Daniel Sundberg

Standards-Based Curricula in a Denationalised Conception of Education: The Case of Sweden

In this article, the authors examine the development of the Swedish educational reform of 1991 from an international and European perspective, and from the perspective of what counts as knowledge in a recently implemented Swedish curriculum reform. With effect from 2011, the Swedish Government has significantly reshaped the curricula for pre-school, compulsory school and upper secondary school education, but in terms of governing principles for schools, these curriculum reforms can be regarded as a continuation of the 1991 reform. The authors argue that this latest reform, as part of an international policy discourse, can be said to represent a denationalised and instrumental conception of education, and that the implications for the formation of knowledge within this conception can be understood as a standards-based curriculum shaped by two powerful international influences: a technical-instrumental discourse of curriculum, emphasising the form, structure and function of the curriculum; and a neo-conservative discourse of curriculum, with an emphasis on curriculum content as a given and uncontested body of knowledge.

Travelling concepts in national curriculum policy-making: the example of competencies

In this paper we will address the impact of Europeanisation on national curriculum reforms with empirical reference to the Swedish compulsory school, and based on the concept of competence discuss the question of transnational curriculum convergence. The main interest is directed towards how the answers to the question of what counts as knowledge and skills are changing in national curricula. The analysis shows that the recent Swedish compulsory school reform converges to the broader European knowledge discourse on the underlying level of philosophical ideas, but also that several core concepts used in European policy texts are being reconceptualised and given a different meaning when recontextualised in the national arena.

Discursive institutionalism: towards a framework for analysing the relation between policy and curriculum

Abstract Discourse approaches in education policy analysis have gained prominence in the last decade. However, though the literature on policy discourses is growing, different conceptions of the ‘discursive’ dimension and its potential for empirical analysis related to the field of curriculum policy have not yet been fully researched. To address this gap in education policy research, this article explores the framework of discursive institutionalism. Using background and foreground ideas and coordinative and communicative discourses on three analytically distinct levels, this article proposes and discusses a framework for empirically analysing, explaining and understanding education reforms on the transnational and local levels. The introduced conceptual framework represents an integration of discursive institutionalism (DI) and curriculum theory (CT) to provide a more multifaceted set of concepts to explore the lending and borrowing of transnational education policies and their application at both national and local levels. These concepts have been applied as analytical tools in a research study on the most recent curriculum reform in Sweden, and they may serve as an example of how different ideas, discourses and levels can be distinguished in research studies to maintain the complexity of education reforms.

Teachers matter – but how?

In this special issue, we start from a general policy assumption about teachers and teachingparticularly clearly summarized in the 2005 report Teachers Matter: Attracting, Developingand Retaining E ...

From Pedagogik to Educational Sciences? Higher Education Reform, Institutional Settings and the Formation of the Discipline of Educational Science in Sweden

The purpose of this article is to address the question of Pedagogik as an academic discipline in Sweden based on a social study of the sciences point of departure. The philosophical and epistemological issues which constitute the conceptual questions about the nature and content of educational science are, although crucial, peripheral to this article. The article is concerned with the general consequences of the formation of the discipline due to ongoing changes and reforms in Swedish higher education. Text analysis of self-evaluations of education departments in Sweden provide the material for a critical examination of the changing institutional settings for educational sciences. Three general tension fields are highlighted in the ongoing formation of the discipline: Pedagogik as a discipline opposing segmentation and professional specialisation, Pedagogik in relation to other disciplines/subjects in the university system, and the pragmatic specialisation of professional knowledge. The ‘boundary work’ of the education departments in the positions they take in these tension fields is highlighted and analysed. Studying discipline formation processes can serve, in this regard, to deepen the reflexive self-understanding of the producers and users of educational knowledge. The article concludes with some outlines for further empirical research on the formation of the discipline of Swedish Pedagogik.

Pedagogisk forskning om utbildningsreformer: Några reflektioner om möjligheter och utmaningar utifrån en genomförd reformstudie

In the article three challenges, based on a recently conducted study (Sundberg, 2005), for the educational/curriculum research on educational reforms is discussed. First, due to an intensified political pressure on results and outcomebased evaluation the educational/curriculum research on educational reforms runs the risk losing its critical potentials under ‘the rush to relevance’. Second, previous rationalistic models on reforms (intentions-implementation-outcome) have become increasingly untenable and there seems to be a pressing challenge for curriculum researchers developing historic, discursive interpretations of different discourse producers in the formation of educational policy and their interplay with political, economic, social and cultural fields. Third, the dominant paradigm of implementation is consequently problematic and the challenge to elaborate theoretical tools to study reforms ‘all the way’ and reach beyond ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ perspectives seems important.

Exploring curriculum change using discursive institutionalism – a conceptual framework

ABSTRACT The article aims to explore to what extent and in what ways discourse institutionalism can contribute to the understanding and analysis of curriculum change in a globalized context. By focusing specifically on curriculum change, this article proposes how discourse institutionalism can contribute to the so-called ‘crisis of curriculum theory’ by addressing (i) the non-linearity of change, (ii) the process of the translation of ideas and (iii) actor agency. The text is structured in three sections. In the first section, we elaborate on the notion of curriculum change as a vital concept for the field of curriculum theory in a globalized context, focusing on processes of recontextualization and the translation of curriculum content. In the second, we elaborate on discourse institutionalism as a contributing approach to the analysis of such processes of curriculum change, constructing a conceptual framework. In the third and final section, we give some examples of how the conceptual framework can be used in analysing curriculum change, using the 2011 Swedish curriculum reform (Lgr 11) as an empirical reference, and the result shows that the conceptual framework offers a wide repertoire of possible approaches to analysing curriculum change, both vertically and horizontally.

Formeringen av det pedagogiska kunskapsområdet

Temaintroduktion - : Formeringen av det pedagogiska kunskapsomradet: mot ett forskningsprogram

Pedagogikämnet i ett förändrat akademiskt landskap - Pågånde reformer, institutionella ämnesmiljöer och disciplinformering i Sverige

The aim of this article is to study the formations a nd transformations of Pedagogy as an academic discipline from the perspective of sociology of knowledge. Philosophical and epistemological aspects on form and content of academic pedagogy, though very relevant matters, are not investigated here. This article relates the general disciplinary formations and transformations of pedagogy to the ongoing changes and reforms w ithin Swedish higher education. Institutional self-evaluations in Swedish universities (and colleges for higher learning) have been analysed, in order to discern in what ways the pedagogical institutions are changing. Three general fi elds of tension have been identified: pedagogy as 1) a unitary discipline, 2) a multi-disciplinary field, open to other academic subjects, 3) a field of leani ng towards a more pragmatic and profession-oriented specialization. This st udy thus focuses the different boundary works of the pedagogy institutions, when positioning within these fields. The aim is to contribute to an increased reflexivity about the development of the pedagogical field (Bourdieu 2004) and an increased self-comprehension among producers and consumers of pedagogical knowledge. The final conclusions of the article concern what to be done in further research on disciplinary forma- tion of Swedish pedagogy.

Temaintroduktion: Nya tider? – Perspektiv på den pågå- ende reformen ”Utan timplan i grundskolan”

”När Sverige ska förändras ska det ske med hjälp av reformer!”. Med dessa ord inleder Sven-Erik Liedman och Lennart Olausson (1988) sin antologi om reformer i den högre utbildningen. Skolreformer har blivit en av vår tids viktigare strategiska arenor där förhoppningar och farhågor närs om framtidens samhälle. De har blivit till en central kulturell scen där såväl nationella som globala dramer om framtiden utspelas (inför en alltmer passiv publik skulle väl kunna tilläggas). Inom utbildningspolitiken framställs nya reformer som den rätta lösningen till vår tids problem, vare sig de handlar om en vikande ekonomi i en hårdnande global konkurrens, bristande moral i ett alltmer fragmenterat samhälle eller sviktande kompetenser för det framväxande informationsoch kunskapssamhället. Den ’nya tiden’ kräver nya reformer.