Saved by COVID: Changes in working conditions of compulsory schools in time of pandemic

• Published in: Netla
• Main Authors: Björnsdóttir, Kristín, Ásgrímsdóttir, Eiríksína Eyja
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Icelandic
• Published: Menntavísindasvið Háskóla Íslands 2021
• Subjects: COVID-19; teachers; inclusive education; panopticism; disadvantages; discourse; kennarar; skóli án aðgreiningar; alsæishyggja; aðstöðumunur; orðræða; The Watchman; Iceland
• Online Access: https://ojs.hi.is/netla/article/view/3322; https://doi.org/10.24270/serritnetla.2020.16

The World Health Organization announced the COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic in early March 2020. COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus. The first cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in Iceland in late February and the Government announced various measures to control the spread of the virus by enacting a ban on larger gatherings and introducing rules on social distancing which resulted in disruption of school activities when teachers were forced to change their teaching practices. Although Icelandic compulsory school students were able to attend school part-time the everyday school life was disrupted. Inclusive education is the official education policy in Iceland and every student should have equal study opportunities and access to appropriate educational activities (Mennta- og menningarmálaráðuneyti [Ministry of Education, Science and Culture], 2011). This article reports on a qualitative research project carried out among fourteen middle school teachers and explores their experiences of teaching in inclusive education settings, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. The interviews were taken during the period of June – September 2020. In this article we adopt Michel Foucault’s (1975) ideas on governmentality to explain how teachers and everyday school life are monitored and controlled. Governmentality refers to the study of power where the subject is a willing participant in being governed and takes part in self-governing of their conduct. Foucault (1975) uses Bentham’s idea of the panopticon as a model for external surveillance; the subjects do not know if anyone is in the panopticon and therefore are unaware as to whether they are being monitored. Foucault further developed the idea of the panopticon and introduced the term panopticism to describe internal surveillance when the gaze of the watchman is internalized by the subject who takes on self-monitoring. The research findings suggest that the participants had both positive and negative experiences of teaching ...