Attributing negative categories such as ‘weak’ to pupils is a common practice in Sweden and a known phenomenon worldwide. While there has been a substantial amount of research on different expressions of ‘deviance’ in the educational arena, the research on how teachers communicate about pupils as ‘weak’ is scarce. In this study, teachers’ communication about pupils as ‘weak’ is examined in dialogues produced in focus group discussions by 29 teachers in six different Swedish compulsory schools. Through the lens of social representations theory and a dialogical perspective, this study suggests that ‘weak pupil’ as a social representation can be characterized by a range of different and sometimes contradicting themes and mainly two themata: normal/deviant and nature/nurture. The results show that ‘weak pupil’ is used as a multifaceted communicative resource to describe pupils who do not perform according to schools’ expectations. In contrast to several previous studies, the use of ‘weak pupil’ is partially challenged by participants who, to some extent, place perceived problems within the educational institution instead of the individual pupil. The study has implications for the understanding of how perceptions of normality might be perceived and collectively (re)produced in communication about pupils as well as for future research using social representations theory within the educational field.

在学生中，将“弱”等消极类别归因于瑞典，这在世界范围内都是一种普遍现象。尽管在教育领域已经有大量关于“偏离”的不同表达的研究，但是关于教师如何以“弱”来交流学生的研究却很少。在这项研究中，瑞典六所义务学校的29名教师在焦点小组讨论中进行的对话中，考察了教师对学生“弱者”的交流。通过社会表征理论和对话视角的研究，这项研究表明，“弱势学生”作为一种社会表征可以通过一系列不同的，有时是相互矛盾的主题来表征，主要是两个主题：正常/越轨和自然/养育。结果表明，“弱小学生”被用作多方面的交流资源，用以描述未达到学校期望的学生。与之前的几项研究相比，参与者在某种程度上将感知到的问题置于教育机构而不是单个学生的范围之内，这部分地挑战了“弱小学生”的使用。这项研究对于理解如何在与学生的交流中如何感知和集体地（正常地）再现正常感以及对未来在教育领域中使用社会表征理论的研究具有启示意义。将感知到的问题放在教育机构内部，而不是单个学生。这项研究对于理解如何在与学生的交流中如何感知和集体地（正常地）再现正常感以及对未来在教育领域中使用社会表征理论的研究具有启示意义。将感知到的问题放在教育机构内部，而不是单个学生。这项研究对于理解如何在与学生的交流中如何感知和集体地（正常地）再现正常感以及对未来在教育领域中使用社会表征理论的研究具有启示意义。