Understanding L1 and L2 teachers’ talk about ‘digitalisation’

Discourses during the process of integrating digital technology in the educational practice

Abstract

In Sweden, The Swedish national strategy for the digitalisation of the educational system has led to a vast number of projects. This study builds on material from a continuing professional development project among L1 and L2 teachers in Swedish on a local school level. The aim is to contribute to the understanding of how the teachers perceive the integration of digital technology in the educational practice by deconstructing their discussions in a Critical discourse analysis perspective. Research questions: 1) What perceptions about the integration of digital technology in the educational practice can be discerned? 2) How are these perceptions related to the teaching profession and the teaching of Swedish? and 3) How do the teachers build their understanding through the discussions? The study shows how a discourse of challenges dominates the teachers’ discussions and that the integration of digital technology in the educational practice is partly perceived as a threat to the teaching profession and, to some extent, the teaching of Swedish. A key finding is that in the way the discussions are enacted, ‘digitalisation’ becomes the reason for what happens. Consequently, the abstraction of ‘digitalisation’ seems to be a hindrance to the development work.