Working with pupils who use alcohol and drugs: emotional labour and crime prevention of Swedish high school staff members

ABSTRACT

The last decades have exhibited changes in societal responses to criminal justice, such as informal social control exerted beyond the justice system. This study explores the emotional labour experienced by Swedish high school staff members regarding their efforts with pupils who use alcohol or drugs. Drawing on 36 interviews we demonstrate how their work surpasses the demands associated with a traditional school environment, becoming more like the work of police officers than that of educators or counsellors. This study provides in-depth knowledge of role conflict and role ambiguity due to a lack of clear guidelines regarding blurred aspects of crime prevention, caring, and control, in addition to a high workload and emotionally challenging situations. The findings suggest that there are various conflicting demands regarding the work tasks and emotional commitment of the high school staff members; on the one hand to provide emotional support and ensure a good educational environment for all pupils, and on the other hand to act as informal police officers or supervisors of pupils with these problems.

SAMMANFATTNING

De senaste decennierna har uppvisat en förändrad syn på straffrätt och övervakning, till exempel gällande informell social kontroll som utövas i samhället utanför rättsväsendet. Den här studien handlar om det emotionella lönearbete som gymnasiepersonal i Sverige upplever i sina insatser med elever som använder alkohol eller droger. Med utgångspunkt i 36 intervjuer beskriver vi hur personalens arbete överstiger de krav som traditionellt sätt är förknippade med skolmiljön, till exempel att behöva agera som poliser snarare än att arbeta med undervisning och vägledning. Studien ger fördjupad kunskap om rollkonflikt och emotionell dissonans som kan uppstå på grund av en brist på tydliga riktlinjer gällande brottsförebyggande arbete i skolmiljö, en konflikt mellan omsorg och kontroll, samt en hög arbetsbelastning och känslomässigt utmanande situationer. Resultaten visar att personalen upplever motstridiga krav gällande arbetsuppgifter och känslomässiga engagemang; å ena sidan att ge emotionellt stöd och säkerställa en god utbildningsmiljö för alla elever, och å andra sidan att agera som informella poliser eller övervakare för elever med dessa problem.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotional labour
• role conflict
• teachers and high school staff members
• crime prevention
• alcohol and drug use in Swedish high schools

NYCKELORD:

• Emotionellt lönearbete
• rollkonflikt
• lärare och gymnasiepersonal
• brottsförebyggande arbete
• alkohol och droganvändning i svenska gymnasieskolor

Introduction

Young people’s experimental use of alcohol and drugs has attracted attention in Sweden as findings from annual surveys indicate increased access to drugs in the last 20 years (CAN, 2019; Folkhälsomyndigheten, 2023). In the public debate, the need for forceful efforts to stop drug and alcohol use by young people has been emphasised (Brå, 1999, 2018). This shift is part of a larger discourse of societal risk, control, and crime-preventative measures that affect how we respond to crime. The boundaries between private and public control strategies have become blurred and social actors outside the formal criminal justice system (such as families, schools, healthcare organisations, insurance companies, etc.) are expected to perform crime prevention (Ericson, 2007; Garland, 2001).

In this article, we focus on the emotional experiences of high school staff members regarding their work roles and crime prevention in high schools. This study aims to contribute to the theoretical perspective of emotion regulation and emotional labour by extending the perspective on emotionally challenging and ambiguous situations that occur when the proper emotional response to a situation is unclear. Ambiguity arises when high school staff members are expected to perform their regular work duties, at the same time as they are expected to prevent crime (such as drug use or the distribution of drugs on school property) and rehabilitate pupils who use drugs or alcohol. Although previous studies have explored the emotional labour of service workers, more research is needed on how school staff members deal with conflicting work demands and role ambiguity.

This qualitative study is based on 36 interviews with Swedish high school staff members who work with pupils who use illegal substances such as drugs, excessive use of alcohol or alcohol that was illegally obtained.¹ Some pupils used both substances, but most used drugs. This study mainly focuses on the staff members’ experiences of drug use among the pupils and crime prevention efforts in the schools. The study aims to shed new light on these emotionally challenging processes based on first-hand accounts of high school staff members.

The research questions addressed in this study are (1) How do the high school staff members describe their roles regarding crime prevention in the schools, (2) how is emotional labour performed by the high school staff members who work with pupils who use alcohol or drugs, and (3) how do they manage these emotional demands? We focus on the accounts of emotional labour by concentrating on situations of emotional dissonance handled by either surface acting or deep acting (Hochschild, 1983; Mesmer-Magnus et al., 2012). In contrast to much previous research, this study contributes to the theoretical perspective of emotional labour by providing in-depth perspectives on emotionally challenging and ambiguous situations that high school staff members face when working with pupils who use drugs or alcohol in Swedish high schools.

Theoretical points of departure

Emotion regulation and emotional labour

This article uses Hochschild’s (1979, 1983, 1990) perspectives on emotion regulation at work, which she calls emotional labour. Emotion work entails efforts to understand and empathise with others, as well as feeling their feelings as part of one’s own (England & Farkas, 1986; Isenbarger & Zembylas, 2006). In contrast to emotion work conducted in private life, emotion work has a cost when regarded as emotional labour (Hochschild, 1983). The concept of emotional labour applies to jobs where workers must evoke certain emotions in others and ‘perform’ feelings that are suitable for the job. Workers manage their emotions or perform certain emotions that are commodified by the workplace (such as when flight attendants or cashiers smile at customers) (Hochschild, 1983).

The emotional labour of service workers has been under scrutiny, such as healthcare workers (Kamp & Dybbroe, 2016), social workers (Holmes et al., 2021; Moudatsou et al., 2020), and teachers (Hargreaves, 2000; Lindqvist et al., 2019). The guidelines for workers’ appropriate behaviour can be explicit or implicit in their workplace and are called display rules. Problems can arise when workers’ real emotions or emotional reactions are incompatible or in conflict with the display rules. Workers can then engage in emotion regulation (suppressing or faking their real emotions) or simply break the display rules (Grandey, 2000).

Workers can also detach themselves from their emotional reactions to meet organisational expectations, which is called emotional dissonance. Emotional dissonance is linked to emotional exhaustion and a discrepancy between ‘authentic and displayed emotions’ (Abraham, 1999; Bakker & Heuven, 2006, p. 426).

Role conflict and role ambiguity are associated with work exhaustion, job satisfaction, and job expectations (Hanlon, 2023; Shih et al., 2013). Role ambiguity is characterised by inconsistency and vagueness regarding workers’ responsibilities or performances. Role conflict suggests that there are two or more incompatible expectations for a person’s behaviour, for example regarding diverse expectations for a role, when expectations do not match reality, or when people must adapt their behaviour due to inconsistent expectations (Blake, 2020).

Emotional dissonance might arise when workers respond to organisational demands by either deep acting or surface acting. Surface acting is when the worker expresses fake emotions to imitate the emotional requirements of the workplace, whereas deep acting suggests that the worker attempts to change their emotional state of mind to conform to and internalise the mandated emotion (Hochschild, 1983; Mesmer-Magnus et al., 2012; Wijeratne, 2014). When workers’ genuine emotions align with the display rules and behavioural requirements of the workplace, they might experience true work satisfaction and achievement. Workers (especially in the healthcare or service sectors) who disconnect from their jobs or suppress their real emotions can experience psychological and physical costs such as low job satisfaction, lower well-being, burnout, stress, fatigue, vicarious traumatisation, as well as struggling with work performance (Hochschild, 1983; Mesmer-Magnus et al., 2012; Sabo, 2011; Wong et al., 2017).

Previous research

The humanistic aspect of teaching has been described as an intrinsic motivation to work with young people. Teaching involves levels of ‘non-work’, as it takes place at the junction of personal and private life (Ogunsola et al., 2020; O’Connor, 2008). The caring dimension of teaching influences teachers’ identity, satisfaction, commitment, self-esteem, and professional role (Isenbarger & Zembylas, 2006; O’Connor, 2008). Intimacy, commitment, and passion are the three pillars of teaching (Isenbarger & Zembylas, 2006), and the teacher-student relationship is often personal rather than formal (Oplatka, 2012). However, teachers who hide their true emotions may feel detached and alienated from their work, risking burnout, or emotional exhaustion (Näring et al., 2006).

The role of pedagogues and teachers is intrinsically helping and emotionally challenging when working with pupils with trauma, addiction, or mental health issues. The notion of ‘compassion fatigue’ is relevant as it is associated with stress, anxiety, unease, and burnout among workers. The concept has been used in ample research on health care and mental health professionals but is becoming more prevalent in studies of teaching professionals (Ormiston et al., 2022). Compassion fatigue refers to a diminished capacity to care due to recurring contact with people who suffer and knowledge of their suffering (Cavanagh et al., 2020).

Previous research shows that school counsellors can experience role conflict and role ambiguity due to unclear job descriptions and conflicting roles as educators and counsellors (Blake, 2020). Previous research also highlights that schools are important for preventing and detecting criminal behaviour (Omaji, 1992; Vitale et al., 2021), but that school staff members are often unprepared or untrained to work in crime prevention (Rigg & Menendez, 2018). Although the ambiguous work position of teachers and school counsellors has been documented in previous (mostly quantitative) research (for example Blake (2020) and Skinner et al. (2021)), there is a lack of qualitative studies focusing on emotional experiences of high school staff members regarding crime prevention efforts. This study aims to address this gap.

Method

The ethnographic data underlying this study is derived as part of a larger project focusing on practical work with pupils who use alcohol and drugs in Swedish high schools.² The project is a collaboration between researchers from Sweden, Japan, and Ukraine (LNU, 2023).³ The data underlying this study was collected in 2020 and 2021 in Sweden. The study takes a methodological starting point in the ethnographic tradition (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007) and is based on semi-structured interviews and informal field interviews. Our approach is ethnomethodological and social constructionist where we consider interviews to be the site of meaning-making processes between the interviewer and the interviewee, so-called active interviews (Holstein & Gubrium, 2003). The interviewees provided their narratives and shared their opinions in dialogue with the interviewer (Holstein & Gubrium, 2003). As interviewers, we have used our interview guide, and occasionally shared experiences to build rapport with the interviewee, as well as establishing and interpreting themes that have emerged in the data (Hathaway et al., 2020). Our approach enabled us to achieve in-depth conversations and understandings of the professionals’ considerations, opinions, and beliefs regarding their work roles (Holstein & Gubrium, 2003; O’Connor, 2008) as well as taking note of their emotional expressions and conduct.

Participants

36 people with experience working with high school pupils (aged 16-20) who use alcohol or drugs were interviewed for this study. The sample consists of 24 women and 12 men. The interviewed high school staff members consist of 8 teachers and school pedagogues, 2 headmasters, and 12 school/guidance counsellors. The guidance counsellors were hired to guide pupils regarding their future careers and help them with time and stress management. Their work entails helping pupils with organising their schoolwork, but most were not trained in drug rehabilitation. Three informal conversations were conducted with 3 members of staff called school hosts. Their task is to act as informal supervisors or leisure leaders in the schools. Additionally, interviews were conducted with 4 school nurses, who helped pupils with their general well-being, and 7 social workers or people working with outpatient care who collaborated with the schools. The reason for interviewing the social workers was to gain knowledge of the process of helping pupils with everyday school-related tasks, such as time management. However, this article mainly focuses on the accounts of high school staff members as we are interested in their experiences of working with crime prevention in schools, which is a task that they were not primarily trained for or hired to perform. The participants were chosen via a purposive sampling strategy (Busetto et al., 2020) from different municipalities in Sweden. The interviewees had worked or were working with pupils who use drugs or alcohol in Swedish high schools. The interviewees were at different stages of their careers and had different ethnic backgrounds (however, mostly Swedish). We contacted several high schools in different municipalities in Sweden (called gymnasiums in Swedish, only referred to as high schools in this article) and introduced our project. On a few occasions, the headmaster was initially contacted and on other occasions, the high school staff members were contacted directly and asked to participate.

Qualitative and active interviews

An interview guide consisting of about 10 questions served as a guideline during the interviews. The interview guide had questions about the staff members’ work experience, challenges, and how they defined success or failure in their everyday work practices. The interviewees were also asked to elaborate on other relevant issues, such as emotional hardship, commitment, frustration, exhaustion, motivation, and stress (Holstein & Gubrium, 2003). The interviews were 30–90 min long and took place at the interviewees’ workplaces, usually the schools. As the interviews were conducted in 2020–2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, some interviews were conducted over the phone as the high school staff members worked from home. These interviews were recorded on a phone, transferred to a computer, and then deleted as soon as they were transcribed.

Thematic analysis and coding

The gathered material was analysed by using the method of thematic analysis and coding, and our analysis followed an abductive approach (Dubois & Gadde, 2002; Thompson, 2022). Inspired by Braun and Clarke (2006) and Thompson (2022) the analysis process was divided into several steps. First, we familiarised ourselves with the transcribed material by reading the entire data several times and highlighting issues that were repeated. Our codes that were highlighted in the material were thus initially focused on issues such as drug prevention, crime prevention, drug and alcohol use, school policy, school success, school failure, collaboration, work satisfaction etc. After revisiting the material a few times other codes were added to our coding schedule, primarily that of the high school staff members’ emotional responses and ambiguous experiences of crime prevention in schools (such as controlling emotions, frustration, anger, sadness, satisfaction, motivation etc.). When categorising the codes into groups various themes of emotion regulation started to emerge. We found four primary themes of emotional responses to ambiguous situations among these professionals: (1) Feelings of frustration, responsibility, and inadequacy stemming from a perceived lack of proper education and training or the sense of ‘failing’ to help pupils, (2) Feelings of stress and irritation were associated with their ambiguous work identity, leading to emotional dissonance, (3) Feelings of exhaustion emerged from their dedication to helping the pupils, often resulting in compassion fatigue, and (4) Feelings of satisfaction were experienced when they successfully helped pupils. These themes, which were analysed in detail, shed light on the emotional experiences of professionals working with upper secondary school pupils who use alcohol or drugs. We analysed these themes with the theoretical perspectives of emotional labour, emotion regulation, and emotion management in mind (Hochschild, 1979, 1983, 1990). In this way, processing the empirical data collection and theory building have overlapped in a learning loop of abductive reasoning (Dubois & Gadde, 2002; Thompson, 2022). Finally, we have used the strategies of peer reviewing by colleagues, as well as analysing and discussing the empirical findings amongst one another (Creswell & Miller, 2000)

Ethical considerations

This study requires ethical consideration as the interviewees work with young people with alcohol or drug-related problems, and who in some instances have committed crimes. Before conducting the interviews, the participants were assured confidentiality and informed about the purpose of the study as well as their rights to withdraw participation at any time. To protect the anonymity of the interviewees (as some would be easily recognised if associated with a particular work position, school or even town) we have chosen not to disclose the names or locations of the schools. We have not stored personal information regarding the participants in connection to the recorded material and all participants have been given an alias for us to keep them apart. Written informed consent was obtained from all interviewees and the project was reviewed and approved by the regional ethics board in Linköping, Sweden (Regionala Etikprövningsnämnden) in 2018.

Results

How do the high school staff members describe their roles regarding crime prevention in the schools?

Managing frustration, responsibility, and role conflict through surface acting

When talking with the high school staff members about their work regarding pupils who use drugs or alcohol and the schools’ responsibilities towards these pupils, many described that they were expected to perform crime-preventative tasks such as monitoring behaviour and being attentive regarding criminal behaviour. Some saw a major shift in recent years as their schools gradually increased crime prevention efforts, such as installing surveillance cameras and introducing access cards for the pupils. Most of the interviewees saw the role of the school as ‘steering young people towards the right path’. They were however not comfortable with ‘policing pupils’ and the changing role of educators, as described by Kajsa, one of the student counsellors:

It would be good to have more prevention work, more dialogue [about drugs], […] and the teachers need more education because I think many young people especially those who do drugs are very well-read and have a lot of arguments and you must know yourself to be able to […] respond and talk about it in a good way.

Her statement corresponds with that of other interviewees who would like more training if they were to meet these new demands, as expressed by teacher Harriet:

Becoming a pedagogue nowadays implies that you become a sort of extended parent, and I kind of want to go back to the way it was before. Go to school and learn. Period. (…) It is a problem when teachers and pedagogues don’t have the right knowledge. They are not supposed to have it.

Harriet and Kajsa refer to the fact that treating pupils who use drugs or being their parent is not part of current teacher training or their job description. Other interviewees mentioned that the teacher training regarding drugs and alcohol was inadequate and that their pupils’ knowledge often exceeded their own. Meeting pupils with ‘liberal views regarding drug use’, especially cannabis, was common, and several interviewees felt unprepared for that level of counterarguments. Ewa, one of the school counsellors explained that her most frustrating moments were when she had to argue with pupils who refused to see that their drug or alcohol consumption affected their schoolwork:

Everything cannot depend on the school […] In many situations […] I feel like I work at a rehabilitation centre and not in a school, especially when you go on and on about it but they refuse to admit it and get away with it constantly […] I don’t work with treating addiction, that is not my mission.

Ewa’s statement refers to situations when pupils had been found out about their addiction but refused to seek any help or treatment. The claim that schools were turning into correctional or healthcare facilities and that teachers were turning into social workers was common among the interviewees. For example, teacher Anders claimed that ‘the school is in a precarious position, it must provide care (omsorg) but not health care (sjukvård)’.

Hiding their frustration from the administrative staff or the headmaster was also described as emotionally challenging. Counsellor Ewa often had to bite her tongue in meetings to not openly express her anger about the limited abilities of the schools to help pupils. In our conversation, Ewa became very upset and exclaimed in a loud voice:

What we have is a disaster, the school is a disaster for these pupils and we don’t get any extra pedagogues to help them, we get rejected, don’t get any money and the schools claim that they need to save money, and our work situation is hell, I must say! […] The schools break the law every day, that’s the reality […] they don’t give the pupils the help that they need’.

Ewa described that pupils in need of extra help or assistance from a special pedagogue rarely received the attention that they needed to complete their education. This might be due to a (un)diagnosed neurodevelopment disorder, issues of anxiety, or learning difficulties. Ewa, as well as the other interviewees, had almost gotten used to the constant fight for more recourses, claiming that they had to face reality. On the other hand, they were concerned about recent developments and agreed that schools should provide education, motivation, and guidance, and not function as healthcare facilities or prisons.

As seen in the interviews, the staff members expressed frustration, inadequacy, and increased stress regarding their work with pupils who use alcohol or drugs. Such feelings stem from a perceived lack of proper training, limited time, and a fear of ‘failing’ to help the pupils. The high school staff members cared for their pupils and felt responsible for paying attention to pupils in trouble. On the one hand, working with people (albeit teenagers or young adults) who are taking drugs might endanger other pupils and can become a work environment problem. On the other hand, teachers and counsellors saw it as a huge failure if pupils who used drugs or suffered from mental health could not complete their education due to a lack of help from the schools. The pupils had a right to attend school despite using drugs if they attended class and refrained from taking drugs on school property. When talking about the responsibilities of the teachers, Ewa stated that ‘teachers should not behave like social workers’. Some teachers became too involved with their pupils’ personal lives when trying to help. One example was when several teachers in her school became personally involved during the refugee crisis in 2015 when the school accepted many pupils of refugee status. According to her, the ‘school should be a safe space for learning’ where the pupils can focus on their schoolwork without worrying about other problems. Guidance counsellor Magnus similarly explained that some staff members became ‘too committed’ to help and ‘too involved in certain cases’ (pupils).

Teaching often involves some level of ‘non-work’, that is, work practices that not only involve aspects of teaching and educating. As teaching is a caring and helping profession, the professional boundaries might easily become blurred, especially in situations where there are no clear guidelines or organisational support, or in emotionally challenging situations (Ogunsola et al., 2020; O’Connor, 2008). In such unclear situations, the teachers or pedagogues might resort to ad-hoc solutions. The high school staff members usually found out about illegal activity in the schools through gossip and by talking to the pupils. School counsellor Agneta referred to this as a ‘signal system’ (signalsystem). She described that she often contacted the friends of the pupils who used drugs to ask if they knew if they had relapsed. Another counsellor had contacted the neighbour (who was a friend of his) of one of his pupils asking if the neighbour had ‘smelled any weed’ in the common stairwell or through the windows. Another example is when a school counsellor caught one of the pupils selling drugs on the school premises. She became angry and chased him across the schoolyard before later losing him in a park. Chasing pupils was not her job and the episode made her feel like a police officer. In her words, this left ‘a bad taste in her mouth’ and she had tried to ‘restore herself’ and go back to her ‘normal’ role as a calm, composed, and caring school counsellor. Several interviewees perceived their work roles and duties regarding crime prevention and the rehabilitation of pupils who use alcohol or drugs as unclear, their guidelines as inconsistent, and the organisational support as inadequate. This entailed emotional dissonance, role ambiguity, and role conflict (Bakker & Heuven, 2006; Hochschild, 1983). The teachers managed these emotions by reminding themselves of their vocation and engaging in surface acting, that is, by trying to uphold a façade and display feelings that did not reflect their true feelings (Hochschild, 1983).

How is emotional labour performed by the high school staff members?

Deep acting: dedication, fatigue, and success

Crime prevention efforts and responsibilities of monitoring the behaviour and (possibly) criminal actions of some of the pupils put a lot of responsibility on the high school staff members. To tackle this, some of the schools adopted various efforts, such as unscheduled police raids and on-campus entrance cards for all pupils. To aid the pedagogues and teachers, a few schools employed school hosts, that is a form of ‘leisure leader’ who spent time with the pupils during free periods and then reported back to the headmaster. The task of the school host was described by one of the teachers as a ‘spy’ who befriended the pupils and got to hear the local gossip regarding parties, bullying, or conflicts. In a conversation with a school host named Robin, he described that his job was ‘peculiar’ in the sense that the pupils knew that he was staff, but often confided in him as a friend. It was important for him to learn the ‘jargon’ of the pupils, and to ‘act’ as if he was ‘on their level’ in contrast to the teachers. Robin referred to his ambiguous role by explaining how the pupils treated him as neither a member of the high school staff nor as a friend:

The pupils are more friendly with me than with the teachers, they see me as someone who just hangs around making sure that no fights or other things are going on. If there are parties or someone is planning to have a party there is always gossip about other pupils, who drank too much, will there be drugs involved and so on. But they know that I am staff, so I never get to know them that well. If I hear anything interesting, I report back to the teachers and the headmaster.

In a sense, Robin was an ‘informal police officer’ who reported information to the other members. He had to ‘act’ a lot, being ‘open, friendly, and non-judgemental’ with the pupils regardless of what they said or did. He also had to be alert and ready to intervene in fights or intrusions. Robin’s work involved emotional labour, as he had to display and manage emotions to gain trust and information from the pupils.

Working in high schools generally implies being ‘on the pupils’ side’ and providing support, guidance, and care. However, there were situations when the high school staff members lost their temper and broke the display rules (Grandey, 2000). To not break display rules, one pedagogue metaphorically described that she had certain ‘work frames’ that guided her behaviour and work approach, but that these frames were made of ‘rubber’ as she needed to bend them to adapt to different situations to gain the trust of the pupils. Gaining trust was time-consuming and often required substantial emotion regulation. Special education teacher Emma described it as a process of consciously ‘mirroring’ the behaviour of the student that she was talking to:

One has to pay attention […] it is good to mirror the person and see if this is a person who is very quiet and hesitant and calm, in that case, I cannot be goofy (sprallig) and so on […] if I have (a conversation with a) family or a student who is very open and goofy, I try to adapt to this as well […] There is a lot of adapting to do […] the most important thing is that the person that I am talking to is comfortable.

As can be gathered from Emma’s statement, adapting to the situation and the pupils was an important part of her work role. A vital aspect of emotional labour is the ability to produce an emotional state in another person and not merely manage one’s emotional reactions. Most of the interviewees engaged in surface acting, that is when one tries to remain calm, show a fake smile and display a feeling that does not reflect one’s true feelings (Hochschild, 1983). This was described as draining, and like previous studies of teachers and healthcare workers, some of the high school staff members showed signs of compassion fatigue and emotional exhaustion (Ormiston et al., 2022). Like previous studies (Isenbarger & Zembylas, 2006), Emma and several of her interviewed colleagues also struggled with their ‘performance’: they claimed to truly care about their pupils but often struggled with maintaining the appropriate emotional response to uphold a good relationship with them.

Although increasing demands of crime prevention and a lack of recourses were described as difficult and problematic, all interviewees mentioned the satisfying notion of caring for and helping pupils. By choosing to focus on the positive aspects of their work and seeing the pupils as in need of care, the emotional hardships of the job were easier to handle. This can be described as deep acting, as the high school staff members seemed to internalise the notion that they simply had to ‘deal with’ problematic issues and focus on the positive side of things. Several interviewees confessed that they had dreams of ‘saving everyone’ early on in their careers, but after a few years of work, they were even happy to ‘save’ one student. Feelings of hopelessness and frustration were managed by focusing their attention on the pupils that they had helped and other aspects of their work that they found fulfilling.

When talking about work dissatisfaction and frustration regarding pupils, several interviewees blamed ‘society’ for making their pupils ‘ill’, and not the pupils themselves. For example, when special education teacher Emma experienced a difficult situation, she reminded herself that the pupils needed her help and that her job was to guide and comfort them. This calmed her down and was the reason why she continued to perform her job well. The deteriorating state of young people’s mental health due to increased social media consumption, easier access to drugs and alcohol, as well as increased low self-esteem, issues of stress, anxiety, and higher performance requirements in school were mentioned by several interviewees. A teacher named Olof worried about this as some of his pupils lacked proper medication to treat, for example, anxiety or depression and instead used illegal substances. The pupils were thus described as victims of various circumstances rather than juvenile delinquents. When sharing success stories of pupils who overcame their use of alcohol or drugs and managed to finish school, the staff members sounded proud and happy. One of the staff members described that it was all worth the effort if they managed to help just a few pupils, even though their ambition was to help all of them. However, the success stories that were told about rehabilitated pupils were few in comparison with those that they saw as ‘failed’. Such feelings of hopelessness were managed by engaging in deep acting where they focused their attention on success stories when pupils had been rehabilitated and graduated from high school.

Conclusions and implications

This study aims to contribute new knowledge about the emotional labour and ambiguous work positions of high school staff members who work with young people who use drugs. Working with this category of pupils entails a myriad of emotional, practical, and personalised responses from the high school staff members. In sum, most interviewees experienced that their new tasks of crime prevention did not correspond well with how they perceived their work identity or their vocation of teaching and helping pupils. As described in the analysis, interviewed high school staff members invested time and effort into helping pupils who use drugs even though this was not part of their daily work tasks as educators. We found four primary themes of emotional responses to ambiguous situations among these professionals: (1) Feelings of frustration, responsibility, and inadequacy stemming from a perceived lack of proper education and training or the sense of ‘failing’ to help pupils, (2) Feelings of stress and irritation were associated with their ambiguous work identity, leading to emotional dissonance, (3) Feelings of exhaustion emerged from their dedication to helping the pupils, often resulting in compassion fatigue, and (4) Feelings of satisfaction were experienced when they successfully aided pupils.

The high school staff members adopted various techniques to manage their work tasks and make up for their lack of training and limited time to help the pupils, such as (1) establishing an informal network of professionals and other members of society (such as family, neighbours or friends) to ‘keep an eye’ on the pupils, (2) to be kind, build trust, and establish close relationships with the pupils. Our analysis provides empirical examples of situations when the ‘proper’ emotional response was unclear or ambiguous, as well as the techniques used to handle such situations. The interviewees described situations where they experienced role ambiguity and role conflict (Grandey, 2003; Mesmer-Magnus et al., 2012), which they associated with frustration and low job satisfaction.

This study adds to previous research by showing how the ambiguous position between care and crime prevention is managed via emotional labour and ways of handling the experience of emotional dissonance. However, the study has some limitations. As the sample consisted of 36 interviewees recruited from Swedish high schools a larger sample may provide other or more extensive conclusions. As there is ample quantitative research focusing on workers’ experiences of dissonance, role conflict, and role ambiguity (Blake, 2020), a qualitative study can provide in-depth knowledge regarding ambiguous and conflicting situations that might be difficult to catch with a quantitative method. Another issue worth mentioning is that the study includes a variety of high school staff members with different work roles and responsibilities, albeit in an educational setting. The interviewees might present different issues and problems associated with their specific work tasks. However, by not limiting us to one profession, we gain a deeper understanding of the organisational and structural aspects of how schools handle work with this category of pupils.

The implications of this study are twofold. First, accounts of emotional labour and ambiguous demands of high school staff members have been highlighted in this study. This demonstrates the need for future research regarding the emotional labour of teachers who work with crime prevention, what is expected of them, and how it affects their professional identity. This study thus demonstrates that there is an urgent need for teacher education and clear-cut policies regarding the crime-preventative role of high schools in Sweden. As the interviewees experience confusion, frustration, and ad-hod solutions, it is evident that a more streamlined approach is required. As we are part of a society where security measures and informal crime prevention efforts rapidly increase (Ericson, 2007) further studies of the schools’ role in societal crime prevention efforts and its effect on high school staff members are therefore urgently needed.

Second, our findings suggest that everyday emotion regulation and emotional labour in the school context must be examined as part of a wider investigation of school professionals’ changing demands and work roles. Considering previous research and theoretical perspectives, teachers (as well as nurses and social workers) play an important role in maintaining normality in society as they work closely with the general population and can detect deviant behaviour (Omaji, 1992; Vitale et al., 2021). The findings thus motivate further research on the crime-preventative role of schools and how these changes affect the professional work identity and emotional labour of school staff. For policymakers, it is essential to acknowledge the hardship and organisational failure that educational professionals face and the dire consequences that unclear guidelines, a lack of proper training, and time and budget limitations might have on the pupils in question.

Acknowledgements

We want to thank two anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sophia Yakhlef

Sophia Yakhlef PhD is a lecturer and teacher in criminology and sociology at the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Health Science, Kristianstad University in Sweden. Her research interest includes emotion management, emotional labour, collaboration, border policing, gender, identity, organisation culture, media studies, and alternative healthcare practices.

Goran Basic

Goran Basic is an associate professor in Sociology and senior lecturer at the Department of Pedagogy and Learning, at Linnaeus University in Sweden. Currently analysing: (1) early coordinated initiatives for children who may be vulnerable to criminality; (2) interests and expectations regarding continued studies at the university level; (3) the achievements, obstacles, collaboration, and identities in senior high school work with students who use alcohol and drugs; (4) the possibilities, obstacles, identities, and collaboration in senior high school work with newly arrived students.

Notes

1 As the legal age for buying alcohol in the store (Systembolaget) in Sweden is 20 years old, alcohol consumption by pupils under the age of 20 is technically also considered illegal even though alcohol is not an illegal substance as such. Alcohol consumption is however legal from 18 years old in restaurants, bars, and pubs.

2 The project is called School as a Protection Factor. An analysis of achievements, obstacles, collaboration, and identities in senior high school work with students who use alcohol and drugs and the project manager is Goran Basic, Linnaeus University in Sweden. Other participating universities are Kristianstad University, Sweden (LNU, 2023). Greve et al. (2022) and Olsson et al. (2023) also describe parts of the empirical data analysed in this study.

3 Other researchers and collaboration partners are David Wästerfors, Lund University, Yaka Matsuda, Hiroshima University, Japan, Galina Lokareva and Nadiya Stadnichenko, Zaporizhzhya National University, Ukraine and Rikke Greve, Caroline Andersson, Belinda Färdig, Lina Olsson.