The Uncertainty of School in a Time of Uncertainty: Perspectives of Different Coalitions in the Aftermath of the School Mass Shooting in Serbia

On 3 May 2023, the first mass school shooting occurred in Serbia, positioning children as a particularly vulnerable group in need of further support. Subsequently, the government needed to create policies to help restore a sense of security, stability and trust in the community. The main dilemma was regarding the questions: Should we continue schooling? If so, how? Employing narrative policy analysis, we examine the interplay between education policies, policymakers, parents and teachers to discern the varied interpretations of policies and their impact on students’ roles within the education system. The aim is to understand the different meanings policymakers and institutional stakeholders find in the same policy and the implications of the policy’s meaning for students in the education system. The analysed documents include 16 official educational documents and 53 newspapers and blog articles featuring stakeholders’ responses. The main findings indicate how different understandings of the same policy, as well as changes in the power dynamics between stakeholders, influenced subsequent decision-making of the government regarding school life. Most importantly, the study demonstrates the potential harmful effects of inconsistency in policies on student wellbeing and academic life. We conclude that the main question should not be whether schooling should stop or continue, but how to create a line of consistent and stable recommendations aligned with the created policy.