‘You have this pressure from above’: Exploring provision of educational support within tensions of organisational and professional logics

Abstract

This article explores how provision of educational support is influenced by tensions between organisational and professional logics in two Swedish lower secondary schools. Based on extensive fieldwork over three academic semesters, including interviews and observations, findings make visible how the dominance of organisational logics hinder equitable provision of educational support. Findings are analysed with the theoretical framework of organisational and professional logics, using the concepts of time poverty, ethical stress, and empaperment to highlight the implications of the tensions between organisational and professional logics. Documentation is made instrumental for purposes of accountability rather than enhanced teaching, leading teachers to spend time on reporting tasks they have a hard time making meaningful. In response, school staff simplify or defer tasks, which can result in illusional support – support that is documented but not meaningfully enacted. This aggravates ethical stress and time poverty at the same time as it undermines equitable access to educational support, particularly disadvantaging pupils from migrated families. The concluding discussion addresses that the dominance of organisational logics compromises both educational equity and professional practice, and that the domination of organisational logics – if persistent – can mitigate efforts or reforms intended to improve the situation for teachers and pupils in schools.

Keywords

Educational support equity organisational logics professional logics documentation

Introduction

While time constraints and disputes around the organisation and work in schools have always existed, the organisational logics in Swedish schools have shifted since neoliberal ideas started reforming the public welfare system in the 1980s, similar to what has been the case in other OECD countries (Hood, 1991; Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2017). The shift in organisational logics towards strategies of New Public Management (NPM) has increased tensions with the professional logics. The latter being more oriented towards handling equity and educational quality in the diverse situations comprising everyday life at schools, rather than complying with market-oriented mechanisms, improvement of cost- and result-efficiency, and measurable quality of services (Ball, 2003; Lundahl et al., 2013; Olssen and Peters, 2005). As this structural transformation shape the experiences that render everyday practices of teachers, it is of interest to study how specific practices are influenced. In this case, the studied practice belongs to a core dimension of the teaching profession as well as of the whole education system: the provision of educational support.

Provision of educational support is key for pupils with educational needs and pupils at risk of school failure. According to the Swedish School Inspectorate (2024) and the Swedish Teachers’ Union (2024), most pupils with educational needs are provided educational support, but as many as a third of these are not. Decisions and management of educational support render from power dynamics taking place in the complexities of everyday life at school, as well as of the education system as a whole. One such dynamic is the tension between organisational and professional logics. Researching two lower secondary schools during three semesters, this study explores how provision of educational support is influenced by tensions between organisational and professional logics. Tensions within which educational support are rendered. For this purpose, two research questions are key:

- What tensions between organisational and professional logics are observable in the studied schools?

- How do the tensions influence the schools’ provision of educational support?

Background

Historically, Sweden's education system was highly centralised, with strong state control over funding, curriculum, and administration. However, during the early 1990s, it evolved to one of the most decentralised systems among OECD countries, having far-reaching implications for the structure, equity, and quality of education in Sweden (Bunar, 2010; Hultqvist, 2018; Rönnberg, 2011). In the Swedish education system, the shift towards NPM has primarily materialised through three interwoven reforms introduced in the 1990s: the decentralisation of school governance, the introduction of school choice, and the expansion of independent schools (Bergstrand, 2022; Lundahl, 2002; Ramberg, 2015). These reforms were, in many ways, poorly implemented (Swedish Government, 2014), leading to persistent frustration among teachers. Previous to this, the introduction of the comprehensive school during the 1960s had already rendered dissatisfaction among an important share of the teachers regarding their situation. During that period, it was the increased diversity of the pupils enrolled in the new uniform school that had led to increased work load, increased diversity of tasks and an increase in administration (Swedish Government, 1976). While NPM is not the focal point of this research, it is a paradigm of the education system and research concerned with it since the 1990s (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2017). The reforms that came with the new paradigm had an augmentative effect on administration and scrutiny when intending to safeguard that a/one school for all (en skola för alla) persisted when diversity increased also in terms of school organisers, which now moreover could make economic profit. Profit generated from public funds through a voucher system. As of today, the Swedish system holds over 700 independent school organisers in charge of 18% of the primary and lower secondary schools, according to the Swedish National Agency for Education (SNAE, 2024).

Accounting for equity with documentation and educational support

One of the rationales for the increased control introduced with NPM was to safeguard equity within the diversified system (Bergstrand, 2022). The creation of the Swedish School inspectorate and revisions of the Education Act (EA) (2010/2025:730) served this purpose, as well as purposes of ensuring correct use of public funding. One of the additions to the EA was a definition of when and how to engage with educational support: first, when there is reason to believe a pupil risks not meeting the minimum grade criteria, extra adaptations (extra anpassningar) are to be provided. This can be understood as ordinary teachers adopting inclusive teaching strategies in ordinary classes. If this fails to bring sufficient improvement, an assessment (utredning) must be made to evaluate the need for specific support (särskilt stöd) for the pupil. Specific support is defined as being more far-reaching and requiring of the principal’s approval, and often involving special educators as well as ordinary teachers. When provided specific support, the school must elaborate an action plan (åtgärdsprogram) (3 chap, §5-9). The specifics and proceedings regarding educational support in the EA, are preceded by a paragraph mandating that teaching should, generally, ‘guide and stimulate’ every pupil as to develop as much as possible, given their capacity (3 chap, §2).

The enhanced EA and increased control mechanisms, such as performance reviews and ‘systematic quality work’ became essential in expanding an accountability structure soon conditioning work on every level, aligned with the power dynamics in what Hopmann labelled the age of accountability (Bergh, 2015). While issues regarding teachers’ tasks and time management were present previous to this age (Swedish Government, 1976), they have intensified (Swedish Government, 2014). Research has made visible how documenting and reporting duties have become more prominent, reducing the importance of taking professional responsibility in Swedish schools (Englund, 2011; Erlandson et al., 2020). Teachers also identify time constraints as a barrier to the provision of educational support (Söderlund et al., 2024).

Measuring, grading, and test-based accountability have been extensively studied in relation to the expansion of NPM (Erlandson et al., 2020; Verger et al., 2019) and have therefore not been the primary focus of the present study, despite their central relevance. The documentation of educational support, that is pivotal in the organisational logics made visible in this study, can be understood in relation to the overarching pressure of performing high grades both as teacher and as school. Documentation of educational support serves to make visible the efforts teachers have made to achieve the ultimate goal of passing grades – particularly when those efforts are unsuccessful.

During 2025, interim reports from several governmental inquiries were presented proposing numerous changes in the education system. Among them are more detailed regulations of the amount of time to allocate for preparation and teaching (Swedish Government, 2025b), as well as a proposal of replacing the requirement of extra adaptations in ordinary class with support education (stödundervisning) provided in temporal segregated settings (Swedish Government, 2025a).

Impact on the teaching profession

While the transformation of the public sector impact on many of its professions, it has been argued that teaching is a profession particularly vulnerable to state interventions (Hordern, 2024). Studies in the Swedish context indicate that the organisational transformations within the education system have led to a partially redefined teaching role, characterised by an increased administrative burden, reduced professional autonomy, and an overall higher workload (Lundahl et al., 2013; Lundström and Parding, 2011). Previous research has shown that the implementation of NPM principles in the education sector has made teachers more dependent on local governance structures, directives, and performance targets rather than the shared professional standards that traditionally guided the profession. In sociological research, it has been argued that ‘NPM results in a “deprofessionalisation” of civil servants’ (Jarl et al., 2012: 429). It can be understood as including school personnel as well as school administrators on different levels, which experience ethical dilemmas in their leadership (Arar and Saiti, 2022).

This transformation can be understood as rendering within ongoing tensions between professional and organisational logics, where educational priorities are increasingly shaped by managerial and administrative concerns rather than pedagogical expertise.

Previous research examining the tensions coincide on their influence on daily practices of teaching, often rendering conflicting results when the organisational logics dominate. As teachers’ burden increase and their motivation decrease under such circumstances, studies generally frame accountability measures as ineffective (Hwa, 2022; Proudfoot and Boyd, 2024; Skerritt, 2023). Multiple actors, like parents and leadership, are found to be part of accountability processes, but also teachers ‘self-surveilling’ to comply. Tasks involving documentation often surface as key to school personnel, being both burdensome and mainly instrumental for accountability rather than for improving teaching (Perryman and Calvert, 2020; Skerrit, 2023; Milner et al., 2021; Thompson et al., 2022). The concept of time poverty (Creagh et al., 2023) has been introduced to address that it is not merely a matter of limited time and resources, but an experience of limited opportunities to be a teacher, when time is consumed by tasks understood to serve other purposes than those belonging to the teaching profession.

A few studies unpack how dynamics like these influence specific aspects of education. One focussing on school absence (Stokes et al., 2024) find that teachers tend to build relationships with parents for accountability reasons – to ‘please’ parents or report internally of having involved them. These relationships are found to be less beneficial for the pupils’ school attendance, compared to relationships that are built with the purpose of increasing the understanding of families’ situations and possible barriers for the pupil’s school attendance. Another study explores professional development (Proudfoot and Boyd, 2024), that is, demanded by organisational logics for purposes of salary and enhanced career possibilities. The study finds that teachers engaging in professional development driven by these logics do not develop skills at the same level as if engaging based on a motivation of actually learning and improving, aligned with professional logics. In his studies on how Swedish teachers position and enact inclusive education handling dilemmas, Paulsrud (2023) discusses the influence of policy demands and contextual factors on their conscious and unconscious decisions. In the Swedish context, a thorough meta-analysis of several ethnographic studies carried out 2010–2016 (Erlandson et al., 2020) focuses on teachers’ working conditions and career prospects, arguing that the neoliberal agenda renders an ideal of competition rather than cooperation between teachers. This competition is based on documented efforts regarding teaching and assessments, as well as attendance to courses and professional development, ‘where displaying a quantity of performances is more valued than qualitative commitments to pupils’ development’ (422).

To the best of our knowledge, the present study is the first to adopt a similar qualitative approach for exploring how the impact of accountability structures and organisational logics on teachers working lives influence how schools allocate and provide educational support.

Theoretical framework

This study builds on the theoretical concept of organisational and professional logics (Evetts, 2006; Freidson, 2001; Lundström and Parding, 2011), completing it with the understanding of empaperment as a key mechanism within the organisational logics (Bornemark, 2018a). In addition, ethical stress (ibid.) and time poverty (Creagh et al., 2023) are analysed as significant outcomes of the tensions that arise between professional and organisational logics. The use of theoretical concepts emerges abductively in the analytical process during and after field work, grounded in the theoretical realm of Foucault and, in particular, his understanding of power dynamics (1980; 1987). Being the case, the study is theoretically situated in the post-structural tradition, springing from, among others, Foucault (Brown, 2008). This shapes the research by adopting a reflexive approach to both methodology and analysis, grounded in an epistemology that understands subjectification as a multi-faceted process, always in motion and continuously produced (Foucault, 1982).

Organisational and professional logics

For teachers, as well as others exercising professional work, there is a tension between professional and organisational logics. The concept of organisational logics springs from the work of Weber on the nature of the bureaucracy (1978), that he labelled the bureaucratic logic. It was initially analysed as in tension with market logics, until Freidson introduced the professional logics, drawing from the field of professionalism (2001). While the organisational logics are based on measurability and a ‘calculating rationality’, the professional logics can be seen as resting on two beliefs: that training and experience are essential for carrying out the work one is specialised in, and that this work cannot be rationalised or standardised. The professional logics are based on trust in the professional’s knowledge, ethics, and responsibility-taking (ibid). It is important to underline that the logics referred to are theoretical concepts and do not necessarily correspond to observable outcomes in cases where either the organisation or the professionals come to dominate. Among the scholars developing the concept of professional logics and its tensions with the organisational and market logics is Evetts (2010), who nuances professional logics as potentially compromising the purposes served by the professional, if focussing on their self-interest or if the notion of professionalism is discursively corrupted to serve for managerial control in organisations. Hence, while a large body of research points at an increasing domination of organisational logics as deteriorating public services and de-professionalising, an unreserved support for a shift to professional logics as the solution might prove overly simplistic.

Building on Evetts, the organisational and professional logics as theoretical framework was adopted by Lundström and Parding when analysing tensions in the Swedish educational system (2011). They exemplify how a teacher that ‘may identify a need for a student at the same time as the teacher needs to take the organisational constraints into account, such as the bureaucratic structures and resource limitations, as well as she may feel obliged to make the student pass the subject as the school is pressured to display good results’ (Ibid: 4). The need for measurement, organisation, and scrutiny within the education system—as in other publicly funded sectors—is not in question in this theoretical realm. Concern arises when these elements become the dominant force, overshadowing the organisation’s core purpose. Ball (2003) has called this ‘the terror of performativity’. According to him, evaluating and rewarding performances are necessary, but when this leads to teachers ‘setting aside personal beliefs and commitments and live an existence of calculation’, the ambitions of the education system are corroded. Aligned with this, Evetts observes how NPM impacts on governments which’s ‘intent on demonstrating value from public service budgets seem to be redefining professionalism and accountability as measurable’ and creating competition and individualisation among workers, when discourse link their individual (measurable) performances with the success or failure of the organisation (Evetts, 2010: 132). Lundström and Parding argued, in 2011, that following the neoliberal reforms in Sweden, the logics of the market were becoming increasingly influential and challenged the previous balance between the logics of organisation and the market. At the same time, Evetts argued that the professional logic had become more influenced by market and organisational logics, rendering it less of a distinctive logic in itself (2010: 124). Fifteen years later, this article rests on an understanding of the market logics as intensified and imbuing both organisational and professional logics (cf. Erlandson et al., 2020). With this in regard, and for reasons of stringency and readability, the analysis of the findings will limit to the use of the professional and the organisational logics as analytical concepts.

The theoretical framework of organisational and professional logics adopts a Foucauldian understanding of power dynamics, key to analyse the tensions between organisational and professional logics and the persistent domination of the organisational logics (Evetts 2006). The use of measuring, assessment, evaluation, and control mechanisms is key as well as the role of discourses in forming a régime of truth where all this is necessary and hence necessary for everyone to adhere to (Foucault 1980: 131f). Drawing from Foucault’s theory, Evetts (2006, 2010) argues that managers and employers – in the present study clustered as leadership – contribute to the construct of the discourse on professionalism as to fit the organisational logics and serve to control the work of practitioners. Here, it can be worth noting Foucault’s idea of power as not necessarily ‘an evil’, as he puts it, as long as nobody is dominated involuntarily. Moreover, to Foucault, dominating positions are not necessarily adopted deliberately, but sometimes are (1987: 114, 129).

Empaperment and ethical stress in the double reality

When studying the Swedish public sector, philosopher Jonna Bornemark has introduced concepts that are useful for exploring the results of the tensions between the organisational and professional logics. Bornemark explores these with Nicholas of Cusa’s ideas of ratio as the logic of calculating and defining fixed categories and values, and intellectus as the capacity to reflect and act upon the reality, resembling the contrasting organisational and professional logics (Bornemark, 2018b: 34ff). To Bornemark, the tensions between the logics cause ethical stress when professionals in the public sector have a clear idea of what should be done in a given situation, but feel unable to do it due to lack of resources, time, and the amounting of tasks that do not belong to the profession (94ff). Research on teachers in similar tensions has rendered the concept of time poverty (Creagh et al., 2023), understood as being more than time scarcity and embedding a ‘dissonance between a teacher being the kind of teacher they want to be, and the type of teacher they have time to be’. To Bornemark, this is to a large degree due to empaperment taking place in the public sector, ‘when every act has to be documented in order to be counted as complete’ (Bornemark, 2018a: 235). This renders a double reality: one comprising actual things happening in everyday life, and another reality existing in documentation (2018b: 52ff). There is a hierarchy between these realities, as what actually happens, eventually will not have happened if it is not documented. This does not go both ways, as what is documented counts as what has happened, even if it did not actually happen. The theoretical model has natural limitations, as it inevitably reduces complexity. For instance, teachers’ unconscious decisions and actions in everyday life at schools can also pass unconsidered and undocumented.

Methodology

For the purpose of acquiring knowledge on processes, power dynamics and tensions involved in provision of educational support, the research process holds instances of educational support as object of study. Systematically observing and collecting data on these instances — as well as on related contextual dynamics — enables the development of insights into the tensions between organisational and professional logics. Next, the methodological and analytical approach adopted for the research will be described.

Sample

The study was carried out in two lower secondary schools in municipalities located in different Swedish regions. One class was sampled in each school, whose pupils and related provision of educational support were included in the observations. Both schools are organised by the Local Education Agency (LEA) in their respective municipality, as are 82% of Swedish compulsory schools, while 18% have independent organisers (SNAE, 2024). The municipalities, aliased Oak and Elm, are sampled based on a population-criterion combined with a criterion of the LEA organising a lower secondary school with a body of pupils below-average in terms of socioeconomic status of their families. The population-criterion was set with the intend of sampling municipalities fairly similar in size of their LEA’s organisation and resources. Moreover, the population range of the sample – 11.000–34.000 – was set as it comprised half of the 290 municipalities in Sweden at the time of sampling. The socioeconomic criterion served to increase the statistical probability of finding instances of educational support to observe, as these were the object of study. Both schools rank 150 on the socioeconomic index compiled by the SNAE, where the mean Swedish school ranks 100. This implies that a larger share of the pupils in the sampled schools belong to families with lower socioeconomic status, holding a higher probability of school failure and need of educational support. After sampling the schools that would be subject to field work research, one Year 8-class was randomly drawn in each school, limiting observations at the schools to educational support provided to the pupils of these two classes. For this purpose, an ethnographic approach was adopted over three semesters – until the classes completed Year 9 and, with that, their lower secondary education. Ethical vetting was carried out by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority (Nr 2022-05524-01) approving the study and the involvement of minors in the research.

Ethnographic approach during three semesters in two schools

The ethnographic approach is inspired by Hammersley and Atkinson (2019: 102f), combining audio recorded interviews with observations recorded in field notes and shorthanded protocols. The first author spent a total of 44 days in the schools, carrying out observations in classes, staff meetings, and common spaces of the school personnel, as well as interviewing a total of 45 teachers, special educators¹, multilingual classroom assistants, leadership, and other personnel involved with the 50 pupils in the studied classes. Pupils and their parents were also subject to formal and informal interviews, but given the focus of this study on tensions between organisation and professionals, the empirical findings analysed are interviews and observations related to the school personnel and the organisation of the schools. The findings presented in this article account for this large body of empirical data, summarising it and providing excerpts to exemplify and give substance to empirical findings and analysis of these. Still, no quotation or field note can offer more than a small glimpse of the reality experienced during the extensive fieldwork. Field notes are presented in line with ethnographic tradition; as closely as possible to their original shorthand form, including the researcher’s involvement in sequences where this was documented (Hammersley and Atkinson, 2019: 19f).

Analytical approach

Ethnographically approached field work implies starting the analytical process before the conclusion of the data collection (Hammersley and Atkinson, 2019: 167). In this case, key findings were progressively analysed during the three semesters spent in both schools. First, in a non-organised style embedding reflections and insights in field notes and meeting protocols. A previous study by the first author on funding of a similar sample of LEAs and schools (Rojas and Wermke, 2024) prompted the adoption of Foucault’s theoretical realm and notion of power (1980, 1987) to engage with field work. Through an iterative process of theorising (cf. Hammersley and Atkinson 2019: 168), and following completion of the field work, the Foucault-inspired concept of organisational and professional logics emerged as useful to make sense of the findings (Evetts, 2006). The empirical data was coded and analysed systematically, adopting a thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2022; Braun et al., 2022) that gave the reflexivity continuum. The thematic analysis organises data finding the meaning or central point in themes, rather than literally sorting, coding, and striving for a reliability-approach of more positivist or neo-positivist kind (Braun et al., 2022). A theme is not merely a topic or a set of related data points, but what we could understand as a central organising concept. Wiltshire and Ronkainen (2021) suggest thematic analysis ‘recontextualises’ empirical data in a way that enables early conceptual framings. Rather than adding width and generalisability, this adds depth and thick descriptions making transferability possible.

The analytical process involved data immersion, coding freely, thematisation, and the development of themes, continuing throughout the writing phase (cf. Braun and Clarke, 2022: 35f). This process made evident, as a pivotal theme, how the provision of educational support is shaped by tensions between organisational and professional logics, particularly in relation to documentation and accountability. The present article reports and analyses findings belonging to this theme, while a second pivotal theme, about discourses and problematisations of school failure, is analysed elsewhere (Rojas, 2026).

Findings

In this section, key findings from 44 days of observations and interviews are summarised and analysed in relation to the theoretical concepts of the study. The empirical data makes visible how provision of educational support is influenced by tensions between the professional logics and organisational logics, characterised by empaperment and accountability. Key findings exemplifying this are how documentation of teaching and pupils’ learning becomes instrumental for acquiring resources and stand scrutiny, rather than for improving the education of the pupils and how this leads to documenting educational support which existence in reality is debatable, emancipating what we come to call illusional support. The overarching finding is that this renders a provision of educational support conditioned by documentation and fear of being held accountable, rather than by pupils’ educational needs – ultimately mitigating equity in the provision of educational support. Excerpts from interviews and field notes are presented to make the findings more tangible, where they are found to represent significant aspects of the empirical material. Nonetheless, these excerpts constitute only a very small portion of the full body of data.

Documentation as instrumental for the organisational logics

It [documentation] takes a lot of time and energy for us teachers. And I think that if it is to be done, it must be an asset for the pupils. But I see that a share of it is done with the sensation that it must be written to keep the school’s back covered. And then I think it becomes an extra burden and then it takes even more energy. Because this didn’t exist to this extent before. Some of it can be good, because pupils can profit from it. […] Just about everything must be written down. That the school has done this and this and this and this. So that the parents won’t come later on saying that you people in the school didn’t do anything. ‘Yes, we did, look here. We’ve got it black on white’. (Marie, teacher at Oak Lower Secondary)

Documentation of educational support follows the logics of empaperment, in the sense that the educational support is understood to have taken place if it is documented (cf. Bornemark, 2018a). Moreover, the goal of documentation is primarily to ‘keep backs covered’ and to argue for acquisition of extraordinary resources. Purposes of improving teaching and educational support provided become secondary (cf. Erlandson et al., 2020: 416). In both schools, few teachers seem to yield from available documentation, either own or colleagues, for adapting and improving their teaching as to fit pupils in need of educational support. One sequence evidencing this occurs one day at Elm Central as I have a coffee in the common space and engage in conversation with Annika, an experienced maths and science teacher. The shorthanded excerpt below starts after she has explained how she no longer can see notes from colleagues on her pupils in their intranet, and I ask why they write notes in that case, if they are not shared:

‘Up’, she answers, one word, pointing up. ‘I think’. […] In some sequence Annika says, slightly dejected, ‘I don’t know how we are supposed to go back to what a school is’. Anna and Ylva enter and take seats with us, and it is a little unclear what they can and cannot see [in their intranet]. Adaptations are visible, they concur, if you teach the pupil. But most of what is written are things Annika think are not really adaptations: ‘To start off a lesson with clear instructions’. Annika has explained before Ylva and Anna joins, that they need to show they have made adaptations as it is required for making an assessment [by the special educators]. If I understand them correctly, the majority of the notes on adaptations are meaningless and bland, which results in the notes not getting the same attention. I ask why they note adaptations like that: ‘it’s just because we must’.

While the notes teachers make in their documentation regarding educational support can be of value, this depends on whether they bear substance or not. And when the majority of teachers seem to document just for the sake of documenting, ‘because they must’, the relevance and substance of the notes decrease, ending up with teachers not taking account of them. As Anna, Ylva, and Annika discuss, the special educators in charge of the assessment demand documentation to initiate an assessment or as part of an assessment. Assessments in turn often lead to action plans, including extraordinary resources for educational support that can relief teachers from work. It can be a pupil getting teaching time alone with a special education teacher, or a special education teacher joining to support a pupil experiencing difficulties in the ordinary classroom. In these cases, the notes at least have a meaningful purpose for the teachers, even if they are not used for improving their teaching. But, sometimes, there is no other purpose than making sure backs are covered by documenting their performance (cf. Ball, 2003). As teacher Marie says in the quote introducing this section, the sensation of time poverty and increased workload is not just associated with tasks of documentation, but with the purpose of the tasks. When the point with Marie’s documentation is to cover her and the schools’ back, then it becomes an extra burden and drains her energy (cf. Creagh et al., 2023). The empirical data collects a variety of accounts of teachers expressing frustration when they are encouraged to document things that, to them, belong in ordinary teaching, as well as frustration over the fact that educational support they provide does not count as existing if they do not spend time on writing it down. The logics of empaperment legitimise things like clear instructions or providing hearing protection as educational support, while well prepared and differentiated lessons are not seen as educational support. The dominating logics are the organisational and not the professional.

The situation the teachers give account of has a counterpart in how the school and its leadership are empapered and held accountable by the LEA. Reporting high numbers of instances of assessment or educational support can cover the school’s back and show that they did what they could for the pupils that ultimately fail to qualify for upper secondary. Moreover, in the region Oak belongs to, the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (CAP, in Swedish BUP) require that schools complete a pedagogical assessment of a pupil before CAP initiate a psychiatric assessment, probably as a way to manage their scarcity of time and shorten the queue of families waiting for a psychiatric assessment. This condition, though, creates an empaperment-loop where the schools giving priority to pupils with documented formal psychiatric diagnoses receive more requests from parents of assessing their children, as to be able to initiate an assessment at CAP, as to get educational support from school. All this, while teachers often reflect on the value of assessments like Elisabeth does below, when asked what she gets out of them:

Really not that much. It is rather just because, it might be necessary to go on to asses at CAP and such things. […] I mean, we do things ourselves, without an assessment. We do, in our heads, we do that assessment in the classroom. And then we make adaptations in the classroom. And try all kind of things. (Elisabeth, teacher at Oak Lower Secondary)

According to most teachers reflecting on the assessments, these provide them few or no news regarding the needs of the pupil. Some, like Elisabeth, begin experimenting to find ways of adapting their teaching to the pupil while waiting for an assessment. Others, in contrast, postpone additional efforts, until the assessment is completed.

Illusional support displacing educational support

We were talking about Ermal (Interviewer: Yeah, that hasn’t [had educational support] either) He hasn’t had anything in Year 7 [reads from document]. Seems like he had smaller groups in several subjects in Year 8. But only in Swedish… (I: But Swedish, that is just that he has SAS (Swedish as second language)) Yes, yes, but, SAS in a smaller group is educational support. So, it is not ’just that’. […] (I: And then you decided for Ermal and Isaak, for example, that it was enough?) Yes. It is educational support. It is not just that they are having SAS. Because SAS is no educational support. (Susanne, assistant principal at Elm Central School)

The empirical data makes visible how the organisational logics’ empaperment shift attention to the documentation of educational support and away from the actual provision of it. There are cases of documenting provision of educational support, which existence in reality is debatable and can be understood as illusional support rather than educational support. One example of this takes place in Elm Central School, where pupils being provided Swedish as second language (SAS) are checked in the documentation as being provided educational support. SAS is part of the standard Swedish curriculum, provided when considered a better fit for pupils than regular Swedish class, while both tracks hold the same curricular goals. The rationale for checking SAS as educational support, as extraordinary and not ordinary teaching, is that it is provided in ‘a smaller group’, according to the assistant principal Susanne, in charge of this documentation. Nevertheless, the size of classes of SAS in all schools always depends on the number of pupils requiring it. Without going further, the number of pupils in the SAS class in the other school in the study, Oak Lower Secondary, was similar without being labelled as educational support. In Elm Central, they moreover have music and home and consumer studies in split, smaller groups as well, without documenting it as educational support. Whether right or wrong, we understand this as an example of an ongoing formation of a discourse and what Foucault would call a truth of what is to be understood as educational support, and what is not, with purposes serving the organisational logics of standing scrutiny and reporting measurable results, rather than the professional logics of good judgement regarding educational needs and the handling of these with appropriate educational support (cf. Evetts, 2006; Foucault, 1980: 131f).

The empirical data collected makes visible how a case like this risk negative consequences for the pupils involved. When deciding on which pupils in need of assessment will be given priority, it is reasonable to expect that pupils not yet provided educational support get first in line. And while those being selected probably need the assessment as well as those behind in the waiting line, it is debatable whether the order of the waiting line is arbitrary or decided based on needs of educational support. The boys mentioned in the excerpt, Ermal and Isaak, as well as their classmates Jasmin, Ahmed, and Vini, might have to wait as they are already provided educational support, according to the documentation: SAS in a smaller group. Moreover, the subject the five of them are failing throughout lower secondary is maths, which according to the assistant principal is handled on group level with the help of a special education teacher specialised in maths, Christina. She collaborates with the subject teacher in ordinary maths class on regular basis, and below accounts for how she prioritises which pupils to help:

Part of it is that maybe I have those that I have written down on my list that I need to keep an extra eye on. And then we have some that ask for help more. […] (I: And when you say written on your list, is it that they have been addressed at PSS-meetings, or…) Yes. And then I know, I mean, I have the names and it is also like, it is difficult when you don’t know them, when I have not worked with them before. (I: I am thinking, how come that you have worked with Vildann and not Ermal?) Yes, action plan maybe. I guess she has got a action plan. I saw that she was supposed to have individual support. (Christina, special education teacher at Elm Central School)

Neither Ermal nor his maths-failing peers in smaller-group SAS are on Christina’s list, which undoubtedly adds an element of individual support to what is defined as a group-level measure. Eventually, none of them managed to pass maths, and as a result ended up without the grades required for admission to upper secondary. Vildann and the other pupils on Christina’s list passed.

The empirical data discloses more examples of educational support of debatable substance that can be understood as illusional support: optional extra sessions in smaller groups in specific subjects, optional sessions with multilingual classroom assistants, or optional sessions with special education teachers. Sessions that, when optional, seldom are opted by the pupils. For pupils that are assessed and provided action plans, it is seldom optional to attend such extra sessions. The assessment and subsequent action plan often comprise meetings with pupils and their parents, including agreements between everybody involved and extra sessions being introduced for the pupil on non-optional basis. And as previously highlighted, when assessed, they are also subject to more attention from special education teachers supporting in ordinary classes, as the case with the support from Christina in maths.

The set of examples provided in this section, all impacted by the logics of empaperment and the weight given to documentation in governing provision of educational support, become especially relevant as the domination of organisational logics mitigate equity in the schools. While several aspects intersect, there is a disproportionality in provision of educational support depending on whether the pupils’ families are native or have migrated to Sweden. In the classes subject to research in the two schools, there was a total of eleven pupils from migrated families at risk of school failure in Year 8, when the study’s field work started, and none of them were assessed nor provided a action plan in any of the schools. Nor were they in Year 9. At the completion of lower secondary, all but two had failed to obtain the grades needed for admission to upper secondary. Among the pupils from native families, nine were at risk of school failure in Year 8, and all of them got assessed and were provided educational support as decided in their action plan. Of these, all but two succeeded and got admitted to upper secondary.

When asked about this, personnel involved in selection for assessment and assessment itself, reason that difficulties or school failures like Ermal’s are initially explained as potentially caused by deficits in the Swedish language. This causes what a special educational needs coordinator (SENCO) calls the ‘wait and see-strategy’, implying the wait for improvements in Swedish to clarify if the difficulties are language-related. If a pupil is newly migrated, another reason to postpone assessments is due to special educators’ lack of language skills and inability to assess when pupils speak other languages than Swedish. Whatever the case, the wait for assessment is often extended and postponement becomes permanent. As in the example with Christina’s provision of educational support in maths, pupils deprived of assessment are subsequently deprived of the benefits of having been assessed, such as the educational support it generates. Another, intersecting, reason provided by teachers, special educators and leadership in both schools, is that migrated parents are less ‘on top’ of school, making fewer requests about educational support to the school personnel and school personnel in turn communicating less with them. It is thus easier for the school organisation to check boxes of educational support with limited substance in reality, as migrated parents are supposed to be less prone to involve in debates and hold school accountable. Organisational logics of accountability intersect with time poverty (Creagh et al., 2023). In this intersection, professional logics are compromised, as school personnel defer tasks of educational support to prioritise what they are held accountable for, rather than what professional logics would ideally call for.

Discussion and conclusions

Our findings and analysis of how provision of educational support is influenced by tensions between organisational and professional logics give us reason to address three specific topics for discussion: (1) how time poverty rendered within the tensions both governs and is governed, (2) the inequity rendered by decisions springing from the tensions, and (3) the probability of educational reforms failing if the dominance of the organisational logics persists.

Each of the three topics discussed are closed with a concluding argument concerning implications for policy and practice.

Time poverty governs and is governed

A theoretical contribution of this study is that time poverty (Creagh et al., 2023) both governs and is governed, extending recent research that has highlighted similar patterns (Perryman and Calvert, 2020; Proudfoot and Boyd, 2024; Skerrit, 2023; Thompson et al., 2022). In a reality where time poverty is always a pressing concern, the empirical data show how school personnel manage their work load by postponing or deferring assessment and provision of educational support. While not necessarily preceded by deliberate nor conscious decisions, postponing and deferring often seem to increase ethical stress (Bornemark, 2018b) and time poverty, rather than mitigate it probably, due to the professional commitment to equitable treatment of pupils.

Having obviated the responsibility of the leadership, organisation and structures (on all levels; school, LEA, and central government), we argue that teachers and other school personnel hold responsibility to explore ways to govern time poverty and dispute organisational logics without compromising equity in core tasks such as provision of educational support.

Illusional support and racialisation of educational support

Regardless of precise chains of causality, accountability, empaperment, and time poverty influence a prioritisation of pupils in need of educational support based on criteria of time efficiency and ability to stand scrutiny, rather than equity. It is aligned with previous research finding similar power dynamics influencing work with, for example, school absence (Stokes et al., 2024), teacher collaboration (Erlandson et al., 2020), or professional development (Proudfoot and Boyd., 2024). The findings of this study show that pupils with involved parents who hold the school accountable are prioritised in the provision of educational support, as are pupils with a formal psychiatric diagnosis. While the selection results from a chain of events caused by the influence of organisational logics and not a deliberately race-based selection, the outcome in the studied schools is a racialisation of the provision of educational support, aligned with Ray’s (2019) take on the nature of racialisation as legitimating unequal distribution of resources in organisations through a racialised decoupling of formal rules from practice. Migrated and furthermore racialised parents are less prone to make demands and school personnel attribute waived assessment to limited language skills of pupils, parents, and school personnel (cf. ibid).

The illusional support rendered in the tensions is another theoretical contribution building on Bornemark’s concept of empaperment (2018a). Educational support that exists primarily ‘on paper’ – with questionable substance in practice – is more readily provided to pupils whose parents are less likely to complain and hold school accountable. In the studied context, this tends to coincide with parents who have migrated; in other contexts, it may include working-class families or those experiencing significant life hardships (Ramberg, 2015: 89; Curran, 2022). In conclusion, it is evident that all of the above is misaligned with Swedish education and equity policies. For practitioners, this misalignment calls for renewed attention to how educational support is provided in practice.

Persistent dominance of organisational logics mitigating reforms

We have covered how organisational logics (characterised by measurability, a ‘calculating rationality’, assessment, and control mechanisms) are in tension with professional logics (characterised by trust in the professional’s knowledge and experience, ethics, and responsibility-taking). The findings raise important questions about whether reforms to the education system can achieve intended outcomes of improving teaching and equity, if the dominance of the organisational logics persists. Our analysis suggests that additional funding or time freed for teachers would risk being co-opted by the interests of the organisational logics. Whether it would be for improving and expanding ‘systematic quality work’ (Bergh, 2015) and performance reviews, build new models and strategies (on paper) or something else, additional resources would likely align more closely with the priorities of the organisational logics than with those of the professional logics. This is not to say that letting teachers or special educators decide on additional resources would necessarily ensure their effective or purposeful use, as they too could adhere to organisational logics if the dominance withstands.

One example in the ongoing Government inquiries in Sweden is the proposal of abolishing requirements of extra adaptations and associated documentation of these, paired with new requirements of having more elaborated lesson plans (Swedish Government, 2025a), that probably will require existence on paper as well as in actual reality. At its most detrimental, reforms intended to support professional logics might not only fail to achieve their purpose but also introduce additional organisational tasks during implementation, thereby exacerbating time poverty.

Concluding, school personnel, policy makers, and researchers demanding more teacher autonomy and professional logics can probably benefit from further exploring of the tensions between organisational and professional logics, the accountability structure, and time poverty in future studies and revisions of law, curriculum, and teacher education as well as of local school policy.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: travel expenditures for the field work were financed with a contribution from The Swedish Freemasons’ foundation for children’s welfare.

ORCID iD

Carlos Rojas

Note

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