Chatting Online with Students in the Evenings – Teachers’ Support Now Also Happens Out of View, Nordic Research Shows

Changes that digitalization has brought to students’ lives are greater and more striking than expected, researchers say. In particular, the interaction between teachers and students after school hours comes as a surprise.

Digitalization has led to major changes in everyday school life. This is evident from the material collected by researchers behind the project Nordic Basic Schools as Past Present and Future Sites for Solving the Challenges of Making Diverse Inclusive Knowledge-based Societies. The project focuses on four lower secondary schools in four different Nordic countries.

Although the project won’t be completed until 2027, the researchers have finished collecting material and it offers several new insights. Among other things, researchers were surprised to find that many teachers are in contact with their students via chats even after 8 p.m. This can for example involve help with various school assignments.

– This was new to us and it’s something we don’t think others have looked at much either, says Project Leader and Professor Fritjof Sahlström at the University of Helsinki.

Is help distributed equally?

Sahlström emphasizes that digitalization has brought a lot of good with it. At the same time, it brings forth new challenges, particularly when it comes to the original ambitions of equality in Nordic comprehensive schools.

– Classrooms before digitalization were special in the sense that everyone could see what was happening and whether the teacher was helping someone. There were no secrets. But with screens, it becomes silent.

It’s no longer clear to everyone who is helping whom. Meeting places have become fewer and less accessible.

– There is reason to suspect that some of the schools’ equality goals are not being met. This type of interaction between students and teachers may not be distributed very fairly – teachers might be more inclined to contact certain students in the evening than others.

With adults chatting with students outside school hours, there might also be a need to discuss boundaries: how much and in what way is it okay to be in contact with students late at night?

Overall, it’s clear that school and students’ spare time are increasingly intertwined today. People from one area of the student’s life are present in others.

– We have interesting documentation, like screenshots, showing how students might chat with grandparents at school, for instance, and then use school contact apps late at night. This is a significant and clear change, says Sahlström.

Enlightening Walk-Along Interviews

The research project consists of three sub-studies. In addition to examining what digitalization has meant for today’s students, researchers have looked at educational history: how Nordic comprehensive schools of this type came to be. They have also looked at what significance the comprehensive school had for students who are now in their fifties. Researchers conducted walk-along interviews, during which they walked around the school and its surroundings with former students.

– We can see that the school’s significance as a social space has been enormous for these students. This became very clear when they reflected on what the school meant for who they were and who they became.

Both attending school as well as how the school was organized – for example, the placement of corridors and special education classrooms – was important.

The results of the project will be compiled into a book. The book will be published in 2027.

More information:

Project Leader Fritjof Sahlström
Professor in pedagogy at University of Helsinki
fritjof.sahlstrom@helsinki.fi