In this article we argue that young people’s political participation in the social media can be considered ‘public pedagogy’. The argument builds on a previous empirical analysis of a Swedish net community called Black Heart. Theoretically, the article is based on a particular notion of public pedagogy, education and Hannah Arendt’s expressive agonism. The political participation that takes place in the net community builds up an educational situation that involves central characteristics: communication, community building, a strong content focus and content production, argumentation and rule following. These characteristics pave the way for young people’s public voicing, experiencing, preferences and political interests that guide their everyday political life and learning – a phenomenon that we understand as a form of public pedagogy.
Paradoxes of citizen formation: Citizenship positioning in stories about belonging in an era of migration:
This article analyzes the formation of citizenship in today’s multi-ethnic Sweden with a par-ticular focus on how migration renders visible existing citizenship ideals, defined in terms of similarity and difference on the basis of ethno-cultural background. Analysing three individual stories of women who have migrated to Sweden, with different biographies and stories of how they ended up in Sweden, the article focuses on negotiations of the boundaries and contents of citizenship in multi-ethnic Sweden. The point of departure for the analysis is a post-structuralist and discursive approach. In all, the stories address the crucial question of who should be included into the social community and on what conditions – and who should be left out? This particular question is also at the very centre of the political debate in today’s Europe. On the one hand, there are strong arguments about the ’death of multiculturalism’ and demands for new forms of ethno-culturally graduated citizenship – also in Sweden. On the other hand, in Sweden as well as in other European countries, claims for the development of a new and more inclusive societal community have been raised, expanding the rights of citizens to accommodating also those who have been excluded from them
This article deals with the notion of belonging in today’s multi-ethnic Sweden and hints at perpectives of future European identity-building. On the basis of Frantz Fanon’s understanding of colonialism and the colonized mentality as theoretical, the article deals with the situation of Roma in Sweden – and Europe. With the story of a young Roma woman that has migrated to Sweden from Hungary as point of departure, the article addresses the situation for Romani people, but also for other migrants in Europe, with particular focus on who are allowed to belong to the community of Swedish and European citizens, and who are not.
In this article we have analysed the ways a discourse on individualisation is taking shape within adult education in Sweden, how it operates, and what effects it has in terms of shaping student subjectivity. Drawing on a post-structural theorisation we analyse interviews with teachers and students in municipal adult education (MAE) and folk high schools (FHS). The analysis illustrates how both institutions contribute to the shaping of individualised subjectivities, although differently. At the end, a general question is raised about what happens with the democratic function of adult education in general, when a discourse on individualisation operates in the ways described, and more specifically, asks what is happening to FHS as an educational practice, that upholds its self-image as a last bastion of a collective notion of learning and subjectivity, and nurturing an educational practice of learning democracy?
The aim of this paper presentation is to identify how the principles of democracy and the market are played out in Swedish adult education. More specifically, we focus on how collective and individually oriented notions of what it means to be a citizen, shape student subjectivity. By focusing on both formal adult education (municipal adult education) and non-formal adult education (folk high schools) we wish to illustrate how these principles are mobilized differently, thus shaping different kinds of citizen subjectivities. Drawing on a post structural theorization inspired by the work of Michel Foucault, we analyse interviews with students and teachers at one school for municipal adult education, as well as one folk high school. Our analysis illustrates how an individually oriented citizen is shaped through discourses mobilized in both settings. However, in the folk highs school, individualization is shaped through discourses on collectivization. We argue that such shaping are in line with neoliberal forms of governance.
This article examines how the concept of active citizenship has been given a neo-liberal character by examining practice in three different educational contexts in Sweden. The concept of active citizenship has become influential in educational policy and practice throughout the European Union. The aim of this article is to highlight concerns at how this concept has come to be re-shaped by neo-liberal principles in Swedish education. The analysis highlights three themes, based on voice, ethical awareness and complexity and mutuality of lived experience, and argues that they provide the basis for a shift away from the present neo-liberal colouring of the concept.
In this paper, focus rests on the relatively new international phenomenon of therapeutic education. Taking in the fact that this phenomenon is part of the schools’ assigned task to see to the formation of young people, the aim of the paper is twofold: to highlight what rationales that emerge in the formation of young people’s emotions in school, and to discuss these rationales in terms of vital principles of public education for the common good in society. The results are based on an empirical case study of ten Swedish teachers involved in the so-called Life Competence Education, which serves as a contextualisation of this phenomenon. Two rationales of this formation stand out as key; the seriousness of the inward turn of the individual, and the crucial step of sharing one’s innermost. Although these rationales involve collective notions of the students’ emotional well-being, they are quite firmly anchored, we argue, in the single individuals’ well-being.
Religion has become a prominent issue in times of pluralism and in relation to citizenship in school and in society. As religious education (RE) is assigned to be one of the main school subject where issues of what religion is are to be raised, RE teachers’ conceptualizations of religion are of vital concern to investigate. In this article, RE teachers’ descriptions of ‘religion’ are scrutinized and analysed in terms of implications for citizenship with special regard to the role of RE. Three vital conceptions of religion emerge in teachers’ descriptions. First, religion is mainly individual or private, secondly, it denotes ethical guidance, and thirdly, it relates to sociocultural systems for thinking. Taken together, these conceptualizations share two characteristics about religion: religion as being individual-centred and private, and religion as being mind oriented. Out of this analysis, we discuss the role of religion and RE in contemporary liberal democratic life in society. The discussion is concluded by addressing two key things; the importance of the RE teacher as a curriculum maker, and the importance of religion and RE as active interventions in today’s contemporary discussion about pluralism in liberal democratic societies.
Based on recent ethnographic research, this article explores young people’s opportunities of formal and informal democracy learning and expressions of such learning in the highly market-influenced Swedish upper secondary education. With its ambitious democracy-fostering goals and far-reaching marketisation, Swedish education constitutes an interesting case in this respect. The analysis indicates that ‘voting with the feet’ emerges as an important way of exerting student influence. At the same time, young people’s voice is surprisingly neglected in classroom practice. Increased focus on performance and goal attainment tends to overshadow less ‘rewarding’ aspects of the curriculum, such as democracy teaching and learning, both from the side of teachers and students. Students are also increasingly expected to act as school representatives and to avoid giving negative impressions of their school.
We argue two major difficulties in current discourses of citizenship education. The first is a relative masking of student discourses of citizenship by positioning students as lacking citizenship and as outside the community that acts. The second is in failing to understand the discursive and material support for citizenship activity. We, thus, argue that it is not a lack of citizenship that education research might address, but identification and exploration of the different forms of citizenship that students already engage in. We offer a fragmentary, poststructuralist theorization oriented to explore the 'contemporary limits of the necessary', drawing on specific resources from the work of Michel Foucault and others for the constitution of local, partial accounts of citizenship discourses and activities, and exploration of their possibilities and constraints. We argue this as a significant tactic of theorization in support of an opening of discourses of citizenship and in avoiding the discursive difficulties that we have identified. Our theorization, then, is significant in its potential to unsettle discourses that confine contemporary thought regarding citizenship education and support exploration of what might be excessive to that confinement. © 2013 Taylor & Francis.
Educating for active citizenship is a pressing issue for educational policymaking in the Nordic countries, not least in the current neoliberal climate defined by economic and social change and by calls from different quarters for increased pluralism. Growing demands from the European Union on its member states to provide for active citizens through education fuels this task. In this text, Swedish education policy will be taken as a case in point in order to highlight how this issue is being handled in this Nordic policy setting. It is argued that its citizen fostering agenda is marked out by a deepened neoliberal orientation as regards the depiction of citizenship. This deepening takes place in the face of a historical rupture in Swedish education policy on citizenship, and consists of a replacement of the historically established society-centred citizenship with a consumer-oriented one that centres on the individual and on ‘freedom of choice’ as vital hubs. It is further argued that this shift highlights two problematic notions involved in the prevalent, neo liberally oriented framing of active citizenship through education: it tends to gloss over collective and antagonistic dimensions of citizenship necessary for encountering today’s societal demands. By drawing on Chantal Mouffe’s (2005, 2009) conceptualisation of 'the political' the overall aim of this text is highlighted: to seek for feasible openings for an altered way of framing the concept of active citizenship, where education is not depicted in terms of choice, but in terms of voice.
I den här texten lyfter jag fram den nya ämnesplanen i religionskunskap på gymnasiet. Syftet med detta är att sätta denna ämnesplan i relation till religionslärarens medborgarbildande uppgift. Med utgångspunkt i bildningsbegreppet diskuteras denna uppgift som en fråga om att se till religionslärarens frirum. Diskussionen utmynnar i ett resone-mang om betydelsen av att läraren inte ensidigt ser till vissa bildningsmål i ämnesundervisningen på bekostnad av andra.
How to outline an education for a democratic citizenship beyond national boundaries? In times of globalization, and with intensified pressure from the European Union on its nation states to provide for a common European identity through education, this question becomes crucial for national policymaking within Europe. In this text focus rests on Swedish Education policy, in order to shed light upon what is marked out for Swedish compulsory schools-commission to foster democratic citizens at the end of the 20th century. On the basis of earlier done policy research on this national policy making arena, it is argued that its fostering agenda transcends the nation state tends to include certain groups of people, while others are being excluded. It is further argued that these including and excluding divides are based upon presupposed ethno-cultural properties.
In this chapter, the Migrant is introduced as a key figure in EU eduation politcy on participatory citizenship. It is argued that although there has been an increase in policy efforts that deal with xenophobia and marginalisation in Europe, the EU's education policy implies a 'pushing' of the Migrant toward the margins of what counts as a properly undertaken citizenship education for European participatory citizenship. From a postcolonial perspective, this pushing is being facilitated by processes of 'strangification', which contributes to positioning the Migrant as an incompetent European participatoy citizen in and through education.
In the past twenty years the concept of citizenship has surfaced as a critical one in the Europeanization-through-education project of the European Union. In this chapter Sweden is highlighted as one 'local' setting for educational policy in the EU. The aim is to shed light on one way in which EU requirements that its Member states provide for European citizenship are being received and implemented in 'local' national European educational settings. It is argued that the Swedish example depicts a nation-transcending European citizenship that can be considered as paradoxical: centered equally on territorial independence and territorial dependence as important aspects of citizenship and citizenship education. This paradox as regards the envisioned formation of citizens in Europe calls for further exploration of how supranational EU educational policy requirements regarding European citizenship are received and handled in 'local' - that is, national - educational settings in Europe.
Educating for active citizenship is a pressing issue in educational policymaking in the European countries, not least in the current neoliberal climate defined by economic and social change and by calls from different quarters for increased pluralism. Growing demands from the European Union on its member states to provide for active citizens through education fuels this task. In this text, Swedish education policy will be taken as a case in order to highlight how this issue is being handled in this ‘local’ national policy setting in Europe. It is argued that the Swedish educational citizen fostering agenda is marked out by a neo liberal orientation as regards the depiction of citizenship, where the envisioned ‘active’ citizen can be described as one with a consuming attitude for self-making. To this end, Sweden appears to respond to supranational demands quite well as regards citizenship education. Nevertheless the 'neo' in Swedish education policy on citizenship is worrying, I argue, as it tends to gloss over important notions of citizenship and citizenship education necessary to consider in our times.
How to outline an education for a democratic citizenship beyond national boundaries? In times of globalization, and with intensified pressure from the European Union on its nation states to provide for a common European identity through education, this question becomes crucial for national policy making within Europe. In this text focus rests on Swedish Education policy, in order to shed light upon what is marked out for Swedish compulsory schools’ commission to foster democratic citizens at the end of the 20th century. On the basis of earlier done policy research, it is argued that the Swedish fostering agenda do tend to transcend the nation state. But, at the same time, certain groups of people tend to be included, while others are being excluded. It is argued that these including and excluding divides are based upon presupposed ethno-cultural properties.
We live in times when the search for a citizenship education that can transcend national, ethnical and cultural borders is an important part of educational policy. In times of increased pressure by the European Union on its nation states to provide for nation-transcending democracy, this question becomes crucial for national policymaking in Europe. In this text, Swedish education policy will be taken as a case in point in order to shed light on how this question is being handled in this particular national policy setting. It is argued that the policy’s citizen fostering agenda tends to be counterproductive in the sense that it is still situated in national notions of the relationship between democracy and education, which tend to exclude certain individuals and groups of people on an age-related and (ethno) cultural basis. It is further argued that these excluding features can be related to educational ideas about socialisation. The aim of this text is underlined by suggesting a different way of framing democracy and democratic citizenship education: to increase the potential of education as regards the renewal of democracy and democratic citizenship.
I detta temanummer riktar vi intresse mot So-ämnenas undervisning i skolan. Vi tar vår utgångspunkt i vad de flesta lärare vet, men kanske inte alltid finner tid, utrymme eller någon lämplig plattform att uttrycka. Nämligen att all undervisning, och i förlängningen all utbildning – av nödvändighet – är omhuldad av risk (Biesta 2013), av det som är oväntat. Vår ambition är inte i första hand att lyfta fram detta oväntade som en omständighet eller nödvändighet i allmän mening i utbildningssammanhang. Ambitionen är snarare att utifrån denna nödvändighet resa frågor till den dagliga undervisningen i de samhällsorienterade ämnena religionskunskap, samhällskunskap och historia, alternativt i so-undervisning generellt. Utifrån skilda empiriska, i högre eller lägre grad teoretiskt färgade ansatser, prövar vi att resa frågor som på olika sätt knyter an till vårt överordnade syfte i temanumret, vilket är att undersöka om, och i så fall vilka särskilda villkor eller bevekelsegrunder som kan tänkas prägla just de samhällsorienterade ämnenas undervisning, sett i ljuset av det oväntade som en potential, som möjlighet.
Equivalence is regarded as a central concept in contemporary Swedish educational policy. Hence, the concept of -equivalence- plays an important role in educational policy-making practice in Sweden. One important aspect in this policy-making is to determine the schools- assignment to bring up democratic citizens. In the 90s equivalence is challenged by another concept, -freedom of choice-. This challenge has consequences for the understanding of what citizen to bring up in the Swedish schools. In this paper I will try out some possible outcomes of a changed conceptual framework in the educational policy practice, when it comes to the political understanding of a democratic citizenship in Sweden.
Equivalence is regarded as a central concept in contemporary Swedish education policy. One important aspect in the education policy is to describe and determine the Swedish schools' assignment to bring up democratic citizens. The concept of equivalence, hence, plays an important role in this policy-making practice. In the 1990s equivalence is challenged by another concept: 'freedom of choice'. Here some possible outcomes of a changed conceptual framework in the education policy are tried out, regarding the political understanding of a democratic citizenship. Three questions are pulled forth in order to carry out this aim. The challenge of 'freedom of choice' on equivalence contributes to a change in the political understanding of a democratic citizenship in Swedish education policy. A phenomenon that occurs in at least three aspects: the political participation (from co-acting to re-acting), the political activity (from directing to voting) and the political role of the citizen in society (from being a designer to a consumer).
We live in times of search for an education that can transcend national, ethnical, religious and cultural borders. As it seems, contemporary education is to be found in despair. Or at least found to be unsatisfactory in relation to new challenges in the contemporary world. The aim of this text is to deepen the prospect of the potential of education, regarding what might seem almost like a visionary educational objective - to provide for a global democratic citizenship. The core issue in the text is to surface what appears as insufficiencies in present democratic citizenship education. The urge is to draw upon some feasible features of an alternative to these insufficiencies. Drawing on Stanley Cavell-s notion of voicing and language, I will suggest an altered understanding of democracy and of a democratic citizenship that may direct the mission of democratic education in another way. What is needed for a compelling democratic education, I will argue, is an existential orientation. In order to make my argument, I will use Swedish Education policy as a case in point.
Democracy is often handled as something that has to be learned through formal education. Moreover, there is a strong tendency to see the role of education as that of the preparation of children, young and adults for their future active participation in democratic life. A problem with this view is that it relies on the idea that the promise for a democratic citizenship is situated in the existence of an accurately educated citizenry; so that once all citizens have received their education democracy will be pursued. In this paper I will suggest an altered understanding of democratic life that may be considered as encouraged by Social Movements- activities. It will be argued that democracy is something that can be learned by a specific form of existence rather than by a specific set of educational conditions.
'Active citizenship' is a concept currently used in the supranational educational policy of the European Union. While alluding to a potential to promote democracy and human rights this policy seems to be increasingly influenced by neo liberal tendencies. In this article Swedish education policy is taken as a case in order to highlight how the concept of active citizenship education is handled in this ‘local’ national policy setting in Europe. It is argued that Swedish education policy on citizenship is marked out by a neo liberal orientation as regards the depiction of citizenship, where the envisioned ‘active’ citizen can be described as one marked out by a consuming attitude for self-making. To this end, Sweden appears to respond to supranational EU demands quite well as regards its education policy on citizenship. Nevertheless the 'neo' in Swedish education policy on citizenship is unsatisfactory, I argue, as it tends to gloss over important notions of citizenship and citizenship education necessary to consider in our times.
Aiming to study societal discourses, we need adequate methodological tools. That is analytical ways of seeing and doing in order to clarify the task of scientific interest. One way of doing this is to study the field of education, more precisely, national schools´ assignments to bring up democratic citizens. In this paper I suggest some methodological ways of seeing and doing, in order to bring about such studies.
This article sheds light on the European Union's policy on citizenship; on the collective dimension of this policy, its 'we'. It is argued that the inclusive, identity-constituting forces prominent in EU policy on European citizenship serve as a basis for the exclusion of people, which is illustrated by the recent expulsion of Romani from France. Based on a reading of Derrida, the twofold aim of this article is to reformulate the concept of a European citizenship 'we' and secondly, to outline some implications of this reframing as concerns the role of education in the formation of citizens.
Among the different meanings of equivalence in Swedish Education policy in the 1990ies, one can be related to the concept of -freedom of choice-. Even though this relation doesn't contribute to a replacement of the historically more unambiguous meaning of equivalence, it coexists with it and represents a constant tension to it. This tension can be described in terms of a -freedom of choice challenge- on equivalence. In this text I aim to highlight this tension in relation to the Swedish schools-assignment to bring up democratic citizens in the early 1990ies. The question I try to answer is how can the freedom of choice challenge be considered to stand out in the political understanding of the schools- up bringing of democratic citizens in Sweden in the early 1990ies? I take my point of departure in some nationally encompassing Education policy texts.
Kapitlet handlar om ungas medborgerliga engagemang i samhällsundervisningen i skolan. Mera precist handlar det om hur de unga själva tolkar och förstår detta engagemang - beroende på vilka frågor som de möter innanför och utanför klassrummet. Syftet är att lyfta fram lärarens roll i samhällsundervisningen; betydelsen av att hon eller hand reser olika slags frågor om medborgerligt engagemang. Eftersom de olika svar och reaktioner som dessa frågor ger både bär spår av och spårar vår samtid och vår framtid som medborgare i samhället.
In this text I investigate how the teachers´and Swedish schools´ assignment to bring up citizens is described in two different times when Democracy is found to be in crisis in Sweden; the 1940ies and the 1990ies. This is done be reading some steering documents for Swedish education. The purpose of this text is to contribute to further reflection for teachers, teacher students and other interested upon questions of the the role and prevalent assignment of Swedish compulsory schools to bring up democratic citizens.
One aspect of the ICCS study's measurement of young people's citizen competence is "civic engagement". In this article it is argued that even though the study's assessment captures important aspects of young people's civic engagement, too strong educational reliance on it may contribute to meagrenesss in the educational assignment to see to an engaged citizenry. By providing deeper insight into the ICCS study's assessment rationale, and by presenting qualitatively derived examples of young people's civic engagement, it is suggested that in order to see to fruitful ways of approaching the educational task of providing for young people's civic engagement, we need to maintain openness to different depictions of civic engagement. Among them those that matter as such for the young people themselves in and through the social and material practices they take part in.
The aim of this article is to forecast the present situation of citizenship formation in the field of Swedish education. In highlighting trends and tendencies in the educational assignment to provide for democratic citizenship in the first decade of the 21st century, which can be characterised as lacking collective visions for change, three depictions of citizenship are prevailing: citizenship formation for deliberation, for entrepreneurship and for therapeutic intervention. These depictions are analysed in terms of the direction for action taking and attention that they stress and produce as concerns citizenship in the making. The first one, citizenship formation for deliberation, stresses an inward-looking and inward-feeling citizenship. The second one, citizenship formation for entrepreneurship, stresses an inward-looking and outward-making citizenship, and the third one, citizenship formation for therapeutic intervention, stresses an inward-looking and outward-making citizenship. Taking on this forecast, which actualises democracy as something that is already achieved as a consequence of an assumedly post political situation, we argue that citizenship as well as society itself risks being pictured as apolitical and democratically “saturated.” This situation is hazardous, we argue, as it does not open up for change to come into question as desirable or even possible. Put differently, it leaves us with the notion that things have to be as they are, as we are living in the best of worlds.
Citizenship in the making for a new millenium – education and citizen formation in 21st century Sweden. The aim of this article is to analyse citizenship formation in Swedish education. In highlighting trends regarding the assignment of the educational system to provide for democratic citizenship there are certain depictions of citizenship prevail- ing. The first stresses an inward-looking and inward-feeling citizenship, characterizing the citizen as deliberative and emotional. The second stresses an inward-looking and outward-making citizenship, characterizing the citizen as entrepreneurial and willing. Here, democracy is portrayed as already achieved. This, we argue, is hazardous as society risk being pictured as apolitical and democratically ‘saturated’. This situation does not open up for democratic change to come into question as desirable or even possible. Put differently, it leaves us with the notion that things have to be as they are, as we are living in the best of worlds.
The role of education in citizen training has been well mapped out in youtheducation. What has been less studied is how this role comes into being inadult education. By providing illustrative empirical examples from a recentlycompleted study of adult students enrolled in adult education, this articleaims to offer a theoretical response to the question of the role of adulteducation in adult student citizen subjectivity formation. Taking on Diken’sconcept of ‘reactive nihilism’, we wish to make the following arguments. First,that citizen formation in adult education, when students are asked aboutit, is actualised as processes of re(dis)covery of will in order to be(come) asuccessful and happy citizen in society. Secondly, that these processes pointtowards a role of adult education as one where these formation processeswork in tandem with those of the reactive nihilists. This means that the citizenformation processes made possible in this educational site are those markedout by the desire to mobilise one’s will formation so that it adapts to theprevailing societal situation—that of late capitalism, which is a situation notconsidered by the adult students as possible to change.