Why School Matters to Pupils: The Culture of Schooling as Actions and Accounts during Lockout Time: Contemporary Schooling as Actions and Accounts during Lockout Time

The paper reports from a study of schooling in an unusual situation. The situation was the school conflict in the spring of 2013 (April 1-25), when there was a general lockout of teachers employed at the municipal schools in Denmark. The background for this conflict was that the negotiations for the new collective agreement between the Local Government Denmark, the interest association and member authority of Danish municipalities and employer of all municipal teachers, and the Danish Union of Teachers had collapsed.
During the weeks of the conflict about 780.000 pupils and about 80.000 teachers and educators were locked out of the schools. This meant that all teaching by teachers, organized in the Danish Union of Teachers was cancelled. Only unorganized teachers (temporary replacements) or public servants (teachers above a certain age) were allowed to give lessons that had been planned beforehand, i.e. not lessons that should have been given by teachers locked out. Therefore some pupils experienced to have a few lessons per week and attended school occasionally during the final weeks of the conflict.
This unusual situation provided a particular opportunity to study the culture of schooling. The point of departure was the pupil frustration and boredom reported in the media and by parents during the on-going conflict. Prompted by the questions, what do the conflict and the absence of schooling mean to the pupils? I contacted two schools to undertake a minor study of schooling from 9th grade (final year in school) pupil perspectives in this particular situation. The 9th graders were selected due to them approaching the end of their Folk school life and therefore in a double sense experiencing their school life at a watershed.
Methods included observations of the few activities for the 9th grade pupils at the two schools, informal talks with the school directors, informal talks and interviews with 45 pupils (during the lockout), and interviews with their form teachers (after the lockout). Theoretically the study is informed by Bourdieu’s reflexive sociology (1992).
The purpose of the paper is to present results on the above question and - on the basis of the results - to discuss, how can school culture be captivated by focusing on activities and accounts in an extraordinary situation?