Departing from Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality, the focus of this article is the introduction of entrepreneurial education in Swedish education policy at the turn of the millennium. We analyze the various meanings attached to the concepts of “entrepreneur” and “entrepreneurship” in education policy documents, as well as the main arguments for introducing entrepreneurial education. In policy documents, the “entrepreneur” is portrayed as being flexible, creative, enterprising and independent, as having the ability to take initiative, solve problems and make decisions. Here, there is an emphasis made on economical utility, and its priority over other values. With an increasing mobilization of entrepreneurship in school, previous pedagogical and educational doctrines - focusing on equality, universalism and redistribution - are challenged. Other visions, stating other educational purposes and goals emerge. In the vision of the entrepreneurial school, it becomes logical and natural to emphasize the value education has for the economic system. In conclusion, entrepreneurial education may be seen as a particular kind of governmentality, connecting students and their subjectivity to the rationality of the market - fostering subjects in line with the imperatives of the “advances liberal society”.
Official declarations state that Sweden is today a multicultural society. At the same time, ethnic hierarchies have become increasingly conspicuous in contemporary Sweden. Recently, a governmental inquiry on structural discrimination in Swedish society presented a report analysing the relationship between the multi‐ethnic composition of the Swedish population and participation in Swedish politics. This article discusses some of the main findings of the report. On the basis of a number of case studies, it illustrates how inequalities in terms of participation and influence in Swedish politics are (re)produced. One of the main conclusions drawn in the article is that all citizens that participate in Swedish politics are faced with a series of routines, conventions and idea(l)s categorising citizens according to their perceived closeness to a Swedish ‘normality’. Thus, democracy not only constitutes a formalised system of impartial procedures and conventions, routines and norms that regulate the political process in a way that guarantees freedom and equality to all participants. Rather, political participation also reflects exclusionary practices long well‐documented in, for example, the housing and labour markets. In order to understand these practices, it is necessary to examine the historical interconnections between nationalism and democracy. By means of the recurrent characterisation of Swedish democracy as specifically Swedish, it becomes the job of Swedes to ‘enlighten’ the ‘immigrants’ to become ‘Swedish democrats’. This specific conceptualisation of democracy is founded on the ideal of an archaic national community, which in contemporary multi‐ethnic Sweden is not capable of including the whole population on equal terms.
Abstract:This article studies the recognition of newly arrived students (NAS) knowledge in Swedish career guidance. It aims to analyze how career guidance (CG) counsellors at public schools a) describe and assess the already existing knowledge and competences of NAS, and b) express opinions towards their viewpoints on learning, education and work. The article is based on a qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews with five CG counsellors. The notion of "recognition" denote both the evaluation of a) knowledge and b) the general attitudes towards educational choosing. The acts of evaluation studied are informal in character, and derive from interviews with CG counsellors. The knowledge of NAS about the labor market and the educational system are considered inadequate, and that their vocational aspirations were held to be erratic, narrow and rigid. Educational preferences and strategies influenced by a collectivistic ethos are regarded as pedagogically and ethically erroneous, and are not recognized.
The aim of this article is to describe and discuss professionalism and professionalisation of career guidance counselling in Sweden in relation to different logics of professional practice. The transformation of the labour market and the educational system in Sweden over the past decades has led to an increase in the importance of individual educational and occupational choices and development of career management skills in relation to individual trajectories based on personal interests. Also, individual agency has increased in importance in relation to the quantitative planning of secondary and tertiary education aiming to match supply and demand in the labour market. Within the dominant functionalistic technical-instrumental paradigm, which focus on individual agency and rational choices, the importance of career guidance and counselling has increasingly come into focus. Through the incorporation of marketoriented management logics in the welfare sector, the previously dominant logics of professional responsibility have in many professional groups been replaced by professional accountability. In Sweden, the process of professionalising the emerging semi-profession of career guidance and counselling is driven by policymakers. Rather than being defined by practising professionals, professionalism is externally defined in reports and policy documents shaped by elites and experts, outlining core competences in career guidance and counselling related to political objectives. The practice of career guidance and counselling is not strongly governed and there is little external evaluation. The professionals have autonomy and relatively high degrees of freedom in formulating problems and solutions, but little organisational support.
ABSTRAKTSyftet med denna artikel är att diskutera professionalism och professionalisering av studie-och yrkesvägledning i Sverige i relation till olika logiker för organisering av professionellt arbete. Arbetsmarknaden och utbildningsystemen i Sverige har genomgått betydande strukturella förändringar under de senaste decennierna, vilka har medfört att betydelsen av individuella studie-och yrkesval samt utvecklingen av karriärkompetens har ökat, i relation till såväl individens livsbanor som matchningen
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