A teaching staff in motion? : A study about the image-making of the Swedish teachingstaff in media during 1979, 1989 and 2006.

In this pilot study, we have investigated what the two biggest newspapers Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter, and the two largest union affiliated journals Lärartidningen/Lärarnastidning and Skolvärlden has written about teachers in their professional roles, and investigated if and whether their reporting has changed over time. In the study, we have also examined what the newspapers and the union affiliated journals emphasize as status enhancing and status lowering factors for the Swedish teaching staff. We have furthermore analyzed our material through Leif Mathiassons theoretical framework in the anthology Uppdrag Lärare –En antologi om status, yrkesskicklighet och framtidsdrömmar, in which he describes the creation of the image of the school as a medial and political construction. To reinforce Mathiassons theoretical framework we have also presented and used the agenda theory, the gestalt theory and the priming theory in our concluding discussion. In our results, we can see that the work environment is the largest and most frequently reported theme in both the newspapers and in the union affiliated journals, in which the work environment acts as a hub where the other themes are interconnected. In conclusion we can see that some patterns have not changed significantly in the debate regarding the school and the teacher in their professional role between 1979 and the first years of the 21th century. Medias focus on subject knowledge, financial resources, increased wages, discipline and enhanced status of the teaching profession remains and are described in similar terms throughout the whole of our studied period, and thus is not a new problem or new feature in the media debate about the Swedish school system