Teachers’ Facebook rebellion groups: sites for professional collegial deliberation?

ABSTRACT

This study examines conversations in a Swedish teachers’ School Rebellion (SR) group on Facebook, a group that attracts members who wish to engage in activism for a different and better Swedish school system and improved conditions for teachers. The phenomenon of teachers’ Rebellion Facebook groups is relatively new. It has emerged in several countries over the past decade and clearly differs from traditional online teacher collaboration and professional development groups. Placing the Swedish SR initiative in the context of discussions on changing teacher professionalism over the last decade, the aim of this study is to examine what content is given presence in SR posts and how it is discussed by members, and to determine the extent to which the communication between the participating teachers has the potential to strengthen collective professionalism. To this end, curriculum theory and the concept of deliberative communication are combined to address questions of content and various relations between actors and levels, such as power and responsibility issues. The analysis shows that many topics related to teaching and education appear in the conversations, deliberative approaches vary from what is termed pre-deliberative to deliberative and even counter-deliberative. Although all participants have a voice, the administrators’ role is shown to be of special interest. Based on these findings, the administrators’ responsibility to maintain professional collegial deliberation is discussed as a complex mission of deliberation over political, pedagogical, and practical issues.

KEYWORDS:

• Teachers
• Facebook rebellion groups
• curriculum theory
• deliberative communication
• teachers’ collective professionalism

Introduction

This study investigates the activities of a Facebook group of Swedish teachers called School Rebellion (SR). During the spring of 2021, SR gained momentum as a new and rapidly growing rebellion group. Within a short time, the number of members increased from a few hundred to around 5,000. The group attracted members who wished to engage in activism for a different and better Swedish school system and improved conditions for teachers. However, as we continuously followed the group’s activities, we noticed that the number of posts seemed to decrease and that more active conversations between members faded out. Instead of authentic discussions about teachers’ working conditions, the posts shifted to containing links to other people’s posts and articles on various media websites. These preliminary empirical observations called for a better understanding, thus constituting important starting points for this article.

The Swedish SR initiative can be placed in the broader context of the last decade’s discussions on changing teacher professionalism (Bergh & Arneback, 2019; Gewirtz et al., 2009). In an era of rapid policymaking, it has been reported that recent education reforms have “reconstituted teachers’ work and professionalism” in many countries (Hardy et al., 2019, p. 362) and have made teachers feel constrained and controlled by a range of demands. In Sweden, teachers’ autonomy has changed to a weakened and more fragile status since the 1990s (Wermke & Forsberg, 2017). Not least, the school’s privatisation has led to teachers largely being controlled by various employing actors who have created “differentiated and heterogeneous working conditions in a complex compound” (Parding & Berg-Jansson, 2022, p. 56). Moreover, accountability policies intertwined with new ways of differentiating education through juridification have changed the conditions for teachers’ professional work, and important questions have been raised about the consequences for professional values and ethics (Afdal & Afdal, 2019; Bergh & Forsberg, 2023). In England and Wales, it has been argued that teachers’ commitments have been eroded by bureaucratic changes, impacting issues of professional identity and negatively affecting teachers’ mental health and well-being (Skinner et al., 2021). In relation to changing teacher professionalism, especially in the current times of uncertainty, Mooney Simmie (2023) questions the idea of teachers’ professional learning (TPL) and development as a linear evidence-based process. Taking arguments about limitations and dilemmas in TPL as a starting point, she asks whose knowledge counts and whether there are other ways of framing TPL beyond mainstream literature within the field.

In this context, it is hardly surprising that teachers engage and see a need for collective meeting places. On the one hand, the past few decades have witnessed a general increase in face-to-face teacher networks, groups, and collectives in many countries. On the other hand, given the widespread use of technological resources, it is unsurprising that the use of digital technologies has become increasingly central. A critical question, however, is whether, in line with Mooney Simmie’s (2023) proposition, forums such as SR can contribute to new ways of framing TPL. In a systematic review of studies on online teacher communication, Lantz-Andersson et al. (2018) found that Facebook and similar social media are associated with “expectations of mass connectivity and empowerment of teachers around the world” (p. 303) and are used by teachers who wish to share ideas and content relevant to their profession. Two conclusions of this systematic review are of particular relevance to our study. First, the empirical understanding of online communities remains limited despite their popularity for professional purposes. Second, such communities are shaped by broader economic, political, cultural, and social contexts of teaching that have been particularly influenced by the changing nature of teachers’ work over the past 20 years.

Against this background, the aim of this study is to examine what content is given presence in SR posts and how it is discussed by members and to determine the extent to which the communication between the participating teachers has the potential to strengthen collective professionalism. To this end, we combine curriculum theory and the concept of deliberative communication.

Research overview: teachers’ Facebook discussions

The phenomenon of teachers exchanging experiences on social media has been studied for decades as a form of teacher collaboration and professional development aimed at sharing good teaching practices and solving practical problems (Goodyear et al., 2019; Liljekvist et al., 2021; Selvi, 2020). Selvi (2020, p. 265) described such groups as “a digital teachers’ lounge” for socialisation purposes, wherein the private and the professional are blurred. Even if the number of participants exceeds 1,000, thereby giving a group a certain status, most participants remain invisible. This requires closer attention, as the large number of participants in online groups makes it difficult to detect posts that deviate from the groups’ purposes. High-status individuals may “hijack” the discussions in a group, directing them in a way that is not representative of the group (Goodyear et al., 2019). Such domineering behaviour requires specific skills on the part of moderators to be able to manage group dynamics. Hillman et al. (2021) described the dual role of supporting participation while maintaining community standards as tricky. Studies with large numbers of participants have suggested enabling smaller groups to develop richer professional relations and deeper discussions and for researchers and administrators to gain a better understanding of the affordances and constraints of social media. Besides the benefits of sharing experiences, one outcome of the discussions in teachers’ collaboration and development groups on Facebook is that the experiences per se enable teachers to establish offline groups to continue the discussions (Goodyear et al., 2019).

Rebellion groups on Facebook

Research on rebellion or similar groups is limited, although there are numerous social media groups in which people discuss broad democracy issues, such as women’s rights or specific political issues (Khazraee & Novak, 2018). According to McKeon and Gitomer (2019), teachers’ Facebook groups, such as Save Our Schools and test refusal groups, exhibited the highest growth among all public Facebook groups in the USA in 2016. However, “looking at public Facebook groups only illuminates the tip of the iceberg” (McKeon & Gitomer, 2019, p. 6), as most groups are not public. In the USA, Badass Teachers Association (BAT; www.badassteacher.org) gathers approximately 70,000 teachers in a private Facebook activist group aiming to fight for public education and to protest against education reforms (Kramer, 2017). Teachers’ unions (TUs) in the USA are considered to be in a weak position, which has offered BAT’s Facebook group the opportunity to arrange strikes and other offline grassroots teacher protests (Eden, 2018). Importantly, the online discussions held in preparation for strikes have been “extraordinarily democratic, especially in contrast to the secretive functioning of officers and staff of the state unions” (Bhattacharya et al., 2018, p. 132).

Online forum for democratic conversations

Of specific importance to us are studies of online forums as platforms for potential democratic conversations and their use of theoretical frameworks of online deliberation. Comparisons of deliberative qualities (in terms of rationality and inclusion) in Facebook conversations about various newspapers and debates in the Swedish Parliament have shown that Facebook conversations are characterised by less rational content than parliamentary debates (Tejic, 2019). One explanation is that people engaging in parliamentary debates need objective arguments, while people involved in Facebook debates tend to share their own experiences to substantiate their claims. A similar conclusion has been drawn in a study of discussions on newspaper websites: “Online reader comments function as a mix of both platforms for democratic conversations and virtual soapboxes” (Strandberg & Berg, 2013, p. 145). However, in a study of political discussions on political parties’ Facebook pages, Valera-Ordaz (2019) found differences related to the parties’ ideologies and histories: “Right-wing websites lean more liberal individualist, whereas those on left-wing parties’ sites favour a more communitarian dynamic” (p. 1056). This is interesting, as researchers have found that teachers’ online rebellion (or similar) groups share a left-wing agenda and that even non-political Facebook groups (so-called third spaces) may engage in political discussions (Bhattacharya et al., 2018; cf. Valera-Ordaz, 2019; Wright, 2011). According to Wright (2011), some non-political forums have significantly more posts and participants in political discussions than governmental forums and may be of importance when studying online deliberation.

From face-to-face conversations to online conversations

There are challenges and pitfalls as well as suggested ways forward when theoretical frameworks based on face-to-face conversations are applied to online conversations. In a systematic review of the literature on online deliberation, Jonsson and Åström (2014) found that a major challenge was the highly diversified concept of deliberation, which made it difficult to build a cumulative research field. They also found a lack of newer theoretical developments related to deliberation; rather, most reviewed articles focused on the “offline” Habermasian framework. Despite the important inspiration drawn from Habermas’s ideas, analyses of online conversations require more inclusive definitions and more flexible approaches so that the results are not interpreted in a way that suggests that no deliberation occurs (Wright, 2011). Valera-Ordaz (2019) argues that online political discussions can hardly be expected to show a highly deliberative quality, as such discussions are not part of decision-making processes. Based on her studies on Facebook, she concludes that conversations are mostly superficial, with users offering rational arguments to a lesser extent and those engaging in discussions often being like-minded people. Thus, online discussions may correspond to some deliberative qualities but not others.

Regarding the aim of this study, previous research helped us address two important questions. The first question concerned the specific conditions that characterise online discussions, while the second and more general question concerned the potential of deliberation. Of relevance to the latter, Bergh and Englund (2022) argue that discussions in professional settings, even with no formal decision-making involved, have the potential to develop professional deliberative attitudes that bring new understandings and perspectives to complex issues. However, to what extent this is also true for online discussions is an empirical question that requires further study.

Theoretical frameworks

Having emerged in the past five years, teachers’ rebellion groups on Facebook are a relatively new phenomenon. These groups constitute a new arena distinct from formal arenas at the national and local levels and the long tradition of teachers organising themselves in TUs (Krantz & Fritzén, 2022), thereby raising new empirical questions.

SR’s overall goal of improving the Swedish school system and teachers’ working conditions is made clear in posts and comments exchanged between teachers and between teachers and the administrators of the Facebook group. A specific feature is that the agenda is directed both at the participating teachers to achieve a consensus on which issues are important to discuss and at an undefined audience outside the group who are considered responsible for the issues discussed within the group. To understand this multifaceted object of study, a research design that takes this complexity into account is needed. The studies discussed above remind us of the limitations of conducting research on social media.

This reminder and the challenge to use the Habermasian framework for analysis of online conversations were important motives for our choice to combine the concept of deliberative communication with curriculum theory. While deliberative communication enables a thorough analysis of the argumentation in each post (Englund, 2006), curriculum theory provides a possibility to focus on content and with a broad contextual awareness. Altogether this approach can support an analysis and a discussion of whether the communication between the participants has the potential to strengthen collective professionalism.

In curriculum theory, researchers have long been interested in questions of content in teaching and learning, organisation, and power within and between organisational levels, focusing on political, pedagogical, and practical issues (Jackson, 2012; Kallós & Lundgren, 1979; Schwab, 2013). Following societal changes, new empirical questions have been raised, which, in turn, have prompted further theoretical development – for example, to better understand how linguistic and structural aspects and power mechanisms regulate and uphold the relations between levels from a macro-to-micro perspective and how these mechanisms operate (Bergh & Arneback, 2019; Wahlström & Sundberg, 2018). Over the past decade, there has been increased interest in the “doing” of policy and how different professional groups take action, shedding light on the relationship between agency and context (Ball et al., 2012; Bergh et al., 2019; Karseth & Møller, 2018). Thus, the broad contextual understanding offered by curriculum theory is relevant to this study, as we are specifically interested in examining how teachers’ posts can be understood in political, pedagogical, and practical terms. These three aspects can help address questions of content and various relations between actors and levels, such as power and responsibility issues.

To fulfil the aim of this study, we combine curriculum theory with the concept of deliberative communication to analyse what content is given presence in the posts and how it is discussed by members. Based on earlier research on deliberative communication (Englund, 2000, 2006; Habermas, 1996), we view each post as a discursive situation in which there may be different views on an issue. Central deliberative qualities are participants’ articulation of their arguments, openness in one’s own position, and perhaps readiness to change one’s view when convinced by someone else’s stronger argument. An essential aspect is the importance of listening to others’ arguments (Waks, 2011). Focusing on content, we are also interested in empirically examining whether deliberative communication holds the potential for discussions on professional values and ethics (cf. Afdal & Afdal, 2019). We operationalise our theoretical perspective through analyses of what content (or problems) is formulated, whether there is respect for and tolerance of the concrete other and different viewpoints, and to what extent participants reflect on their views and assumptions by listening, deliberating, seeking arguments, and evaluating in relation to concrete others.

In the Results section, our analytical focus is on the “what” and “how” questions and how these can be understood as political, pedagogical, and/or practical problems. In the Conclusion section, we deal with the second part of the aim of this study, considering the extent to which the communication taking place in SR has the potential to strengthen collective teacher professionalism. We are specifically interested in whether this communication supports movements between practical and ideal views of education, with the potential to collectively make teachers better prepared to act in the future (Bergh & Englund, 2022; Jackson, 2012).

Methodology

Data

The data used in this study were derived from the Swedish Facebook group SR. In the spring of 2021, the group had a monthly average of 650 posts. During the summer and autumn of 2021, the number of posts decreased, and between February and March 2022, there were only 44 posts. This sharp decrease prompted us to track the administrators’ posts to investigate their efforts to make the group work as initially intended. Between March 2021 and March 2022, the administrators posted approximately 100 messages, which one of the authors read to identify the ones most representative of the group’s ethos throughout the year. Most posts contained links to media articles or merely provided information. In 18 posts, the administrators repeatedly asked for advice on how the group should act and what content members wanted to discuss and asked members to react to or think about specific issues. These 18 posts were selected for further joint analysis. Among these posts were polls with ready-made proposals to vote on and invitations to add more proposals. Other posts directly addressed teachers about certain issues to be pursued within the group through conversation and/or offline manifestations. The numbers of comments and likes on the administrators’ posts varied. Initially, a poll contained 600 votes on proposals, and posts were followed by more than 200 comments. At the end of the period in question, there were only a few comments on the administrators’ posts. In total, we analysed 18 posts and the 926 comments that followed them. The comments ranged from a few words, most commonly consisting of a single sentence of about 15 words, to slightly longer comments of about 100 words. We selected these comments based on content and/or discussions with the administrators; thus, they were not representative of the SR group as a whole. The number of reactions had a limited influence on our selection, although we noted the numbers of likes and emojis received by each post.

Analysis

Each thread was read by one of the authors in its entirety and saved manually (by copying and pasting) as text in a Word document. In the following analysis both authors were involved. Initially we sought to determine what content was in focus, then, we analysed the conversations with support of the concept of deliberative communication (Englund, 2006). We were specifically interested in whether different views were confronted with one another and arguments for these different views were given, if there was tolerance and respect between the participants and for the different arguments, and if there were elements of collective will-formation. Thereafter, each conversation was analysed with a view to understand if and how political, pedagogical, and practical issues were addressed, for example to what extent authorities, traditional views or own assumptions were questioned.

In the Results section, we present excerpts from 10 of the analysed posts as the most informative of how the administrators’ (denoted as “A”) posts were shaped and with what content and how this content was communicated between teachers (denoted as “T”). In translating the excerpts from Swedish into English, it was not possible to reproduce them exactly as they were worded, as short comments on Facebook often exhibit a personal language characterised by casual talk and incomplete sentences (Georgalou, 2018). However, we strived to maintain the original posts’ and comments’ intentions as we interpreted them.

Ethical considerations

Since SR is a public group, anyone on Facebook can post and comment. When entering the group, we declared our aim to participate only as researchers. Our study was reviewed by the Ethics Committee of Karlstad University, Sweden. No formal approval was required, as we collected no sensitive personal data. We handled personal data in accordance with the legal basis of general interest (GDPR Article 14, 5b). The personal data that we have handled are the personal names of the members in the group. These names can be aliases, or members’ real names. However, to protect their identity, we have chosen not to present any personal names in the results. We repeatedly informed the group members, via both administrators and direct posts, about our research and the option not to participate. One person opted not to participate. We recorded no information or comments related to this person.

Results

The results presented herein are accompanied by short excerpts from long threads of conversations initiated by group administrators. They are presented in chronological order from the spring of 2021 to the spring of 2022 and are divided into three phases, which we entitled “Hopes and expectations”, “Initiatives to face complexity”, and “Falling silent and taking a break”. These phases reveal decreasing engagement levels, initially showing a strong commitment to the issues raised by the administrators but gradually trending towards fatigue and silence.

Hopes and expectations

The SR group announced its presence in an argumentative article in a web-based Swedish magazine in March 2021, claiming that the School Rebellion must light a fire under the frozen teachers’ unions (TUs). The article included a plea for shared responsibility (among politicians, employers, teachers, and union representatives) for teachers’ working conditions and for pushing Swedish TUs to show the way forward. One administrator posted a link to this article in SR and invited teachers to join the group and share the post. The post received 98 likes and 55 comments and was shared with a wider Facebook audience 34 times. The comments showed strong agreement on the need to engage more teachers and to make TUs more involved in teachers’ working conditions. This and similar calls for more intense activism were repeated by administrators and group members in various posts during the period under study. A central starting point was what was experienced as practical problems in schools, supported by arguments such as “together we can achieve what one actor alone cannot”. While this was presented as a factual statement on which everyone seemed to agree, later administrator posts included requests for topics that we interpreted as invitations and suggestions for a variety of content to be deliberated over.

In March 2021, a poll was posted, and members were asked to vote on what issues the group should pursue. Four issues were formulated, and members were encouraged to contribute further proposals. We identified 16 issues proposed by members. The administrator wrote, “This poll will influence how we prioritise the issues to pursue.” We interpret this as a deliberative approach aimed at inviting all members to state the issues that were of highest priority to them.

The six issues (of a total of 20) with the most votes concerned organisational changes, such as transferring the responsibility for schools from the municipalities back to the state (419), counteracting profiteering by private school companies (130), and changing working conditions. Regarding the latter, the issues with the most votes were maximum teaching time (321), maximum class size (268), cut downs/inefficiencies in schools (202), and regulated time for planning and completing the work required for each lesson (122). This poll gave a clear direction regarding the prioritised issues and captured the content that was initially the main focus. The rationale behind issues of organisational changes seems to be that such changes cannot be achieved directly but require formal political decisions. Having reached this stage, it seems rather odd that shortly after this poll, one administrator posted the following message, accompanied by a happy emoji: “The group is growing quite stably now; fun! What are your expectations of this initiative? What do you want this joint work to lead to?” On the one hand, this can be interpreted as encouragement to deliberate on the outcomes of the prioritised issues. On the other hand, it can also be interpreted as taking a step backwards instead of pushing the prioritised issues.

In the conversation that followed, 13 members joined with 15 comments. These comments can be summarised as an overall desire for the rebellion group to empower teachers and make them sufficiently brave to take action. Beyond this vision, however, two different lines of argumentation follow. One puts aside a more general discussion on political questions and conditions and goes directly to a practical rationale, focusing on how to strengthen teachers in everyday practice.

I think that the most important thing that many teachers need to learn is to dare to say no – to say that you cannot/do not have time for certain tasks within the time frame that you have. Not all teaching has to be perfect; it will be as good as it can according to the given conditions. (T1)

This is an important point! (T2)

Another teacher disagreed, arguing that the school must regain its authority:

I do not agree. We have lowered the bar for too long, and no one will win in the end. I would rather fight for the school to take action to regain the authority it should have and, by virtue of being precisely an authority, to regain the conditions that teachers need to carry out their teaching mission. (T3)

I definitely agree with that! (T4)

The turn that the conversation took here is interesting. In response to the first two teachers, the latter two emphasised central political power issues and the conditions needed to take professional and pedagogical responsibility. Altogether, this triggered further comments, including putting forward counterarguments and expressing hopes of uniting in the future, such as the following: “My wish is that in the future, we will come together to combine all our wise heads and arrive at sustainable arguments and working conditions” (T7).

This thread reveals hopes and expectations and the will to work towards common goals but also illustrates the difficulty of developing a common understanding of the problem and eventually reaching a consensus beyond the abstract idea of a future joint force. The comments also show that the teachers respect each other and that no one needs to fear being criticised. However, hardly anyone’s thoughts are challenged or contradicted. One reason might be that the administrator did not contribute by summarising the points made and moving the discussion forward based on what members expressed. This example can be seen as a pre-deliberative phase characterised by a promising initiative that soon lost its direction and eventually ended.

Initiatives to face complexity

Less than a month later, teachers were asked to react to possible changes in their working hours proposed in a state investigation (SOU, 2021, p. 30). The proposal deals with expanding teaching during the academic year, including holidays, to offer more help tailored to the individual student. This proposal will affect teachers' working hours. Most teachers in Swedish schools work 35.5 hours per week and 10 additional hours to compensate for free time during school holidays, while the regular working time for many employees, including some teachers, is 40 hours per week, and a normal holiday is at least 25 days. One administrator posted the following message:

There is now a real possibility that teachers’ working hours will change as a result of the government’s new proposal. Will you keep working as a teacher if your working hours are 40 h/week instead of 35.5 + 10 h/week?

“No” received 556 votes, while “yes” received only 45 votes. This post also received 247 comments, adding to the complexity of the issue. Almost all comments contained negative reactions to changing the working hours. What distinguishes this discussion is that the administrator replied to teachers with 21 comments, explaining the situation and trying to persuade them, as shown in the conversations below:

If they change it to 40 h/week, then the salary must be raised as well. (T1)

Such a change will most likely not benefit teachers. (A)

I will take my teacher exam by this summer. One of the biggest benefits is the holidays. Why take them away? (T2)

For the sake of students. (A, referring to the proposal)

A characteristic of the administrator’s role in this case were asking a yes/no question with the purpose of mapping teachers’ views rather than taking it as a starting point for further elaboration. Even if the comment “for the sake of students” has the potential to stimulate a pedagogical discussion, it is presented as a statement rather than a question, which could have elicited new perspectives. When the political level is brought into the discussion, the participants express weak agency and disappointment:

It feels like many teachers take this “shit” in advance. Let us see what happens in the future. (T5)

The interesting thing about this is that it comes from the government. (A)

The government must be aware that, if conditions deteriorate further, many will leave the profession, and no one will attend teacher education. (T5)

I hope they do, but the investigation does not give me much hope that this problem will be taken into account. Children come first. (A)

This last comment suggests a conflict between children’s and teachers’ needs. Another way to approach this issue could have been to challenge this dichotomy, which might have stimulated further deliberation. Instead, the administrator confirmed the teachers’ hopeless situation. Later in the thread, the administrator was criticised for these quite negative interpretations:

When a public state investigation is completed, it will be sent to relevant organisations for consultation. If teachers push their unions, the proposals in this investigation (which, from what I can see, do NOT suggest an increased workload for teachers) will NOT become a reality. This is important so that teachers in this wonderful group do not get unnecessarily upset. (T6)

It does not suggest an increased workload for teachers. It notes that, with the proposals, the increased workload is “negligible”, but that’s not right. (A)

The comment made by Teacher 6 is particularly interesting, as it refers to democratic processes involved in political work and thus points to opportunities for teachers to take action. However, instead of welcoming this argument, it seems that the administrator hijacks the discussion (cf. Goodyear et al., 2019) by trying to convince members that the proposal is bad and will lead to deterioration.

The subsequent conversation in this thread demonstrates the complexity involved, with comments calling for more activism, protests, and strikes appearing occasionally. Although this strong engagement could have stimulated further deliberation over various political, practical, and pedagogical issues, this did not happen. The administrator’s failure to steer the discussion by allowing different voices to be heard and encouraging careful listening appeared to be counter-deliberative.

Besides working hours, a main topic in several posts concerned salaries. Teachers were encouraged not to be ashamed of their salaries and not to keep them secret, as this only benefited employers. In one post, teachers were asked to disclose their salaries. The administrator presented an average salary level and asked the group, “What does it [the salary] look like for you?” Salaries and comparisons between teachers and schools were topics that stimulated engagement among group members, and many (236) commented. However, a closer look at how the comments were shaped reveals that they constituted a mere list of salaries, often accompanied by expressing disappointment at their low levels. Deliberative discussions aimed at something new, different, or better were rather absent. As one teacher noted, “Disclosing your salary only arouses a lot of jealousy and exposes you to stupid comments from colleagues.” The following excerpt represents many teachers’ views:

It is a shame that salary increases are lousy. The only way to get a better salary is to start working at another school. It is good that a new graduate receives a better starting salary, but it is sad that a much more experienced teacher, in some cases, ends up lower than a new colleague who needs a lot of help and support. (T)

Our interpretation of these posts and the subsequent comments is that this issue stimulated engagement but hardly took SR forward. Although teachers appeared to be generally dissatisfied with their salaries and their distribution, there were no constructive proposals for how this could become part of the group’s conversation. We regard these frustrations as personal practical issues with no purpose other than to complain about one’s salary. Instead of being put into perspective as the basis for a discussion on how to bring about change, the conversation remained at an exploratory and emotional level. Elements of activism were completely absent, and there were no further posts from administrators on this matter.

Falling silent and taking a break

In the autumn of 2021, almost a year before the next Swedish election, one administrator called for mobilisation. One can sense that the administrator felt somewhat disappointed:

Friends, have things got better for you? Is it the same as usual or worse? I would like to know how you are doing in your schools and kindle a new spark in the group. We might arrange a digital seminar to exchange some ideas on how we can move forward with the school rebellion. It is time to mobilise and make school an important issue before the next election. What do you think? (A)

This post received 75 comments and 81 “thumbs up” signs. The comments were generally characterised by resignation, noting that the situation had deteriorated. They concern errors in the school system, repeated expressions of a wish for the state to take control back from the municipalities, and errors in the school system’s funding – issues that were previously discussed in polls and calls from administrators. One teacher’s comment summarises well what many wrote:

I think we have to agree on ONE issue and push it. We are too scattered. In the end, it will be too much, and people will not be able to engage. (T)

Despite the constructive suggestion, this comment received no responses, failing to initiate a critical and constructive conversation. Instead, regardless of previous comments, the administrators continued to repeat the same or similar questions.

A few months later, the administrators called for action:

We have tried to talk to the union and to politicians and to write in newspapers. It is time to start demonstrations again. We invite everyone who wants to be involved and lead this work. (A)

This seemed to be a popular call, receiving 141 likes and 44 comments expressing agreement, such as “I’m ready,” “We’re ready,” and “We’ll come.” At this point, it seemed that the administrators managed to get teachers involved. The rationale behind this call was that teachers should stop merely talking about practical issues and take action to make politicians aware of their situation. However, the restrictions imposed due to the Covid-19 pandemic meant that neither meetings nor demonstrations could take place during that autumn. The next message from an administrator, posted in late March 2022, contained a question about participating in an already planned demonstration. The 12 comments (36 likes) it received were quite uncommitted, and some days later, the same administrator called for a demonstration of their own:

This year of election is a time to show activism on the streets again and show what is actually happening in school. What do you say? (A)

This call received only seven – even more uncommitted – comments (40 likes). Rather than agreeing, the respondents argued that such activism should be arranged in collaboration with all rebellion groups in the public welfare sector.

In the following months, engagement in conversations decreased considerably. The administrators seemed resigned when they once again invited teachers to participate in a poll about the future of the rebellion group. Teachers were given three options to vote for: continue the work (165 votes); focus on the most important issue, namely stopping the school market experiment (96 votes); or shut down the group (5 votes). Among the 49 comments, there were weakly supportive yet realistic voices, as the following examples show:

If I do something, there is a chance of change. If I do nothing, there is no chance of change. (T)

I think that the group may have achieved the goal of uniting teachers behind common goals. But the content in the group has become more of a kind of complaining. I think the rebellion must come from within teachers’ unions to produce any long-term results. (T)

Many of these comments made interesting points that could have been used to move deliberative conversations towards a gradual agreement on common goals. However, most conversations faded out, thus missing this opportunity. In October 2022, after several similar attempts, the same administrator chose to suspend the group, as “this format has reached the end of the road”.

Discussion

Our results show that, although many topics related to teaching and education appear in the conversations, deliberative approaches vary. Our findings indicate that the administrators’ responsibility to maintain professional deliberation among colleagues is a complex mission of deliberation over political, pedagogical, and practical issues.

Although this Facebook group does not have a mandate to make formal decisions (cf. Valera-Ordaz, 2019), it can still make communicative decisions on how to proceed (or not) to better understand the complex relations between political, pedagogical, and practical issues. Nevertheless, in joint efforts to better understand perceived problems or challenges, most initiatives and discussions reached a dead end. Discussions of practical issues, such as whether things had become better or worse, contained interesting experiences with considerable potential for further deliberation, but this did not happen because strategic actions to better understand or challenge the answers were largely missing (cf. Afdal & Afdal, 2019). Rather, such discussions were characterised by personal experiences and degenerated into what can be termed a “virtual soapbox” (Strandberg & Berg, 2013, p. 145).

Although all participants had a voice, the administrators’ role is of special interest. In several cases, an administrator initiated a topic, but members’ engagement faded out when the administrator took over or hijacked the discussion (cf. Goodyear et al., 2019). Thus, our results show that an important condition for deliberation is that someone leads the discussion and helps it move forward (cf. Lantz-Andersson et al., 2018). From a deliberative point of view, learning to listen seems to be an important quality, as it is a prerequisite for a discussion to take place at all. Moreover, a distinction should be drawn between negative one-way or strategic listening and transactional listening based on the will to understand what someone else is trying to articulate (Waks, 2011).

From an empirical point of view, our results reflect teachers’ need to discuss substantive questions, both specifically related to their working conditions and in a wider context related to issues of teaching and education. However, despite hopes and good intentions, our findings indicate that this cannot be easily achieved in a virtual arena, such as SR on Facebook. Although there were initially committed administrators and teachers, the discussions faded out and eventually deviated considerably from the initial intentions.

One may ask whether questions about education and teacher professionalism are too complex and extensive to discuss on social media with a few lines offered by a loose assemblage of individuals. From a theoretical point of view, we argue that the phenomenon of SR offers rich, albeit complex and messy, empirical data for further analysis. We believe that our choice to combine curriculum theory with the concept of deliberative communication has offered fruitful ways of approaching Facebook as an arena for teachers’ discussions and understanding them in a broader context. Our findings suggest that it may not necessarily be the digital form itself but rather the way in which discussions are led that sets limits. Moderating a teachers’ rebellion group is not only a dual role (cf. Hillman et al., 2021) but also a complex mission of deliberation over political, pedagogical, and practical issues.

Conclusion

In this section, we address the question of whether the communication taking place in SR had the potential to strengthen collective teacher professionalism, thus making teachers better prepared to act in the future. Our findings show that practical challenges could have been addressed on several occasions – for instance, as pedagogical and/or political dilemmas to be further deliberated over. We identified different phases of communication: pre-deliberative or even counter-deliberative, as well as completely neutral. When the SR group started, it aspired to be a force that could keep the conversation vibrant. However, we found that, as teachers themselves also stated, the group degenerated into a forum for complaining. In its pre-deliberative spirit, it may have served a positive purpose by giving presence to different individual experiences. However, conversations dominated by a counter-deliberative spirit were not beneficial either for the teachers’ joint efforts to achieve a better school or for developing collective teacher professionalism. One example from the above-mentioned discussions about salaries illustrates the poorly conceived deliberative approach. On the one hand, salaries constituted a vital issue for all teachers and thus an important topic to discuss. In a broader context, this is also a question of great societal relevance because many municipalities and schools cannot recruit licenced teachers, as well as a burning political question related to the role that education is given in a democratic society. On the other hand, despite SR’s professional and collective spirit, the way in which the conversation developed undermined what the group wished to achieve.

We conclude that the SR group risks functioning as an arena for socialisation into a negative type of collective professionalism with limited potential to make teachers better prepared to act in the future. Our analysis highlights the importance of a conversational climate that is not limited to asking about others’ opinions or uncritically respecting, confirming, and supporting them. What is needed is an atmosphere in which opinions are challenged and developed further, with someone who collects and summarises the meaning of the answers to new questions and has a clear agenda for promoting collective professional collegial deliberation. In other words, it is not sufficient to be angry and frustrated. However, the mere fact that many teachers meet on Facebook stems from a strong need to discuss working conditions as well as other educational issues. This calls for critical self-reflection on what scholarly significance our study has. On a general level, we argue that our results provide important knowledge to the research field on teacher professionalism, demonstrating how teacher professionalism develops in social media, but also for education policy research in a wider sense. These results have led to further questions on SR members’ roles and responsibilities. Interviews with teachers on how they individually and jointly contribute to SR as an important arena will provide a deeper understanding of their intentions of posting or commenting on posts in SR. Further methodological considerations include interviews with politicians and school managers on the impact of SR, that is if and in what way SR has influenced their work with development of education.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council (grant number 2020-03144).Vetenskapsrådet