Classifications of pupils as ‘weak’ seem to be present within schools in several of the Nordic countries. It is a way of classifying pupils which is not only situated within the school system, but also in educational research (e.g., Janssen et al., 2006) and governmental texts in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Although there is a substantial body of research on specific classifications in educational contexts, there is a need for further research on how school as an institution (re)produces classifications and understandings of pupils as ‘weak’. Although classifications are a natural part of language and fulfill an important function for the human way of dealing with the outside world, ‘weak pupil’ is a negative classification that can contribute to stigmatization and exclusion of students (Larina & Markina, 2019) and therefore needs to be further studied. The aim of this study was to develop a deeper understanding of compulsory school teachers’ social representations of ‘weak pupils’.
The theory of social representations suggests the understanding of pupils as ‘weak’ to be socially (re)produced and shared, taking the shape of common-sense knowledge (Moscovici, 2001). Their common-sense nature means that they are largely taken for granted and therefore rarely questioned. Classifications are means to hierarchize and evaluate objects and either confirm or diverge them from the norm (Moscovici, 2001).
Compulsory school teachers’ social representations of pupils as ‘weak’ were investigated by using focus group discussions. In total, 29 compulsory school teachers in six different Swedish compulsory schools participated. The analysis was performed using the theoretical concepts of theme, themata and discursive polyphasia.
The findings show that ‘weak pupil’ can be understood as an umbrella concept under which a variety of issues can be accommodated (Friberg, 2021). This highlights the diversity of meaning ascribed to pupils classified as ‘weak’. Another important result in this study showed that the participating teachers, to a certain extent, questioned classifications of pupils as ‘weak’. This is an important finding in relation to a body of literature that shows that perceived problems are often ascribed to individual pupils. These results should be of interest to Nordic educational research, considering inclusion as one key feature for schools in the Nordic countries (Klette, 2018).
2022.