the everyday activities of school staff.
Methodologically and theoretically, the problem is approached by foregrounding the documents as material semiotic artefacts. Through ethnographic fieldwork at schools, semi-structured interviews with school staff and document analysis, the thesis employs a performative understanding of documents, where documents and the practices that go with them are conceptualised as multifaceted, unpredictable and constitutive of the social relations that they enable and enact. The arguments that emerge draw on Science and Technology Studies, Institutional Ethnography and ethnographic, or practice-oriented, approaches to documents.
The analytical chapters demonstrate how documents tend to have multiple purposes, both intended and unintended. These multiple purposes often appear as self evidently co-existing in the manner they are outlined by various key actors who define teachers’ document demands, such as governing educational agencies and digital learning platforms. In practice, however, they are frequently in considerable tension and conflict with one another. What is more, despite being deeply concerned with the everyday ongoings at schools, the teachers experience that the documents tend to become detached from the very processes that they are meant to be implicated in, such as quality work or counteracting degrading behaviour. This thesis examines how this detachment and distancing happens in the everyday ongoings of schools.
The thesis concludes that we must understand these tenacious documents as existing in an unresolvable tension between realising democratic ideals and perpetuating domination. It is argued that this tension does not primarily exist on an ideological or ideational level but is socio-materially produced in the everyday activities of school staff.
Department/s
- Sociology
Publishing year
2025-01
Language
English
Publication/Series
Lund Dissertations in Sociology
Issue
138
Full text
Document type
Dissertation
Publisher
Media-Tryck, Lund University, Sweden
Topic
- Social Sciences
- Sociology
Keywords
- Documentation
- Education
- Governance
- Ethnography
- Science and Technology Studies
- Knowledge production
- sociology of quantification
- sociology of statistics
Status
Published
Supervisor
- Malin Åkerström
- Axel Fredholm
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1102–4712
- ISSN: 1102–4712
- ISBN: 978-91-8104-339-6
- ISBN: 978-91-8104-340-2
Defence date
14 February 2025
Defence time
13:15
Defence place
Socialhögskolans hörsal (Sh128) Allhelgona kyrkogata 8, Lund
Opponent
- Kristin Asdal (Professor)