The headlines for the symposium invite to several interpretations (or reflections) of how to characterize as well as meet political, economical and cultural challenges in present days globalised world. While, on the one hand, the changes and the rationalities inscribed in them seems to be inevitable, as for example was expressed in Thatcher’s political slogan There Is NO Alternative (TINA, the processes themselves are not without conflicts, problems or resistance). Talking about resisting movements, we usually think of left wings criticism against society and of dominant culture à la Bourdieu (Bourdieu 1979) or even of activism with broad-based oppositional programmes, like Greenpeace or Oxfam (Harvey 2005). But today we are facing societal criticism and social mobilisation that is radically different from global activism or worker-based movements. This political orientation and mode of organization depart markedly from those of more typical political party or movement whose ideals and programs have been launched in universal terms and large visions. Instead, it is a politics based on identity, of the masses of marginalised or otherwise suppressed groups of people who refuse to convey their needs into a more conventional political structure, The idea is to reclaim and give political space for cultural, ethnical, religious or sexual differences. This change of critical perspective and political orientations has dominated the intellectual debate in Sweden for some years and is a challenging also for the social sciences. With special address given to identity politics in educational research and educational policy in Sweden we would therefore like to raise some questions. - How to define the need for (stronger) social integration at the same time acknowledge the rights for groups to develop and express their identities, within to what we refer to as the "multicultural diversity"? - Should the orientation towards the ‘politics of identity’ be analysed as forms individualization and consequences of neoliberalism, or as its opposites? - Are we talking about "different rights” for movements fighting for equality or against racism and groups reclaiming their identities and culture? - Should concepts like common value (in curriculum, in daily school practice) or common/comprehensive representations be defined differently today?

Bourdieu, P. (1979). La distinction. Critique social du jugement. Paris: Les editions de Minuit. Harvey, D. (2005). A brief history of Neoliberalism. New York: Oxford university press.