The policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’: Construction and legitimation through a discursive institutionalist lens

Abstract

Transnational policy discourses shape teacher professionalism through discursive patterns in policy initiatives from the global policy actor, OECD. The policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ has emerged through discourses on teacher professionalism, spurring ambiguities regarding what the policy idea is and ought to be in Sweden. The aim of this article is to critically examine the construction and legitimation of the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’, in relation to teachers and the educational institution, through the lens of discursive institutionalism and strands in Curriculum Theory. The focus is a critical understanding of the interplay between ideas, discourses, actors and institutional context. The analysis of policy documents shows how the policy idea is constructed and legitimised through actors’ coordinative and communicative discourses at the national level, influenced by the OECD at the transnational level. The policy idea is intertwined with ideas and discourses on teachers’ professional development through a national professional programme and institutional conditions for goal attainment in schools. Tensions emerge regarding underlying assumptions about teacher quality, highlighting ideas of what teachers are and ought to be, within comprehensive reform strategies. Tensions entail emerging ideas of standardisation and differentiation and ambiguities regarding the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’.

Introduction

Teacher professionalism is shaped by transnational policy discourses endorsed by global policy actors such as the OECD at the transnational level (Nordin, 2016; Nordin and Wahlström, 2019) influencing policy formation at the national level (Lawn and Lingard, 2002). Ideas of teacher professionalism have been proposed ‘recognising teachers’ responsibility as professionals’ (OECD, 2015: 116), in relation to teaching, with the objective of improving quality within a globalised institutional context of education (Nordin and Wahlström, 2019). The policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’, emerging through discourses on teacher professionalism, promotes teachers’ ‘core responsibility’ of teaching in the Swedish education system (see Lindqvist, 2020; Ministry of Education and Research [MER], 2017, 2018; National Agency for Education [NAE], 2020a). However, ambiguities have emerged regarding what the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ is and ought to be in relation to teachers and the educational institution.

In this article, the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ is regarded as embedded in ideas, discourses and underlying assumptions about what teachers are and ought to be (Englund, 2019) within the educational institution. Indeed, policy ideas are characterised by multiple and sometimes contested meanings animated by ideas and discourses from transnational policy actors such as the OECD. Thus, ideas constructed by actors in education policy are complex, involving multiple underlying assumptions about education in a global, institutional and cultural context (Nordin and Sundberg, 2018; Steiner-Khamsi and Waldow, 2012; Wahlström and Sundberg, 2017). The role of global policy actors, such as the OECD, in influencing national education policies has been highlighted as not entirely a national issue (Lawn and Lingard, 2002; Rizvi and Lingard, 2010; Wahlström and Nordin, 2022; Ydesen, 2019). Ideas and concepts diffused from the transnational arena and translated and recontextualised, at the national arena, have been referred to as ‘travelling concepts’ (see Nordin and Sundberg, 2016). In a similar vein, borrowing and lending policy ideas, imperatives and solutions between the transnational and national levels have been highlighted as a complex process of translation within the national arena (Pettersson et al., 2017; Steiner-Khamsi and Waldow, 2012; Ydesen, 2019) where certain policy ideas gain legitimacy by referring to acknowledged values (Stenersen and Prøitz, 2020) within a globalised context.

As a lens to provide insight into policy ideas and discourses, Vivien Schmidt’s discursive institutionalism (Schmidt, 2008, 2010a, 2010b, 2011, 2012, 2015) views ideas as dynamic and complex in their contextualisation within education policy, entailing a range of normative ideas, concepts and underlying assumptions about what is and what ought to be (Schmidt, 2008, 2010b). Focusing primarily on the substantive content of ideas constructed and conveyed through discourses in policy, a discursive institutionalist approach contributes to a critical understanding of how ideas, discourses, actors and institutions are interrelated. In order to understand change through globalisation processes and transnational influences (Lundahl and Alexiadou, 2019; Steiner-Khamsi and Waldow, 2012; Wahlström and Nordin, 2022; Wahlström and Sundberg, 2017) the critical understanding of ideas and discourses in education policy, for example, as ‘policy solutions’ proposed for the local school context, is imperative. Yet, the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’, as constructed and legitimised through discourses on teacher professionalism, remains to be further explored.

The aim of this article is to critically examine actors’ construction and legitimation of the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ in relation to teachers and the educational institution. The questions specifying the aim are two-fold; firstly, how is the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ translated and elaborated through discourses on teacher professionalism by actors at the national level against the backdrop of the transnational level? Secondly, how is the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ institutionalised in education policy at the national level influenced by the transnational level? The policy idea is analysed through the lens of discursive institutionalism (Schmidt, 2008, 2010b) and strands of work in Curriculum Theory within an analytical framework (see e.g. Wahlström and Sundberg, 2017). Analytical tools are the ideational types of ‘policy ideas’ (i.e. proposed policy solutions), ‘programmatic ideas’ (i.e. programmes entailing the norms, ideals and goals that underpin policy ideas) and ‘philosophical ideas’ (i.e. public philosophies or worldviews that undergird proposed policies and programmes) (Schmidt, 2008), along with the lenses of ‘coordinative discourses’ (i.e. actors’ discursive interplay in the construction of policy) and ‘communicative discourses’ (i.e. the discursive legitimation of policy ideas) (Schmidt, 2008, 2015). The article is informed by the notion for both a systematic empirical analysis and critical examination in education policy analyses (see e.g. Nordin, 2016).

The article is structured into four sections. In the first section, a contextualisation of the idea of teacher assistants in Sweden in relation to ideas of teacher professionalism is presented. In the second section, the theoretical and methodological framework is elaborated, along with questions of method. In the third section, the critical examination of the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’, in relation to teachers and the educational institution, is presented. In the fourth and final section, the results are discussed in terms of policy actors’ construction and legitimation of the policy idea within and between the national and transnational levels.

Contextualising the idea of teacher assistants in Sweden

Education policy research on the idea of teacher assistants (see e.g. Hofbauer et al., 2021), in relation to teachers in education systems, is under-researched. In the Swedish context of education, Lindqvist (2020) focuses on the idea of teacher assistants as endorsing different ideas about teachers’ work in the public discourse. The idea of teacher assistants, emerging in education policy, has spurred discussions in the media, and among actors such as teachers’ unions and political representatives (Lindqvist, 2020), in terms of the characteristics and appropriateness of the idea. Although not entirely new, the idea of teacher assistants has recently been revived at the national level, gaining further momentum in 2016 (see Lindqvist, 2020; Lindqvist et al., 2020). In the public discourse on easing teachers, Swedish teachers’ unions endorsed the idea of teacher assistants as a measure that displayed consensus among actors from different arenas. In this manner, consensus revolved around the idea of teachers’ ‘pure work’, in terms of a focus on teaching as a ‘core responsibility’, leaving other responsibilities to, among others, teacher assistants (Lindqvist, 2020). This illustrates how ideas from teachers’ unions have influenced political and public discourses on diverse ideas about teachers’ work and the idea of teacher assistants. In 2015, a national uniting initiative was proposed in which the Swedish Government invited representatives from teachers’ unions and employers with the objective to ‘let teachers be teachers’. Thus, the initiative promoted measures to reduce the teacher shortage (Lindqvist, 2020), a phenomenon observed in several European countries (European Commission, 2012). An official report proposed that the idea of teacher assistants be further investigated (Lindqvist, 2020: 14; MER, 2016). In 2020, the NAE (2020a) positioned teacher assistants as a separate category of teachers. The NAE (2020a) also proposed areas upon which teacher assistants should focus, on the basis of the curriculum and the Swedish Education Act, thus furthering ideas about teachers and teacher assistants. However, concurrently, changes in the curriculum for compulsory schools were presented, with one of the wider objectives being increased teacher autonomy in relation to teaching. The changes made to the curriculum will be launched in the local school context in 2022 (NAE, 2022).

Contextualising the policy idea intertwined with teacher professionalism

Teacher professionalism in education policy has been widely researched (see e.g. Nordin, 2016; Seddon et al., 2013). However, research on the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ as embedded in teacher professionalism in education policy is scarce, at the national and transnational levels. Nevertheless, the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ is contextualised in education policy within a set of comprehensive reform strategies promoting teacher professionalism at the national level, influenced by ideas and discourses from the OECD at the transnational level.

In 2005, the OECD proposed ‘teacher quality’ as imperative to improve students’ learning outcomes and teachers were described as the most important resource for achieving this objective. As highlighted in the present article, the OECD (2015, 2019a) further emphasised that teachers’ fragmented working conditions were a challenge and employed this as an argument for governing change in the education system. Good working conditions for teachers were proposed as a subject for change to enhance teacher quality, along with the quality of the education system. Thus, this refers to the report of 2005 regarding teacher quality, for example in ‘recognising teachers’ responsibility as professionals’ and in terms of ‘career diversity’ (OECD, 2015: 116). In the report Improving Schools in Sweden – An OECD Perspective (OECD, 2015), following an audit of schools in Sweden, measures were proposed to promote equity and high quality in the Swedish education system. The inclination to pursue a comprehensive strategy for the education system was emphasised; therefore, the Swedish government initiated a School Commission. In the School Commission’s report (2017), presented by the MER, the argument was influenced by the OECD (2015) report in proposing a comprehensive strategy for the education system. In this report (MER, 2017), the idea of teacher assistants was contextualised within the overarching aim of the report, which was to propose objectives to improve the quality of teachers and teaching and, in turn, to improve students’ learning outcomes.

At the end of the 20th century, a reshaping of teachers’ lives as professionals became apparent (Biesta, 2004; Nordin, 2016). This displayed a shift from national governmental power to non-governmental actors at different levels within the system of education policy; for example, the OECD and the European Commission. These non-governmental actors, due to having no legal power, focused on aspects of ‘soft governance’ at a distance (Nordin, 2016). Education policymaking became characterised by globalised transnational influences on ideas (Nordin and Sundberg, 2016; Uljens and Ylimaki, 2017; Wahlström and Nordin, 2022). These global influences were signified by a ‘crisis discourse’ emphasising both the role of the teacher and the role of school performance in managing a proposed ‘educational crisis’ (Nordin, 2016). In this ‘crisis discourse’, teacher professionalism becomes the subject of diffused ideas at the transnational level, translated into education policy at the national level on the basis of local aspects, such as the cultural and political context. Teacher professionalism has continued to be highlighted in transnational policy discourses by global policy actors spurred by discourses on accountability and global competitiveness (Nordin, 2016; Solbrekke and Englund, 2011). Also, questions are raised regarding interrelations between proposed instructional improvements and increased teacher accountability to improve students’ learning outcomes. Thus, how the idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ is imbued with systemwide professional development for teachers in a national programme through standards-based reform with an instructional focus (see OECD, 2019b).

In an official Swedish governmental report (MER, 2018), the idea of teacher assistants is proposed in relation to teachers’ explicit focus on teaching and teachers’ professional responsibility for teaching (see Nordin, 2016; Solbrekke and Englund, 2011 on teachers’ professional responsibility). The idea is intertwined with the shaping of institutional conditions to promote teachers’ responsibility for teaching, along with systematic professional development with the purpose of improving quality (MER, 2018). Based on challenges described in education systems across Europe, the OECD (2019b) proposed human resource policies as ‘those actions that shape who school staff are and what they do’ (p. 3), and recommended ‘career structures’, the ‘distribution of responsibilities’ and ‘matching of staff with schools’ (OECD, 2019b). In the same report, aspects of teacher quality were emphasised, along with the presentation of not only the teacher, but a whole range of staff, as important for students’ holistic learning. In conclusion, the OECD (2015, 2019b) proposed a comprehensive reform strategy for the Swedish education system, gathering ideas about teachers’ work in terms of managing the presumed fragmented working conditions and resources in order to promote teachers’ ‘core responsibility’ of teaching, along with improving students’ learning outcomes. Thus, the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ is intertwined with ideas, concepts and discourses of teacher professionalism within the wider, globalised institutional context of education.

Theoretical and methodological framework

In this section, the theoretical lens of discursive institutionalism and methodological aspects from strands of work in Curriculum Theory are presented, along with questions of method.

Ideas and discourses – an interrelated view

A discursive institutionalist approach (Schmidt, 2008, 2010a, 2010b, 2012, 2015), the fourth strand within neo-institutionalism, focuses on the interrelation between ideas, discourses, actors and institutions. Ideas and discourses within an institutional context infuse webs of normative ideas and concepts – making the case for the theoretical lens of discursive institutionalism to understand policy ideas in context (Nordin and Sundberg, 2018; Wahlström, 2020). Ideas may be regarded as frames, worldviews, norms or principled ideas emphasising normative beliefs (Campbell, 2002). The dynamics of ideas lies in the interaction between different types of ideas within institutions (Schmidt, 2008, 2010a). Furthermore, ‘discourse’ may be understood as the content and exchange of ideas between different ideational types in an institutional context. From a discursive institutionalist perspective, three different types of ideas exist within policymaking (Campbell, 2002; Schmidt, 2008). Firstly, ‘policy ideas’ (Schmidt, 2008) focus on the element of timing, whereby these ideas comprise policy solutions to a proposed crisis. The focus is on why certain policies are constructed and why they change. Cultural dimensions as ideational elements are also important. In this ideational type, the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ is critically examined as a policy solution to proposed problems in the school context as they are discursively constructed by actors in education policy. Secondly, policy ideas are regarded as embedded in programmes underpinning ‘programmatic ideas’ (Schmidt, 2008). Programmatic ideas display the norms and ideals that are intertwined with the proposed policy ideas, along with goals to be achieved and instruments to be used. Furthermore, ‘programmatic ideas’ are infused with institutional discourses and structures which entail actors’ creation, elaboration and justification of ideas through discourses. In this article, the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ is demonstrated as being intertwined with programmatic ideas about teacher professionalism. The third type of ideas, ‘philosophical ideas’ (Schmidt, 2008), exists at a deeper level than the other two types. These are fundamental to programmes and policies in the sense of being silent background knowledge. A set of philosophical ideas constitutes a ‘public philosophy’ that consists of underlying assumptions and ideas (Campbell, 2002; Schmidt, 2008).

In this article, these three types of ideas are illustrated as part of a public philosophy, which includes underlying assumptions about teachers, the policy idea and education in a wider sense. These three types permeate the analysis, whereas the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ is embedded in certain programmatic ideas which are in turn based on certain philosophical ideas about teacher quality. This sheds light on underlying assumptions about what teachers are and ought to be, along with what the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ is and ought to be, embedded in cultural premises within a globalised institutional context of education.

The concept of discourse embodies the substantive content of ideas and the discursive communication of the three types of ideas, as aforementioned, through the theoretical concepts of ‘coordinative discourse’ and ‘communicative discourse’ (Schmidt, 2008, 2015). Coordinative discourses are played out between policy actors within and between the transnational level and the national level, in terms of a discursive interplay when creating ideas. Communicative discourses focus on the communication of ideas between policy actors, or between policy actors and ‘the public’, for example the school context, in terms of the proposed appropriateness of an idea (Schmidt, 2008, 2015). In communicative discourses, normative ideas are legitimised (Schmidt, 2015) through an emphasis on values and underlying assumptions (Nordin and Sundberg, 2018; Schmidt, 2008). In this article, the concepts of ‘coordinative discourse’ and ‘communicative discourse’ are used as theoretical lenses in the analysis to illustrate actors’ discursive construction and legitimation of the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’. This occurs in the interplay between policy actors in coordinative discourses (at the national level, influenced by the transnational level) and between policy actors (e.g. the NAE) and the school context in communicative discourses.

In addition, discursive institutionalism highlights the actor-centred construction of ideas and discourses through actors’ normative beliefs (Crowley et al., 2020). As pointed out by Nordin and Sundberg (2018), discursive communication may be regarded as threefold in terms of ‘text’ (what), i.e. what ideas are in focus; ‘context’ (when, where, how and why), that is where these ideas exist; and ‘agency’ or ‘actors’ (who), that is which actors construct and legitimise these ideas. From a discursive institutionalist perspective, the emphasis is on the substantive content of ideas and discourses; hence, on the relation between idea-analytical aspects (Crowley et al., 2020), what something ‘is’ and ‘ought to be’, and discourse-analytical aspects, the conveying of normative ideas through discourses by actors in context (see Nordin and Sundberg, 2018). A discursive institutionalist approach positions ideas and discourses in their cultural and institutional context (Crowley et al., 2020; Schmidt, 2010a), where the innate structures constrain the frame of new ideas (Crowley et al., 2020; Schmidt, 2008; Wahlström and Sundberg, 2017). This article is guided in its analysis by these premises.

Methodological aspects from strands in Curriculum Theory (e.g. Nordin and Sundberg, 2018; Wahlström and Sundberg, 2017) allowed for an understanding of the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ within and between levels. Thus, a systematic analysis of the policy idea at the national level influenced by the transnational level, was the focus. In addition, an understanding of policy ideas as signified by multiple and sometimes contested meanings, along with emphasising how innate ideas and discourses animate and constrain the frame of other ideas between levels (see e.g. Nordin and Sundberg, 2018; Wahlström and Sundberg, 2017), were highlighted.

The discursive institutionalist lens, along with strands of work in Curriculum Theory, allowed for a contextualisation of the policy idea. In this article, ‘context’ refers to the globalised institutional context of education consisting of different levels. Thus, policy actors’ creation, elaboration and justification of policy ideas at the national level, influenced by the OECD at the transnational level (Nordin and Sundberg, 2018), were highlighted. This focus contributed with a deeper understanding (see e.g. Lundahl and Alexiadou, 2019; Nordin and Sundberg, 2018; Steiner-Khamsi and Waldow, 2012) of the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ and its relation to teachers and the educational institution.

Hence, the analysis was oriented towards an abductive and comparative logic, where the analytical process was dynamic in the sense of moving within and between levels and between empirical data and theoretical conceptual lenses.

Questions of method

Selection of policy documents

Ten national policy documents, spanning the period from 2015 to 2020, were selected. These policy documents comprised committee directives, interim reports and final reports from official governmental investigations (the School Commission and the MER), along with a report and two memoranda from the NAE on a governmental commission. Key documents from the selection are the Swedish School Commission’s report Assemblage for School: National Strategies to Increase Knowledge and Equity (MER, 2017) and the governmental report from an official investigation Focusing on the Excellence of Teaching: A Framework for Teachers’ and Principals’ Professional Development (MER, 2018), along with the Report from a Governmental Commission on Bringing forward Material for How Teacher Assistants (. . .) Will Be Able to Relieve Teachers (NAE, 2020a) at the national level. In addition, reports were selected from the OECD at the transnational level, consisting of both national policy recommendations and policy recommendations to member countries of the OECD. A key document here is the authoritative report Improving Schools in Sweden: An OECD Perspective (OECD, 2015), which contains national policy recommendations for the Swedish education system.

The time-period was chosen on the basis of its centrality in the revival of a public discourse on teacher assistants in the Swedish context of education (see Lindqvist, 2020). At the national level, the policy documents were selected on the basis of their centrality in the elaboration, justification and embedding of the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’, both as formulations of teacher assistants and as part of a wider definition as ideas to ease and alleviate the work of teachers in order to emphasise teaching. The policy documents at the transnational level were selected on the basis of their centrality to the Swedish context of education in terms of both direct references in policy documents between the national and transnational levels and ideas to ease and alleviate the work of teachers.

Analysis of ideas and discourses in policy documents

The analysis focused on the ‘content of ideas through discourses’ (Schmidt, 2008); hence, on both idea-analytical aspects (‘what is’ and ‘what ought to be’) and discourse-analytical aspects (the conveying of the content of ideas through discourses). Firstly, in a critical explorative sense, ‘the teacher assistant’, ‘teachers’ and ‘education’ were used as lenses through which both manifest and latent content in the policy documents was gathered and analysed using idea-analytical aspects (Wodak and Krzyzanowski, 2008). For the systematic analysis of national policy documents, a coding scheme was used that covered meaning units, codes, categories and conceptualisations. This allowed for the process of low levels of abstraction (manifest content) and high levels of abstraction (latent meaning in the text). In the analysis, conceptualisations of the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ in relation to teachers and the educational institution were the focus. In this way, meaning in text and context, in terms of education policy, was analysed (see Wodak and Krzyzanowski, 2008). Quotations from the policy documents were used to support and illustrate the analysis. The quotations, integrated from national policy documents, were translated from Swedish to English by the author of the present article.

Secondly, the conceptualisations were analysed through the theoretical lens of discursive institutionalism, in a critical examination guided by ideas as the substantive content of discourses (Schmidt, 2008), i.e. discourse-analytical aspects. In this part of the analytical process, the ideational types of ‘policy ideas’, ‘programmatic ideas’ and ‘philosophical ideas’ permeated the analysis as analytical tools. In turn, the theoretical concepts of ‘coordinative discourse’ and ‘communicative discourse’ were used as lenses for a critical examination focusing on the content of ideas through discourses in an institutional context.

Thirdly, the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ conveyed through discourses was analysed against the backdrop of policy documents from the OECD. The analytical process was iterative in character entailing comparisons of conceptualisations within and between national policy documents against the backdrop of policy documents at the transnational level, along with critical examination through the theoretical lens.

Results – The policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ – construction and legitimation

In the following section, the analysis is presented in three parts. Firstly, the focus is on the construction of the policy idea through actors’ coordinative discourses; that is translation, elaboration and justification at the national level influenced by the transnational level. Secondly, the focus is on actors’ legitimation of the policy idea through communicative discourses at the national level. Thirdly, the focus is on philosophical ideas, intertwined with the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ and programmatic ideas about teacher professionalism, with underlying assumptions about what teachers are and ought to be.

The policy idea as constructed through teacher professionalism

The creation of the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ revolves around how core transnational ideas and discourses influence and animate ideas at the national level. The policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ is intertwined with the translation, elaboration and justification of other ideas, through actors’ coordinative discourses, within and between the transnational and national levels.

To begin with, in the report Improving Schools in Sweden – An OECD Perspective the OECD (2015) proposed a comprehensive reform of the Swedish education system due to a proposed ‘crisis’ in students’ learning outcomes. In the report (OECD, 2015), a plethora of transnational ideas was proposed, such as the inclination to shape teachers’ institutional conditions to endorse an increased focus on teaching in order to promote quality and equity. As a response to the OECD (2015) report, the Swedish School Commission was appointed, with the purpose of elaborating a comprehensive strategy for the education system by, for example, mirroring the emphasis on easing teachers’ institutional conditions in order to promote teaching and improve students’ learning outcomes (MER, 2017). The OECD (2015) proposed institutional structures as key to increase teachers’ responsibility as professionals by means of promoting excellence in teaching. Thus, highlighting that ‘(. . .) Sweden should develop quality standards for teachers and school leaders that are explicit in terms of required knowledge and skills’ (OECD, 2015: 135). In this manner, continuous professional development was highlighted as an ‘obvious’ and ‘fundamental’ aspect in the education system (Ibid.). Translating and elaborating on this policy endorsement, the School Commission (MER, 2017) proposed a national programme to build a comprehensive system for teacher standards, ‘qualification’ and school improvement influenced and justified by transnational ideas (see OECD, 2019b on ‘professional standards’ and vertical and horizontal development). Additionally, improving conditions in terms of teachers’ use of time, to focus on teaching, was emphasised as part of this inclination. Within this context, the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’, among other ideas, were highlighted as ‘urgent’ (MER, 2017: 211) to reduce teachers’ workload and ease their institutional conditions to increase focus on teaching.

Moreover, through coordinative discourses within the national arena, a framework for a national programme, to promote programmatic ideas about teacher professionalism, was later elaborated in an official governmental report (MER, 2018). This framework was presented with the purpose of shaping conditions to endorse teachers’ professional responsibility ¹ for the excellence of teaching in order to improve students’ learning outcomes (MER, 2018). Taken together, the report entailed the translation, elaboration and justification of ideas from the School Commission animated and legitimated by transnational ideas from the OECD. As further justification of the national programme, the report (MER, 2018) highlighted other national education systems, as promoted by the OECD in national policy recommendations. For example, The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) in the USA, with the aim of developing eight standards for teachers’ professional development in terms of the excellence of teaching, for example in ‘developing as a professional’. References were also made to the national model of The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST) entailing three teaching domains, ‘professional knowledge’, ‘professional practice’ and ‘professional engagement’, comprising seven standards (MER, 2018: 207).

Taken together, the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ is embedded in coordinative discourses on teacher professionalism by endorsing the notion of teachers’ increased professional responsibility for teaching and teachers’ professional development through a national programme focusing on teacher standards. In conclusion, this illustrates how core ideas and discourses proposed at the transnational level animate, influence and legitimate ideas translated at the national level (see Nordin and Sundberg, 2016 on ‘travelling concepts’). Furthermore, how transnational ideas channel political action at the national level in endogenous processes of construction, justification and elaboration is illustrated.

The policy idea as intertwined with ideas on differentiation

The translation, elaboration and justification of the national professional programme in the Swedish education system and the creation of the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ are embedded in transnational ideas on emerging differentiation.

To begin with, the proposed national programme indicated a notion of differentiation within and between roles and responsibilities. The national programme was proposed to promote differentiation in teachers’ role, based on national merits and standards (OECD, 2015). Thus, differentiation between roles and responsibilities was further animated by the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ by endorsing teachers’ professional and core responsibility for teaching through the easing of institutional conditions. Differentiation was further elaborated and justified in a report by the MER (2018) regarding a proposed clarification of roles and responsibilities influenced by the School Commission (MER, 2017) and animated by transnational ideas. For instance, ideas on career differentiation and teacher standards were entailed (OECD, 2015), and mirrored in the national programme. In a similar vein, ideas on clarifying who is responsible for teaching, resourcing students, administration and practical work, and supporting the school organisation were also implicated (MER, 2018).

As further translation and elaboration of transnational ideas, coordinative discourses in the national arena involved the NAE (2020b) which further justified the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ as assisting teachers’ focus on teaching. Thus, the policy idea discursively reinforces the proposed ‘core responsibility’ (see Lindqvist, 2020) for teaching and the role of teachers in education policy spurring tensions regarding future increased teacher accountability.

Legitimation and communication of the policy idea

The legitimation and communication of the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ revolve around how values are embedded and animated by transnational ideas from the OECD. In this manner, the proposed appropriateness of the policy idea is legitimised and communicated between policy actors and between the NAE (2020a, 2020b) and the local school context.

To begin with, communicative discourses on the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ emerged between policy actors regarding the legitimation of the focus on teaching, responsibilities and quality: ‘Teachers’ core responsibility is to teach, and the core content of teachers’ work should be that which generates quality in teaching and promotes student learning’ (MER, 2018: 445). Thus, the increased focus of teachers on teaching and responsibility for teaching was highlighted by policy actors (MER, 2018; NAE, 2020b). In addition, the policy idea was legitimised through proposed challenges to ambiguous boundaries and responsibilities in the local school context (MER, 2018; NAE, 2020a), mirroring the proposed differentiation and clarification of roles and responsibilities (MER, 2017) influenced by transnational ideas (OECD, 2015). In a similar vein, the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ was conveyed as in need of further elaboration: ‘It is apparent that the role of teacher assistants is under development and that it could entail multiple aspects’ (MER, 2018: 457).

Furthermore, following a governmental commission, the NAE (2020b) communicated the policy idea as appropriate in complementary aspects to teachers legitimised to ease teachers, and to improve students’ learning outcomes and the quality of education. In this manner, the NAE (2020a, 2020b) conveyed the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ in relation to both administration and teaching processes. In the former, the policy idea was communicated as a measure to avoid teachers becoming involved in excessive administration in order to endorse teaching. In the latter, the policy idea was conveyed as complementary to teachers and teaching processes to improve quality and students’ learning outcomes.

Taken together, these aspects of the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ were legitimised, between policy actors’ communicative discourses, embedded in a context of an increased teacher shortage, quality and students’ learning outcomes. In addition, the policy idea was conveyed as a policy solution, in the local school context, to endorse increased time and focus on teaching by easing teachers’ institutional conditions.

Endorsement of quality and goal attainment

Communication of what the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ is and ought to be, in the local school context, displays ambiguities regarding orientation towards teachers or the educational institution at the national level.

To begin with, a report from the NAE (2020a), about the local school context, conveyed aspects of teaching processes in terms of which elements are designated for teachers, on the basis of values in the curriculum and the Swedish Education Act (MER, 2010), and which elements can be handled by a ‘teacher assistant’. The policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ was described in relation to an implicit responsibility for aspects of teaching processes guided by a teacher and teachers were described as explicitly responsible for teaching. However, teachers were also conveyed as not responsible for all aspects of teaching processes, in their entirety, as elaborated by the NAE (2020a).

The fact that teaching should be conducted under the guidance of a teacher does not necessarily mean that the teacher must conduct all the activities involved in teaching processes. In the preparatory work for the Education Act, it is stated that the teacher does not have to be present in the classroom during the entire class, as long as the teacher carries the overall responsibility. (NAE, 2020a: 11)

The ‘explicit and implicit responsibility’ for aspects of teaching processes indicated denote further differentiation in inferring the idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ into the complexities of teachers’ role and responsibilities. Consequently, the idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ is displayed as entangled in notions of quality. The NAE (2020b) elaborated on the appropriateness of the policy idea in terms of ‘complementary aspects’ highlighting that the Swedish Education Act (MER, 2010: 800) explicitly holds teachers accountable for teaching.

Furthermore, in terms of ambiguity in meaning, the policy idea emerges as intertwined with ‘assisting’ the educational institution to improve quality and goal attainment in schools; thus, it is also imbued with ideas about systematic quality work. ² The inclination to legitimise the policy idea as ‘assisting’ in the attainment of goals and systematic quality work in schools was conveyed in communicative discourses by the NAE (2020a). Goal attainment was conveyed by emphasising that ‘(. . .) school objectives are broader than teacher objectives. It is important to separate schools’ responsibilities from teachers’ responsibilities and to understand that some aspects of the work of schools can be achieved by others’ (NAE, 2020a: 8). Hence, imbued in communicative discourses on the policy idea was to shape institutional conditions in order for the local school context and the education system to master goals and results. The NAE (2020a, 2020b) further emphasised the proposed differentiation in responsibilities in the national arena. This differentiation was legitimised in communicative discourses as a path towards further improving quality, animated by policy actors’ coordinative discourses at the national level. It also resonates with transnational ideas from the OECD (2019b) regarding the differentiation of school processes into ‘whole-school processes’, ‘classroom processes’ and processes of student learning (p. 48). In turn, this resonates with the ambiguities in the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ as being oriented towards either teachers or the educational institution as aforementioned. Tensions emerge regarding the underlying assumptions about what the policy idea of the ‘teacher assistant’ is and ought to be in relation to teachers and the educational institution.

The policy idea as embedded in philosophical ideas about ‘teacher quality’

The policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ and programmatic ideas about teacher professionalism are intertwined with philosophical ideas about ‘teacher quality’ highlighting underlying assumptions about ‘what is’ and ‘what ought to be’ (see Biesta, 2009 on ‘instrumental values’ regarding the problem of ‘is’ and ‘ought to be’). Thus, the creation of the policy idea as shaping teachers’ conditions to promote professional responsibility and development, through the national programme of teacher standards, animates teacher quality.

To begin with, the OECD (2005, 2015, 2019a) has emphasised teacher quality as imperative on the policy agenda, along with highlighting conditions for teachers as a challenge and as an inclination for change. Within this context, contradictory ideas have been proposed, spurring tensions and ambiguities. On the one hand, ideas on easing teachers and reducing workload are proposed. On the other hand, ideas on raising teacher standards to promote teacher quality through a national programme are endorsed. Several countries in Europe are described as making a distinction between teacher quality and teacher shortages; however, these are presented as closely interrelated within the Swedish education system (MER, 2018). It is proposed that competent teachers should devote their time to teaching and excellence to improve teacher quality. Thus, the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ is intertwined with contradictory ideas at the nexus between easing teachers’ struggles with time and decreasing the teacher shortage, and improving teacher quality imbued with standards-based reform. Taken together, these ideas are mirrored in the emerging national programme in the Swedish education system, which highlights emerging regulation and evaluation (see Biesta, 2009) of excellence, competencies and standards to raise teacher quality and students’ learning outcomes.

Moreover, the longstanding idea that teachers are important resources for quality (OECD, 2005, 2015, 2019a) is further embedded in the justification of a variety of roles in the education system. To improve quality, the OECD (2019b) proposed that governing school resources is a policy priority across member countries, including ‘teacher resources’. Based on an OECD (2019b) review, increased ‘teacher resources’ was proposed as one measure in policy approaches to focus on teaching and for programmatic ideas on teacher professionalism. In a similar vein, the OECD (2019b) proposed a plethora of ideas related to teacher quality, such as support staff, to be translated within national education systems. However, these ideas were proposed as increasingly important for students’ holistic learning, as well as for goal attainment within schools. The idea of ‘teacher aides’ (OECD, 2019b) was conveyed as supporting teachers in both their instructional roles referring to direct instruction and leadership, and their non-instructional roles within the school context in a wider sense (see Galey, 2016 on ‘instructional role’ referring to whole-school improvement and systemwide professional development to improve teacher quality within accountability policies). The OECD (2019b) promoted the idea of teacher aides as ‘educational staff’; in turn, presenting a ‘teacher assistant’ as a teacher aide within the Swedish education system (p. 107).

In conclusion, education policy at the national level is influenced and animated by transnational discourses on teacher quality (see e.g. Nordin and Wahlström, 2019; Wahlström and Nordin, 2022). This entails the policy idea as intertwined with endorsing conditions to promote teacher standards and competencies in a national programme, with underlying assumptions about teacher quality. However, ideas embedded in teacher quality are normative in terms of why teacher quality is an objective and what teacher quality is and should be (see Biesta and Stengel, 2016) in relation to what teachers are and ought to be.

Discussion

To critically examine the construction and legitimation of the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’, in relation to teachers and the educational institution, an analysis of policy documents was conducted. The analysis shows that the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ is constructed and legitimised through coordinative and communicative discourses in education policy. The analysis highlights the policy idea as translated, elaborated and intertwined with other ideas and discourses at the national level, influenced by the transnational level. Thus, the construction and legitimation of the policy idea emerge as threefold in its tensions within and between levels in a globalised institutional context of education. Tensions emerge in terms of governing either towards the ‘inner work’ of teaching or towards goal attainment in schools. In addition, tensions emerge in terms of underlying assumptions about what is and what ought to be (Schmidt, 2008, 2010b); for example, what the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ is and ought to be in relation to what teachers are and ought to be. Moreover, tensions illustrate which ideas and discourses are reinforced, spurred and emerging in policy spaces regarding teachers’ work and the work of schools entailing further uncertainty and ambiguity.

Firstly, the analysis highlights the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ as animating further ideas about teachers’ responsibility through actors’ coordinative discourses. This can be viewed in the light of the policy idea as spurring ideas on (re)defining and (re-)shaping teachers’ work; which, in turn, emphasises uncertainty. Lindqvist (2020) highlights the public discourse on teacher assistants as animating different ideas about teachers’ work in emerging policy spaces. The policy idea and its relation to teachers’ ‘core responsibility’ of teaching sheds light on emerging ideas around standardisation and differentiation regarding teachers. The analysis illustrates that the policy idea, along with other ideas, endorses the proposed shaping of institutional conditions to endorse teachers’ professional responsibility through a national programme raising questions on increased accountability through teacher standards. Nordin (2016) discusses tensions regarding teachers’ professional responsibility in a policy context entrenched in accountability. In a policy context within the accountability paradigm (Verger et al., 2019), the analysis further highlights tensions and contradictions between teachers’ professional responsibility and teacher accountability. In this manner, ideas about teachers’ ‘core responsibility’ and increased professional responsibility for teaching illustrate an intensified pressure on accountability within the education system. This indicates increased professional governance of teaching intertwined with actors’ coordinative discourses at the national level influenced and animated by the transnational level. In turn, this can be viewed in the light of governmental requirements of easing teachers and increasing teacher autonomy concurrent with increasing accountability and raising standards in national education systems (see e.g. Hofbauer et al., 2021). Taken together, tensions are reinforced regarding the appropriateness of the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ as proposed to ease teachers’ institutional conditions.

Secondly, the analysis demonstrates ambiguities in what the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ is and ought to be. Thus, it sheds light on the uncertainty for whom or what the idea is proposed regarding teachers and the goal attainment in schools. The analysis shows indications of differentiation between teachers’ and schools’ responsibilities. In this manner, the policy idea was imbued in communicative discourses to shape institutional conditions for teachers to focus on teaching in order for the education system to succeed, positioned as one of the ideas in the nexus between teacher accountability and school accountability. Thus, the policy idea, among other ideas, endorse the systemic relation between teachers and the education system within proposed comprehensive educational strategies through actors’ coordinative discourses.

Thirdly, the analysis highlights that the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ is embedded in philosophical ideas with underlying assumptions about what teachers are and ought to be. As illustrated in the analysis, the policy idea is intertwined with the national programme highlighting teacher standards with the longstanding idea of raising teacher quality to improve students’ learning outcomes. At the national level, the policy idea is elaborated to endorse teachers’ time and shape institutional conditions; in turn, promoting teacher standards through the national programme influenced by the transnational level. This sheds light on indications of discursive flows towards increased standardisation and teacher quality as part of comprehensive reform strategies. Hence, tensions emerge as the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ endorses underlying assumptions about teachers in discourses at the national level animated by discourses at the transnational level. This indicates that discourses of a certain meaning animate new ideas and channel political action (see Schmidt, 2008). The policy idea seems to resonate with longstanding norms and philosophical ideas in what could be described as a societal repertoire (Schmidt, 2008) entangled in transnational policy discourses. Hence, this displays how ‘what is’, for example in terms of teacher professionalism, animate ‘what ought to be’, thus following the logic of instrumental values, as opposed to ultimate values, in terms of what is desirable in education (see Biesta, 2009). In this manner, institutionalised discourses on teacher professionalism in a result-oriented education system are reinforced. Nordin and Wahlström (2019) discuss transnational policy discourses on teacher quality as intertwined with deeper discursive frames of education in a wider sense, which are often viewed as one-sided. The policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’, embedded in teacher quality, is intertwined with the objective of goal attainment and improving students’ learning outcomes. Thus, it is based on underlying assumptions that social efficiency in the education system will promote effective institutional conditions for teachers’ focus on teaching (Sundberg, 2021) to improve teacher quality.

Taken together, the policy idea is embedded in inherent discourses in education policy, highlighting underlying assumptions about the policy idea, teachers and education in a wider sense. Although illustrating change, the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ is culturally contingent within discourses on teacher quality. That is, cultural settings animate the construction and legitimation of ideas and discourses through transnational influences at the national level. Hence, the policy idea is constructed and conveyed through coordinative and communicative discourses, as well as reifying existing discourses on quality, concurrently promoting change. Thus, the analysis shows how actors’ coordinative discourses on teacher quality contribute to indications of institutionalising the policy idea, legitimised through communicative discourses.

Furthermore, this article explains and contributes to an understanding of how ideas and discourses from policy actors such as the OECD at the transnational level influence policy ideas at the national level (see Lundahl and Alexiadou, 2019; Rizvi and Lingard, 2010; Steiner-Khamsi and Waldow, 2012; Wahlström, 2020; Wahlström and Sundberg, 2017). In this article, the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ is embedded in a globalised institutional context of education, lending its exogenous legitimation through a meaning framework; for example, in terms of transnational policy discourses on improving quality (see Nordin and Wahlström, 2019). Hence, this article further explains how ideas and discourses at the transnational level animate ideas at the national level in coordinative discourses in education policy. The policy idea emerges as conceptually and discursively dependent on institutional ideas and discourses, although characterised by ambiguity. Indications of the institutionalisation of the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ within inherent discourses in education policy enhance its discursive legitimacy. Along the same lines of reasoning, this article explains how ideas and discourses from the OECD at the transnational level are recontextualised; for example, regarding teacher standards, spurring discursive legitimacy and channelling political action at the national level. In turn, this illuminates how these ideas and discourses influence endogenous processes of translation and recontextualisation influenced by the cultural context. Thus, core phrases and ideas at the transnational level are translated, elaborated and recontextualised by actors’ at the national level (see Nordin and Sundberg, 2016 on ‘travelling concepts’).

Moreover, ideas are constructed by actors, not only through exogenous processes in terms of recontextualised ideas (Nordin and Sundberg, 2018; Steiner-Khamsi and Waldow, 2012; Wahlström, 2020), but concurrently through endogenous processes of construction within national education systems (Nordin and Sundberg, 2018). Thus, the policy idea lends its endogenous legitimation (Schmidt, 2010b) through a proposed shaping of teachers’ institutional conditions and a decreased teacher shortage with the objective of improving students’ learning outcomes. Ideas in education policy can be characterised, on the one hand, by transnational global homogenisation displayed by, for instance, accountability and standardisation (Nordin, 2016). On the other hand, by increased local pluralisation of the political, along with the professional sphere at the national level with global influences (Uljens and Ylimaki, 2017). Through endogenous change spurred on by exogenous influences from the OECD, the construction and legitimation of the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ provides insight into the idea as not merely concerning discourses and text, but also as embedded in the institutional context, as explained in this article. Taken together, this illustrates how a discursive institutionalist approach entails not only discursive but also institutional elements of what the policy idea is and ought to be in relation what teachers are and ought to be.