| Summary: | Abstract
Free schools have been a part of the Swedish educational landscape for over twenty years and now
represent a quarter of all schools in Sweden. Despite their steady growth, there is no qualitative
research examining how teachers’ professional identities are transformed as a result of these new
privatized contexts. This study explores how seven teachers negotiate their professional identities in
for-profit free schools in Sweden. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted via Skype
and recorded digitally; interview transcripts were then analyzed interpretively. Four main themes
were identified: identity negotiation, with subthemes of identifying a self through others,
pedagogical identities, cultural similarities and differences, qualified and unqualified others,
institutional identities, and public and private sector identities; agency, with subthemes of individual
and collective agency; structure, with subthemes of the productive self, the model teacher,
leadership, the moral agent, unstable contexts, temporary selves; and personal and professional
change, with subthemes of performativity, stable selves and profit. The findings from the research
indicate that each teacher’s experience of for-profit schools is unique and so therefore is the
negotiation of a professional identity. Teachers’ substantive selves remain fairly intact despite the
challenges of the environment in which they work; these teachers are student-centred,
pedagogically-focused, and place high importance on moral professionalism. However, a culture of
competition and comparison resulting from performativity within a vulnerable educational market
means that teachers’ situated selves are less stable and opportunities for a collective professional
identity are undermined. Much is dependent on a supportive, trusting leadership and a sense of
belonging which relates to social recognition and teacher-work environment fit. When teachers are
esteemed and individual and school values align, identities are more stable. When teachers do not
feel acknowledged and there is tension between individual and school values, identities are less
stable and compromises might be made for personal or professional reasons. Although limited in
scale, the findings raise important issues for leadership at school, system and policy level; they reveal
how the results-audit agenda can be misappropriated by companies to drive up performance and
profit, how teachers’ professional identities can be determined at local rather than national level,
and how the teaching community as a whole can be fragmented by entrepreneurialism. Arguably,
further research is required to investigate the extent of these claims and compare the experiences of
teachers across the non-profit free school and municipal school contexts.
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