Upgraded curriculum? An analysis of knowledge boundaries in teaching under the Swedish subject-based curriculum

This article offers a contribution to the current debate about knowledge and the curriculum, especially initiated by social realist writers. The enacted Swedish subject-based curriculum for compulsory schooling is examined and is also used as a significant case with the aim of discussing practical i...

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Published in:Curriculum journal (London, England) Vol. 29; no. 3; pp. 424 - 440
Main Author: Adolfsson, Carl-Henrik
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London Routledge 01.09.2018
John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Subjects:
Boundaries
Classrooms observations
Compulsory Education
Course Content
Criticism
Curricula
Curriculum
Educational Practices
Elementary School Teachers
Foreign Countries
Knowledge
Knowledge boundaries
Knowledge Level
National Curriculum
Pedagogics and Educational Sciences
Pedagogik och Utbildningsvetenskap
Social realism
Social Studies
Students
Subject-based curriculum
Teacher Attitudes
Teacher Student Relationship
Teachers
Teaching
Teaching Methods
Video Technology
Sweden
ISSN:0958-5176, 1469-3704, 1469-3704
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:This article offers a contribution to the current debate about knowledge and the curriculum, especially initiated by social realist writers. The enacted Swedish subject-based curriculum for compulsory schooling is examined and is also used as a significant case with the aim of discussing practical implications of social realist claims regarding knowledge and the curriculum. Video-recorded lessons from grade six in six different Swedish schools, in combination with teacher interviews, are explored within the scope of a curriculum theory framework with the purpose of illuminating dominant patterns of knowledge boundaries and knowledge conceptions. The study shows how the Swedish subject-based curriculum frames teaching in a direction where a disciplinary knowledge conception with fixed knowledge boundaries predominates over other knowledge forms. The subject-based curriculum also appears to produce an 'overloading' of content, which implies that pupils' questions and experiences are avoided and dismissed in the teaching practice.
Bibliography:This article builds on results from the project ‘Understanding Curriculum Reforms – A Theory‐Oriented Evaluation of the Swedish Curriculum Reform Lgr 11’ 2014–2016, funded by the Swedish Research Council.
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ISSN:0958-5176
1469-3704
1469-3704
DOI:10.1080/09585176.2018.1442231