Standards-Based Curricula in a Denationalised Conception of Education: The Case of Sweden (original) (raw)
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European Educational Research Journal, 2016
The aim of this article is to examine how transnational concepts within educational policies influence national curricula in the reconceptualisation of educational policy into concrete curriculum texts. Based on a critical discourse analysis and the concepts of recontextualisation, convergence and divergence, a third wave of European policy discourse has been identified, emphasising an increasing interest in compulsory school and curriculum. Analyses of policies and pedagogical texts show a convergence between a European and a Swedish knowledge discourse concerning standards, basic skills and a performance-based curriculum; however, there is a divergence in terms of transversal skills in transnational policy documents compared to an emphasis on school subjects in the Swedish curriculum. In the transnational arena, the concept of knowledge is mainly interpreted in terms of competencies, while in the Swedish curriculum – the Curriculum for the Compulsory School, Preschool Class and th...
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This essay outlines the major changes in Swedish educational policy that occurred during the 20-year period from 1976 to 1996, with a focus on key issues in the development of the comprehensive school. Effects of the policy changes on Swedish curriculum research over the last 20 years are examined. Educational researchers neglected or were slow to respond to changes in the educational system that resulted from the breakdown of the Swedish model and dismantling of the welfare state. Other conclusions are that the feminist perspective is absent in curriculum research in Sweden; there is a conflict between decentralization and educational goals; the "subject didactical" studies represented a new way to study the relations between curriculum and teaching/learning; and there is a need to develop educational theory in general and curriculum theory in particular. (Contains 26 endnotes and 109 references.) (LMI)
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In October 2006 Sweden changed governments. A twelve-year period of Social-Democratic governments was over, and a coalition of Conservatives, Liberals, Christian Democrats, and Centre Party politicians came into power. The new government started to reform the educational policy in Sweden. These reforms had capability to know facts, and assessment, as central tasks in schools. But why was this discursive turn taken place in Swedish Schools? From my point of view, the process realizing in Swedish schools during the last 6 years is a discursive change from a poststructuralist and a social-cultural viewpoint to a more realistic ontology, but not Realism as it is understood according to the positivistic view. Instead, I will release Discourse Analysis from the rest of Post-structuralism and guide it to the same ontology and epistemology where we find Critical Realism.
Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, 2015
In this article, we present a comparative research project on municipal school policy in Sweden 1950Á2010 which in our view contributes to the research fields of education policy and curriculum theory. Our project which started in 2014 links to a line of international research on education policy concerned with the tensions between decentralisation and globalisation and comparative research investigating transnational transfers of education policy ideas. In this article, we provide some preliminary findings which display municipal school policy dealing with national and transnational school initiatives and affecting local school actions. Most of the findings in this article concern the time period 1950Á1975, during which the present two Swedish school forms, Grundskolan (a 9-year comprehensive school) and Gymnasieskolan (upper secondary school), were introduced and established. We compare local policy, through six interrelated indicators, in two municipalities with different structures and origins. On the basis of our findings, we conclude that municipal school policy research in a comparative and historical perspective is an important field of research as it reveals the complexity of school governance. Historical studies of municipal school policy and practice are crucial for exploring different dimensions of curriculum theory, including the transnational dimension.
In this article, we present a comparative research project on municipal school policy in Sweden 1950Á2010 which in our view contributes to the research fields of education policy and curriculum theory. Our project which started in 2014 links to a line of international research on education policy concerned with the tensions between decentralisation and globalisation and comparative research investigating transnational transfers of education policy ideas. In this article, we provide some preliminary findings which display municipal school policy dealing with national and transnational school initiatives and affecting local school actions. Most of the findings in this article concern the time period 1950Á1975, during which the present two Swedish school forms, Grundskolan (a 9-year comprehensive school) and Gymnasieskolan (upper secondary school), were introduced and established. We compare local policy, through six interrelated indicators, in two municipalities with different structures and origins. On the basis of our findings, we conclude that municipal school policy research in a comparative and historical perspective is an important field of research as it reveals the complexity of school governance. Historical studies of municipal school policy and practice are crucial for exploring different dimensions of curriculum theory, including the transnational dimension.
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Foreign observers of Sweden have attributed the country’s socially inclusive economic growth, which was sustained during nearly one hundred years, to the expansion of the Social Democratic welfare state. However, this analysis overlooks the fundamental causes of Sweden’s economic takeoff. The crucial feature that Sweden exhibited was its uniquely large and evenly distributed stock of human capital. A widespread appreciation for learning and the development of education from the 1600s onwards were the key drivers of the strong development. Against this background, the decline of the Swedish educational system should be cause for serious concern about the country’s future. The chapter provides a summary of the problems regarding schooling in Sweden and presents our view of their causes. The origin of Sweden’s academic decline is mainly attributable to a phenomenon that we refer to as “post-truth” schooling—education based on a postmodern social constructivist view of knowledge.
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This article analyses reforms addressing and affecting the curriculum and organisation of Swedish upper secondary education over 40 years, up to an initiative by the present non-socialist government. The aim is to analyse the current reform of upper secondary education and relate it to previous reforms during a 40-year period in terms of continuity and breaks, mainly with regard to major functions of the reforms and the structuring and control of educational contents. Aiming to create a sharper division of students into three separate streams (academic and vocational education, and apprenticeship training), the reform constitutes a major break with the previously dominant trend towards greater integration. It is argued that it will result in a restriction and reformulation of the knowledge which is regarded as desirable. Similar moves are evident in relation to teacher education, which, if enacted, would involve moving from a model of high flexibility and a common core of knowledge to substantially stronger divisions between contents and programmes.
Transnational competence frameworks and national curriculum-making: the case of Sweden
Comparative education, 2020
Competence-based approaches (CBAs) in education have become an internationally important educational policy concept in recent decades. However, a substantial body of research has suggested that in order to understand and explain the evolution of CBAs, there is a need to analyse curriculum-making as a complex and multi-layered practice. To contribute to this research field, this paper makes use of Vivien Schmidt’s concept of discursiveinstitutionalism (DI), which focuses on ideas and discourse. First, we compare ideas of competences as expressed in four influential CBA frameworks, and second, we exemplify how these ideas, with special reference to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, have been translated when re-contextualised within Swedish curriculum policy-making. The results show that when re-contextualised within national borders, transnational ideas of competences are reconfigured. In the case of Sweden, this process has led to a national interpretation of CBAs, discussed in this paper as ‘hybrid competences.’