Twelve years of upper-secondary education in Sweden: the beginnings of a neo-liberal policy hegemony?

Abstract

In this article we discuss data produced about learning practices and learner identities during the past 12 years of upper-secondary school development in Sweden based on ethnographic fieldwork that has examined these issues with respect to two sets of pupils from these schools: one successful, one unsuccessful. Two things are considered in particular. One is how these pupils and their school activities are described and positioned by teachers. Another is how pupils describe their own activities and position themselves. Some policy changes have been noted across the researched period. Questions relating to participation are considered in relation to them and there is also an attempt to make a connection to a possible social-class relationship. Our main concern however, is for how recent policy changes have been enacted in schools and classrooms and what effects this enactment seems to have had on learner subjectivity and learner identities.