Travelling concepts in national curriculum policy-making: the example of competencies

Abstract

In this paper we will address the impact of Europeanisation on national curriculum reforms with empirical reference to the Swedish compulsory school, and based on the concept of competence discuss the question of transnational curriculum convergence. The main interest is directed towards how the answers to the question of what counts as knowledge and skills are changing in national curricula. The analysis shows that the recent Swedish compulsory school reform converges to the broader European knowledge discourse on the underlying level of philosophical ideas, but also that several core concepts used in European policy texts are being reconceptualised and given a different meaning when recontextualised in the national arena.

Discursive institutionalism: towards a framework for analysing the relation between policy and curriculum

“…However, whereas the first compulsory school curriculum within the framework of the 1994 reform, Lpo 94, focused on competencies, its successor, Lgr 11, also included strong demands regarding measurable outcomes. The knowledge focus has, thus, shifted from a competence focus in the 1994 curriculum (Lpo 94) to a results focus (Nordin and Sundberg 2016;Wahlström 2016). The second step in our analysis revealed that central elements of international standards-based curriculum reforms had been appropriated into the core construction of the Swedish national curriculum of 2011 (Lgr 11), including standardised knowledge requirements and their alignment with grading criteria.…”

“…In this sense, Lgr 11 diverges from the EU's transnational education discourse, which, instead, promotes a cross-curricular approach to basic skills and subjects. Therefore, instead of perceiving competencies as an overarching term, Lgr 11 subordinates and adapts the term 'competencies' to specific subject-based knowledge and skills (Nordin and Sundberg 2016).…”

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

“…Instead, the 'abilities' in Lgr 11 are much narrower and more subject-oriented, which implies that these, unlike the key competences within transnational policy, constitute an integral part of subject matter-oriented content. This is also a clear difference compared to the former Swedish curriculum for compulsory schooling from 1994 (Lpo 94), where one found an opposite curriculum structure with a great emphasis on generic, non-subject-specific competences in favour of the traditional subject matter (Nordin & Sundberg, 2016).…”

“…The social realist approach and critique against the new curriculum makes the Swedish curriculum an interesting case. Besides clear influences of the standards-based policy movement, especially in terms of strengthened national knowledge standards, assessment criteria and a predefined knowledge corpus (Sundberg & Wahlstr€ om, 2012;Wahlstr€ om & Sundberg, 2017;Wahlstr€ om, 2016), the Swedish curriculum diverges from the international curriculum movement in a number of central respects (Nordin & Sundberg, 2016).…”

Storytelling and Policy Transfer

“…(Wahlström & Sundberg, 2018) The recognition of persuasive argumentation for legitimisation. It adds to the understanding of policy transfer as not simply driven by cognitive justification (Nordin and Sundberg, 2016).…”