Policy Document Conversion in Practice : A Qualitative Study of Five Upper Grade Teachers Approach to the 2011 Policy Documents in History

Policy document conversion in practice – a qualitative study of five upper grade teachers approach to the 2011 policy documents in history.This essay examines five upper grade teachers approach to the new 2011 policy documents in the history school subject, as well as it’s impact on the teachers class room activities. Also, the study examines what factors have influenced this conversion process. Colleagues, the school management and the Swedish Skolverket (the Swedish school management organisation, controlled by the Swedish government) are in this study the main external influences that are studied. The study is carried out with an organisation theoretical approach, witch states that controlling the schools practical activities is hard, taking in to account a great variety of “problems” that follow a teachers every day work. Aspects like shortage of time, a lack of economic backing and school tradition are thought to be negating factors that make a political “top-down” control of the school necessary in order to force school political ideas to get hold in school classroom activities.Through five qualitative interviews with the teachers, mixed views takes shape. Most of the teachers are slightly torn, but mainly positive, to the changes that has followed with the new policy documents in the history subject. The grading system is mainly considered to be an improvement since the one before, considering it’s way of describing students subject qualities on a relative scale. Also, the subjects more analysing soul is mainly thought to make it more relevant in general. The main result shows that all teachers, in various degree, have reformed their class room activities, leaning school history to a slightly more advanced and academic oriented subject, with a greater proportion of analytic segments to carry the subjects narration through the courses. Throughout this study, source validation is by far shown to be the most prominent class room activity that causes this effect. Studies in how history has been used by individuals, groups and governments are also revealed to be an important factor, leading the subject in a more advanced direction.The study of external factors that had influenced the conversion process clearly stated that the teachers colleagues was the main source of reliance and support when interpreting the new policy documents. All five teachers claimed to have been discussing and comparing their work with their colleagues throughout the passed year. The schools managements had not –3with the exception of one, that were – been directly involved in the interpretation process. Nor had they been generous in their disposal of time given to discussion with colleagues. Though, the school managements had been underlining the importance of a interpretation collaboration and had made sure that the teachers had been given time to attend introduction seminars. The influence and support from Skolverket was amongst the teachers mainly considered to have been insufficient. Some introduction seminars to the 2011 school reform – previously mentioned – had been given on different locations, but these had mainly described the reforms intentions in general and lacked a more practical oriented support that the majority of the teachers considered necessary for a correct interpretation of the documents. The main problem with the shortage of support from Skolverket was without a doubt thought to be the lack of examples connected to the grading system. Its relative nature was amongst the teachers thought to have required further instructions, making it possible for them to tie subject qualities to specific grades.Thus, this study describes a reality that opposes the top-down view of school control and its problems. A vast majority of the five teachers studied seemed to have done their best – on their own and together with their colleagues – to keep up with the changes in the 2011 policy documents in history. Instead, possible reasons for differences between the classroom activities and the subjects juridical intention could partly be tracked to a lack of controlling measures (also known as support to the teachers), carried out by the “top” in a top-down perspective