Ninni Wahlström

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.

Learning to communicate or communicating to learn? : A conceptual discussion on communnication, meaning, and knowledge

As the conditions for students’ prospects of acquiring knowledge in school often are thought of as something that must be improved in the political rhetoric, it is also urgent, as Michael F. D. Young has argued, to ask what kind of knowledge should be the basis of the curriculum and to recognize the question of knowledge as central to the curricular debate. This article examines the grounds for a relational and communicative understanding of education. Drawing on John Dewey’s reconstruction of the concept of experience and Donald Davidson’s meaning theory in terms of three varieties of knowledge, the emphasis is on an inter‐subjective conceptualization of meaning and knowledge and its implications. Central themes in the analysis are communication as a condition for the acquisition of knowledge; a shared, but not identical, world as a point of reference; and an approach to specialized knowledge as judgement formation. As a conclusion it is argued that one condition for acquisition of knowledge, in terms of meaning, is to participate in and be influenced by conversations with a shared purpose, within and between different groups.

Toward a Conceptual Framework for Understanding Cosmopolitanism on the Ground

Abstract In this article, a continuum of resistance and receptivity constitute s a framework for understanding a cosmopolitan orientation “on the ground.” Such a continuum is based on an understanding of the effects of globalization, when it comes to individual people, as both containing a potential for an active interest in other ways of life, and a resistance toward others’ values and ways of living triggered by a feeling of being forced into situations without one’s own voluntarily choice. The notion of continuum implies that each individual occupies a different position depending on the situation and context, and that these positions can shift. In the conceptual use of cosmopolitanism in empirical studies, there is need for more developed and specified terms to be used as analytical tools for discerning if and when something may be considered as a possible cosmopolitan orientation. For this purpose, the four capacities for self‐reflexivity, hospitality, intercultural dialogue and transactions of perspectives, are developed out of Delanty’s understanding of critical cosmopolitanism. To be able to distinguish between institutionalized routine conversations and conversations that seem to engage the students in a more active cosmopolitan meaning making, the continuum of efferent and aesthetic‐reflective experiences, taken from Rosenblatt’s studies of reading, has been suggested. A preliminary analysis of data from an empirical research study focused on classroom conversations, and contextualized by an analysis of a curriculum concerning fundamental values, indicates that it is possible to discern different discursive actions of self‐reflexivity and hospitality in classroom conversations, as well as a potential for intercultural dialogue.

A Third Wave of European Education Policy: Transnational and National Conceptions of Knowledge in Swedish Curricula.

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 the Leisure-Time Centre 2011 – knowledge is understood in more traditional terms and includes abilities within subjects.

A European Space for Education Looking for Its Public.

The open method of coordination (OMC) within the Lisbon strategy is discussed in terms of a European Space for Education and ‘programme ontology’. The focus is on indicators and the European dimension, and how they ‘work’ in the forming of contents and identities in this European Space for Education. The OMC is analyzed in relation to Nancy Frasers theoretical public-sphere approach of discourses about needs, instead of inquiry from needs. Central to the article is the problematization of the shift from national theories and methodologies to theories that might be better suited to an international European educational arena. Hence, in the final part of the article, the public-sphere theory is discussed from the point of view of globalization and within a transnational frame for education.

Do We Need to Talk to Each Other? How the concept of experience can contribute to an understanding of Bildung and democracy

In this article I argue that the contested concept of Bildung, with its roots in the late 18th century, remains of interest in the postmodern era, even if there is also certainly a debate about it having had its day. In the specific discussion about Bildung and democracy, I suggest that Deweys reconstructed concept of experience has several points in common with a more recent understanding of Bildung, at the same time as it can provide insight into how democracy can be understood within the field of Bildung. In brief, in this article I suggest that if we wish to discuss democracy and Bildung, Deweys notion of experience might offer a bridge between the two concepts, as well as an understanding of subjectivity, learning, and communication as a whole. Finally, I argue that communication is a necessary part of both democracy and Bildung—not because of certain human similarities, but because of the similarities in some of the problems which we humans encounter, and which we think are worth reflecting upon.

After decentralization : delimitations and possibilities within new fields

The shift from a centralized to a decentralized school system can be seen as a solution to an uncertain problem. Through analysing the displacements in the concept of equivalence within Sweden’s decentralized school system, this study illustrates how the meaning of the concept of equivalence shifts over time, from a more collective target achievement for the educational system as a whole to a more individually interpreted goal‐fulfilment.

Curriculum on the European policy agenda: Global transitions and learning outcomes from transnational and national points of view

This special issue examines curricula and their histories as they have evolved throughout the 21st century as part of transnational and national education policies. With a specific focus on the policy transitions that are taking place in Europe, the articles demonstrate how curriculum making processes move in different directions, following their own reform cycles despite globalization and internationalization. At the same time, a third wave of transnational policy transitions seems to be taking place, such that international organizations like the European Union have intervened in curriculum decisions regarding compulsory schooling within national contexts. The articles within this special issue draw on different epistemologies and methodologies and, thus, contribute to analytical frameworks and provide a variety of lenses for understanding and exploring how curriculum making processes respond to and re-contextualize processes and expectations beyond national and global contexts.

Understanding the Universal Right to Education as Jurisgenerative Politics and Democratic Iterations

This article examines how the universal human right to education can be understood in terms of what Seyla Benhabib considers ‘democratic iterations’. Further, by referring to the concept of jurisgenerative politics, Benhabib argues that a democratic people reinterpret guiding norms and principles which they find themselves bound to, through iterative acts, so that they are not only the subjects but also the authors of laws. By examining the use of the Article of the universal right to education in the European Convention on Human Rights, not as an Article with an unambiguous meaning, but as an Article which from its very start was the subject of different interpretations and desires, the author argues for an understanding of the process of transforming universal rights into national law and norms as democratic iterations. This way of conceiving democratic iterations is examined empirically, with Sweden as an example, by analyses of three different discursive arenas: a political/legal arena; an arena concerning political contests over independent schools; and a more limited arena for advocating denominational schools. The conclusion is that two different disjunctions — between universal norms and national self-determination and between law as power and law as meaning — are productive interspaces for renegotiating and rearticulating universal law into local/national norms.

Cosmopolitanism as Communication? On Conditions for Educational Conversations in a Globalized Society

In this article, I explore the question of how a cosmopolitan perspective on education could be understood from curriculum-based activities in classrooms. Assuming that there is a cosmopolitan potential in curriculum content as such, I draw on David Hansen, Anthony Kwame Appiah and Donald Davidson to argue that cosmopolitanism at the classroom level needs to be understood from both a moral and a communicative perspective. In this article, the focus is on the latter. A communicative understanding of cosmopolitanism emphasizes the relational stance to the other and to the social and physical world. The conditions for cosmopolitan dialogues are understood in the curriculum as shared environment, cosmopolitan curiosity and reciprocal communicative respect based on the recognition of responsibilities towards others in a shared world. The characteristic of cosmopolitan conversation is its potentiality.