Claiming the relational space: educational paraprofessionals’ occupational identity work in Swedish schools

The number of teacher assistants and other support staff, commonlyreferred to as educational paraprofessionals, has grownsubstantially over the past decade in Swedish compulsory schools.Despite their widespread presence, paraprofessionals’ roles in theSwedish school context is characterised by a high degree of ambiguityas they carry out a diverse range of tasks. Given this ambiguity,we explore the construction of 58 educationalparaprofessionals’ occupational identity in a compulsory schoolsetting in Sweden. Drawing on Gary Fine’s notion of occupationalrhetorics, we argue that the rhetorics and imagery used by theseparaprofessionals to define and frame their work functions asa keyhole into their occupational identity. By analysing the occupationalrhetorics expressed in their written responses to open-endedsurvey questions about their work tasks, task preferences, andperceived illegitimate tasks we identified three distinct framingsof their work (i.e., rhetorical patterns). These distinct rhetoricalpatterns, which we describe as the rhetorics of the RelationalAnchor, Operational Facilitator and Supportive Educator, illustratehow their occupational identity is not a comprehensive whole butrather constructed through imagery that frames and defines theirwork. Delving into the rhetorics embedded in their descriptions oftheir preferred and illegitimate tasks, we find that their preferredoccupational identity and occupational positioning is tied to performingrelational tasks and inhabiting the relational space inschools. Our results illustrate the tensions paraprofessionals navigatein their construction of a meaningful occupational identity andhighlight the need to clarify the professional territory that theyoperate in within the school context.