Grades in the eyes of our parents: a narrative approach to educational resilience in pupils’ stories of getting their first grades

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Transcript 1 School Beta
1	Interviewer	Do you talk a lot about it [grades] at home then?
2	C	All three of us have parents from the same country and we have a
3		reputation that our parents want us to have the highest [grades] and when
4		we have a test they force us to sit with our hand-outs until we… yes all
5		day long. And then we get home with a bit lower test [results] than they
6		expected and then… yes, it’s not that fun anymore.
7	Interviewer	So the parents join forces a little?
8	C	Yes, at least ours, we are cousins as well.
9	D	They talk a lot about grades.
10	E	A lot of talk about grades in front of the relatives.
11	C	We try to explain. It is not that easy to get that grade but they say, “well,
12		you have to”. It doesn’t work, we try to explain.
13	D	One of us [short interruption]. Our parents haven’t been in Sweden for long,
14		you know.
15	C	They stress us more than our teachers do [short interruption]
16	Interviewer	Okay.
17	D	They don’t know how it works.
18	Interviewer	So, your parents expect you to get better grades?
19	E	You know, B is not a good [grade] in their eyes. [laugh]
20	Interviewer	[laugh]
21	C	And when you say and just, “at least I got an E” [pass] they believe it is a
22		fail grade. I have no idea? I think I’ll take mother to a talk [in school].
23	Interviewer	Can you explain to them then, how it works here?
24	E	We try but it doesn’t work.
25	D	We have done that but after a month they say it again. It’s like they
26		ignore what I said.

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Transcript 2 School Beta
27	Interviewer	But would you say that there is a difference in the country that your
28		parents come from and here in what you have to do to get a good
29		grade? They had a kind of different strategies that worked there but that
30		you can’t use here?
31	D	There, you know, they were like afraid of the teachers. They beat the
32		children, you see.
33	C	Yes, because [country name excluded] was not like that, you didn’t
34		have any rights and you had nothing to do except studying all day.
35	D	And the teachers mustn’t see the children outdoors if they had
36		homework. If the teacher saw that they would…
37	C	Not go well.
38	Interviewer	I see. So they studied a lot at home when they grew up and then
39		they think it’s just a case of doing it?
40	C	In our class we also have longer to study and to do homework while
41		they just had a day. That’s why we kind of spread it out.
42	D	In school we usually don’t get so much homework and when you get
43		home mother usually says, “but sit down and work then”. You tell her
44		that we don’t have any homework today, but, “you have to sit down
45		and work”. They believe that it’s done the same way as in [name of
46		country excluded], that you get a lot of homework and have to sit and
47		work. But it’s not the same [here].
48		[A complicated discussion about homework is omitted here]
49	E	We were at my cousins’ house and everybody was sitting and talking
50		about grades and we became really annoyed with them because they
51		don’t understand that it is hard to get good grades and you/they get
52		angry and start yelling.
53	C	Actually, it is a bit tough that the whole family pick on you just
54		because you got a C. They think it is bad. Perhaps it’s not fantastic but
55		it’s better than nothing.
56	Interviewer	So it’s [grades] a pretty hot issue in your home?
57	C	O my god, yes! [laugh]

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Transcript 3 School Alfa
1	Interviewer	Do you only talk about grades when you got them? Like, how did it go?
2	C	Yes, but if there’s a school subject that you feel you’re not good at,
3		but that you feel is important to you. Then you perhaps tell your mum
4		or dad to help you study. But otherwise in any case I haven’t
5		talked so much before [I got the grades], mostly
6		afterwards.
7	B	Yes. Parents also have rather high expectations about, a kind of, not
8		having too low grades. That was even written in Metro [a newspaper].
9		Yes so… you want to please yourself and others
10	Interviewer	But do they express for example expectations, do they tell you that
11		you have to study?
12	B	Yes. Yes my mother can’t like help me but… yes and then she ask what
13		I have done and perhaps read through and often give me a pep talk.
14	C	My parents don’t have… or of course they have high expectations but
15		they… it’s not like they don’t care. But if I, as long as I’m pleased they
16		are pleased.
17	E	However, my parents usually compare like G, VG and MVG. They think
18		that A is like MVG, but actually A is harder to get. At least according to
19		the teachers. And then you become like, if we say that you got for
20		example a B. They think that possibly you could have got an A if you
21		had been working harder. “That’s not too hard.” Yes, but … yes it
22		actually is [too hard]
23	B	They haven’t really understood what…
24	E	Yes, because they have had another grading system. Like one, two,
25		three, four, five.
26	B	But it is also good, however, that we have more, like diverse [grades].
27	C	Yes because then you see. But I have also experienced that some
28		[pupils] in the class, a kind of, if they get a B they think, yes but I could
29		have got an A instead. But I think that you should be pleased with it.
30		Because it’s still the second best and it is a really great effort that you
31		have managed to do that.
32	B	When we had got our first grades and something, then I was like… One
33		girl was sitting on the sofa and like cried because she got a B. And she
34		got worse, then it’s not good.
35		[Noisy disturbance]
36	C	But yes… yes we encourage each other to try harder. But anyhow, we
37		usually anyhow, or at least I usually if I ask anything, I ask how they
38		think it went instead of asking what grade she or he got. If you are
39		pleased or dissatisfied. And that is very different, some can be very, very
40		pleased with an E and others can be rather dissatisfied with an E. So it is
41		different from person to person, and then I think that the most important
42		thing is if one is pleased or not.

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Transcript 4 School Gamma
1	L	Obviously it is good to get used to get grades, but I still think that, even if
2		they don’t count I think that we get very, very stressed. I don’t think that
3		we would be that stressed if if we were a bit older. Because now it feels
4		like, yes. This is the last school year at this school and we, now it will be
5		like this. And it will be quite a lot of grades and it will definitely be very
6		bad and I have to become super-duper good.
7	F	And I don’t want to lower my grades and I have to keep on. And you have
8		to put a stress on you so you don’t lower your grades and so…
9	B	I’m not afraid of, I don’t care at all if I don’t raise my grades. But it’s like,
10		I’m afraid of getting lowered.
11	F	Yes, so am I.
12	B	And it’s so tough, now almost every lesson is like. The last one, I almost
13		think about…
14	L	I will fail everything.
15	B	How good do I feel this lesson? It’s like, I become very stressed.
16	F	Yes. But, anyhow, it’s good to know your position. But however, that’s
17		something you can get in control of anyway, so it’s a bit tough getting
18		grades.
19	L	And still, my mum told me about her grades with the ones and the fives
20		or whatever, and she said that they could run out of fives so you got a
21		four instead…
22	B	What do you mean, run out?
23	L	Yeah, well, you know like, X got a five, so you can’t get a five L, kind of,
24		even if I actually could, what if it was like that now, can you imagine…
25	F	A five, which was the best and hard to get then, that was probably like a
26		C or a B, so and A is like super hard to get, and an MVG, that’s also like a C
27		or a B, so that’s kind of what… An MVG, you’d be so pleased if you got an
28		MVG, but you could get that if you had two things at the lower level and
29		two at the highest you could get an MVG but now we can’t, now we can’t
30		get… Yeah, so maybe it’s a bit like the other grading systems aren’t as,
31		maybe you don’t get as stressed about them since it’s easier to get a
32		higher grade, now it’s so hard to get high grades