Trade union collaboration on issues of social justice connects workers to each other and to their wider communities and is therefore considered a strategy of union renewal. Prior to their amalgamation on 1 January 2023, Lärarförbundet (Swedish Teachers’ Union) and Lärarnas Riksförbund (National Union of Teachers in Sweden) collaborated intermittently to challenge educational injustices in the highly segregated Swedish school market. Through documentary research, with dialogue as method, this case study explores the policies and politics of this inter-union collaboration. Using ‘framing’ and ‘intermediation’ as conceptual lenses, we argue that the two unions collaborated predominantly, but to varying degrees, on bargaining, political, and professional issues. However, these joint actions were conducted in the context of declining union membership, competitive national recruitment agendas, and the rise of grassroots teacher-led ‘rebellion’ groups campaigning for public education. External solidarity in organising was therefore limited by inter-organisational and intra-professional differentiation and both unions’ orientation towards a service model of unionism. Future research might explore the complexity of intra-union collaboration in the newly amalgamated Sveriges Lärare and the extent to which regional branch activism and broader alliances with social movements could promote a more democratic organising agenda.

Despite a vast international literature, previous research into compositional effects and peer effects in education has remarked on the lack of consensus within the field. To date, peer effects in education and students’ different opportunities to learn in school have been studied separately. In this thesis, it is argued that these perspectives need to be synthesized.

In the thesis, Frame Factor Theory is employed as a theory of peer effects in classroom instruction. According to the theory, one mechanism generating peer effects is the steering and limiting effect that class composition has on teachers’ instruction. It is argued that this perspective also needs to be synthesized with the Opportunity to Learn-perspective, to widen our understanding of why different students meet different instruction and thus are given different opportunities to learn. The theoretical perspectives and empirical models are evolved through three empirical studies included in the thesis. The theoretical development and the empirical results from each study is discussed in an integrative essay in the thesis.

The results indicate that class composition affects the presence of limitations on instruction and content coverage in instruction, both of which is related to students’ opportunities to learn and individual students’ achievement. Implications for future research and educational policy is discussed.

Despite a vast literature on peer effects and compositional effects in education, according to Rutter & Maughan (2002), “there has been much less investigation of the ways in which they operate in schools” (p. 469). Thrupp, Lauder & Robinson (2002) note that “there is remarkably little consensus over the nature and size of school compositional and peer effects” (abstract), which could stem from the fact that school compositional effects have been “inadequately theorised and poorly operationalised” (p. 484). These perspectives are shared by Liu et al (2015) who claim that “there are no comprehensive theories explaining the mechanism of school composition effects and most researchers treat it as a ‘black box’.” (p. 424)

From these perspectives, the aim of the study was to apply a synthesis of the Frame Factor Theory (FFT) and the Opportunity to Learn-perspective (OTL) as a theory on peer effects and compositional effects in education. Since the FFT predicts that the class composition, measured as students’ prior knowledge and aptitude, will have steering and limiting effects on teachers’ instruction, in turn affecting students’ achievement, it was argued that this could be interpreted as one mechanism generating peer effects. The FFT predicts that the steering and limiting effect of class composition will affect timing, pacing and content covered in instruction, which indicates that there is a theoretical overlap between the FFT and OTL.

A synthesised theoretical model was operationalized and tested with Swedish TIMSS 2011-data (n = 3928) in a multilevel structural equation model. The main FFT-construct in the study was a latent variable of “Limitations on instruction”, derived from items in the TIMSS teacher survey. Also, a variable of coverage of advanced content was derived from TIMSS 19 topics through assessments by Swedish 8th grade teachers in mathematics.

The study revealed that class composition, measured as class-SES, to some extent was related to teachers’ instruction in class, through its’ limitations on instruction, but it was also related to the content that could be covered in instruction. Results reveal a negative relation between students’ average age of arrival to Sweden on the between-class level and advanced content covered. Through both these effects, individual students’ achievement in mathematics are affected, indicating the presence of a peer effect. The results indicate that differences in students’ opportunities to learn, measured as content covered, to some extent seems to be related to the steering and limiting effect class composition has upon teachers’ instruction.

In the educational literature on peer effects, attention has been brought to the fact that the mechanisms creating peer effects are still to a large extent hidden in obscurity. The hypothesis in the study reported in this article was that the Frame Factor Theory (FFT) can be used to reveal such mechanisms. Using data from the Swedish TIMSS 2015 (N = 3761 students in 179 classes), a multilevel structural equation model (M-SEM) was specified in accordance with the FFT. As predicted, the SEM-model verified a strong relationship between class composition and a latent variable of limitations on instruction, a variable which in turn had a great impact on individual students? results in TIMSS 2015. The study hereby seems to reveal a fundamental mechanism of peer effects and provides evidence for the FFT.

This study draws on previous empirical research within the fields of opportunity to learn (OTL) and peer effects in education. In a recent study, it was argued that the Frame Factor Theory (FFT) could be applied as a theoretical framework to the issue of peer effects in education. Since the FFT predicts that the class composition measured as students’ prior knowledge and aptitude, will have steering and limiting effects on teachers’ instruction, in turn affecting students’ achievement, it was argued that this could be interpreted as one mechanism generating peer effects. Empirical findings from analysis of TIMSS 2015 data supported the hypothesis. Possibly due to poor construct validity, the previous study couldn’t verify the modus operandi of the mechanisms. The FFT predicts that the steering and limiting effect of class composition will affect timing, pacing, and content covered in instruction. From this perspective, the aim of this article is to initiate a synthesis of the OTL- and FFT-perspectives, where OTL-findings on content coverage are included in an FFT-model predicting peer effects in education.

A synthesized theoretical model is operationalized and tested with Swedish TIMSS 2011 data (n = 3,928) in a multilevel structural equation model. The main FFT-construct in the study is a latent variable of “Limitations on instruction”, derived from items in the TIMSS teacher survey. Also, a variable of coverage of advanced content is derived from TIMSS 19 topics through assessments by Swedish eighth grade teachers in mathematics.

The study revealed that class composition, measured as class-SES, to some extent was related to teachers’ instruction in class, through its limitations on instruction, but it was also related to the content that can be covered in instruction. Results reveal a negative relation between students’ average age of arrival to Sweden on the between-class level and advanced content covered. Through both of these effects, individual students’ achievement in mathematics is affected, indicating the presence of a peer effect. The results from the study thereby support previous findings on the steering and limiting effect of class composition on teachers’ instruction, as well as providing a new theoretical perspective on results from OTL-research. The results indicate that differences in students’ opportunities to learn-measured as content covered-to some extent is related to the steering and limiting effect class composition has upon teachers’ instruction. The results are discussed in both a historical and contemporary context.

Despite a vast literature, previous research into compositional effects and peer effects in education has remarked on the lack of consensus within the field. To date, peer effects in education and students’ different opportunities to learn in school has been studied separately. In this study, it is argued that these perspectives need to be synthesized. A multilevel structural equation model (M-SEM) is derived from such a synthesis of the Frame Factor Theory (FFT) and Opportunity to Learn (OTL) and tested on Swedish TIMSS 2011-data (n=3928). The results indicate that class composition affects the presence of limitations on instruction and advanced content coverage, both of which is related to opportunities to learn and individual students’ achievement in mathematics.

Den här historieboken sammanfattar Lärarnas Riksförbunds verksamhet och utveckling under perioden efter millennie­skiftet. En tid präglad av skolans kommunalisering och av­reglering, av nya parts­förhållanden och ökad politisk styrning. 

Ingress: Debatten om friskolorna är egentligen vår samtids diskussion om den fråga som dominerat svensk skolpolitik sedan slutet av 1800-talet: Differentieringsfrågan. Med ”differentiering” avses i skolpolitiska sammanhang, frågan om – när, hur, varför och på vilka grunder vi ska dela upp elever i olika skolor, studievägar, klasser, grupper eller nivåer. Det skriver Pontus Bäckström, Utredningschef på Lärarnas Riksförbund och doktorand i pedagogik.

Från syftet: Likt så många andra reformer på skolans område infördes dessa läroplansförändringarpå bred front och samtidigt för hela grundskolan. Detta skapar problem när reformens effekter ska utvärderas, i och med att det inte finns några kontrollgrupper att jämföra med (IFAU, 2014; 2016).

Syftet med denna artikel är därför att diskutera denna problematik genom att lämna ett tentativt metodologiskt förslag till hur en utvärdering ändå skulle kunna genomföras. Det metodologiska förslag som lämnas i artikeln är i sin tur förknippat med en rad mer eller mindre allvarliga problem. Dessa tillkortakommanden ska därför också betraktas som en generell notis om behovet av väldesignade försöksverksamheters återkomst till skolpolitiken (SOU 2014:12).