The beginning of the 1990s marks the start of a period of intense educational policy reform work in Sweden. This intensity has high lightened the relationship between school organisation and the society. The relation between society and school reflects what kind of knowledge that is understood as valued in a specific society in a specific time. A conception of knowledge is the dichotomy between theoretical and practical knowledge. This classification of knowledge is relevant to the school context in terms of perceptions of school subjects and specific programs in Upper Secondary Education as practical or theoretical, which at the labour market reflects the perception of work as manually or intellectually (Gustavsson 2002; Liedman 2001).

The organisation of education and the classification of knowledge is thereby something that is constantly rene­gotiated. Ball (1987) describes school, like other social organizations as “arenas of struggle” which influences the organization of school. In the mid-1990s, the relationship between society and school was characterised by the idea of creating a social democratic welfare-state which changed during the decade in favour for the articulation of globalisation (Nordin 2012). With references to the idea of making Europe the most competitive knowledge-based economy in the world, knowledge is understood in Swedish education policy as the key for success in the global competition (Prop. 2006/07:1). The value of knowledge as such is not questioned – but does this consensus also contain what can be understood as knowledge – and does this change over time?

Education Policy is in this paper understood as an arena for a discursive struggle of constituting what should count as desirable knowledge in relation to the society and the individual. Different ideas construct different views why the organisation and classification of knowledge includes a power dimension. The aim in the study is twofold; the first object is to study how the discourse of knowledge is articulated and legitimised in Swedish education policy, concerning Upper Secondary Education, during the 1990s and 2000s. The second object is to study what subject positions are made possible for students within the discourse of knowledge during the same period. The Government Policy texts are analysed within a discourse theory framework.

The theoretical starting point is that all social phenomena achieve their meaning through discourse whose meaning is constantly negotiated and constructed. Laclau and Mouffe (2001) describe discourse as a structured entity, which is the result of articulation. Articulation of discursive elements plays a vital role in constructing identity of both objects and subjects.  The construction of objects and subjects is thereby understood as part of a struggle – a social conflict – whether to gain hegemony in meaning to have the power to define a particular social order. Hence, the actors’ different understanding of social order implies a specific grouping in society. Group formations are included in the struggle to define the social. The understanding of the social that wins hegemony has impacts on different groups and their position in society.

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