Carl Anders Säfström

Stop Making Sense

In this article I explore the idea that in order for equality to take place we do not need to ground it in anything other than simply assuming it, taking seriously the suggestion of Jacques Ranciere that equality resides in the contingent conditions of all spoken language.

The European Knowledge Society and the Diminishing State Control of Education: The Case of Sweden

In this article I explore the changing relation between education and the state as this is expressed through a new language of education within Sweden, structured by terms such as the knowledge society, life‐long learning and validation. I read closely a policy document on life‐long learning, taking as my point of departure the ‘authentic state’, a state that is possible only when the desires of individuals for a good life are made the conditions of democratic society. What the reading illuminates is that what is taken for granted within the new language of education is instead an ‘agentic’ state in which the will of the individual is subordinated to the will of the state and that this is most profoundly expressed through the subject position offered the individual, what I call Homo economicus. Thus the knowledge society tends to be a society that excludes the idea of education understood in any terms other than economic ones.

On the way to a postmodern curriculum theory – Moving from the question of unity to the question of difference

This article will examine the consequences of highlighting ‘subject and difference’ in one of the curriculum theories that has been inspired by postmodernism. The term postmodernism is here first and foremost meant to signify the attempt to combine politics and morality with epistemology in accordance with Levinas, Lyotard and Bauman. The article will highlight some themes that need to be developed further for a postmodernism-inspired curriculum theory. A starting-point is a critique of the type of curriculum theory which has its base in “the new sociology of education”. From this critique, focused on universal claims, the Habermasian-inspired universalism is quickly and critically dropped and left behind, and another form of reasoning is embarked upon. The latter is inspired by a ‘minotarian politics’ concept and tries to dissolve universalism as a prerequisite for critical conversations. With this background and with the help of Levinas, the article sets out to talk about ‘difference’ without reduction to the Same and finally suggest a direction for a postmodern curriculum theory with a ‘normative’ focus on knowledge.

The passion of teaching at the border of order

In this text, which was originally delivered as a speech, I discuss the massive critique of teachers in the public discourse on education in Sweden over the last decade. I speak in defence of teachers, and since I am a teacher I speak in defence of myself. The critique of teachers, schooling, and teacher education has been so overbearing that a purely rational response is simply not possible. Therefore, my response is rhetorical in tone. In highlighting the passion of teaching, I lift something central for teachers, which is seldom or never taught about teaching in teacher education. Neither is the passion of teaching present in the public discourse on education. Passion, I argue in the article, is that which adds excess or an overflow of meaning that cannot be contained within the order of discourse and which therefore puts this discourse out of balance. Finally, I discuss a new balance beyond this order in the context of a classroom. In a concluding section, I highlight the struggle over borders which define who can speak and think in “good” order and who cannot.

The Immigrant Has No Proper Name: The disease of consensual democracy within the myth of schooling

In this article I discuss the role of the immigrant in Swedish society and especially how such a role is construed through what I call the myth of schooling, that is, the normalization of an arbitrary distribution of wealth and power. I relate this myth to the idea of consensual democracy as it is expressed through an implicit idea of what it means to be Swedish. I not only critique the processes through which immigrants are discriminated against or excluded from Swedish society but also try to shift the understanding of the conditions under which such exclusion is possible in the first place. Being Swedish is that which the immigrant is not. What I argue and give examples of is that the ‘no name’ immigrant becomes a possibility for democracy to happen when he or she claims his or her presence in the demos, in such a way as to make evident a split in the self‐understanding of a purely consensual Swedish democracy. In the article I argue that what is needed in order to go beyond the myth of schooling, is a pedagogy of dissensus contesting the normalizing of an unequal social order by making it contingent.

The Limits of Socialisation.

The article deals with the question of living with others, one of the most significant relationships of human life, and challenge the common understanding of the origins of living with others, where a human being is not just becoming a social but also a moral being through social institutions of societies. This common understanding of a social relationship, fostered and nurtured by a given society, places the responsibility for the possibility of living with others on the other. Drawing on the work from the sociologists Zygmunt Bauman and George Simmel and the philosophers Emmanuel Levinas and Knud Løgstrup we argue that the possibility of living with others is based on the rights of the other rather than of the rights to determine whom the other is.By focusing on the relation between the individual and the society on the one hand, and the connections between being moral and being social on the other hand, we suggest that the process of socialisation is devastating not only for human beings individuality and his or her moral capacity but also for a responsive educational praxis. We explore the ways in which an understanding of socialisation as the making of the social being is intimately linked to how institutional education ‘thinks itself.’ This exploration is followed by a critical discussion of the limits of socialisation, and therefore also the limits of education. By considering some of the problems about the making of the social being we arrive at the conclusion that there is the possibility for education to be somewhere else rather than within socialisation. This conclusion leads us to explore the possibilities for an educational praxis that embraces the other without holding the individuals otherness against them.

Education as a Science Within a Scientific Rational Discourse

This paper focuses on a dogma within Swedish educational research which asserts that the theoretical structure of education developed through research commissioned to reform the Swedish school system. What preconditions led to the widespread acceptance of this dogma; in other words, in which language game or games was the dogma valid? In the paper I argue that the dogma about the ways in which modern Swedish educational research developed is dependent on a specific language game. When the rules of this language game are called into question, the transcendental character of the dogma is eroded; it has legitimacy only within its own game, limited by the time and space. The language game in question can be seen to be a part of a scientific‐rational discourse and, as such, is embodied in certain organizational relations between the state and the discipline, relations which are central to a perception of educational research in Sweden.

Forty Years of the Philosophy of Education in the Nordic Countries

Abstract The authors of this sections article are of the opinion that the ‘pure’ philosophers in Scandinavia do not usually consider philosophy of education to be a philosophical discipline in line with other ‘hyphenated’ philosophies. They argue that the way that philosophy of education is viewed in the Nordic countries is more like how it is treated in English‐speaking countries, which is different from the German tradition where Bildung is historically both an educational and a philosophical concept. But Nordic contributors to philosophy of education, inspired by the main philosophical trends of the time, have perceived themselves in the last few decades as partakers in the general philosophical conversation from within a philosophical discipline defined by the basic questions of education as a cultural, political and individual practice. The article in this section presents a description of the development of educational philosophy in the five Nordic countries during the past four decades.

Doing Harm to Educational Knowledge: The Struggle over Teacher Education in Sweden and Norway

In the Scandinavian countries, particularly Sweden and Norway, the concept of educational sciences (in Swedish: utbildningsvetenskap; in Norwegian: utdanningsvitenskap) has, over the last 20 years, emerged as an overarching and unifying concept, which has subjugated pedagogik and other disciplines. For this reason we wish to analyse this particular concept. But before we do that, we need to know what the concepts of ‘utbildning’ and ‘utdanning’ signify.

When the Wrong People Speak: On Bullying as a Political Problem for Democratisation in Schools

In this chapter I ask if the responsibility of education only is to teach the young how to live in society, regardless of the nature of society. Or does education and democracy bring with it a demand that places education within the limits of a particular social configuration? I will argue that not only education but also democratic action is only possible in the gaps of the institution. This chapter will draw on some empirical work from a research project entitled ‘Learning Democracy’ and the work of Jacques Ranciere. Specifically this chapter centres on the question of bullying as a problem for education and democratic action.