Re-visiting the Content Oriented Curriculum: European Policy Discourses Reconceptualised in Swedish Comprehensive School Reform

Author(s):

Andreas Nordin(presenting / submitting)Daniel Sundberg(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2012

Network:

23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

23 SES 02 D, Europeanisation and National Policy

Parallel Paper Session

Time:

2012-09-18

15:15-16:45

Room:

FFL - Aula 35

Chair:

Herbert Altrichter

Contribution

Over several decades now, there has been an ongoing co-operation on education policy in Europe. Gradually, the process of Europeanization in the area of education has involved more and more actors and agencies on the national, as well as on the trans-national level, and the interplay between them have become an extensive and complex practice of trading and negotiation. In this paper we focus on the European framework of key competencies for lifelong learning which has become a cornerstone in the European Union’s growth strategy “Europe 2020”. In this context The European Commission also wants to see the key competencies made more visible in the national school curriculum. This has led to a development towards a move from subject-specific to generic curriculum criteria and to an increased focus on learning outcomes. In the recent Swedish comprehensive school reform, where a new curriculum was launched, the trend towards generic curriculum criteria was still quite imperceptible. The study shows that instead European policy trends were mixed up, re-interpreted and contested within the national context. The main question of this paper is to what extent and in what ways the Swedish compulsory school reform can be seen as an expression of a European educational policy discourse and how transnational elements are re-interpreted in the meeting with the national policy agenda. The empirical material consists of policy texts related to the European growth strategy "Europe 2020" and to the work on a new Swedish curriculum for the elementary

In order to capture the dynamics of institutional change in the school reform Discourse Institutionalism (DI) is used as a theoretical framework in this paper. Tracing discursive processes of coordination and communication makes it possible to analyse why some discourses success and becomes institutionalised. Institutions viewed as internal to agents, serving as structures that at the same time constraints and construct the thinking, saying and acting of actors. Change is within the discourse institutionalism understood as a process from the inside, by showing how real actors’ ideas in discursive interaction construct and reconstruct their courses of action.

Method

Critical discourse analysis is used as a methodological point of departure for the policy analysis. Central policy texts have been analyzed as simultaneously (i) a language written text, (ii) discourse practice (that include text production and interpretation), (iii) socio-cultural and political practice (Fairclough, 1995). Drawing on research from discursive institutionalism processes of discourse formation in policy-making have been investigated as dialectical to processes of recontextualisation (i.e. how concepts travel and change meanings in different contexts). Transnational policy texts that have been analyzed contain “Education 2010”, which has been part of the Lisbon strategy (Commission of the European Communities, 2002), Commissions recommendations on key competencies (European parliament, 2006) and Education 2020 (Commission of the European Communities, 2009). National policy texts that have been analyzed include Schooling as bildung (SOU 1992:94) and the subsequent curriculum for compulsory school, (Lpo 94). The Government Bill ‘Clear Goals and Knowledge Requirements in Compulsory School Education’ (SOU2007:28) and the new curriculum for compulsory school in Sweden, (Lgr 11). The discourse formation of key competencies in these transnational and national policy and curriculum texts has been studied in terms of nomination, predication, legitimization and perspectivization (Reisigl, 2008).

Expected Outcomes

The critical examination shows that the idea of competencies has become more influential in the Swedish curriculum as an organizing principle. But unlike most European countries competences in the Swedish context has become synonymous with a strong subject-content orientation. The analysis shows that the Swedish example in many ways differs from the European trend towards a generic conception of competencies but how this national interpretation at the same time can be seen as an expression of an ongoing process of rationalization within the European area of education.

References

Anderson-Levitt, Kathryn, M. (2008). Globalization and Curriculum. I: Connelly, F. M., M. F. He, & J. I. Phillion (Eds.). The SAGE Handbook of Curriculum and Instruction. Sage Publications. Chouliaraki, Lilie & Fairclough, Norman (1999). Discourse in late modernity. Rethinking critical discourse analysis. Edinburgh: Edinburgh university press. Dale, R. 1999. Specifying globalization effects on national policy: A focus on the mechanisms. Journal of Education Policy, 14(1), 1–17. Fairclough, Norman (1995). Critical discourse analysis. The critical study of language. London: Longman Grek, Sotiria, Lawn, Martin, Lingard, Bob, Ozga, Jenny, Rinne, Risto, Segerholm, Christina, Simola, Hannu (2009). National policy brokering and the construction of the European Education Space in England, Sweden, Finland and Scotland. Comparative Education, 45(1), 5-21. Hoskins, Bryony & Deakin Crick, Ruth (2010). Competences for Learning to Learn and Active Citizenship: different currencies or two sides of the same coin? European Journal of Education, 45(1), 121-137. Karseth, Berit & Sivesind, Kirsten (2010). Conceptualising Curriculum Knowledge Within and Beyond National Context. European Journal of Education, 45(1), 103-120. Lundahl, Lisbeth (2007). Swedish, European, global: the transformation of the Swedish welfare state. In: Lingard, Bob & Ozga, Jenny (Eds.). The RoutledgeFalmer reader in education policy and politics. London: Routledge. Ozga, Jenny & Lingard, Bob (2007). Globalisation, education policy and politics. In: Lingard, Bob & Ozga, Jenny (Eds.). The RoutledgeFalmer Reader in Education Policy and Politics. London: Rotledge. Schmidt, Vivien (2008). Discursive Institutionalism: The Explanatory Power of Ideas and Discourse. Annual Review of Political Science, vol. 11, 303-326. Waldow, Florian (2009). Undeclared imports: silent borrowing in educational policy-making and research in Sweden. Comparative Education, 45(4), 477-494. Young, Michael & Muller Johan (2010). Three Educational Scenarios for the future: lessons from the sociology of knowledge. European Journal of Education, 45(1), 11-27. Young, M. F. D. (2008). Bringing knowledge back in. London: Routledge.

Author Information

Andreas Nordin (presenting / submitting)

Linnaeus University

School of education, psychology and sport science

Växjö

Daniel Sundberg (presenting)

Linnaeus University, Sweden

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