Resisting an (Un)democratic Educational Mandate

Author(s):

Elizabeth Olsson(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

ERG SES D 14, Sociology and Education

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-07

13:30-15:00

Room:

393. [Main]

Chair:

Fiona Hallett

Contribution

Abstract

Swedish educators are tasked with a double mandate: to instruct their students in content domains and to simultaneously promote democratic values, knowledge, and skills. According to Swedish policy documents, both mandates are equally important and must be implemented in every subject, at every grade level. While teachers ostensibly agree to this double mandate as a condition of their employment, the Swedish Schools Inspectorate released a report in 2012 asserting that many teachers are failing to incorporate democratic citizenship education into their instructional activities. Needless to say, this provocative claim begs investigation and calls into question the very nature of democracy in the Swedish educational context. The following article employs Foucault’s notion of disciplinary power to identify the structures that promote a particular understanding of democracy in official discourses in Swedish education. The article then draws upon the voices of ten Swedish educators to explore possibilities for resistance under the prevailing educational regime. The article identifies discourses exemplifying resistance strategies of avoidance, re-articulation, subversion, rejection, and ignorance. These discourses are employed to discuss how the democratic mandate has been transformed in an educational context predicated upon an increasingly neoliberal systems of governance. The article concludes with a discussion of how understandings of the democratic mandate may be further transformed to create better opportunities for critical dialogue and meaningful participation both in Sweden and beyond.

Theoretical Framework

The study draws upon Foucault’s (1979) notion of disciplinary power. Foucault describes how organization, surveillance, and training are employed as strategies and structures of power in order to establish ‘knowledge’ or what is possible to be known, ‘learning’ or the ways in which knowledge can be known, and ‘assessment’ or the ways in which knowledge can be evaluated. Foucault (1979) contends that disciplinary power is negative and repressive in the sense that it is imposed upon the subaltern--- or individuals considered less powerful in particular contexts--- and is used to punish members of the subaltern that question or oppose it. However, Foucault does not see disciplinary power as absolute because the subaltern are constantly interacting with this power and thus in a position to both strengthen and undermine it.

Lilja and Vinthagen (2014) draw about Foucault’s notion of disciplinary power to outline techniques of resistance. They begin by arguing that power and resistance are interconnected and entangled (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014, p. 111), existing in a relationship of mutual constitution and dependency. Thus the existence of disciplinary power yields certain types of and opportunities for resistance (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014). Specifically, “the power of discipline is met by forms of resistance that challenge through avoiding, rearticulating, (and subverting)” (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014, p. 114). These strategies are typically enacted in private and are thus hidden from those in positions of power.

If we apply Foucault’s (1979) notions of disciplinary power and opportunities of resistance to such power as outlined by Lilja and Vinthagen (2014), we can see that the Schools Inspectorate report constitutes an official discourse on democratic citizenship education in Swedish schools. However, it is important to note that this discourse is socially constructed and, thus, does not epitomize absolute truth. Instead, this discourse is a truth constructed by governmental agents and imposed upon educators. As a subaltern group, educators interpret and deploy the official discourse in their own ways. In some instances, educators are complicit with this discourse and work to deploy it literally. In other cases, educators are resistant to this discourse and work to avoid, reinterpret, and undermine it . This process of compliance and resistance allows educators to transform official discourses thus creating alternative truths about the democratic mandate.

Method

The study employs data collected through semi-structured interviews with ten educators currently working in Swedish schools. Participants were selected according to three criteria: 1. Trained- Participants had completed all mandatory training. 2. Committed- Participants expressed a commitment to the democratic mandate both in theory and practice. 3. Maximum Variation Sample- Participants had differing amounts of teaching experience, worked in a wide range of grade levels, and taught a variety of subjects Each participant was interviewed once, individually and face-to-face for a total of ten interviews. Interviews lasted anywhere from forty-five minute to an hour and a half and were concluded when the participant stated that he or she had no more to say about the topics discussed. During the interviews, all participants were asked to discuss their understandings of the democratic mandate, the ways in which they implement this mandate, the kinds of training and resources that have been provided, and the kinds of training and resources they believed they need in order to implement this mandate more effectively. All interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Transcripts were analyzed using a discourse analytical approach which yielded content categories representing themes voiced by participants as a group (Abell & Myers, 2008). These themes were determined in advance to correspond with content categories used to identify discourses of complicity and resistance. Specifically, I identified situations in which participants reproduced official discourses on the democratic mandate as well as situations in which participants challenged these discourses through avoidance, re-articulation, and subversion— resistance strategies identified by Lilja and Vinthagen (2014). I also identified situations in which participants employed alternative strategies of resistance including rejection and ignorance. As previously stated, the study seeks to identify the ways in which Swedish educators both resist and comply with disciplinary power. Since resistance to disciplinary power is generally disguised, this data was produced privately in conversations held between a single educator and a teacher/researcher. Participants were assured of their anonymity prior to the interview in an attempt to help them feel free to express critical opinions. Thus the information provided by study informants consists of what Scott terms, “hidden transcripts” (1990), or discourses that educators would not produce under direct observation from powerful entities such as school inspectors. These “hidden transcripts” provide an alternative truth about their understandings of democracy and education and reveals how the democratic mandate has been resisted, enacted, and, ultimately transformed by educators.

Expected Outcomes

What is my original scientific contribution to knowledge? First, I identify what educators are resisting in their instructional practices. Contrary to the Schools Inspectorate report, educators are not resisting the democratic mandate, they are resisting what they see as yet another externally imposed instructional requirement that they neither have the time nor the training to implement. They are also resisting an official discourse created without their participation. Finally, educators are resisting an educational mandate that is not evaluated on the national examinations and thus is seen an invisible or inconsequential. Second, I help to illustrate and extend arguments made by Lilja and Vinthagen (2014) regarding resistance strategies to disciplinary power. Thus I provide discourses of resistance consistent with their notions of avoidance, re-articulation, and subversion. I also identify two alternative resistance discourses which I term rejection and ignorance. Third, I give voice to educators whose understandings and experiences are not represented in official discourses such as the Swedish School Inspectorate’s Report on Democracy in Education (2012), a goal whose importance is underscored in the writings of Juffermans & Van der Aa (2013). Fourth, I identify ways in which the democratic mandate has been transformed and can be further transformed to better promote critical dialogue and meaningful participation.

References

Biseth, Heidi. 2009. “Democracy and Education in a Multicultural Scandinavia: What Mandate is Designated to Educators?” Intercultural Education 20(3): 243-254. Bushnell, Mary. 2003. Teachers in the Schoolhouse Panopticon: Complicity and Resistance. Education and Urban Society, 35(3): 251-272. Englund, Tomas. 1999. “Den svenska skolan och demokratin— möjligheter och begränsningar” [“Swedish Schools and Democracy— Opportunities and Limitations”] In SOU (1999:93) Det unga folkstyret [Youth and Democracy], (pp. 13-50). Stockholm: Fakta info direkt. Eurydice. 2012. Citizenship Education at School in Europe. European Commission. Foucault, Michel. 1979. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books. Hakvoort, Ilse, & Elizabeth Olsson. 2014. “The School’s Democratic Mission and Conflict Resolution: Voices of Swedish Educators.” Curriculum Inquiry, 44(4): 531–552. Juffermans, Kasper, & Jef Van der Aa. 2013. “Analyzing Voice in Educational Discourses.” Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 44(2): 112-123 Lilja, Mona,& Stellan Vinthagen. 2014. "Sovereign Power, Disciplinary Power and Biopower: Resisting What Power with What Resistance?" Journal of Political Power, 7(1): 107-126. Odora Hoppers, Catherine 2007. “Knowledge, Democracy and Justice in a Globalizing World.” Nordisk Pedagogik, 27: 38–53. Odora Hoppers, Catherine (Ed.) 2007. Democracy and Human Rights in Education and Society: Explorations from South Africa and Sweden. Örebro: University Library. Olssen, Mark, John Codd, & Anne-Marie O’Neill. 2004. Education Policy: Globalization, Citizenship and Democracy. London: Sage Publications. Osler, Audrey, & Hugh Starkey. (2005). Changing citizenship : democracy and inclusion in education. Maidenhead : Open University Press.. Rönnberg, Linda. 2012. “Reinstating National School Inspections in Sweden: The Return of the State.” Nordic Studies in Education, 32: 69–83. Scott, James C. 1990. Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcipts. London: Yale University Press. Skolinspektionen. 2012. Skolornas arbete med demokrati och värdegrund. Kvalitetsgranskning. [Schools’ work with democracy and values. Quality Control Study.] (2012:9). Stockholm: Skolinspektionen. Skolverket. 2000. Democracy in Swedish Education. A thematic presentation of basic values. Stockholm: Liber Distribution. Stevenson, Robert B. 2007. “Schooling and Environmental Education: Contradictions in Purpose and Practice.” Environmental Educational Research, 13(2): 139-153. Swedish Ministry of Education. 2010. Svensk författningssamling (2010:800) [Swedish Education Act]. Stockholm: Utbildningsdepartementet. Torney-Purta, Judith, Richardson, Wendy K., & Barber, Carolyn H. 2005. "Teachers’ educational experiences and confidence in relation to students’ civic knowledge across countries." International Journal of Citizenship and Teacher Education, 1(1): 32–57. Vinthagen, Stellan, & Anna Johansson, 2013. “‘Everyday Resistance’: Exploration of a Concept and Its Theories.” Resistance Studies Magazine, 1: 1-46.

Author Information

Elizabeth Olsson (presenting / submitting)

University of Gothenburg

Peace and Development Research

Skepplanda

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