One effect of a globalized world with international competition, a wide-spread market-choice discourse and a dominant neo-liberal framing is the increased amount of policy borrowing between countries (cf. Lingard, 2010). From a macro-perspective this could be seen as a trend towards a global policy convergence, although from a more contextual perspective it leads to the re-structuring of educational systems and the implementation of new elements.   

In 2008 the idea of a probationary year for newly qualified teachers (NQT), mentoring and registration was ‘imported’ into Sweden from Scotland and Canada. These practices were borrowed, and initially hardly changed at all to fit the Swedish educational context. The aim of this paper is to analyze how this kind of policy borrowing from the international arena is transformed and implemented in the Swedish educational system and how this change positions relations, identities and power between actors in the educational space (cf. Fransson, 2010; Fransson & Grannäs, 2012).  The educational space is to be seen as a relational category in which object and actor are related to another and changeable position and boundaries are created (Ferrrare & Apple, 2010). In this sense, teachers position themselves and are also actively positioned by others, as well as by norms, values, curricula and legislation.

The analyses show, for instance, that the relationship between NQTs, principal and mentors changes as mentors become more involved in the formal assessment of the new teacher; a role that mentors have  not had before in Sweden (Fransson, 2010; Fransson & Gustafsson, 2008). The implementation of a Teacher´s Disciplinary Board also changes the roles, relations and positions between e.g. teachers, parents and school inspectors. This means that teachers are more vulnerable to being reported, which could lead to the registration process being suspended or a warning issued. The reforms can thus be used as a tool to discipline teachers and make them act within the regimes of accountability and governmentality (cf. Devos, 2010).