State Control and Governance of Schooling and Their Effects on French, German, and Spanish Learning in Swedish Compulsory School, 1996–2011

ABSTRACT

In Swedish compulsory school, students can choose to study a modern language in addition to English, i.e., French, Spanish, or German. Since 1994, instruction time for modern languages has been extended, the learning objectives have been made more attainable, and national assessment materials have been introduced. The government made these changes so that more students would study modern languages and achieve the syllabus goals. Existing statistics, however, indicate that these changes have been ineffectual compared to earlier years. Sixteen modern language teachers were interviewed about why state policies have failed. The results suggest that political intentions have not been realized for several interacting reasons. First, the state lacks a central school administration to translate political intentions into concrete goals. Second, teachers have not perceived the reforms as important. Third, government actions are not aligned with research explanations of why students do not choose to study modern languages.

KEYWORDS:

• Curriculum studies
• modern languages
• municipalization
• state control
• governance

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

^‡ Following submission the corresponding author has changed institutions and is currently affiliated with Borås University, Sweden.

1 The decentralization of Swedish schooling has been a long process. It began in the 1970s with a change of the rules governing how municipalities could use state economic resources for education. The 1980 curriculum introduced new principles for governance by goals; these were further developed in the 1994 curriculum. In 1991 the municipalization reform gave municipalities full responsibility for all school staff and for deciding how resources should be allocated.