“When there is a book to stick to”: teacher professionalism and manual-based programmes in two Swedish early childhood education settings

ABSTRACT

With focus on teachers’ experiences and understandings of manual-based programmes, this article explores the implications for teacher professionalism. It locates teachers’ use of manual-based programmes in the intersection of two currents of ideas in contemporary society and within education: therapy culture and the evidence movement. The article builds on material from interviews with teachers and participant-observation in a kindergarten and a preschool class in the Swedish educational system where programmes for the development of children’s social and emotional learning were used – programmes developed by external expertise, claiming the programmes to have a solid evidence base. These were initially implemented from above in the educational system, but as shown, embraced from within professional culture as means to perform a therapeutic ethos and to guide professional conduct. This article shows that, in working with the programmes and its exercises, teacher’s own professional knowledge and judgement, rather than that of the external expertise, are questioned in an act of subordination to the programme manuals. Hence, a twice devalued professionalism, externally (from above) as well as internally (from within), emerges through the interviews and the observations.

KEYWORDS:

• Professionalism
• evidence-based
• social and emotional training
• early childhood education

Introduction

Education has increasingly become an arena for so-called policy entrepreneurs, such as consultants, coaches, and therapists, who offer solutions to specific problems and to curricular demands in the form of models or manual-based programmes (see Bartholdsson & Hultin, 2015; Ecclestone & Hayes, 2010; Irisdotter Aldenmyr, 2014; Kvist Lindholm, 2015, Pettersvold & Østrem, 2012). There are programmes for documenting cognitive development, for improving learning in various subjects, such as reading skills or mathematics, and for developing entrepreneurial competencies, or, like the programmes examined in this article, for developing children’s social and emotional competences. Programmes are thus presented to educational settings as tools for coming to terms with various shortcomings and for improving personal traits in children, but also the professional conduct of teachers. These programmes are also often marketed as evidence-based.

With the case being the use of programmes for social and emotional training in two early childhood education settings, the aim of this article is to explore teachers’ experiences and understandings of manual-based programmes and their implications for teachers’ professionalism. Situating this exploration in the intersection of two contemporary currents of ideas coming together in professional culture, therapy culture, and the evidence movement within education, this article will contribute to knowledge about how teachers’ different understandings and uncertainties are brought into, and constitute, a manual-based professionalism.

Empirically this article builds on data from interviews with teachers and participant-observation in a kindergarten and a preschool class¹ in the Swedish educational system.²

Professionalism and professional culture

The scholarly field of professionalism includes a wide spectrum of notions and varying interpretations and definitions (see, for example, Evans, 2008; Evetts, 2014). Defining concepts tends to be about dividing them into separate, and sometimes coexisting, aspects and a typical division is that between professionalisation, which denotes a process through which an occupational group achieves authority, and professionalism, which is about the actual practise within the field of expertise.

The concept of professionalism, according to Evetts (2003, p. 407), addresses the question of occupational value, but also the question of discourse. Evetts (2003, p. 398) describes two different processes of professionalisation through discourse, where one occurs within the group of professionals. This is the group’s own struggle towards professional status where the use of the concept is connected to strategies “from within” that constructs an “occupational identity, promoting its image with clients and customers, and in bargaining with the state to secure and maintain its (sometimes self-) regulatory responsibilities” (Evetts, 2003, p. 407). The other form is termed professionalisation “from above” (ibid.) and describes the efforts of external agents, such as employers and managers of public service organisations, to define professionalism and professional action, to implement policy and to exercise control over the professional group (see also Evetts, 2014:41; Stenlås, 2009, p. 37). In practice, professionalisation from above has brought with it demands for teachers to base their actions on evidence-based research and use evidence-based methods (cf. Levinsson, 2013:113; Smeby, 2014). This is in line with what has been termed “new professionalism”, defined within new public management (NPM) where the autonomy of the professional group has been abandoned in favour of accountability (Evetts, 2003, Evans 2008:21; Stenlås, 2009; Englund & Dyrdal Solbrekke, 2015). Models and programmes labelled as evidence-based thus signal a guarantee of methods that give the most value for money when problems within education are being dealt with (Hammersley, 2004). This rests on ideas about securing “what works”, something that, as I will return to later on, has been a strong incentive for implementing such programmes from above in the early childhood educational settings of the study at hand.

This new professionalism is thereby organisational rather than occupational (Evetts, 2003, p. 407). It can be seen as a means to take control over, and redefine the teaching profession (Stenlås, 2009, p. 26). Manual-based and/or evidence-based methods and models are thus intended to assure and account for the quality of professional teacher activities. To, as Smeby (2014, p. 10) suggests, implement standards or evidence-based practises, such as the use of manual-based programmes in the settings of this article, can be considered as part of this kind of new professionalism.

This organisational professionalism can be said to be at odds with a common understanding of the essence of professionalism that highlights practitioner’s ability to make professional judgements based on solid theoretical knowledge (through education) and on a common code for a group of practitioners as a central aspect (see Evetts, 2003, Evans 2008; Stenlås, 2009; Smeby, 2014; Englund & Dyrdal Solbrekke, 2015). With reference to common codes, professionalism should also be understood as a normative value system, a shared system of expectations about “how to behave, respond, and advice […] reproduced at the micro level in individual practitioners and in the work place in which they work” (Evetts, 2003, p. 401). These are elements that constitute professional culture, emphasised by Evans (2007) as an important aspect of professionalism. Professionalism here is understood as “the identification and expression of what is required and expected of members of a profession” (Ibid.: 25), resting on “a collective notion: as a plurality, shared by many”, where the individuals are the “singular units of professionalism” (Ibid.:25). Professional culture is thus both determined by, and a determiner of, professionalism. It is the sum of all professional individuals and common values within this heterogeneous group (Ibid.:26). In this article, the notion of professional culture opens up a complex understanding of how professionalism is internally constituted.

Cultures are not, however, exclusively self-generating systems. Professional cultures are, through multiple channels, connected to external value systems. They are discursive spaces and actual places where individuals, the singular units of professionalism, come together, linked into complex webs of discourses that also encompass dominant discourses operating from above. This is where ideas are cultivated as to the nature of the problems to confront as professionals, and as to what needs to be done and what professionalism, in effect, comes to be about in practice.

Addressing the question of why some ideas come to be embraced within (professional) culture rather than others Illouz (2008, p. 20), suggests that they have to appear pragmatic within a specific social and cultural context. In order to be adopted by professional culture, they need to be perceived to be able to define and solve the problems they address, to help to “do things” (Ibid.). In order to accomplish this, they have to meet three conditions: They must make sense of the social experience of different actors; they have to provide guidance on uncertain and conflict-ridden areas of social conduct; they must be institutionalised and circulated in social networks (Ibid.).

In this article, two external currents of ideas, internalised into local professional culture, are identified as having relevance for teachers’ understanding and practices concerning manual-based programmes for social and emotional training. One is directly connected to the request from above for the use of evidence-based methods in education (Hammersley, 2004; Levinsson, 2013); the other is ideas finding their way into professional culture, not only from above but from dominant cultural notions, cultivated within what has been referred to as the therapy culture (Furedi, 2004). The intersection between therapy culture and what has been termed the evidence movement will be further elaborated below.

Therapy culture and the evidence movement

Ideas cultivated within a western therapy culture implies a psychologisation of everyday life and the establishing of psychology outside the therapeutic room, in the form of both expertise and layman’s practices as part of a widespread (popular) cultural phenomenon (cf. Furedi, 2004; Hoff Summers & Satel, 2006; Illouz, 2008; Madsen, 2010, Rose, 1999) where talking about, and controlling one´s emotions are celebrated activities. Therapeutic culture can be described as a cultural framework that has had a strong impact on how individuals perceive each other and themselves, both in private and professional settings (Furedi, 2004; Illouz, 2008; Madsen, 2010). Manual-based programmes for social and emotional training speak to one such understanding that can be described as a therapeutic ethos within professional groups, such as teachers (Furedi, 2004). This professional, therapeutic ethos is understood here as a generative force, in constituting part of professional culture, and as a characteristic of professionalism (cf. Evetts, 2014, p. 42). It is informed by discourses on the state of childhood and children in contemporary society: discourses describing children as vulnerable; notions of an increase in children’s mental health problems; and a belief in programmes for social and emotional training as a means to enhance children’s mental well-being (Furedi, 2004, Ecclestone & Hayes, 2009).³

A therapeutic ethos merge here with beliefs in evidence-based practice as a way (or the way) to support teachers in dealing with different educational problems. The idea of the importance of basing educational practices in evidence-based research has been established worldwide. This is described as being part of an evidence movement (Hammersley, 2004; Levinsson, 2013), promoting the transformation of educational practices into evidence-based educational practices. Evidence-based, as a concept, has borrowed authority from the field of medicine and thus brings claims of scientifically founded practices from one area of practice into another. A strongly held idea is that science, through studies based on different levels of randomisation and the use of systematic reviews, presents universal solutions to educational problems in the form of recommendations for an effective practice.

The willingness to adhere to manual-based programmes in order to attend to diverse educational problems, in turn, can be understood to rest on what Rose and Miller (1992, p. 183) describe as a widely shared idea about the real as programmable. This builds on an “intellectual machinery” (Ibid.) for government that consists of theories from different scientific disciplines. It is described as:

/ … /a domain subject to certain determinants, rules, norms and processes that can be acted upon and improved by authorities. They make the objects of government thinkable in such way that their ills appear susceptible to diagnosis, prescription and cure by calculating and normalizing intervention (Rose & Miller, 1992, p. 183).

When diagnosing societal and educational problems, the meta-narratives of these programmes are that mental health problems are increasing; that there is a lack of social skills in children and adolescents of contemporary society. The programmes offer to promote protective factors to counteract presumed dysfunctional family lives and destructive peer relations. Programmes thus instil notions of children and adolescents being “at risk” (see Ecclestone & Hayes, 2009, Barker & Mills, 2017; Gunnarsson, 2015; Kvist Lindholm, 2015; Löf, 2011; Wickström, 2015) and offer teachers' techniques rooted in the field of cognitive behavioural science to develop children’s emotional intelligence through exercising self-knowledge, social competence, empathy, problem-solving, and motivation through the management of emotions.

It is from within professional culture, where ideas stemming from therapy culture and the evidence movement converge, that this article will explore teacher’s understandings and experiences of manual-based programmes for social and emotional training and their implications for teacher professionalism.

Methodology and analysis

This article is based on ethnographic material collected in a preschool class and a kindergarten group. Fieldwork in the kindergarten was conducted through participant observations in a department of this setting for children 3 to 5 years in age over a total of 4 weeks, with additional visits for interviews with teachers and children. Since the activities connected to the programmes at the time of the study were not scheduled, and since the teachers expressed that they worked with social and emotional competences in diverse ways outside programme activities, I chose to participate more fully in the everyday activities in the kindergarten setting. Due to scheduled programme exercises, I participated in the activities of the preschool class once per week for 10 weeks and then made additional visits for interviews with children and teachers. In the kindergarten setting, interviews were conducted with two preschool teachers (interviewed together) and one preschool teacher working as a local programme-coach. In the preschool class setting, I interviewed, two preschool teachers (interviewed individually), and one primary school teacher acting as a local programme coach for the programme used in this setting.

As the ethnographic material is extensive, the scope of this article – questions of professionalism – hone in on one of many possible aspects of teacher’s experiences of manual-based programmes for social and emotional training that emerged in the research material. Interview transcripts, transcripts from audio-recorded exercises, field notes from observations in these settings and the programme materials they used have been analysed. Within this framework, the analysis focuses on aspects of the material where the appropriation of demands from above blends with teachers’ rationalisations as to why and how to use manual-based programmes for social and emotional training. Professional culture and notions of professionalism are thus expressed through the accounts the teachers give of what they are doing (cf. Benhabib, 2002, p. 6). Questions that have guided analysis are thus how rationalisations and understandings of practices related to manual-based programmes appear in interviews with teachers; how what they say relate to different discursive contexts and notions of teacher’s professionalism (cf. Verkuyten, 2004:138ff) and how these accounts are related to a “certain kind of doing” (Benhabib, 2002, p. 6).

Ethics

Participant observation and interviews were conducted after informed consent was obtained from all participating informants. The informed consent from the teachers was a prerequisite for even being able to enter these settings. They were initially contacted through information letters that I gave out during visits to the two settings.

In the next phase, parents were sent letters in which I asked permission for their children to participate. Of 36 children (18 in each setting) in total, the parents of two children did not want their children to participate in the study and the parents of one child did not give permission for their child to be interviewed. As the children were 3 to 6 years in age, no written information could be given to the children themselves. Instead, I informed them during assembly and described my interest in activities connected to the programmes used. I repeatedly emphasised during the time of the fieldwork that things I asked about were not something that they had to adhere to and that they should not hesitate to say no to me if I approached them and they did not want to answer or to be observed. On occasion, this was the case. I avoided observing situations involving children whose parents had declined participation. When exercises were conducted in smaller groups, as they were on most occasions, I chose to follow groups where there were no a priori restrictions related to the group members’ participation in the study.

An invasion of programmes

Before turning to the question of how teacher’s professionalism can be understood in relation to manual-based programmes, a background to the phenomenon and the use of manual-based programmes for social and emotional training within the Swedish educational system is required.

During the first decade of the twenty-first century, the Swedish education system, as part of a global trend, experienced an invasion of programmes for social and emotional training. A majority of the programmes originate from North America or other Anglo-Saxon countries and are all part of what one of the Swedish programme constructors refers to as a “family of life-skills programs” (Kimber, 2011, p. 31). They originate not only from programmes developed in other cultural and/or social contexts but also from the fields of public health and psychology – particularly the subfield of cognitive behavioural science. The designers are most often psychologists, therapists, and representatives from public-health science. These are fields where evidence-based research and models have a strong position.

The implementation of these programmes was initially supported from above by both the National Agency of School Improvement [Myndigheten för skolutveckling] (National Agency for School Improvement, 2011) and the National Institute of Public Health [Folkhälsoinstitutet] (2006, see also Bergh & Englund, 2014). The implementation of programmes was generally prescribed in some Swedish municipalities, while in others they were used at the initiative of head teachers or devoted teachers on a local level. By 2010 and 2011 the use of programmes was questioned in Swedish media, a critique mainly addressing problems concerning the autonomy and integrity of children during programme exercises.⁴ At this point, after an evaluation of a number of life-skill programmes (including the ones used in the settings of this study) with regard to their effectiveness as preventive of bullying, the National Agency of Education (National Agency for Education, 2011) was declaring programmes ineffective, or even counterproductive. The National Agency of School Improvement also criticised a programme reported to the agency by a parent.⁵ But neither the National Agency of Education⁶ nor the National Agency of School Improvement entirely dismissed the use of programmes and it was suggested that they could be used as inspiration or used after critical evaluation with regard to the specific group of children targeted.

The external critique towards several life-skill programmes opened up for revision of how to use programme materials in some municipalities, and in local schools. Some abandoned the use of programmes completely, some stayed with the programmes and still some continued to use programme materials more selectively. In 2017, a spokesperson for the National Agency of Education declared that there were indications that programmes that they had advised against were still in use.⁷

The programmes in this study

In the educational settings of this article, the initiative to implement the programmes came from above, from local governmental organisations, in turn, encouraged by external agents such as the National Agency of School Improvement and the National Board of Health promoting the programmes and programme designers (Bartholdsson, Gustafsson Lundberg, & Hultin, 2014, see also von von Brömsen, 2014, Bergh & Englund, 2014:9f). In interviews with teachers, it appears as though the initial implementation processes were focused on providing information and training teachers in using the programmes. There was no collegial analysis, critical reflection or discussions about the programmes (see also Bartholdsson et al., 2014). The programmes were thus easily, and for the most part without critical evaluation, incorporated into the kindergarten and the preschool class settings. Or, as one kindergarten teacher stated in an interview: “We were an easy sell”

The two programmes, StegVis and SET (Social and Emotional Training), referred to in this article are the ones that were used in the two different research settings. The StegVis programme (Löwenborg & Gíslason, 2010a, b)⁸ was used in the kindergarten setting. The StegVis material is designed for children 4–6 years old. StegVis has been developed from the American programme Second Step via a Danish version of that programme, Trin for Trin (see also Bartholdsson, 2019). The designers of the StegVis programme conclude on their website that based on evaluations done outside of Sweden, “one could argue that StegVis has a solid base of evidence” (Löwenborg & Gíslason, 2014).⁹

The StegVis exercises are organised according to written instructions on the back of large black-and-white photo cards, so-called “lesson cards”, that are held up in front of the children. The cards illustrate different emotions and/or situations where these should be managed. On the back of each card, teachers are instructed as to the aim of the exercise, what to say to the children, what questions to ask and which answers are desirable or correct. In addition, there is a teacher’s manual in which the theoretical basis of the programme is outlined, and instructions are given on how to implement the programme.

The programme used in the preschool class is Social and Emotional Training (SET) (Kimber, 2008), developed from the two American programmes Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies, (PATHS) and Botvind’s Life Skills Training (BLT). The designer of the SET programme argues in length on her website that the two original North American programmes are firmly research/evidence-based and that the Swedish version should not be considered any less so (Kimber, 2014).¹⁰

The SET programme consists of teacher manuals that introduce the ideas and theoretical basis of the programme and instruct teachers on how to carry out the exercises with the children. It also includes children’s workbooks, where children personalise their social and emotional training through writing or drawings dealing with the topic of the current exercise.

Both programmes thus present themselves as having an evidence base and both emphasise the importance of teachers adhering to the strict outline of the programmes in order to gain the promised effects.

“But this is what it looks like in society at large”

The teachers in the two early childhood settings of this article all initially welcomed programmes into their professional practice. They described a general scarcity of working materials to strengthen aspects of their work with the children, and thus welcomed the programme materials. The programmes were thought to address relevant problems and considered useful tools for working with emotions and social relations (conflicts, bullying, building friendships, etc.). These problems were discursively formulated in interviews with the teachers. The coach for the SET programme in the preschool class setting explained the need for programmes for social and emotional training:

But this is what it looks like in society at large. That the problems increase: that the children become more stressed and more worried and there are more and more people who cannot control their emotions. In each group of children, there are some who have these outbursts of rage. And this has escalated. So, I think it is based on these things that you should use some form of programme or what you should call it.

This societal diagnosis coincides with the meta-narratives of the programmes. To learn to talk about emotions, particularly strong emotions and predominantly anger, to identify them, name them, and eventually learn to express them in a positively sanctioned manner, is at the core of the programmes. To a question about why the SET programme should be used, one of the teachers in the preschool class responded that it was about “getting in touch with your emotions in some way. To gain insight”. The programmes thus offer ways to professionally manage an increase in children who are strained and anxious and children that need to get in touch with and control their emotions.

Another related discourse that appeared when teachers explained the need for programmes like SET, emphasise children of today as lacking respect or social competence. One of the teachers in the preschool class explains:

Teacher:

I think children are much more disrespectful now than they were before.

Interviewer:

Towards whom?

Teacher:

Towards each other and towards adults.

Interviewer:

Okay. And what do you mean by before? When is earlier?

Teacher:

Can’t set any time frame like this but … I am thinking of a child here who calls me and other people, both adults and children, pussy and whore and such things. So, children didn’t say such things to each other, and especially not to adults back in the day. They didn’t.

Interviewer:

But are there many children doing it?

Teacher:

No, it was a lot … Or yes … Not everyone. Of course not. A couple of kids. But now I’m thinking especially of one child, perhaps, who has been extreme.

Interviewer:

But in the past, is it ten years ago or twenty years ago or …

Teacher:

Ten years ago, maybe. […] Children are more ill-bred nowadays [laughter], in any case [more] than they were before. But I can’t really say in what way, huh. I can’t find a good word for it now. And it’s all about us [adults] working so much. The children spend their time at school, in leisure class and in kindergarten, so the responsibility for upbringing is handed over to society. That’s what I think.

Present here are discourses about children and adolescents “today”, but also about parents’ lack of time and involvement with their children, and the subsequent identification of children’s needs, leading to an understanding of a teaching profession that has come to be about upbringing; to compensate for societal and parental shortcomings. This is performed with the aid of manual-based programmes promoting professional focus on children’s emotional competences. The programmes can thus be understood to, on a discursive level, fit into teachers’ social experiences, supporting a therapeutic ethos, and provide guidance (cf. Illouz, 2008, p. 20). The use of manual-based programmes for social and emotional training acknowledges the idea of the real as programmable (Rose & Miller, 1992) and addresses a therapeutic ethos incorporated into professional culture and notions of teacher professionalism.

“‘Obviously, i’m not a pro’”

Even though the teachers of this study shared notions of programmes being useful and of what they should accomplish, they described limited knowledge of the theoretical basis and the aims of the programmes as presented in the teachers' manuals. Instead, the teachers expressed a rather pragmatic and instrumental stance towards the programmes. This is explained in an interview with the two kindergarten teachers that described how the StegVis programme, marketed as being easy to use, was introduced to them during their short, one-evening introductory course:

We might have felt it already when [the programme coach] was here to introduce it: “Ah, you can just follow [the instructions on] the card. It says exactly what you should do.” She said it jokingly, like: “Yes, you have a migraine one day, but it doesn’t matter. It’s just [for you] to go on, like this … so you’re good.” It was, of course, a joke, but still it was … it was just to … ehm … yeah.

Manuals were thus introduced and encouraged as resources with hands-on instructions on how to mechanically conduct a particular exercise with the children. The manual guides the doing, and this doing is presented as being possible without the person having to be fully mentally present. This “joke” was however not so far from being a serious notion of how to use the programme materials. In an informal discussion during fieldwork in the kindergarten, the programme coach who instructed the teachers in the StegVis/Start programme also used the metaphor “washing instructions” to describe how the programme could be understood. The logic is: you just wash accordingly, and the laundry will not shrink. Translated back to the programme arena, this implies that you, as a teacher, can trust the intentions of the programme designers and just “proceed” with the doing. Here we can see a devaluation of the teacher’s professional judgement in favour of a detached and mechanical approach to developing children’s social and emotional competences. The designers should be trusted by the teachers to deliver a product that could be used without any deeper understanding on their part. During the interviews, some of the teachers reflected on this lack of knowledge regarding the premises of the programmes used. One teacher in the preschool class explained:

Teacher:

You trust that this is something good. But I actually don’t know. Obviously, I’m not a pro. You do what you think is right. That’s how it is. And the manual is the book that you have. There is an instruction manual … as you know …

Interviewer:

This introduction?

Teacher:

Of course, I can use that.

Interviewer:

But have you studied it? Read about the basis for the programme […]? Or how do you use it?

Teacher:

I have more like used … Well, I have of course been reading it. Then I use it before each … Well, if we are going to work with the emotion anger, so a little about how to think and what questions to ask and … yeah, for each session. Yes, no, I have not familiarised myself with it, no. I have not done that.

This teacher is literally de-professionalising herself as she “is not a pro”. Instead, she relies on the programme to represent something good and hence work as “one thinks is right”, following instructions for each exercise. Here the expertise of the programme constructors overtrumps her own professional judgement.

Another version of thinking that the programme represents something good and a proper way of working with social and emotional training appears in an interview with another teacher in the preschool class. When asked what she thought about the problems addressed in the programme manual, that there is an increase in criminality, violence, and drug abuse in contemporary society, she responded with a question:

Teacher:

does it say that?

Interviewer:

Yes, it does.

Teacher:

It does? Mm …

[Interviewer continues to refer to the text in the manual about compensating for parental shortcomings, working with children’s self-esteem and developing protective factors]

Teacher:

It was so long ago that I read the, [programme] description, the introduction. But these things are fundamentally in you as a human being, at least for me. In some way.

Here the programme is assumed to represent common sense and essential understandings that all humans share, be they laymen or experts. This can be interpreted as yet another way of undermining her own professional status, working with children’s social and emotional lives.

In the above, the question of trust in, rather than evaluation of, programmes as providers of relevant diagnoses and means to intervene in order to respond to the problems are discursively intersecting with a therapeutic ethos. It appears, however, that this merging of ideas is undermining, rather than supporting teacher professionalism as they are reduced to performers steered by experts in other fields of knowledge than early childhood education.

As seen in the interviews above, the lack of knowledge of the foundations and the aims of the programmes and particular exercises appeared to be something of a non-question. In some interviews, however, a somehow uncomfortable experience of being just a doer was expressed. This will be explored next.

“But if you abandon the manual … ”

Even though there had been no collegial critical discussions when the programmes were introduced in the settings of this article, the external critique towards several life-skill programmes, mentioned above, had opened up for revision of how to use the programme materials. Prior to the study at hand, both settings had, to varying degrees, abandoned the prescribed strict schedule of the programme and had started to pick exercises in response to what was relevant in the everyday activities of the kindergarten. Starting from a therapeutic ethos, selectivity meant that they picked exercises according to what socio-emotional skill they thought the children needed to process at a particular time. This was all in line with the recommendations from the National Agency of Education, mentioned earlier, who suggested that it was a good thing to pick parts of programmes for specific interventions.

Teachers in both settings stated during interviews that the selective approach towards the programme materials was a consequence of their experiences of being uncomfortable when it came to perform some of the exercises in actual situations with the children. One teacher in the kindergarten explained:

I sometimes think that it seems a bit artificial. It feels a bit constrained because we are out of practice, […] when it comes to working according to methods and teaching materials [in kindergarten]. But still … we bought it.

Apart from not being used to working with manuals, the kindergarten teachers described how they considered some exercises to be too advanced and how some exercises were too repetitive. They also acknowledged that they felt as though the children often adapted to expectations and were eager to find the right answer during exercises. They also experienced that many children found the exercises boring.

In the preschool class, the teachers appeared more dedicated to the programmes even though they thought that some exercises were too repetitive and that some exercises were inadequate. One teacher describes this:

I think it is difficult. I feel that the manual is difficult. And I think some … it gets repetitive. It’s too much. In that respect you could be critical: How shall we do this? How are the children to cope with this? That is what I sometimes think. We have to make it easier and shorter. They are so small; it is too much.

The modification mainly served to make the programme more doable, applied to children’s capacities by making exercises simpler and less repetitive. The teachers in the preschool class thus made some modifications excluding some exercises, but in general, they thought it was important to work with children’s social and emotional competencies and that it was good to have a manual to work with. They also continued to schedule exercises every Tuesday morning.

The teachers in both settings thus practiced a partial independence in relation to the programmes when it came to selection of exercises. But not being rooted in the premises of the programmes was something that led to uncertainty about what could happen if they abandoned the order of exercises presented in the manuals and the instructions in particular exercises. In this latter respect, teachers tended to comply with the instructions given by the programme. One of the preschool class teachers described how she had concerns about what “could go wrong” if she was to abandon the strict outline of the programme or an exercise. Here she is asked to elaborate on this in an interview:

Interviewer:

But when you worry about things that could go wrong, that it could … What are you thinking? What could go wrong? Could you … ?

Teacher:

No, it’s not that it could go wrong. No, it can’t, so you have to trust that you think the right thing. No, but I often feel somehow that I could do something better. But if you abandon the manual … Of course, I think: If we do this our own way – is that good? When there is a book to stick to, and we abandon it, it might … if you do, that we might not get the results that are intended when you to follow the manual strictly.

The authority of the programmes as evidence-based and developed by professionals in areas where the teachers are not experts instils uncertainty about how to work with exercises that are perceived to be questionable. This external expertise appears to outweigh the feeling that “I could do some things better”. The teachers, therefore, adapted the choice of exercises in different ways to the situations at hand, but had concerns about not following the order of the manuals and thus not getting the effects that are assured by following “washing instructions”.

After loosening up the strict scheduling of exercises and adapting a more selective approach towards which exercises to use, the teachers’ concerns about not adhering to the instructions of the manuals lingered. This will be illustrated through an account of an actual exercise below.

If John swings at high speed … ? – an exercise

As I have previously mentioned, the kindergarten teachers acknowledged that the children often adapted to what they thought were the right answers during exercises. During fieldwork, it was apparent that the kindergarten children were well aware of the design of the programme, since they knew that the question and the right answers were available to the teachers on the back of the large photo cards used during exercises. From experience, they also knew that the teachers were bound to the texts as they read on the back of the cards during exercises. Once, for example, when the children were asked what they thought about the mood of a girl appearing on one such picture, one of the girls in the kindergarten group sighed and said to the teacher: “But doesn’t is say on the back of the card?”

The programmes were instructive, not only with regards to what to say during exercises but also through the stereotyped pictures of faces expressing different emotions. These not only worked for learning to recognise emotional expressions but also served as instructions for children on how to perform these emotions when asked to in particular exercises. This became apparent as the expected emotional responses and the prescribed emotional expressions were challenged when children contributed to exercises with their own real-life experiences of different emotional states. One example of this is when a group of kindergarten children was asked to talk about how they reacted emotionally in particular situations presented by the teacher, following the instructions on the back of a lesson card aiming, according to the programme, to develop children’s empathy:

Teacher:

Now, you are going to show me: If Amy goes out into the rain, then she’ll get … ?

Multiple answers:

Wet!

Teacher:

If Jenny eats all the cookies in the jar, then she will get … ?

Jenny:

A stomach ache.

Teacher:

If Alice is in the woods and hides behind a tree, then we won’t be able to … ?

Multiple answers:

See her.

Teacher:

If John swings at high speed …

Mary:

He will fall off.

Teacher:

Wait and let John answer.

John:

Then I’ll jump all the way up to the roof.

Teacher:

There is no roof.

John:

Then I’ll jump onto the balcony.

The teacher now tells a story of a boy who jumped from a swing at high speed and hurt himself.

Teacher:

If Jeremy goes out in the snow in his swimming trunks, he’ll get … ?

Mary:

Sick!

Teacher:

What do you say, Jeremy?

Jeremy:

I’ll freeze.

Teacher:

Yes, you’ll freeze. And if Annie gives Ellen a hug, she’ll be happy. If Mary loses her doll, she’ll get … ?

Mary:

I would be sad.

Teacher:

Now you should all make the faces: If I told you that today you will get the biggest ice creams you’ve ever seen?

All the children make faces with big smiles.

Teacher:

If someone pushes you?

Jenny:

I’d get mad.

Mary:

I’d get sad.

John:

I would be glad if it was a waterslide.

Teacher:

But there is no water.

Jenny:

I would be angry.

Teacher addresses Jeremy.

Teacher:

If I brought a giant and dangerous snake … ?

Jeremy mimics the emotion “scared” as it is presented on the card for the exercise dealing with this emotion, biting his nails and raising his shoulders.

John:

I would eat it.

The questions to ask and the answers warranted were printed on the back of the card and guided the teacher in performing the exercise. The contexts of the situations discussed were repeatedly adjusted by the teacher so that the instructions on the back of the card could be followed. There was no encouragement of the children’s own, alternative responses, such as enjoying something that you should not, or alternative contextualisation, such as “when it is a water slide”. The programme exercise promoted simplifications as to how one should respond, at the expense of a complex understanding of what could prompt which emotions. For both children and teachers, the purpose of the exercises became doing and saying the right thing.

The teachers were thus tied to the prescribed procedures, and the real-life experiences of children needed to be corrected and directed into narratives that would make the programme activities successful (see also Bartholdsson, 2014). The teachers appeared locked in the instructions of the manuals, even though they applied exercises selectively, and appeared to lose sight of the complexity of the social and emotional realm of children’s lives, as they strived to maintain the narrow contextual frames presented by the programmes. In the end, the exercises came to be more about the children’s performances of emotional expressions and about teachers executing a manual-based professionalism.

Conclusion

The aim of this article was to explore teachers’ experiences and understandings of manual-based programmes and their implications for teachers’ professionalism. It started from an understanding of professional culture as being in a continuous relationship with dominant cultural notions and discourses in society at large. These connections are manifested, not only through policy expectations from above (Evett, 2003) but also through how the singular units, the individuals of professional culture, are social and cultural agents who bring with them input to what eventually become shared values within this particular context.

As culturally dominant discourses find their way into the collective notions of professional culture, reinforcing a sense of professional calling – a therapeutic ethos – manual-based programmes for social and emotional training can be understood as making sense of actors’ social experiences (cf. Illouz, 2008), that is; notions of contemporary childhood as a state of risk and vulnerability, populated by morally erroneous children without respect. So programmes are trusted by the teachers of the study to address relevant problems, to come to terms with rude or aggressive children; parental shortcomings and/or bring children into contact with their emotions, and to offer effective methods for dealing with these problems.

This ethos is thus nourished by dominant discourses derived from therapy culture, but also from ideas of the real as programmable (cf. Rose & Miller, 1992). As such, manual-based programmes make sense, as they correspond to expectations from above, advocating evidence-based methods in general and, in the cases of this article, promoting professional focus on children’s social and emotional competences in particular. Here we see new groups of school-external expertise developing methods marketed as being successful in achieving the stated aims and as easy-to-use as interventions for addressing diverse problems among children and adolescents. As the teachers rationalise the use of manual-based programmes with benevolent references to children’s needs as well as their own general wish for additional support in the form of teaching materials, the programme manuals work as external authorities. These create uncertainty in the teachers of this study, thus keeping them prisoners of detailed instructions even after abandoning the strict scheduling of the programme. The manual-based programmes are hence not just interventions in children’s emotional lives, but interventions in the teachers’ occupational conduct, disrupting teacher professionalism through routinisation and standardisation, lessening the space for using professional judgement and the enactment of autonomy (cf. Stenlås, 2009, p. 39).

In the settings of this study, the modification of the use of programmes was not extended to professional judgement in the form of critical evaluations of the aims and the premises of the programme or particular exercises. Instead, teachers trusted the programmes to represent unproblematic ideas on why, how and what is needed in order to develop children’s social and emotional competence. Not being familiar with the premises of the programmes, teachers focused on how to execute programme exercises and whether their own modifications might possibly disturb expected outcomes. Here, the teacher’s own professional knowledge and judgement, rather than that of the external expertise, is questioned in an act of subordination to the programme manuals. So rather than reinforcing professionalism, the programmes can be said to operate within the realm of a New Professionalism, promoting a top-down, mechanical version of teacher professionalism: a professionalism that, above all, is about just doing (cf. Hammersley, 2004:3, Biesta, 2007:8ff). A twice devalued professionalism, externally (from above) as well as internally (from within), thus emerges through the interviews and the observations.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Åsa Bartholdsson

Åsa Bartholdsson is a social anthropologist and an associate professor at Department of Child and Youth Studies, Stockholm University. Among her research interests are power relations, socialisation and processes of normalisation within educational settings and the impact of therapy culture on education.

Notes

1. Preschool class is the first year of school that takes place in the primary school building; pupils are typically 6 years old. Kindergarten is used here for day-care institutions for children aged 1–5 years old.

2. This is a part study within a wider research project examining children’s and teachers’ experiences of working with manual-based programmes for social and emotional training (see Bartholdsson et al., 2014).

3. This kind of politics of emotions, an institutionalisation of therapeutic politics (see, for example, Brunila & Siivonen, 2014; Furedi, 2004; Illouz, 2008; Madsen, 2010) and the rise of therapeutic education (see, for example, Boler, 1999, Ecclestone & Hayes 2009; Dahlstedt, Fejes, & Schonning, 2011; Englund & Englund, 2012; Axelsson & Qvarsebo 2014; Bartholdsson & Hultin, 2015; Irisdotter Aldenmyr, 2014; Kvist Lindholm, 2015; Gunnarsson, 2015, Pettersvold & Ostrem 2019) has become a focus within social and educational science over the first decades of the 21st century.

4. See for example https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?artikel=4206984 .

5. https://skolvarlden.se/artiklar/skolinspektionen-kritisk-mot-set .

6. https://www.skolverket.se/statistik-och-utvardering/utvarderingar/vardegrundsfragor/utvardering-av-metoder-mot-mobbning-1.126081 .

7. 2017-12-28 http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=406&artikel=6633706 och http://skolvarlden.se/artiklar/skolor-anvander-kritiserade-antimobbningsprogram.

8. This programme has since the study ended been reworked into a new version named Stegen.

9. This is based on evaluations done of the American, the German, and the Norwegian versions. Quote translated from Swedish, 2014-08-20 http://www.gislasonlowenborg.com/StegVis.html).

10. (2014-08-20 http://www.birgittakimber.se/birgittakimber/extern/forskning.htm). This is posted after a media critique that questioned the level of evidence in Kimber’s programme.