This chapter aims to outline and analyse the tendency towards educational trends in education, and the ensuing lack of social sustainability. The example used is what I have termed the “educational enthusiast”-problem pertaining to schools’ work with newly arrived students.
Previous research as well as government evaluations in Sweden and internationally shows that work with newly arrived students is largely dependent on the commitment from teachers, specifically the teachers whose job it is to teach newly arrived students during an introduction period. These are the educational enthusiasts. In recent years, there has been a widespread attempt in Sweden to make newly arrived students schooling the responsibility and interest of the entire school, not merely the introductory teachers. Nationwide courses, research projects, and development projects were initiated on a large scale.
Analytically, the tendency towards trends in education can be understood in relation to the backdrop of liquid modernity (Bauman, 2012). According to Bauman, fluids neither fix space nor bind time. As with liquids, changes are rapid making the future difficult to predict. Individualisation, loss of, or freedom from, tradition, marketization and consumer ideals can all be understood as results of liquid modernity.
The projects, educational efforts and school development initiated to aid work with newly arrived students have run their course. The focus of the authorities have shifted, and the educational decision makers are moving on to other problems. This coincides with Sweden changing its laws and accepting fewer immigrants and refugees, which makes the problem of receiving newly arrived students less critical for many schools. The inevitable result of this is that the schools then drop the work they are doing with newly arrived students, in order to focus their attention and resources on the new areas defined by decision makers. Meanwhile, there are still students who are newly arrived, and schools still receive students although they are fewer. Thus, the responsibility of making sure these students have a good start in school in Sweden again falls on the “educational enthusiasts” and not on the schools. The focus on newly arrived students sprung from an urgent need, and now that the need is no longer urgent, it sinks into the background – the shape shifts. A liquid-modern logic makes any long-term work the responsibility of the educational enthusiasts, who are also made responsible for giving the process a more set form – but do not have the means to do so. The conclusions of the analysis point to a gap between the tendency towards trends in education and the idea of social sustainability as a central idea in education for the future.
Eskilstuna: Mälardalens högskola , 2020, 1. p. 65-76