This contribution aims to identify and examine different forms of regulatory pedagogical documentation within pedagogical documentation practices in Swedish secondary education. School curricula in the Western world currently have a number of goals to be achieved by students, teachers and principals. The goals in the Swedish school curriculum presuppose detailed planning for a “successful” result, and different kinds of regulatory documentation have thus become a clear feature within an emerging culture of documentation in educational settings. Using a curriculum theoretical concern with governance, evaluation and teacher professionalism, the paper investigates current international trends towards standards-based evaluation. Based on a systematization of evaluation perspectives and tools, two basic patterns of curriculum control are discussed: process evaluation, and product evaluation. Whereas the first type has dominated the Continental European context for two centuries or more, and the latter type the English-speaking world for most of the 20th century, the last two decades have brought about a situation in which both types are more and more intertwined. Drawing upon the findings of transcribed trialogue conversations in secondary education, individual development plan documentation and policy analysis, the paper aims to illustrate different patterns within a regulatory pedagogical documentation practice that occur when policy-making is divorced from curriculum theory, and from any consideration of teacher professionalism. Drawing on a governance perspective and building on considerations of curriculum evaluation, the paper argues that teachers’ and students meaning making is a crucial factor in the shaping of documentation practices that has to be conceptualized within its specific context.

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