Historieämnets grammatik – Undervisningens syfte i en förändrad utbildningskonception

Abstract

This essay departs from the perception that in a Swedish context of educational policy, a change in the educational conception has occurred, from a democratic conception of education to an instrumental one. The purpose of the study is to explore how the purpose of the history subject can be understood in relation to this change. This is done through a comparative analysis of how the three functions of education – qualification, socialization and subjectification – takes shape in the history subject in curriculum documents. Three Swedish curriculum documents are used in the comparison. The curriculum of 1980, as an expression of a democratic conception of education, the curriculum of 2011 and a proposal for a revised syllabus for the history subject, as expressions of an instrumental conception of education. The study finds that the understanding of the purpose of the history subject has changed. Within a democratic conception of education, the purpose of history instruction is primarily understood in terms of socialization and to some extent subjectification. Within an instrumental conception of education on the other hand, the purpose is almost exclusively understood in terms of qualification, at the cost of socialization and especially subjectification