Henrik Román

Who governs the Swedish school? Local school policy research from a historical and transnational curriculum theory perspective

In this article, we present a comparative research project on municipal school policy in Sweden 1950–2010 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 1950–1975, 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.

Curriculum versus Didaktik revisited : towards a transnational curriculum theory

no abstract available Citation: NordSTEP 2015, 1 : 27014 - http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/nstep.v1.27014

The making of a professional academic: an analysis of Swedish doctoral supervision policy

The general aim of this article is to develop an understanding of the historical and contemporary frames for professional socialisation through doctoral supervision. Supervision is a crucial component of doctoral education, in the reproduction of future researchers and a research competent labour force. Special attention is directed towards Swedish doctoral supervision policy. Sweden shares the characteristics of a social democratic type of welfare regime in which national politics takes a special responsibility for and interest in higher education including doctoral education. In government policy texts providing the basis for two major reforms of doctoral education, in 1969 and 1998, we map and analyse what is expressed about supervision and its context, and how this is expressed, paying attention to both similarities and differences. Drawing on a governance perspective, including a critical policy analysis, we discuss the findings in terms of frames for the professional socialisation of doctoral students. In both reforms, we recognise a dominant supervision ideal which emphasises efficiency, but it is complemented and partly challenged by very different ideals: in 1969 by an academic ideal and in 1998 by an ideal promoting good doctoral working conditions. Altogether, this implies a shift in the framing of professional socialisation from emphasising efficiency as a matter of compliance to efficiency as a matter of interaction and cooperation.

Pedagogiken, gymnasieutbildningen och 1960-talets skolreformer – om reformhistoriebruk och en historia i andra hand

This article deals with the history of the Swedish school reforms of the 1960 Ìsand the use of that history within the field of educational science. I argue that this history mainly has focussed on the establishing of the 9-year compulsory school [grundskolan] and the stately initiated educational science research accompanying that process. The establishing of the upper secondary school [gymnasieskolan] has been less explored and less considered. I suggest four explanatory factors for the focus on the 9-year compulsory school reform: the emancipatory force of the reform, the quantitative size and its curriculum theoretical implications, and as a consequence of the preceding two, the historical importance both for education and for educational science. Finally, I call for a larger interest in the reform history of the upper secondary school and claim that it should be regarded as a part of the reform history of the 9-year school, not as a consequence of that history.