Voices of special educators in Sweden: a total-population study

Abstract

Background: There are two occupational groups in Sweden that are expected to have significant impact on educational work related to children in need of special support. These two groups are special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs) and special education teachers. In this paper, we use the collective name ‘special educators’ to refer to both groups. Special educators are expected to have specific knowledge regarding the identification of, and work with, school difficulties. However, there is noticeably little research concerning these occupational groups. This study was undertaken in order to further our knowledge about special educators’ work.

Purpose: The overall purpose of the present paper is to provide a first overview of special educators’ work. The paper investigates these special educators’ perceptions of their occupational role, of their preparedness for the role and of how their role is practised. The paper also illuminates questions about SENCOs’ and special education teachers’ knowledge and values as well as the grounds for the occupational groups to claim special expertise related to the identification of, and work with, school difficulties.

Design and method: A questionnaire was sent out in 2012 to all SENCOs and special education teachers in Sweden who received their degree from 2001 onwards and in accordance with the Swedish examination acts of 2001, 2007 and 2008 (N = 4252, 75% response rate).

Results: According to the results, special educators state that they are well prepared to work with some tasks, such as counselling, leading development work and teaching children/pupils individually or in groups. Concurrently, there are tasks that the groups are educated for (e.g. school-development work), which they seldom practise in their daily work.

Conclusions: Primarily using reasoning concerning jurisdictional control, we discuss SENCOs’ and special education teachers’ authority to claim special expertise in relation to certain kinds of work, clients and knowledge and thus, their chances of gaining full jurisdictional control in the field of special education.

Keywords:

• special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs)
• special education teachers
• special educators
• occupational role
• profession
• jurisdictional control

Acknowledgements

This study is part of a larger research project called Special professions? – A project about special-education teachers’ and special educational needs coordinators’ education and work. The project is funded by the Swedish Research Council, project number: 2011-5986.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.