Upgraded curriculum? An analysis of knowledge boundaries in teaching under the Swedish subject-based curriculum*. Issue 3 (3rd July 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Adolfsson, Carl-Henrik
• Is Part Of: Curriculum journal. Volume 29:Issue 3(2018)
• Page Start: 424
• Page End: 440
• Publication Date: 2018-07-03
• Subjects: Curriculum -- social realism -- knowledge boundaries -- subject-based curriculum -- classrooms observations; Education -- Curricula -- Great Britain -- Periodicals; Curriculum planning -- Great Britain -- Periodicals; 375.00941
• DOI: 10.1080/09585176.2018.1442231
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0958-5176

Abstract

ABSTRACT: 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.