Health and social care teachers’ descriptions of challenges in their teaching at upper secondary school

Since vocational teachers not only mediate theoretical and practical knowledge, but also ideals concerning the professionals’ personalities and actions, the aim of this study is to analyse if and how these ideals influence the highlighted challenges of teaching. The study is drawing on a social constructionist perspective; the method used involves 17 qualitative interviews. The challenges mentioned were as follows: lack of motivation, language and cultural factors, low status of the occupation and plagiarism. Underlying ideals rooted in the health care sector were that students should become a carer because of an inner desire. Moral and ethical values were other ideals that underpinned themes such as dealing with plagiarism and the problems experienced with non-native Swedes. An underlying fact is also the low traditional status of the nursing assistants, a challenge the teachers try to handle without effective tools. In the order to understand the challenges and handle them, the teachers construct categories of differences. This is visible when the categorisation of students is made based on motivation and ethnicity. The findings highlight the importance of courses in vocational training that focus on understanding various norms and categorisations.