Good to Be Different? On Cosmopolitanism, Pluralism and ‘the Good Child’ in Swedish Educational Policy
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24834/educare.2013.2.1168Keywords:
cosmopolitanism, difference, education for sustainable development, the good child, undecidablesAbstract
Being a part of a larger project on subject positions of the child in policy documents and teaching materials, this article focuses on the role of undecidables in the fabrication of the so-called good child in the Swedish curriculum for the compulsory school. Within a framework of governmentality, the curriculum represents technologies of government, providing an undecidable terrain open for interpretation and decisions by subjects. Through the lens of education for sustainable development, I have selected five school subjects of particular interest for analysis: biology, civics, geography, home and consumer studies, and physical education and health. By focusing on the undecidable olika, meaning ‘different’, in the five syllabi, a pattern of features designating the good child emerges: (1) science-based categorization, (2) the lifelong learner, (3) the informed consumer, and (4) celebration of diversity. These four features represent a political rationale characterised by a contradictory amalgamation of cosmopolitanism and value pluralism. In combination with an increased emphasis on measurement and assessment in Swedish education, this reinforces abjection processes in school, separating ‘the good child’ and ’the child left behind’.
References
Biesta, Gert J J (2010). Good education in an age of measurement: Ethics, politics, democracy. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers.
Derrida, Jacques (1988). Limited Inc. Northwestern University Press.
Dryzek, John S and Niemayer, Simon (2006). Reconciling Pluralism and Consensus as Political Ideals. American Journal of Political Science. 50(3), 634–649.
Foucault, Michel (1991). 'Governmentality'. In Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon and Peter Miller (Eds.), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, (pp. 87–104). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. (Original text translated by Rosi Braidotti and revised by Colin Gordon)
Hargreaves, Andy (2003). Teaching in the Knowledge Society, Education in the age of insecurity. New York: Teachers College Press.
Laclau, Ernesto and Mouffe, Chantal (2001). Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. Second Edition. London: Verso.
Norval, Aletta J (2004). Hegemony after deconstruction: the consequences of undecidability. Journal of Political Ideologies, 9(2), 139–157.
Popkewitz, Thomas S, Olsson, Ulf & Pettersson, Kenneth (2006). The Learning Society, the Unfinished Cosmopolitan, and Governing Education, Public Health and Crime Prevention at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 38(4), 431-449.
Popkewitz, Thomas S (2009). Kosmopolitism i skolreformernas tidevarv. Vetenskap, utbildning och samhällsskapande genom konstruktionen av barnet. Avancerade studier i pedagogik. Liber: Stockholm. (Original in English: (2008). Cosmopolitanism and the Age of School Reform. Science, Education, and Making Society by Making the Child. Taylor and Francis).
Rose, Nicholas & Miller, Peter (2010). Political power beyond the State: problematics of government. British Journal of Sociology, 61(1), 271-303.
Skolverket (2011). Läroplan för grundskolan, förskoleklassen och fritidshemmet 2011. Stockholm: Fritzes. (English version (2011). Curriculum for the compulsory school, preschool class and the leisure-time centre 2011. Stockholm: Fritzes.)
UNESCO, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (2000). The Dakar Framework for Action. Education for All: Meeting our Collective Commitments. Adopted by the World Education Forum. Dakar, Senegal, 26-28 April 2000.
Wordle (2013) Good to be different? Word cloud published by Per Hillbur 2013-10-10. http://www.wordle.net
