This study aims to analyse the discourse on the school subject psychology, in upper secondary school subject in the national curricula, during 1970s and 1990s. Two periods during which the psychology as a school subject went through tangible shifts (Blåvarg 2018; Blåvarg, manuscript). The empirical material is drawn from three main discursive spaces that are analysed in parallel: the bureaucratic, which includes governing documents relating to the subject, the practical, which includes the subject's teaching materials, and the professional, which includes texts of the subject teacher associations. In the 1970s there was an intense activity within all three discursive practices concerning the subject and its content and purpose. Perhaps most prominent during this time was what took place within the professional space and the teachers’ debates. During these years, the 1970s, a sharp break with prevailing formation of the subject at the time occurred and a, in many aspects, completely new discourse on the psychology subject took its place. It was a strongly social and humanistic psychology that expanded within all three practices. The subject became mainly about applied psychology and students’ experiences. Psychotherapy and quasi-therapeutic exercises dominated the subject, which was completely in line with the social development at the time, progressive education and developments in health care, especially mental health care. Following this major transformation of the subject came a palpable absence of activity in all three discursive spaces. And in the 1990s an almost complete silence prevailed around the subject. This absence of mentioning is particularly visible in the bureaucratic space where psychological aspects and the subject psychology both almost ceases to exist. But the silence is also reflected to a certain extent in the professional space. In the practical space and its textbooks, certain aspects of the subject are quickly silenced, namely the scientific connection and the subject of psychology as a subject of knowledge recede into the background as applied personal development expanded.

The empirical material consists of texts and is drawn from three main discursive spaces. The bureaucratic, which includes various governing documents such as curricula, policy documents relating to the subject inquiries (e.g, Skolöverstyrelsen, 1970; 1979; Skolverket, 1994) The practical space, which includes teaching materials such as the Swedish textbooks in psychology published in 1970-1990. And, the professional space, which includes the texts from the subject teacher associations (e.g., PS-aktuellt 1976-1982; SOPHIA, 1989-1999). The archives of these three spaces have been analysed discursively. The archives of these three spaces have been analysed discursively (e.g., Danziger, 1996; Fairclough, 2003; Foucault, 1972).

Expected findings are expressions of how the intense activity that spurred within the discursive spaces, in parallel to societal changes, in the 1970s altered the subject and possibly the general perception of the subject psychology. These transformations and the associations with private personal growth and therapeutic instances, together with the distancing from psychological empirical science might also have a role in the marked silence and marginalisation that became prominent in the 1990s around the subject.

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