To Örebro University

If one accepts Ulrich Beck’s (2006) argument that modern societies are characterized by a state of ’cosmopolitanization’, the nation as a unit for research cannot be taken as a given. Transactional interactions, whose boundaries are not clearly defined, do not replace – but incorporate – the nation-state in transnational systems of regulation, not least in education policy; and an important task is to examine national education documents, like curriculum, embedded within transnational policy forces (‘methodological cosmopolitanism’, c.f. Beck & Grande 2010). In the paper, I take this transnational ‘reality’ in consideration and analyze the curricula, specifically Swedish and Civics, in curriculum 2011 in relation to these subjects in curricula from 2000, as well as to the PISA 2009 Reading Framework and national and transnational policy texts.       

In this case, the nations-state is an adequate unit of analysis; however, the analysis also needs to go beyond this unit to provide a full picture (Lawn & Grek 2012). Methodologically, I draw on critical discourse analysis based in the following features; distinguishing relations between discourse and other elements of the social process, analyzing texts in a systematic way, observing recontextualisation of discourses and recognizing the normative elements by discussing different consequences for social transformation  (Fairclough 2010). I also discuss my analytical results in relation to two main pedagogic models: competence models and performance models, in relation to discourse, space, evaluation, control and pedagogic text (Bernstein 2000). These models are in turn pointing at different orientations of curricula (Ross 2000).   

A broad and preliminary conclusion is that the curricula for the subjects in the version of 2000 and the Pisa framework is mostly emphasizing the competence model, while the curriculum 2011 are mostly emphasizing the performance model (Sundberg & Wahlström 2012). Through the analysis it is possible to nuance and distinguish the characteristics within these broader models in problematizing the tensions between traditional and essential curricula. Exploring different (transnational) methodological approaches to curriculum studies is highly relevant to the Nordic countries considering their respectively relation to EU.