Key words: juridification, education, discrimination, Rights of the Child, conceptualization. Abstract: The aim of this paper is to contribute to conceptualization of different forms of juridification in education. The text focuses on the enactment of legislation on discrimination (Discrimination Act 2008:567), degrading treatment (Education Act 2010:800) and the Act on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (2018:1197, CRC) in Sweden. The theoretical framework is based on research concerning various aspects of juridification focusing on how legislation is enacted in different contexts and involves different dimensions (Blichner & Molander 2008, Rosen et al 2021). This shows that enactment of legislation can lead to both enabling and disabling processes in the society and in education (cf. Habermas 1987, Honneth 2015, Murphy 2022). To methodologically conceptualize different forms of juridification we work in the following steps: 1) Analysing and interpreting the legal sources. 2) Examining how officials at national school authorities enact political, legal, and pedagogical discourse when discussing the CRC legislation, and which dimensions of juridification that are highlighted. 3) Compare the outcomes with previous research on juridification in relation to discrimination and degrading treatment in schools. The result presents and compare two different forms of juridification in education: Accountability-oriented juridification: Research on discrimination and degrading treatment is a suitable example of this form of juridification (Arneback, 2012; Refors Legge, 2021; Lindgren et al. 2021; Rosén et al 2021). The results shows that the legislation in combination with different forms of accountability leads to a juridical framing in education that challenges pedagogical practices. Elusive juridification: Based on data from an ongoing research project the decision to incorporate the CRC into Swedish law illustrate another form of juridification. The law fills a political symbolic function and is understood as a tool for realizing the commitments in the Convention. However, the data reveals uncertainty on how to implement the law and it is unclear in what way the law should be enacted in pedagogical practises. When comparing accountability-oriented juridification and elusive juridification, differences emerge in how increased legal regulation impacts the education system. The accountability-oriented juridification shows clarity in expectations, but challenges pedagogical practices. Elusive juridification lacks clarity and result in uncertainty on its legal and pedagogical implications. These two examples of juridification highlights the need of navigating different forms of juridification and raises the question on what other forms of juridification that could be identified in the education field.

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