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by Ingólfur Ásgeir Jóhannesson, University of Akureyri,

in collaboration with

Sigurjón Mýrdal, Gunnar Finnbogason, and Ólafur J. Proppé, Iceland University of Education; Guðrún Geirsdóttir, University of Iceland; and others

Presentation at a conference entitled Community Viability, Rapid Change and Socio-Ecological Futures. A Conference on Societies in the Vestnorden Area, Akureyri, October 7–9, 1999

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What I like to present here is some observations from a study entitled Educational Governance and Social Integration/Exclusion (abbreviated as EGSIE) which is conducted in Iceland, seven other European countries (Finland, Greece, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and United Kingdom, indeed both England and Scotland), and Australia under a three year EU grant from the Targeted Socio-Economic Research program.

Sources

The Icelandic team selected three recent policy texts on curriculum reform policy, contract management, and school-based evaluation

• A document pair entitled Enn betri skóli, published in February and April 1998, about the policy behind the national curriculum for three school levels released this year
• A document on contract management, in Icelandic samningsstjórnun, in Danish kontrakt styring. The document is entitled Umbætur og nýskipan í ríkisrekstri.
• Sjálfsmat skóla. A booklet to help early childhood education, primary, and secondary schools to meet the requirements of educational legislation for school-based evaluation.

Interviews were conducted with individuals at the system level in education (state and local government) and with principals and teachers in primary and secondary schools

The Icelandic team interviewed over 60 educators in three regions in Iceland, that is Reykjavík and Kópavogur, Akureyri and its neighborhood, and in the West Fjords. They are divided between system informants at state and local levels and school informants, that is principals and teachers in primary and secondary schools.

The interview was an open-ended set of issues and questions in the following categories:

The selection of statistical data is still in process and was further determined at a meeting in Portugal three days before the Vestnorden conference

Research questions are aimed at four things:

As time allows, I touch here upon several issues, but there are, of course, many other stories to be told and retold:

Discipline and order are declining in Icelandic schools and society as well as low and even declining academic standards. Just the title Enn betri skóli is an indication that something must be done better. When the current minister of education, Björn Bjarnason, took office in 1995, he wanted to become an active minister after some years of inactivity. And just when he had initiated a two-year project of designing a national curriculum for three school levels, the results from the TIMSS-study were published that showed that Icelandic teenagers scored among the lowest in Western Europe in math and science, close where Danish and U.S. students scored. A national curriculum is believed to change matters.

We believe that the interest in a national curriculum and more emphasis on what goes on in schools, goes deeper than this. There is an ongoing narrative on declining discipline in society and schools. We can read and listen to media, talk to the public, and, as we did, talk to principals and teachers who highlight discipline problems. Both our system informants and school informants came spontaneously up with discipline problems in schools and society, decline of the family, aspects of upbringing and socialization in society. So the current reform initiatives might just be seen in light of that. And my own interview study in 1996-1997 corraborates this finding.

Discipline, then, becomes some kind of a social glue, in the discourse …

School-based evaluation is by law or other similar requirements stipulated to take place at every school level. Every five years, the ministry of education, science, and culture will evaluate the methods used in primary and secondary schools. At the early childhood education level and in universities, the ministry picks certain schools and areas of study to evaluate self-evaluation projects. Regarding our primary schools in Iceland, I believe that the teacher unions have indeed called for more cooperation among teachers. Many primary schools and early childhood schools have engaged in school development projects that entail self-evaluation of its practice as well.

As I said, the ministry has published a booklet on school-based evaluation. We have investigated the booklet and found that it includes a number of beliefs, some unexplained wishes of those who wrote it. They believe that self-evaluation:

• has value for schooling
• is central for professional development
• makes it easier than otherwise to adjust to the individual needs of children
• will create a common professional ground and that everyone has the same professional goals
• is to be lead by the principal
• is easy and that everything will work out
• will differ from school to school.

Regardless of the last belief, the booklet that is only 20 pages spends half of them for a detailed suggestion of how to organize chapters in a self-evaluation report.

In regard to what I name here as "Financial reform", I have mentioned the practice of contract management and giving block money to schools, in order to make them more responsible in terms of dealing with money and financial planning. Our interviewees among principals are, for the most part, in favor of being more responsible. As of now, most educators experience this as "freedom to save"; that is, the decisions about what to save, what to "cut", have been moved into the schools. But schools will not be punished any longer for saving money, we understand.

These new practices are a part of moving the discourse of the market, or, as Bourdieu calls it, the Tyranny of the Market, into schools.

Changing role of principals seems very important in our study. The principal in Iceland has traditionally been a head-teacher role, that is, the "best" teacher (preferably a male) has become the principal. Often first by being an assistant principal. Principals have only in recent years been able to attend continuing education classes and even short college-based programs intended for them as administrators.

The new tasks of principals include both professional and financial duties. Professional duties include a school curriculum design, based on the new curricula. Some have been doing this for ten years; others have not begun. Based on the school curriculum, is the school-based evaluation that the principal should lead.

As we observe this, in interviews and all around us, finance matters consume the time of principals as ever.

And traditional duties, such as staff management, more recent duties relating to overseeing resources for special education etc. etc. are still there, even though we have some recent arrangements of division heads in schools for certain age groups and disciplines.

The big question is: Will principals become financial managers or will they remain first and foremost pedagogical leaders?

A related question is: Will principals stay in their office quarters, not teach classes, as the tendency is, because they have too much to do, and let the afternoon newspaper be the school newsletter, as teachers in one secondary school mentioned?

When we look at primary schools, there is no lack of data on special education in the interviews. The greatest difference between now and ten years ago could be that now exist and are used in diagnosis and professional as well as public debates many definitions of learning difficulties that no one had heard about ten to 20 years ago, such as dyslexia and Attention Deficit Disorder. KGH10, who had just happily entered primary school teaching again after a career in adult education, argues: "The children are just like they were ten years ago … The same kinds of problems … may be they have been more defined. We now more about Attention Deficit Disorder (ofvirkni, in Icelandic) … we have words to explain some problems now. That may be different … Yes, and there not these walls that were … we have more resources for support or counseling as teachers … I think this is in part caused by a more open public discussions … than ten years ago … news reports … now children are not simply naughty or unbehaved; these things are defined. We still have unbehaved children and we have children with mental disabledness, ADD, etc., and these kids need something else. But in what the school can actually do for these children, I think we are just beginning."

I like to talk about this as the right to be integrated. The right of all children to be educated among their age mates, whether at the early childhood education level or the primary level and even more recently the secondary and college levels. There are disputes about this. Our perception says that these disputes relate to the knowledge that teachers and the public have. If there are instances where the support for teachers to deal with "different" children in the classroom is great, then other teachers and parents are likely to support integration, and be pleased with it, even proud of it. If there are instances where there is less support, insufficient resources for teachers, who in the first place might be reluctant to integrate or be prejudiced or simply inexperienced in integration practices, then it is likely that they feel that neither the developmentally disabled child nor the other children benefit from the integration and even be hurt of it.

SGE31 says: "Personally I have always been skeptical about the possibility of a total integration, like that some want it, that the [public] school can be for every one. This is possible, however … if resources are organized in a manner that makes the teachers capable of taking care of this. I mean enough expert counseling support into the schools themselves, physical conditions, man power, and money to do this. Today this is not enough, and many teachers are just not able to do this any longer. Some of my teachers say to us, the principals: ' … we might quit if things are not changed to the better, we just can't deal with this any longer …' " When asked if teachers are not in principle against integration, SGE31 responds: "Precisely, they are not in principle against integration … We principals here in [the town] have discussed this at our meetings that if the student has such great difficulties that s/he can not really do anything, then, would it be plausible that another type of institution than school could help her/him more? Because we must not forget that there are these 'normal' students … who are a bit disturbed because of the disabled students." KGE27 shares the worries of SGE31 that the integration of severely disabled students takes away from other students. Schools are said not to receive enough teaching hours for the school to secure the education of all. KGE27 believes that the solution might be specific departsments or classes for them.

SGE31 and KGE27 were, we believe, in the quote above talking about severe disabilities, developmental and physical together. SGE31 was also asked about special education of students with less severe difficulties. He supports the style that special education teachers and support staff help these students in their regular classrooms rather than the students be taken out of class. He points out that by coming into class, students other than those actually diagnosed benefit directly from special educators and other support staff, "students in a sort of a gray area", as he phrased it. We also talked about dyslexia, ADD, and some other named difficulties. SGE31 said that diagnosis of ADD might be compared to the flu; they are so unbelievably many.

KGE27 argues that being disabled is more accepted than it was, even just five to ten years ago. She had been asked about her opinion about the organization of special education: "We help disabled students more today and also those who have special education problems; I think these students are all helped more today … there are more definate goals, there is a better supervision of them, at least in this school … So I think it is better and easier [to be a disabled student today ]; they are more accepted than ten years ago … It is also good for other students to learn to be with disabled and developmentally disabled students."

We need more analyses of our data in relation to the practices and perceptions of the right to be integrated. The issue is rather hot. There have great advocates of severely disabled children, either physically or developmentally, or both, in public positions. Some of them are parents of children. These fighters have mattered, but also school people who have no such family backgrounds who believe that there should be no such thing as special education, but education for all.

I like to mention here more examples of categories and perceptions of inclusion/exclusion. KFV33 (teacher in the West Fjords comprehensive secondary school) divides students in secondary schools into four groups:

Interviewee KFV33 speculates much more about this group and compares it with group three who he believes is helped because there is a greater understanding of learning difficulties, resources to help them that he calls "hjálparkennsla" [help instruction] or "stuðningur" [support], common code terms. KFV33 also mentions school counselling that he thinks does not help group four because counselling, as he sees it, presupposes that the individual actually wants to learn. He also thinks that the attitude that there is something wrong with those who do not want to learn is not fair: "It is not ugly or beautiful, good or bad, it is just so". One reason for these students to stay in school, KFV33 says, is that the job market pushes both ends of age, young and old, out of the it.

KVF33 also talks about students as consumers of goods and dramatic changes in that regard in the last ten to 15 years: "In 1984, the school's parking space was empty except for a few old Ladas that teachers owned. Now it is full of cars that the students use. They own some of them as well as they use their parents' cars … the school is not the priority, it is not in seat number one for the students. To live, to participate in the race of consuming goods, to live the life; that is what is number one … This has the consequence that students do not study as hard as they did; it is not as important to pass the examinations … We [as a nation] live in the present …"

In the West Fjords, all secondary students enter the same secondary school. A few might go to secondary schools elsewhere in the country to the effect of increase the relative number of students who are big comsumers.

Field observations in Akureyri let one think that those who enter the old gymnasium consume less than students in the newer comprehensive school. In here, we might be observing a different habitus of students where students on a gymnasium line are less interested in goods and consumption (may because, traditionally, the gymnasium has become a school that values academic performance more than anything else, and does not care where from students are coming, as long as they fulfill the academic goals and behave well).

The observations of KFV33 that lead to the categories of four groups and the observations of secondary school students as consumers are interesting and worth pursuing further. Our interviews with other secondary school teachers are not so many, and do not include much data to this direction, to study this division. Possibly the statistics can throw some more light on this.

Dyslexia and other named learning difficulties are now also being an issue in secondary schooling. Despite some differences in secondary schools that are worth pursuing, we find that, in general, we can conclude that there is a much greater emphasis on assisting and helping students in secondary schools by identifying and diagnosing what kind of difficulties they have in learning and social life and define resources to help them overcome them.

Immigrant education (the education of nýbúar) is becoming an issue in Iceland. We read in the newspapers that the dropout rates of immigrant children is near 100 % in secondary schools. We looked into the matter of immigrant education, but unfortunately I do not have much to tell you from our observations as of yet because we have to work that material better. [There was, nevertheless, some off-the-record discussion in the question-and-answer time after the talk.]

What is said about the environment in our sources?

May be the silence that was 10–15 seconds for each source should be longer. There are, for sure, precise goals in natural science and elsewhere about important environmental issues. One credit in secondary schools is to deal with the environment in relation to life adjustment education. The problem is that the awareness of the importance of environmental issues is just too low in this country, compared to its importance. But there are things being done in the country; they had not reached to a desired effect, as I speak as an individual, into our policy documents or into our interview texts.

Trends in discourse and practice

We note several tendencies that do not all go in the same direction.

We see more centralization in a stronger and renewed national curriculum, which we do not know how strongly will be enforced. We see that more centralized tests are proposed and recently such tests in grades four and seven were added to those that existed in grade ten. In terms of decentralization we see, of course, the transfer of primary schools to municipal authorities that counts as a decentralization process. Financial reform practices do that as well; they carry responsibility to principals. In that regard, principals can also appoint leaders among the teachers for certain age groups or certain disciplines. School-based evaluation is something that can be considered both a centralizing and decentralizing process. For a school faculty to evaluate itself is, of course, taking some power to the faculty. But we do not know how much they will feel forced by the ministry’s evaluation of the evaluation methods.

Another discursive conjuncture is what I consider a conflict between the emphasis in Enn betri skóli on stronger, more competitive, more responsible individuals in one hand, and the rights of children to be among their age mates in school, regardless of any difference or disabledness there might be, and cooperative teaching methods taught in teacher education, on the other hand. The conflict might be best described as the conflict between common precise goals and adjusting them to individual needs of everyone

We can not predict exactly what will happen in the near future. As always, education will be fun; but is there a reason to believe that the current reform will be more influential than reform in Iceland or elsewhere in the past?

• The EGSIE homepage: http://syrpa.khi.is/ed/egsie
• Sigurjón Mýrdal and Ingólfur Ásgeir Jóhannesson: "Governance and Inclusion in Icelandic Primary and Secondary Education: Emerging Issues and Stories". Presentation at the Annual Convention of the American Educational Research Association, Montréal, April 19–23, 1999 <http://www.ismennt.is/not/ingo/EGSIEMON.HTM>. Some of the observations in this presentation here are drawn directly from that presentation, while others are drawn from later work with the sources. See also that presentation for published EGSIE references.

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