Högskolan i Skövde

Study: Degree project in teacher education, Advanced level, 15p

University of Skövde

Title The Battle of the School – The attempt of four organizations to influence the Swedish school and the good citizen.

Number of pages: 43

Author: Christoffer Härsjö

Tutor: Erik Andersson

Date: January 2009

Keywords: Democracy, organizations, school, influence, citizen

This exam discusses the influence of four different organizations in the public school. The chosen organizations are the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, LO, the Enforcement Authority and the political party Feminist Initiative. They all have different agendas about what they think the school should teach children. These agendas will be analyzed from the point of view of lobbying, corporatism, influencing of public opinion and the theory of curriculum, to find out what impact they have on the Swedish school system. I have studied their homepages on the Internet to see what their agenda is on school issues. It says in the curriculum that the school should form contact with business companies and other organizations so the pupils will be firmly established in society. The questions how much influence these organizations should have and what the contact should be, are however open to suggestions. This will be discussed to try to answer why these four organizations are trying to influence the pupils. There is nothing illegal about the different organizations being in the school trying to co-operate, but different theories about democracy believes this to be either good or harmful. I have discussed possible consequences for the organizations being in school, but the answer depends on what point of view one has of the commission of the school.