‘Different Children — A Tougher Job’. Icelandic Teachers Reflect on Changes in Their Work

Abstract

This article is based on interviews with 67 primary school teachers and principals in Iceland about changes in the work of teachers during the last part of the twentieth century. The focus is on what teachers and principals understand as the most important change, how it affects teachers' work lives, and how they talk about change. The changes reported by the interviewees are ‘different children — a tougher job’, transformation in the roles of teachers and principals, increased cooperation between teachers and with other professionals, inclusion practices, more goal-governed versus book-governed teaching, and new methods of evaluation. These changes constitute a changing discourse of teachers about teaching, and they also have an impact on the work lives of teachers by creating tensions and contradictions similar to such tensions in other comparable countries.