Teachers’ voices about being a teacher: comparative studies in England, Finland and Sweden

The aim of the article is to present and discuss a study in which Finnish, English and Swedish teachers and student teachers described the implications of being a teacher. It is cross-national and consists of multiple case studies. Data were collected through twenty-four focus group dialogues, and 110 teachers/student teachers participated in the study. According to the study, we have found that teachers and student teachers in all three countries promoted pupils’ development of critical thinking, which is another way of saying that they focused on ‘the attitudes and values’ aspect of citizenship education; however, this was most evident in the Finnish and the Swedish focus groups. In England there is a subject emphasis to the professional role, the three countries ranked the topics (the pupils; the subject; the organization; the society; teacher identity; parents) equally, in Finland the teacher role did not appear to be as post modern as in the two other countries.