The article re-imagines the current developments of Swedish education into a possible future. Historically, education was organized and funded by the state; however, reforms towards privatization in the 1990s implemented school choice, private schools and a tax-financed voucher system with the option of turning profits on education. A new judicial…

This article follows a story played out by children at a Sámi early childhood centre in north Sweden. It does so by reflecting on the children's story as a form of Critical Indigenous Philosophy. In particular it explores what it could mean for a child to be a philosopher in a Sámi context by developing the concept of "jurddavázzi," or…

In welfare-policy studies, conditions are often depicted at a national level. This is the case not least in studies of young people's paths and detours to working life. Studies at a high aggregation level have their advantages when it comes to distinguishing differences in living conditions between countries at similar economic development levels…

Programming and computational thinking have emerged as compulsory skills in elementary school education. In 2018, Sweden has integrated programming in mathematics education with the rationale that it fosters problem solving and logical thinking skills and motivates students to learn mathematics. We investigated how teachers introduce programming…

The aim of this paper is to investigate the discourses that emerge when Sweden's Art and Music School leaders talk about the inclusion of pupils with disabilities in relation to policy. A starting point is that both earlier studies and policy documents have revealed inclusion problems within Art and Music Schools. The research question is: how are…

What is the significance of regulations of job contracts and wages when it comes to young people's access to labour market? This is an issue that has attracted and continues to attract a great deal of interest in both research and politics. Proposals for deregulated employment protection and reduced entry-level pay recur regularly in public…

This case study examines a Nordic on-line course on gender equality promotion in education, in which principals, teachers, school staff and gender equality activists engaged in dialogue regarding contents and practices. The on-line course was designed with reference to promising practices identified in a previous Nordic network project. The…

This paper examines the main rationales for and possible implications of the policy of increasing international student numbers in higher education (HE). Drawing on critical discourse analysis, we map key themes emerging from two sets of data--university strategy documents and interviews with staff--collected at eight universities in four national…

The neo-liberal university not only changes systems of governance but also impacts on how subject positions are valued. These changes justify critical questions on how academics manoeuvre in academia. In this study focus is on the told experiences of 18 researchers who describe how they made an excellent career in academia. The results show that…

In the European neo-liberal policy context, there has been an increase in pressure on teachers to exercise a type of professional responsibility that contributes to the development of a competitive knowledge-based economy. From a communication theory perspective, this paper examines if it is at all possible to talk of professional responsibility…

This article concerns the development of education for young students in Sweden who do not attend regular pathways in upper secondary education, and analyses the changes of educational policy and the organizing of teaching for this group of students. The centre of interest is the upper secondary educational reform carried out in 2011. With this…

To Govern in the name of the future is considered to be an essential part of policy-making in education. In Sweden, this is particularly evident in the political and public rhetoric used in debates on modern schooling and educational reform. However, this is not merely a national phenomenon; rather, educational governance in the name of the future…

The aim of this article is to discuss recent Swedish teacher education investments and reforms, and the work of teachers in response to globalisation within the context of modern social imaginaries. I briefly outline Charles Taylor's concept of modern social imaginaries, and I examine the character of recent Swedish teacher education, teacher…

Different representations of "Swedishness," as expressions of altered kinds of imagined kinship in the Swedish educational system during the first half of the 20th century, are discussed. It is argued that even though the curriculum changed, from a more religious one focusing on fostering loyalty and moral commitment to "God, the…

This paper discusses the value and importance of examples in Kantian terms, and how students can cultivate their moral disposition through the use of examples in education. It is argued that students should not just copy or imitate examples automatically, nor appraise them unreflectively and uncritically. They should instead be enabled to think…