In comparative education, scholars have long tried to understand why and when policy actors make international references. They have found that policy actors often externalize when they need to form alliances or seek for greater legitimacy and that the actual practice is shaped by national political contexts and the institutionalized policy process in each country (Steiner‐Khamsi, 2004). In particular, each country has its own “reference societies” where they borrow policies and practices from or refer to positively and negatively in the policy process (Bendix, 1978).

In the Nordic region, it has been perceived that each Nordic country serves as reference society of each other within the region. This perception may have been based on the rich communication and cooperation among the Nordic countries in education. Despite the common perception, little has been empirically examined regarding to what extent policy actors actually make reference to other Nordic countries and why (not). This study looks into the references in the policy documents prepared for the most recent education reforms in two Nordic countries: Norway and Sweden. They are particularly interesting cases to compare because of the similarities with regard to their institutionalized policymaking process as well as geographical and cultural proximity.

We examined the bibliographic references in the white papers and green papers (NOUs and SOUs) prepared for the 2016/2020 renewal of the Knowledge Promotion Reform in Norway and the 2015/2018 Knowledge Achievement Reform in Sweden. In total, our sample includes 19 policy documents and 4,260 references. Additionally, we interviewed ten policy experts who participated in the preparation of the policy documents analyzed in this study.

The results show that while Norway drew extensively on knowledge from its neighbors, especially from Sweden, Sweden seldom referenced knowledge produced in other Nordic countries. Policy actors in Norway described that using knowledge produced in other Nordic countries is “quite natural” in the policy process while policy actors in Sweden shared that there has been little formal exchange with these countries in the policy process. Building on the concept of “silent borrowing” coined by Waldow (2009), we interpret the difference in the way Norway and Sweden use knowledge produced in their Nordic neighbors within the broader framework on which bodies of knowledge have greater accessibility or legitimacy (Nordin & Wahlström, 2022). Furthermore, we find that the difference was influenced by reform contexts (e.g., timing of the competency-based curriculum adoption) as well as the membership composition of expert commissions (e.g., larger commission vs. one-person commission).

This study examines the reference societies of Norway and Sweden embedded in their education policy documents. We examined 4,260 bibliographic references in 19 white papers and green papers prepared for the 2016/2020 renewal of the Knowledge Promotion Reform in Norway and the 2015/2018 Knowledge Achievement Reform in Sweden. In addition, we interviewed 10 policy experts who participated in the preparation of the analyzed policy docu-ments. The results show that the reference societies overall reflect the existing knowledge production and dissemination mechanisms in education policy; however, they significantly differed between Norway and Sweden regarding whether and to what extent they reference knowledge produced in other Nordic countries. Specifically, while Norway drew extensively on knowledge from its neighbors, particularly Sweden, Sweden seldom referenced knowl-edge produced in other Nordic countries. Policy actors identified similarity, relevance, accessibility, reform contexts, and institutional arrangements as reasons for (not) referencing neighbors. This study calls for further consideration of the political, social, and cultural embeddedness of the ‘socio-logic’ to understand implicit reference societies.

Since WWII, Sweden has had an international reputation for being modernand progressive, with schooling that provides equal opportunities for allchildren. Analysing local enactment of the national pursuit ofmodernisation in two contrasting municipalities, this paper offers newperspectives on Swedish education history beyond the image ofschooling as a uniform national project. The concepts of technologicaldevelopment and internationalisation are applied to capture the ideasand visions inherent in this modernisation. The study demonstrates,through the example of the rural municipality of Tierp and themunicipality of Stockholm, the complexity of the modernisation processand the interplay between divergent interpretations of national reformsand local enactment of modernisation.

Europe is often described in education policy as a knowledge-based economy where knowledge is understood as fundamental for a European self-identity. A new and complex landscape where knowledge serves many different and diverse purposes is emerging and is elaborated in this article as the notion of the extended classroom. Against this background the aim of this article is to discuss the continental concept of bildung in terms of counter language. This is carried out both as a reaction towards global knowledge reductionism and as a definition of how to understand the concept itself. The paper takes its methodological point of departure in the critical discourse analysis (CDA) which conceives bildung as a discursive practice. As a reconstructive methodology CDA provides a language to elaborate on how people are formed within discourses, and reproduces them in different ways as well as how they can form part of their transformation. A theoretical sketch is presented on how to understand bildung in everyday conversation/discussions as well as in more formal research practices taking pedagogy as an example. Bildung is discussed as a reciprocal and reflexive approach where everyone must be prepared to revaluate his or her previous understanding as well as to engage in the cultivation of others by using the possibility of counter language.

Centralisation in an era of decentralisation – on the contradictory governing of school. The movement towards greater decentralisation is not seldom the obvious starting point for the study of school governance. In this article this assumption is analysed and problematised based on a reading of central education policy texts related to the last two curriculum reforms for the Swedish compulsory school ( Lpo 94, Lgr 11) and the EU’s overall growth policy from 2000 onwards. The result shows that although the school’s governance rightly can be described in terms of decentralisation, there are several parallel movements that point in the opposite direction. An increased influence from the EU over Swedish education policy, an increased central interest for school content issues, concentration of free schools to a few large corporations, and that teachers’ professional judgments are replaced by standardised and centrally-designed material are discussed as four such processes. The assumption of school decentralisation thus requires qualification and clarification in order to serve as a basis for the study of school governance.

The increased intensity of reform during the late 1990s has accentuated questions of how to understand and conceptualise the governing of the educational field. New infrastructures were built up beside old ones and the role of transnational, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) increased, also when it came to such national concerns as education. Lawn & Lingard (2002) speak about the EU in terms of such a European policy field where the common goal of making Europe the most competitive knowledge-based economy in the world, launched by the European Council in theLisbonstrategy in the year 2000 played an important role. But the lack of success in steering the member states towards the objectives set up by the European Council soon led to an emerging crisis discourse within the EU (Robertsson 2008; Nordin 2011). Also in the Swedish context a crisis discourse emerged during the last decade where Swedish children were said to fall behind other comparable countries in knowledge assessments such asPISA, TIMSS and PIRLS (Nordin 2012). In this paper the crisis discourse will bee analysed in order to find out to what extent and in what ways it is used as a way to legitimise educational reforms within the EU and inSweden. I will also discuss what implicit ideas of time, choices and standardised procedures that are embedded in the discourses and what specific conditions they create.

Discursive institutionalism (Schmidt, 2008) is used as an overall theoretical framework. Schmidt (2008) makes a distinction between a coordinative and acommunicative discourse. The coordinative where policy actors such as government officials, policy consultants, experts, lobbyist and others coordinate policy ideas as members of transnational epistemic communities sharing a set of cognitive and normative ideas of education. The communicative discourse takes place in the public sphere and involves “the presentation, deliberation and legitimation of political ideas to the general public” (Schmidt 2008, p 310). Discourse matters, so to speak, because it elaborates ideas and persuades others of the necessity and/or the appropriateness of a given course of action. As a complement to the coordinative and communicative discourse the concept of Europeanization (Lawn & Lingard, 2002; Grek & Lawn, 2009; Lawn, 2011) is also used in order to enable an analysis that looks into the relationship between the EU and the nation-state and to what extent and in what ways the two policy arenas converge and/or diverge. 

Method

Critical discourse analysis is used as method in the study Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999; Wodak, 2008. Reisigl (2008) talks about four different categories of discursive strategies which I use when analyzing the policy texts. The first one is nomination and has to do with how different people, groups and/or phenomenon are described. The second one is predication and has to do with the positive and/or negative attributes made to these discursively constructed persons and/or phenomenon. Argumentation has to do with what kinds of arguments are used to legitimise and/or delegitimize different positions. Perspectivation focuses the starting points from which the three strategies above are based. The texts analysed in this study are central official policy texts produced by the EU, such as the Lisbon strategy, the Kok-report and the Europe 2020 and central Swedish curriculum policy texts connected to the two latest reforms of the comprehensive school in 1994 and 2011.

Expected Outcomes

The result indicates that there is a shift around the mid 00s from a risk to a crisis theme applicable to both the European and the Swedish arena. The crisis that the EU was considered to be in is mainly described as a structural problem due to the aging population and lack of competitiveness on the global market. Also in Sweden the result indicates a shift towards growing crisis rhetoric but here it seems to be described more as a professional problem. The curriculum Lpo 94 was said to be to ideological, diffuse and difficult to interpret as to why the teachers had not been able to ensure an egalitarian education. The Swedish results in international knowledge assessments like PISA and TIMSS the result also contributed to the formation of a national crisis discourse. So the result indicates how the crisis theme is becoming increasingly important as a legitimizing strategy in European education reforms. This development results in a reform process characterized by a more retrospective perspective than before, where the main challenge lies in the possibilities of resolving a crisis that has already occurred rather than planning for the future.

References

Chouliaraki, Lilie & Fairclough, Norman (1999). Discourse in late modernity. Rethinking critical discourse analysis. Edinburgh: Edinburgh university press. Grek, Sotiria & Lawn, Martin (2009). A Short History of Europeanizing Education. European Education, 41(1), 32-54. Lawn, Martin (2011). Standardizing the European education policy space. European Educational Research Journal, 10(2), s 259-272. Lawn, Martin & Lingard, Bob (2002). Constructing a European Policy Space in Educational Governance: the role of transnational policy. European Educational Research Journal, 1(2), s 290-307. Nordin, Andreas (2011). Making the Lisbon strategy happen. A new phase of lifelong learning discourse in European policy? European Educational Research Journal, 10(1), s 11-20. Nordin, Andreas (2012). The politics of knowledge – A study of knowledge discourses in Swedish and European education policy. Linnaeus University Dissertations No97/2012. Reisigl, Martin (2008). Analyzing political rethoric. . I: Wodak, Ruth & Krzyzanowski, Michal (Eds.). Qualitative Discourse Analysis in the social sciences. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Robertson, Susan, L. (2008). Embracing the global: Crisis and the creation of a new semiotic order to secure Europe’s knowledge-based economy. I: Jessop, Bob, Fairclough, Norman & Wodak, Ruth (Eds.). Education and the Knowledge-based economy in Europe. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Schmidt, Vivien (2008). Discursive Institutionalism: The Explanatory Power of Ideas and Discourse. Annual Review of Political Science, 11, s 303-326.

Around the mid-2000s a crisis discourse emerged in educational policy-making in the EU and in Sweden. Using the EU and Sweden as empirical references, this article explores how this crisis discourse has been and is employed by politicians and NGOs. Discourse Institutionalism is used as an overall theoretical framework focusing on how the crisis discourse is coordinated among powerful policy actors and communicated to the public, while critical discourse analysis is used for the systematic analysis. The crisis discourse implies that action has to be taken immediately and that there is no option other than to act, and the result shows that this normative discourse is becoming an important and powerful instrument in the hands of both national and transnational actors seeking public legitimacy for extensive reforms.

The aim of this article is to build an analytical argument for the use of new institutionalism, and especially its latest branch—discursive institutionalism—as a point of departure for a dynamic analysis of curriculum change in a globalized world. Discursive institutionalism offers a theoretical language for analyzing change taking place within and/or between any curriculum level, from transnational to local. Furthermore, discursive institutionalism acknowledges the possibility of agency as a force that not only maintains but also alters institutions and thus adds explanatory power to the analysis of both institutional change and continuity.

Kunskapsdebatten har hamnat i skymundan. I dag ligger fokus på resultat och på det livslånga lärandet som ett medel för ekonomisk tillväxt. Andreas Nordin vill väcka det avsomnade bildningsbegreppet till liv.

Education in Europe after the Second World War has been transformed within a wider context of societal modernisation. It has also become part of the efforts made towards a more common platform for transnational cooperation within the EU. This development has been recognised within educational research as a process of Europeanisation within the educational field homogenising national policy. This strand of research has provided important knowledge on the development of new policy arenas at transnational and national levels, but has paid little attention to the local level where these policies are acted out and interpreted within specific historical, cultural and political conditions and where transnational exchange is initiated at the local level. Against this background the aim of this paper is to contribute to a deeper understanding of the internationalisation of the Swedish school, seen from a municipal level. The paper draws on an examination of local school policy in two Swedish municipalities between 1950-2010 from a historical curriculum theory perspective, taking into account the socio-historical context of schooling, including school politics, school administration and school practice. The transnational exchange within the two municipality cases has been traced by searching for educational efforts that include international elements such as introducing new subjects, programmes, immigrant education, study trips abroad and/or conferences. The result shows that the Swedish school has been subject to transnational exchange long before entering the ‘era of globalisation’. It also shows that the extent and the forms of transnational exchange differ radically between municipalities, which in this paper are discussed in terms of ‘different worlds of internationalisation’. Since little historical research has been done on the internationalisation of the Swedish school from a municipal perspective this study is of great relevance. It contributes to a deeper understanding of the varying role that the local level has played and continues to play in the internationalisation of the Swedish school.

Research topic/aim: The national curriculum, which serves as a discursive practice, is characterised by increased complexity involving a multitude of actors operating within and between different curriculum arenas and institutional levels (Uljens, 2018; Sundberg, 2021). This development places high demands ontheories and methodologies in terms of examining complexity, interaction, and change. The aim of this paper is to build an argument arounddiscursive institutionalism (DI; Schmidt, 2008, 2011) as a constructive theoretical contribution to this line of curriculum research.

Theoretical framework: Discursive institutionalism (Schmidt, 2008, 2011), as the most recent branch of new institutionalism, is thus used as a theoretical framework in this paper.

Methodological design: The discussion about DI is built around three of its core concepts: ideas, discourse and agency. DI distinguishes between different ideas at differentinstitutional levels, some of which are more volatile (typically policy ideas), while others are more stable (typically philosophical ideas). To understand why some ideas become more stable than others, DI also emphasises the importance of acknowledging the discursive interactions in which these ideas take shape. Here, DI distinguishes between a coordinative discourse, focused on the development of a shared understanding of what the policy problem is and possible solutions among policy actors, and a communicative discourse, focused on the ways in which policy actorstry to legitimate their shared ideas. DI also highlights the importance of agency in this discursive interaction, and who says what to whom plays animportant role in explaining why some ideas become institutionalised while others do not.

Expected conclusions/findings: In the final part of the paper, I argue that DI contributes to curriculum research in at least four ways. First, it bridges the classic contradictions between structure and agency in understanding institutions as internally constructed in the minds of curriculum actors. Second, it provides thetheoretical language to enable analyses of the complex interplay within and between different policy arenas and levels. Third, while other neoinstitutional traditions have focused primarily on institutional stability, DI provides the language through which to include analyses of institutionalchange. Finally, in its non-hierarchical positioning of social practices, I argue that DI facilitates critical approaches that acknowledge both structureand agency.

Relevance to Nordic educational research: DI is a relatively new approach in Nordic curriculum research. However, in recent years, several scholars have begun deploying it in a range ofresearch projects. This paper is relevant to Nordic educational research since it makes visible some of the possibilities that DI provides in advancing multidimensional and multilayered analyses in curriculum research.

ABSTRACT In the last decade social inclusion together with lifelong learning have emerged as strong policy-leading concepts within the European Union. In order to enhance social inclusion, extensive investments in lifelong learning have been made. At the same time, the discourse of lifelong learning has become more individualized and market-oriented. Research shows how the individual learner has difficulties in managing the situation, as an increasing amount of responsibility in fulfilling the goals of the European Commission is placed upon the learning subject, rather than the state.  The basic aim of the study is to discern what different approaches of inclusion/exclusion are to be found within discourses about lifelong learning in educational research accessible in the database ERIC. This article takes its theoretical point of departure in the Foucauldian notion of governmentality, focusing on how power operates in processes of objectification and subjection in order to increase the capacity of the population. Based upon the articles examined, I argue that both social inclusion and lifelong learning as positive and unproblematic policy-concepts need to be questioned and further problemized. Instead of looking at lifelong learning as one formal and normal solution for all, the result emphasizes the need for variety and diversity in policy-directives and increased sensitivity to the complex situation of those identified as the others.

ABSTRACT Against the background that there is an ongoing work to launch a new curriculum for the Swedish compulsory school this article aims to problematize fundamental curriculum issues such as the steering of the school and its knowledge content from a critical discourse analytical perspective. This is done by a parallel reading of the official report that preceded the current curriculum (Lpo 94) and the corresponding official report (SOU 2007:28) for the coming curriculum. The reading shows several differences between the two. In the SOU 1992:94 the continental concept of bildung is used for a profound knowledge discussion. In the SOU 2007:28 knowledge is foremost talked about in terms of evaluation, standardisation and equity. In the article it is argued that the later official report reduces the pedagogical work to a question of quality, understood as the possibility to guarantee equity in both evaluation and the teaching practise. A development away from the knowledge aspirations presented in the SOU 1992:94 that becomes problematic in times where the legitimacy of teachers are questioned. Instead of a being validated out of a well reflected practise the legitimacy presented in SOU 2007:28 derives from the capacity to use standardised tools. Altogether increased governance by the state is asked for in the later official report at the same time as the goal steering system is sharpened which leads to a widened and deepened politicisation of the pedagogical practise at all levels.

Syftet med denna artikel är att utifrån ett kommunalpolitiskt perspektiv diskutera hur skolan i samspel med det omgivande samhället internationaliseras under perioden 1950-2000 samt ge exempel på hur denna internationalisering kommer till uttryck i tre kommuners skolpolitik. Den vägledande frågeställningen är hur internationalisering hanterats och/eller initierats på kommunalpolitisk nivå?

As the importance of transnational arenas and actors in governing education has increased over the last decades there has been a growing number of studies trying to conceptualise the ‘soft power’ exercised by these actors. Important contributions have been made in order to understand these new governance practices stated in terms of ‘governing at a distance’, ‘governing by numbers’ and/or ‘governing by inspection’, all of them emphasising that it has to do with governance exercised without legal power. This is also the rationale behind the starting point of this paper. The aim of this paper is not primarily to find a new way to conceptualise these governance practices but to show how these practices in recent years have come to accommodate a growing number of constituents traditionally associated with legal government such as curriculum guidelines and policy instructions. The emergence of a European ‘crisis discourse’ from the mid 00s and onwards is discussed as an important reason why new governance strategies have been developed to strengthen central control over national educational reforms in Europe. Discussing the governance exercised by the European Union in this paper in terms of ‘governing by instruction’ is an attempt to complement rather than replace previous conceptualisations and to problematise the emergence of new forms of central control and direct involvement from the European Commissions in policy making in the member states. In order to follow the process from the EU to the member state level Sweden serves as a national example. The paper draws on two kinds of empirical material, partly on an analysis of central official policy documents produced by the EU and the Swedish government and partly by documents related to the development, communication and implementation by the European Commission of country-specific recommendations, using Sweden as the national policy arena.  Theoretically the paper draws on earlier work on Europeanisation in education (Lawn & Lingard 2002; Grek 2008; Grek & Lawn 2009; Lawn 2011; Lawn & Grek 2012) where Europeanisation is understood as a general process towards a strengthened coordination of national educational policies.

Method

In order to examine the shifts towards strengthened governance as communicated in the policy documents, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)(Chouliaraki & Fairclough 1999; Wodak 2002) is used as a methodological approach. Critical discourse analysis enables a systematic analysis of policy texts as parts of social practices continuously making and remaking our understanding of the world. Understanding discourse as part of social practice thus makes discourse constitutive, not just for human thinking, but also for human action. From this position policy texts are seen as materialised expressions of discourse. Fundamental to the analysis is to see discursive interaction as ‘sites of struggle’ where different actors, ideologies and/or positions struggle for dominance (Wodak 2002). In order to capture this discursive interaction I have used Reisigl’s (2008) four different categories of discursive strategies in the systematic analysis. The first one is ’nomination’ and refers to how different phenomena are described. The second one is ’predication’ and refers to what positive and/or negative attributes are given to these phenomena. ’Argumentation’ then has to do with the arguments that are used to legitimise and/or delegitimise different positions. ’Perspectivation’ finally means an analysis of the basic positions upon which the three above strategies are based.

Expected Outcomes

The study shows that the overall understanding of the governance rationale of the European educational policy space can best be described in terms of ’soft governance’ where the use of objectives, indictors, benchmarks and inspections are central elements. But it will also show that due to a European crisis discourse emerging around the mid 00s there has been a shift towards an increased introduction of elements traditionally linked to more centralised forms of government, which calls for conceptual rethinking. The argument of the paper is that the concept ‘governing by instruction’, presented in this paper will, as a result of the analyses, contribute to the understanding of the multifaceted governance exercised by the EU as a practice containing simultaneously soft and hard elements and where the harder ones have come to play an increasingly important role in the light of the emergent European crisis discourse.

References

Alexiadou, Nafsika (2014). Policy learning and Europeanisation in education: the governance of a field and the transfer of knowledge. In: Nordin, A & Sundberg, D (Eds.) Transnational policy-flows in European education – the making and governing of knowledge in the education policy field. Oxford: Symposium books. Chouliaraki, Lilie and Fairclough, Norman. (1999). Discourse in late modernity. Rethinking critical discourse analysis. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Dale, Roger & Robertson, Susan (2009). Globalisation & Europeanisation in Education. Oxford: Symposium Books. Fenwick, Tara, Mangez, Eric & Ozga, Jenny (2014). Governing knowledge. Comparison, Knowledge-based Technologies and Expertise in the Regulation of Education. Grek, Sotiria (2008). From Symbols to Numbers: the shifting technologies of education governance in Europe. European Educational Research Journal, 7(2), 208-218. Grek, S. (2009). Governing by Numbers: the PISA effect in Europe, Journal of Education Policy, 24(1), pp.23–37. Grek, Sotiria, Lawn, Martin, Ozga, Jenny & Segerholm, Christina (2013). Governing by inspection? European inspectorates and the creation of a European education policy space. Comparative Education, 49(4), 486-502. Lawn, Martin & Lingard, Bob (2002). Constructing a European Policy Space in Educational Governance: the role of transnational policy actors. European Educational Research Journal, 1(2), 290-307. Lawn, Martin. & Grek, Sotiria (2012). Europeanizing Education – governing a new policy space. Oxford: Symposium Books. Lawn, Martin (2013). The Rise of Data in Education Systems. Oxford: Symposium Books. Nordin, Andreas (2014). Europeanisation in national educational reforms: horizontal and vertical translations. In: Nordin, A & Sundberg, D (Eds.) Transnational policy-flows in European education – the making and governing of knowledge in the education policy field. Oxford: Symposium books. Pépin, Luce (2006). The History of European Cooperation in Education and Training: Europe in the making – an example. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. Reisigl, Martin. (2008). Analyzing political rhetoric. In: Ruth Wodak & Michal Krzyzanowski (Eds.). Qualitative Discourse Analysis in the Social Sciences. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Steiner-Khamsi, Gita & Waldow, Florian (2012). Policy Borrowing and lending in Education. London: Routledge. Wodak, Ruth. (2002). What CDA is about _ a summary of its history, important concepts and its developments. In:, Ruth Wodak & Michael Meyer (Eds.). Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Sage Publications.

This chapter examines the use of international references as a source of legitimation in Swedish educational policy making from 1950 to 2018. Special attention is directed to the 2015/2018 Swedish school reform and the expanding role of the OECD in setting the political agenda. The discussion mainly draws on empirical findings from the POLNET-project funded by the Norwegian research council analyzing the references making up the official evidence base for the 2015/2018 school reform.  Using bibliometric analysis, citations and references in white-, and green papers have been analyzed in order to find patterns in the way references are used as a source of legitimation. The preliminary result shows that transnational exchange has been an important part of Swedish schooling since the 1950’s onwards. However, moving into a context of global competition the importance of international references seems to increase. In the 2015/2018 school reform the OECD plays a central role as the Swedish government turns to the OECD for help. Externalization becomes the dominant strategy among insecure politicians to regain legitimacy. However, the result indicates that externalization is not a linear process, but rather a complex act of balancing internal and external pressures in a way that enables for national politicians to maintaining public legitimacy.

In recent years knowledge has been brought forward as an important political issue both in the EU and in Sweden. It is said to be of the uttermost importance not just for education but for society as a whole. As a result of increased globalization and a European striving for economic growth, knowledge has come to be associated with both individual and national competitiveness, and education and learning in schools and workplaces have become a political priority. In this global competition the EU has become an important policy actor in the educational field trying to create a common European education policy field. Despite this development, only a limited number of reports relating the European arena to Swedish educational reforms have been published. Against this background the aim of this thesis is to deepen the understanding of the knowledge discourses which struggle for legitimacy in Swedish and European education policy and how these discourses relate to each other and change over time. The empirical material consists of a number of fundamental official policy texts produced by the EU and the Swedish state. The study takes its theoretical point of departure in critical discourse analysis using an analytical grid where production, content and communication are seen as three aspects constituting every knowledge discourse. The result shows a process of silent Europeanization in Swedish school reform where European knowledge discourse is being re-contextualised and in many cases re-interpreted without any declaration in terms of explicit references. It also confirms the general trend towards increased focus on learning outcomes and demands for measurability. Furthermore, the result shows how competition rhetoric dominating the EU contributes to an increased sense of crisis in both European and Swedish educational reforms. As a result of this crisis rhetoric the study shows how the proactive reform-perspective is being replaced by a retrospective where solving already existing problems replaces the planning of an uncertain future.

Within the European Union the concept of lifelong learning is put forward as one of the main solutions for the member states to cope with globalisation and its effects. Against this background the aim of this article is to look at how the concept of lifelong learning is mirrored in a small sample of what is written about lifelong learning in international educational research. The result shows how a great deal of critique is aimed at steps and policies in programmes of lifelong learning. The article implies, according to the research reports examined, that lifelong learning finds it difficult to deal with a post-modern context.

ABSTRACT European educational policy on lifelong learning has undergone great changes during the last three decades to become a highly complex phenomenon with several internal and external actors involved. The discourse of lifelong learning has undergone great changes, from its initial engagement when it was a matter of social and humanitarian issues as outlined in the early documents of UNESCO, to emphasising lifelong learning as a moral and individual obligation in a more competitive and market-oriented language. In a European context this language of competition to a large extent derives from the vocabulary set out by the Lisbon strategy where competition is a key theme. A policy trajectory that has taken the discourse from an initial phase of great social visions to a second phase focusing on the need for self-regulated and morally responsible citizens. Recent research on the topic indicates that we are now standing at the threshold of a discursive shift where action instead of visions is at stake. Against this background I would like to ask if there is evidence enough to suggest that European policy on lifelong learning is now experiencing a discursive shift into what could be described as a new phase? And if so, how could such a shift be described and what are the implications at an individual level? I take my theoretical point of departure in Habermas`s theory of communicative action using as analytic tools his concept of system and life-world as representations of different rationalities. I use critical discourse analysis as a methodological framework in order to understand how the rationalities bound to the concepts of system and life-world become visible through different actors and actions in the policy discourse of lifelong learning. A number of research reports and policy documents on lifelong learning recently published within the European Union have been read and analysed. The analysis of the empirical material points to a direction where it is relevant to speak about a new "phase" of lifelong-learning discourse emerging in European policy, characterised by the urgent need for implementation. In this paper a tentative conceptual framework is presented as to how this new, action-oriented "phase" can be understood. The policy trajectory of lifelong learning is not to be understood here as a linear development where one phase follows another in a well-defined manner. Instead it is seen as an ongoing discursive struggle where different concepts over time replace each other as fundamental for the discourse and its actors in the new phase represented by concepts such as "crisis" and "implementation".

The discourse of lifelong learning has undergone great changes, from its initial

engagement when it was a matter of social and humanitarian issues as outlined in the early documents

of UNESCO, to emphasising lifelong learning as a moral and individual obligation in a more

competitive and market-oriented language. This policy trajectory has taken the discourse from an

initial phase of great social visions to a second phase focusing on the need for self-regulated and

morally responsible citizens. Recent research on the topic indicates that we are now standing at the

threshold of a discursive shift where action instead of visions is at stake. Against this background the

author asks if there is evidence enough to suggest that European policy on lifelong learning is now

experiencing a discursive shift into what could be described as a new phase. The author uses critical

discourse analysis as a methodological framework and the analysis of the empirical material points to a

direction where it is relevant to speak about a new ‘phase’ of lifelong-learning discourse emerging in

European policy, characterised by the urgent need for implementation. In this article a tentative

conceptual framework is presented as to how this new, action-oriented ‘phase’ can be understood.

Different worlds of internationalisation – a comparative study of international influences and exchanges in swedish school 1950-2000. The aim of this article is to contribute to a deeper understanding of the internationalisation of the Swedish school, seen from a municipal level. The paper draws on an examination of local school policy in two Swedish municipalities between 1950-2000 from a historical curriculum theory perspective, taking into account the socio-historical context of schooling, including school politics, school administration and school practice. The international influences and exchange within the two municipality cases has been traced by searching for educational efforts that include international elements such as introducing new subjects, programmes, immigrant education, study trips abroad and/or conferences. The result shows that the Swedish school has been subject to transnational exchange long before entering the ‘era of globalisation’. It also shows that the extent and the forms of transnational exchange differ radically between municipalities, which in this paper are discussed in terms of ‘different worlds of internationalisation’.

This paper raises a critical argument on the normativity of data-driven curriculum policy-making in shaping and reshaping education at all levels along an evaluative rationale. The critique evolves in two steps, the first step is deconstructive in character and draws on the work of Porter (Trust in numbers: The pursuit of objectivity in science and public life. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1995) and research on data-driven education. The second step is reconstructive in character, making use of the non-affirmative theory in education (Benner, On affirmativity and non-affirmativity in the context of theories of education and Bildung. In M. Uljens (Ed.), Non-affirmative Theory of Education and Bildung. Springer, 2023; Uljens, Revista Tempos e Espaços em Educação 18(9): 121–132, 2016; Trans Curric Inquiry 15(2): 4–25, 2018; Uljens & Ylimaki, Nord J Stud Educ Policy 1, 30–43, 2015; Bridging educational leadership, curriculum theory and didaktik: Non-affirmative theory of education. Springer, Cham, 2017) to elaborate on a more reflexive position. The critical examination shows how competitiveness, objectivity, and distance operate as educational ideals within the discourse of data-driven curriculum policy-making, narrowing the educational imagination to what can be expressed in league tables and ranking lists and promoting easy answers to complex questions of what works. These ideals are challenged by non-affirmative theory, which proposes a more reflexive approach to curriculum policy-making, emphasising process rather than outcome and questions rather than answers as drivers of such processes.

This paper raises a critical argument on the normativity of data-driven curriculum work shaping and reshaping education at all levels along an evaluative rationale. The critique evolves in two steps, the first step is deconstructive in character and draws on the work of Porter (1995) and research on data-driven curriculum work. The second step is reconstructive in character making use of the non-affirmative theory in education (Uljens & Ylimaki, 2015, 2017; Uljens, 2016, 2018) to elaborate on a more reflexive position. The critical examination shows how competitiveness, objectivity and distance operate as educational ideals within the discourse of data-driven curriculum work, narrowing the educational imagination to what can be expressed in league tables and ranking lists and promoting easy answers to complex questions of what works. These ideals are challenged by non-affirmative theory proposing a more reflexive approach to curriculum work emphasising process rather than outcome, and questions rather than answers as drivers of these processes.

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 in a policy context characterised by individualisation, standardisation and accountability. Methodologically, this text joins a critical tradition of educational policy research, which emphasises the need to combine critical examination with empirical analysis. Critical discourse analysis has been used for the systematic analysis portion of this text. Central official policy texts from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the European Union and the 2011 school reforms in Sweden have been analysed. The results show that while demands for increased professional responsibility among teachers have been made by policy actors at different levels, the neo-liberal policy context offers limited opportunities for teachers to actually exercise this type of professional responsibility, if seen as a communicative practice based on the idea of relative autonomy. The paper concludes with a prospective discussion in which teacher professionalism is linked to the creation and maintenance of ‘spaces of communication’, as well as a look at the challenges faced by policy makers at all levels if they are to facilitate such spaces.

ABSTRACT  Within a policy context, Europe is often described as a knowledge based economy, knowledge understood as fundamental for the European self-identity. The number of companies who regard themselves as knowledge producers has also increased and the role of the universities as leading knowledge producers has changed and they have become increasingly combined with the surrounding society. Altogether a new and complex landscape where knowledge serves many different and diverse purposes. Against this background the aim of this paper is to discuss the continental concept of bildung in terms of counter language. This is done both as a reaction towards global knowledge reductionism and as a definition of how to understand the concept itself. The paper takes its methodological point of departure in the critical discourse analysis (CDA) understanding bildung as a discursive practice. As a reconstructive methodology CDA provides a language to elaborate how people are shaped within discourses and reproduces them in different ways as well as how they can be part of their transformation. Traditionally theories of bildung have drawn on either Kant or Hegel but in this paper the angle is slightly different, although they still remain in the back. A theoretical framework is presented on how to understand bildung in everyday conversations as well as in more formal scientific practices taking pedagogy as an example. Bildung is not seen as an empty concept although it is not the content itself but rather the way it is approached that defines if a communicative practice is cultivating or not, or to what extent it might be regarded as cultivating. Bildung is discussed as a reciprocal approach where everyone must be prepared to revaluation of his or her previous understanding as well as engaged in the cultivation of others by using the possibility of counter language.

The aim of this article is to develop a productive critique of the neoliberal idea of distance as it has come to be expressed within the context of data-driven curriculum policy making. The argument is structured around three expressions of distance (spatial, methodological, and relational) related to different levels of policy making. A critical examination shows that the production and use of numerical data have come to influence policy makers at all levels, equating what is of educational value with what can be made measurable and therefore comparable. Furthermore, it shows that standardizing the way education is thought and acted out by policy makers and practitioners according to an evaluative rationale leads to problematic reduction of the educational imagination, distancing educational actors from each other. Non-affirmative educational theory is used to develop a more reflexive position understanding that the answer to what is of educational value emanates from communicative interactions allowing different educational aims to coexist and influence each other. The productivity of the critique developed in this article, therefore, lies in its ability to enrich the educational discourse and to widen the imagination of the alternatives scenarios of educational futures at hand.

The aim of this article is to show how the European Union (EU) and the Swedish government have recently become co-producers of education policy that increasingly emphasises compulsory education. The paper draws on the following two kinds of empirical material: 1) an analysis of central official policy documents produced by the EU and the Swedish government; and 2) documents related to the development, communication and implementation of country-specific recommendations within the EU, using Sweden as the national policy arena. Theoretically, the paper is inspired by discursive institutionalism and uses critical discourse analysis for the systematic analysis. The result shows that beginning around the mid-2000s, both the EU and the Swedish government have demonstrated an increased interest in compulsory education as a solution to a wide range of societal and individual problems. Initially, the coordination of policy concerned with compulsory education was communicated implicitly, discursively embedded into a variety of policy areas. From 2013 onwards, however, the result shows the emergence of a new and more explicit European policy discourse on compulsory education, which is discussed as an interesting area of research still in its infancy.