In this article we investigate the implications of a market orientation of adult education for teachers’ work with the curriculum and for the goals and purposes of education. By focusing on municipal adult education (MAE) in Sweden, we provide a unique case. Firstly, Sweden has one of the most market oriented systems in the world, and secondly, the market orientation of adult education is not well researched in Sweden nor elsewhere, thus providing strong empirical ground contributing to the wider international discussion. Drawing on Bernstein’s concept “pedagogic code” we analyse interviews with 63 teachers within MAE. Our analysis illustrates how the market steering leads to conflicts between goals stated in the curriculum and goals that emerge from a market-oriented code narrowing the aim of MAE, isolating it from broader goals such as being compensatory and meeting the needs of students replacing them with goals such as profit-making and competition.

Nu har du kommit till sista kapitlet i boken. Det var mycket som jag ska lära mig, tänker kanske du som ska bli yrkeslärare! Eller så har du redan arbetat några år som yrkeslärare och nu fått en del erfarenhetskunskaper bekräftade, men också mött nya kunskaper, tankar och perspektiv på läraryrket. Eller så är du någon, till exempel en skolledare, som vill orientera dig om eller vidga dina kunskaper om yrkeslärare och vad deras uppdrag och lärararbete innebär i vardagen. I det här kapitlet summerar och resonerar vi om det specifika med yrkeslärare och yrkesdidaktik.

Att vara lärare i yrkesämnen är ett komplext uppdrag med utmaningar specifika för just yrkesutbildning. Det handlar om att stödja elevers lärande av olika slags yrkeskunskaper, vara länken mellan skola och arbetsliv och att samverka med elevernas handledare på arbetsplatser...[Bokinfo]

Som yrkeslärare har du sedan tidigare kunskap om hur det är att vara verksam inom ditt yrke. Du känner till hur arbetet på till exempel ett bygge, vårdboende eller VVS-företag fungerar, vilka regler och bestämmelser som strukturerar ditt arbete där, samt hur styrningen inom ditt yrkeområde kan gå till i övrigt. Du har behövt sådana kunskaper för att kunna agera, och uppfattas av andra, som en kvalificerad yrkesutövare inom ditt yrkesområde. När du arbetar som yrkeslärare inom yrkesutbildningar inom skolväsendet behöver du av samma skäl ha sådan kunskap om den verksamhet du arbetar i. Det gäller att ha kunskaper om organisation och styrning men också förståelse för vad som utgör ramarna för uppdraget som yrkeslärare. Syftet med detta kapitel är att bidra med sådan kunskap.

The idea of basing professional practice on evidence has been discussed worldwide for decades across various societal sectors, with education being a key focus (Eryaman & Schneider, 2017). Within the education sector, a prominent discourse concerns the issue of integrating research and practice-based knowledge to, among others, improve student learning. Aligning with such discourse, Sweden became the first country to mandate by Law in 2010 that education in the public school system must rest on scientific foundation and proven experience (Rapp et al., 2017). Consequently, all teachers in compulsory and upper secondary schools, as well as municipal adult education, must adapt to this law. To help teachers with interpretation and implementation, educational authorities provide guidance on how research-based methods and routines can improve teaching (e.g., Swedish National Agency for Education, 2014, 2020). However, one of the main adult education institutions in Sweden, the folk high schools (FHS), is governed by different legislation.

FHS are instead based on the ideal of “free and voluntary” popular education (Bill 2013/14:172; Laginder et al., 2013). This freedom allows schools to develop their own courses and organize teaching in ways they seem fit. No state-reinforced standardized curricula regulate these courses. At the same time, such freedom poses challenges for teachers in interpreting their teaching mission, particularly regarding central pedagogical concepts (Harlin, 2014). Although more independent than the public school system, FHS are influenced by broader societal ideas and discourses within education. Thus, for example, policies of basing teaching on scientific foundation and proven experience are picked up by FHS themselves; this is the case with those schools who provide the youth recreation leader program which prepares adults for work with children and young people. Since 1991 these schools, in agreement with the non-profit umbrella organization Fritidsledarskolorna, state that education must build on scientific foundation and from 2010 also on proven experience (Ruschkowski, 2020). In doing so, these schools deliberately use their freedom to govern themselves in line with national policies that formally do not legally regulate their activities. This freedom to self-govern, therefore, makes the ways in which these policies are picked up within FHS an interesting empirical case for further scrutiny.

This study aims to identify how key policy actors within Swedish FHS interpret and transform the policy of education based on scientific foundation and proven experience over time. The selection of actors, based on their relevance to the youth recreation leader program, includes Fritidsledarskolorna, the Swedish National Board of Education, the Swedish National Council of Adult Education, and the Swedish government. Drawing on curriculum theory (Lindensjö & Lundgren, 2014), the study enables analysis of what constitutes valid knowledge, the purpose for its selection, and who is involved in the selection process. The analysis builds on 124 policy documents, totaling 7300 pages, including annual organization reports, curricula, and government bills and reports spanning from 1974 to 2024. Preliminary findings indicate three transformations: (1) from education based on proven experience to education based on scientific foundation; (2) from education based on scientific foundation as the teaching content to scientific foundation as the teaching carry-out; and (3) from the purpose of education based on scientific foundation and proven experience being uniformity to the purpose being quality. 

This study contributes to the dialogue on how policy is shaped in schools that use their freedom to self-govern in line with national policies that formally do not regulate their activities. Such contribution illustrates which meanings are made possible through policy, which in turn shapes some of the possibilities for how teaching and learning might be organized in adult education.

References

Bill 2013/14:172. Allas Kunskap – Allas Bildning [Everybody’s Knowledge – Everybody’s Bildung]. Government Offices of Sweden. https://data.riksdagen.se/fil/EEC16A17-3600-49FE-A33E-5F3A9C41B0B2

Eryaman, M. Y., & Schneider, B. (2017). Introduction. In M. Y. Eryaman & B. Schneider (Eds.), Evidence and public good in educational policy, research and practice (Vol. 6, pp. xvii–xxxi). Springer.

Harlin, E.-M. (2014). Om folkhögskollärares professionalisering med video som verktyg [On folk high school teachers’ professionalisation with video as a tool]. In Årsbok om folkbildning 2013. Forskning & utveckling (pp. 90–102). Föreningen för folkbildningsforskning.

Laginder, A.-M., Nordvall, H., & Crowther, J. (Eds.). (2013). Popular education, power and democracy: Swedish experiences and contributions. Niace.

Lindensjö, B., & Lundgren, U. P. (2014). Utbildningsreformer och politisk styrning [Educational reform and political governance] (2nd ed.). Liber.

Rapp, S., Segolsson, M., & Kroksmark, T. (2017). The Education Act – conditions for a research-based school. A frame-factor theoretical thinking. International Journal of Research and Education, 2(2), 1–13. https://hj.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1132830/FULLTEXT01.pdf

Ruschkowski, A. (2020). Folkhögskolans utformning av vetenskaplig grund och beprövad erfarenhet: En mixad-metodstudie med fritidsledarutbildningen i fokus [The design of scientific foundation and proven experience in Swedish folk high schools: A mixed methods study focusing on the Youth recreation leader program] [Report]. https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-201567

Swedish National Agency for Education. (2014). Research for classrooms: Scientific knowledge and proven experience in practice.

Swedish National Agency for Education. (2020). Att ställa frågor och söka svar: Samarbete för vetenskaplig grund och beprövad erfarenhet [Asking questions and seeking answers: Collaboration on scientific foundation and proven experience].

I Sverige är yrkesutbildningen skolbaserad, inte i den meningen att utbildningen bara sker i skolan utan i den meningen att det är skolan som ansvarar för utbildningen - även när den sker som lärande på arbetsplatser. Det är också offentliga medel som finansierar den svenska yrkesutbildningen, oavsett om eleverna är ungdomar eller vuxna. Så är inte fallet i alla länder. Men hur kommer det sig att det är just så här vår yrkesutbildning är organiserad? Svaret på den frågan får vi genom att utforska den historiska utveckling som lett fram till där vi är i dag och vad som påverkat den.

Contemporary vocational education and training (VET), both initial and higher, is strongly market oriented, and governments shape systems with significant roles for employers. The study presented in this article aims at examining how employers are positioned in the practice of VET provision in such a system. Specifically, it recognises and interprets how employers are positioned in the provision of state-funded Swedish higher VET as expressions of relative power and control. The study was conducted using interviews with educational personnel and observations of meetings between employers and VET programme providers.

In the past decades’ global debate on grounding professional practices in evidence, Sweden became the first country to take a stand by legislating in 2010 that education in the public school system must be based on a scientific foundation and proven experience (Rapp et al., 2017). This Education Act applies to all teachers within compulsory and upper secondary schools and municipal adult education. However, another form of Swedish adult education - the folk high schools - is instead governed by the ideal of "free and voluntary" popular education (Laginder et al., 2013). Such freedom provides different opportunities to both develop courses and organize teaching. Some folk high schools exercise their independence by self-governing through the Youth Recreation Leader (YRL) program, adopting national policies closely aligned with those of the Act (Ruschkowski, 2020). This paper addresses how the policy of education based on a scientific foundation and proven experience is taken up within the YRL program at folk high schools in Sweden. We draw on curriculum theory as developed by Lindensjö and Lundgren (2014), particularly the concepts of policy formulation, policy transformation, and policy realization, to analyze ways in which actors in the formulation arena interpret and transform this policy. The empirical data to be analyzed incorporated 63 documents within and beyond the YRL program from 1976 to 2017, spanning 4200 pages. These documents included the program’s national curriculum, government policies on the folk high school and Swedish popular education, and reports from the Swedish National Council of Adult Education. Preliminary findings suggest that early formulations of education based on a scientific foundation emphasize various collaborations with researchers in higher education. By contrast, later ones shift the focus toward teachers’ utilization of research-based literature in classrooms. Finally, the initial formulations on proven experience underscore teachers’ collaboration and professional development.