Swedish – An updated school subject?

Abstract

The focus in this article is the extent to which the school subject of Swedish in the new national curriculum in Sweden introduced in 2011 (compulsory school) has been updated in relation to ways of discussing mother tongue education. Discourse analysis is used to analyse the syllabus for Swedish from 2011. A comparison is made with the previous syllabus from 1994 in order to see if any changes have been made. The main finding is that the syllabus from 2011 is primarily updated with fundamental aspects of the genre approach. This is interpreted as a reason for the observed foregrounding of language and downgrading of literature in the curriculum. Further, two traditions of the teaching of Swedish in school are discussed. The first tradition concerns the focus on the formal aspects of language. The second tradition concerns the invisible socio-political perspective in the lower grades, and this perspective’s low-key character in the upper grades. It is concluded that these traditions are still alive and strongly influencing the curriculum.

Key Words:

• syllabus for the subject of Swedish
• discourse analysis
• mother tongue education