The purpose of the study is to investigate how the curriculum for the Swedish upper secondary school meets the democratic challenges facing Sweden. These challenges come in the form of democratic exclusion, anti-democratic values​​and threats to the democratic conversation. The study is based on a qualitative text analysis in the form of discourse analysis. The material that forms the basis for the work is the Swedish curriculum for the upper secondary school and the syllabus for social science. Social science is a subject that has a special position in the sense that the subject should also convey knowledge about democracy. The study shows that the curriculum seeks to provide students with knowledge and values​​in order to gain skills for effective participation in society. The curriculum together with the syllabus for social science seeks to create justice oriented citizens with a focus on academic reasoning. A large part of how the curriculum manages to meet the democratic challenges lies in the curriculum's intention to transfer certain values. Human rights, gender equality and people's equal value are some of the fundamental values ​​that counter democratic challenges. On the other hand, the so-called democracy mission faces challenges in itself. Discussions about the goal- and knowledge-oriented curriculum are conducted. Even the high level of interpretability of the curriculum may be the basis for a problem.