Abstract. The aim of this article is to contribute to the ongoing discussion on teacher professionalism by analyzing the professional strategies of Sweden's two teachers' unions from an organizational perspective. Drawing on institutional theory, the article argues that the teachers' unions' focus on strategies of professionalization has as much to do with questions of legitimacy in the eyes of the public, as with any specific effort at transforming the practice of teaching in a professional direction.Against the background of two recent Swedish education reforms, the article shows that the unions are 'trapped' within a normative order emphasizing professionalization as the primary way of organizational development and legitimacy, resulting in a need for the unions to adopt professional attributes. In the case of the Swedish unions, this is accomplished through mimetic processes whereby union policies, aimed at the improvement of teaching, are modeled upon the medical profession, regardless of the differences between the technologies and practices of the occupations. In this way, the professional rhetoric of the unions is decoupled from the practice of teaching in order to maximize the public legitimacy needed for improving the declining societal status of teaching.

For a long time, one of the most important tasks for education in liberal democracies has been to foster the next generation in core democratic values in order to prepare them for future political responsibilities. In spite of this, general trust in the liberal democratic system is in rapid decline. In this paper, the tension between the ambitions of liberal-democratic educational systems and contemporary challenges to central democratic ideas is approached by reconsidering Hannah Arendt's critique of political education. This will be done informed by her analysis of the tension between the concepts of state and nation. By showing how education, depending on its role as a tool of the state or the nation, may be a fundamental requirement for the establishment of a common world or the most effective tool for its destruction, the paper argues for the need to understand Arendt's educational thinking in light of her wider political analysis. Rather than downplaying the provocative aspects of her critique, the paper argues for the need to use it as a starting point for thinking again how education may become an emancipatory undertaking capable of disarming contemporary threats to human plurality and freedom.Education can play no part in politics, because in politics we always have to deal with those who are already educated. the word "education" has an evil sound in politics; there is a pretense of education, when the real purpose is coercion without the use of force.

Taking the latest reform of Swedish teacher education as a point of departure, the aim of this article is to analyse the way Swedish teacher unions construct a knowledge base for teaching as a strategy of professionalisation. The analysis shows that the unions construct such a knowledge base from opposing points of departure. Their professional ambitions are, thus, challenged by processes of intraprofessional boundary work complicating the construction of a unanimous 'voice' of teachers in Swedish education policy debates. This intraprofessional struggle over the meaning of teacher professionalism underlines the political nature of the use of professionalism in the transformed welfare sectors of today. In this respect, the article also underlines the importance of tradition in discussions of what is to be considered a professional teacher. Despite decades of political ambitions to unite Swedish teachers into one single profession, the historical differences between two separate teacher identities continue to fundamentally affect the policy positions of the teacher unions -a development that the recent reorientation of Swedish education policy seems to reinforce. As a result, the usefulness of talking about Swedish teachers as a single profession in the future may be questioned.

Since the mid-1900s, two radically different ideological currents have permeated discussions on the societal role of education in politics, research, and the public debate. On the one hand, there is the perspective of what John Darling and Sven Erik Nordenbo label "progressivism" in a trivial sense. 1 Progressivism, in this sense, denotes a set of commonly accepted educational tenets, not necessarily derived from (or loyal to) any particular progressivist thinker, that have proven very influential in modern educational policy and practice.According to Darling and Nordenbo, these tenets include an ambition "to consider the child's nature, to care for learner-centeredness, to adapt the lessons to the child's 'natural' motivation, to promote children's personal growth and creativity." Arguably, "[t]hese educational approaches form part of a common knowledge in education embraced by nearly all." 2 On the other hand, and seemingly in tension with the above listed progressive ideals, educational discourses have, since the 1960s, been increasingly influenced by economic concepts and ideals. 3 In this context, education is primarily conceived as a means for realizing economic values such as effectiveness, competition, measurability, accountability, and maximization of human capital.

Taika Waititi's recent film 'Hunt for the Wilderpeople' (2016) portrays the coming-of-age of a young boy, Ricky, in a world with few recognisably responsible adults. While the film does not engage explicitly with formal education, it raises several questions central for understanding education as formation, highlighting the generational aspects of educational relations and pointing to the importance of an adult world taking responsibility for the formation and upbringing of the younger generation. Departing from a discussion on the role of formation and intergenerational relations in Rousseau and Arendt, we will draw on the film's portrayal of an adult world in crisis in order to discuss some of its possible consequences for understanding education in terms of intergenerational relations and formation. This involves raising questions about the educational consequences of the absence of recognisably responsible adults and it involves investigating how this absence might impact our understanding of education as the formation and upbringing of educated human beings.We are born weak, we need strength; we are born totally unprovided, we need aid; we are born stupid, we need judgement. Everything we do