”Har jag ingen relation så kan jag aldrig utföra ett bra jobb” - en kvalitativ intervjustudie om verksamma lärare och lärarstudenters erfarenheter kring relationer och dess betydelse

Abstract

Aim: The purpose of this study is to by interviewing active primary school teachers about how they experience their work with relationship building, gain increased knowledge about pedagogical relationships and their importance for teaching. The purpose is also to, by interviewing student teachers about how they experience their theoretical and practical knowledge of relationship building, gain increased knowledge of pedagogical relationships and their importance for teaching. Interpersonal relationships are a key component within education, and it is foundational in relational pedagogy. Social relationships are significant to children’s learning and holistic development (jmf Furu & Sandvik, 2019; jmf Aspelin & Johansson, 2017).

Theory: The study is developed using relational pedagogy as its theoretical framework. Social relations, interpersonal relationships and relational competence are additional concepts informing the theoretical approach.

Method: This is a qualitative interview study. Five currently working teachers and five student teachers have been interviewed. The teachers work at a 7-9 grade school and students study to be 7-9 grade teachers. The interviews were audio recorded and transcribed, resulting in 306 transcription pages. These have been analyzed using thematic content analysis (Bryman, 2018). Each interview was scanned for themes, and themes were identified.

Results: The results of this study indicate that working teachers and student teachers agree on the importance of relationship building in schools. All study participants aspire to build positive relationships. In cases where relationships have been less successful, a number of reasons were presented. The working teachers described a lack of time, large class sizes, and an increased workload as barriers. Student teachers, on the other hand, described how there are opportunities for relationship building when assigned to school placement (VFU: n) but it is challenging because of program limitation and lack of continuity. They also describe challenges in translating theoretical knowledge from their degree into practical implementation. Concepts such as safety, reliability, trust, engagement, structure, and certainty are also mentioned by study participants. The results also highlighted student teachers’ perspective of relationship building from a friendship point of view, being friends with students. This was a discrepancy between the two groups; no working teacher spoke about friendship as a method of relationship building. The working teachers were more prone to maintain boundaries and build relationships on professional experience and student knowledge. Almost all study participants saw a correlation between relationships and student learning.