A curriculum tailored for workers? Knowledge organization and possible transitions in Swedish VET

Abstract

A key feature of the Swedish upper secondary school reform of 2011 (GY11) is the new direction it sets out for the organization of vocational education (VET) and the role it plays in youths’ transitions from school to work. This study analyses the GY11 reform in terms of its impact on the organization of knowledge in VET and its implications for students’ prospects of transitioning from VET to work or higher education, and for their roles as citizens. To understand its likely consequences, GY11 is analysed in the context of practices in a school class for the Vehicle programme steered by the curriculum prior to GY11. The theoretical concepts used are drawn from Basil Bernstein and his distinctions between knowledge organized into horizontal and vertical discourses. The findings of the study suggest that GY11 reinforces an already strong emphasis on horizontally organized knowledge in VET by placing great importance on strongly context-bound, skill-oriented knowledge. This implies a stronger exclusion of VET students, primarily with working-class backgrounds, from vertical discourses and limits the possible transitions of youths taking the VET-route by reducing their access to higher education and their capacity to function as both workers and citizens.

Keywords:

• Curriculum evaluation
• vocational education
• equal education
• social class
• Bernstein

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council under [grant number VR 2006-2694].

Notes

1. Swedish (or Swedish as a second language) 100p, English 100p, Mathematics 100p, Physical Education 100p, History 50p, Civics 50p, Religion 50p, Science 50p.

2. Only two year cohorts have finished upper secondary school since the GY11 reform was implemented. There are thus no official statistics published. The data presented here derive from email correspondence with statistician Åke Lerenfalk, at Swedish Council for Higher Education.

3. The 25: 4 rule was introduced by the social democratic government in Sweden to reduce social bias in recruitment to higher education. It stated that anyone over the age of 25 who had upper secondary qualifications in Swedish and 4 years of documented work was eligible to apply to study at university.