This paper takes an interest in how schools and teachers dealt with new demands when teaching rapidly went online during school closures related to the COVID-19 pandemic, in what we see as an example of emergency remote teaching. The aim is to make visible how schools and teachers dealt with the demands that they were confronted with while under hard pressure during emergency remote teaching, and what discursive frames are used in upper secondary teachers’ pedagogical considerations. Fifteen teachers of history, mathematics and Swedish (five from each subject) are followed in recurring interviews between April 2020 and September 2020, resulting in a total of 41 interviews. A narrative approach is used in the analysis and results show how teachers made large efforts to maintain teaching in what can be described as a crisis organization. Three main discourses are identified: (a) a strong assessment discourse; (b) a relational discourse; and (c) a compensatory discourse. The findings are discussed in the light of educational policy based on the so-called Nordic model and the idea of one-school-for all, and in relation to what becomes possible to teach as well as what is not possible to do in times of crisis.

Instructional quality is a research topic that has received increased attention over the past decades. However, despite evidence for its importance to student learning, few studies are designed to examine patterns of prevalent instruction. The present study aimed to enhance the understanding of instructional quality in Swedish lower secondary school by examining patterns of instruction in 7th grade language arts and mathematics. 274 lessons from 73 separate classrooms were videorecorded and analyzed using the Protocol for Language Arts Teaching Observation (PLATO). Findings of the study show that lessons were largely organized through either whole-class instruction or individual seatwork. Mathematics included significantly more explicit teacher scaffolding and mathematics teachers scored higher than language arts teachers on nearly all instructional dimensions. However, in both subjects, there were substantial differences between teachers, meaning that students in different classrooms received systematically different kinds of instruction. Implications for instructional development and future research are discussed.

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