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?
How do adult students enact citizenship, and what discursive and material conditions make certain enactments more or less possible? This article draws on 37 interviews with adult students at Swedish Folk High Schools and focuses on the everyday material-discursive enactments of interactive media in adult students’ statements about citizenship. Drawing on a post-constructional perspective, the analysis illustrates how students’ statements about citizenship are made possible by ever-present media technologies and the associated practices of ‘living in media’. Students’ statements continuously reiterate how notions of citizenship are entangled with the Internet (and other new media). However, while new media are deeply embedded in the everyday lives of citizens and enables important citizenship enactments, they are also a source of discomfort, giving rise to ambiguous statements. These double-edged statements refer on the one hand to negative implications on physical health, distraction from important tasks and an over-reliance on the Internet as an everyday need, and on the other hand to improved access to information, convivial communities and empowered citizenship.
This article argues that sociotechnical imaginaries, defined as collectively held, institutionally stabilized, and publicly performed visions of desirable sociotechnical futures, are significantly connected to visions, policies, and projects of educating citizens. These visions, policies, and projects -or educational imaginariesconstitute ways to problematize, negotiate and ultimately govern citizens and citizenship at the intersection between technology and education. This article presents a model which conceptualizes and analyzes educational imaginaries, and specifically introduces the notion (and method) of 'problematizations' into these imaginaries. The model, consisting of four key components -technology, problematizations, collective actors, and target populations -is exemplified through a genealogy of the education of the 'digitalized citizen'.
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