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

• Published in: Curriculum journal (London, England) Vol. 29; no. 3; pp. 424 - 440
• Main Author: Adolfsson, Carl-Henrik
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Routledge 01.09.2018; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Classrooms observations; Compulsory Education; Course Content; Criticism; Curricula; Curriculum; Educational Practices; Elementary School Teachers; Foreign Countries; Knowledge; Knowledge boundaries; Knowledge Level; National Curriculum; Pedagogics and Educational Sciences; Pedagogik och Utbildningsvetenskap; Social realism; Social Studies; Students; Subject-based curriculum; Teacher Attitudes; Teacher Student Relationship; Teachers; Teaching; Teaching Methods; Video Technology; Sweden
• ISSN: 0958-5176; 1469-3704; 1469-3704
• DOI: 10.1080/09585176.2018.1442231

This article offers a contribution to the current debate about knowledge and the curriculum, especially initiated by social realist writers. The enacted Swedish subject-based curriculum for compulsory schooling is examined and is also used as a significant case with the aim of discussing practical implications of social realist claims regarding knowledge and the curriculum. Video-recorded lessons from grade six in six different Swedish schools, in combination with teacher interviews, are explored within the scope of a curriculum theory framework with the purpose of illuminating dominant patterns of knowledge boundaries and knowledge conceptions. The study shows how the Swedish subject-based curriculum frames teaching in a direction where a disciplinary knowledge conception with fixed knowledge boundaries predominates over other knowledge forms. The subject-based curriculum also appears to produce an 'overloading' of content, which implies that pupils' questions and experiences are avoided and dismissed in the teaching practice.