The study focuses on the present reform of Swedish Upper Secondary School curricula and in particular the revision of the subject Psychology. Since 2021, the Swedish National Board of Education is in the process of implementing a grading reform where the course grades that were previously valid are to be replaced by subject grades (Skolverket, 2023). Consequently, the various school subject syllabi must be revised so that each level in a subject build on the previous ones. Today's Swedish curriculum system is made up of various separate courses, which may differ from each other in content, although within the same subject area, and each of which is graded separately throughout the upper secondary education. An underlying reason for the subject grading reform is, among other things, to dispose of  the fragmentation of subjects that arose with the course grading system and to open up for more acceptable planning conditions for teachers and students. In order to be able to implement the new grading reform, all Swedish syllabi for upper secondary school must be reworked. For some school subjects such as for instance civics or language, the subject content and structure will be largely the same as before. For other subjects, including Psychology, a major revision is required where the subject content is revised in its entirety. This work is currently underway and is expected to be completed in 2024. I will describe and discuss and problematize aspects of tradition, focusing chiefly on the work with the school subject psychology.

The research questions concern how a subject change in terms of purpose with the subject and how this can come to light in a curricular revision.  In this study special attention is paid to the new formation of the subject Psychology, in relation to existing traditions within the subject Psychology and consider it as a subject for Bildung, as a subject for proficiency, and as a subject based on experience. This approach to study subject reforms has been previously applied on other subjects such as Swedish (Hultin, 2008).  The public drafts of the syllabi for Psychology, from January 2023, will be analyzed in relation to the historic formation of the subject (Blåvarg 2018; Blåvarg, manuscript). Also, the outcome of the current referral procedure, where authorities, organizations and other stakeholders can comment on the proposals, and consequential changes that the referrals give rise to, will be considered in relation to the existing traditions.

The material for this study of the Swedish case of curriculum revision consists of governing document such as national curricula: the Upper Secondary School Curriculum of 1965 (Skolöverstyrelsen, 1965), the Upper Secondary School of 1970 (Skolöverstyrelsen, 1970), Curriculum for Upper Secondary School. 2, Supplement. Psychology (Skolöverstyrelsen 1979), The 1994 Curriculum for the Non-Compulsory School System (Skolverket, 1994), Upper Secondary School 2000 (Skolverket 2000), Upper Secondary School 2011 (Skolverket 2011) and Upper Secondary School 2022 (SKOLFS 2022:13) other policy documents, collected referral responses from authorities, organizations, and the public and other process documents from the work with the curriculum and the subject plans. As being part of the workgroup writing the new syllabi comprehensive records of the formulation process will be added. The overall focus in this study of the upper secondary school subject psychology in Sweden as a case study (e.g., Crowe et al., 2011; Öhman & Öhman, 2012; Samuelsson & Michaëlsson, 2022) and the manifestation of traditions of Bildung, proficiency and experience (e.g., Hultin, 2008), mediated in the documents accompanying the revision of the subject.

Expected findings are expressions of the various traditions in the subject psychology within the current syllabi and that responses from the referral will correspond to these traditions depending on previous experience of the subject. Also, parallels to and reflections of the subject’s historical curricular formation is expected to be evident. Overall, even though the aim of the psychology subject on upper secondary level has in some views remained the same it has also fundamentally changed in its relation to contemporary society and the educational ambition with the subject psychology today can be seen as distinctly different from what it was in the previous curricula, but that the traditions within the subject are still evident and developing with the subject.

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