In between self-knowledge and school demands: policy enacted in the Swedish middle-year classroom

Abstract

In this article, we focus on the interaction in a Year 5 classroom where students fill in a ‘self-evaluation form’ as a preparation for a forthcoming discussion on progress aiming at the production of an Individual Developmental Plan. Drawing on the theoretical concepts of fabrications and performativity, we understand this as an enactment of policy where both teacher and students become actors and subjects. From using document analysis together with conversation analysis as a methodological approach, we show how the ‘self-evaluation’ in interaction becomes a successful exercise in fabrications as teacher and student negotiate conceptions of the ideal student in relation to self-knowledge and school demands. The article is an empirically grounded contribution to the understanding of how policies are interpreted and made into being by local actors in everyday practices, in this case teachers and students in schools.

Keywords:

• policy enactment
• fabrication
• policy artefacts
• self-evaluation
• classroom interaction
• applied conversation analysis