Transnational competence frameworks and national curriculum-making: the case of Sweden

ABSTRACT

Competence-based approaches (CBAs) in education have become an internationally important educational policy concept in recent decades. However, a substantial body of research has suggested that in order to understand and explain the evolution of CBAs, there is a need to analyse curriculum-making as a complex and multi-layered practice. To contribute to this research field, this paper makes use of Vivien Schmidt’s concept of discursive-institutionalism (DI), which focuses on ideas and discourse. First, we compare ideas of competences as expressed in four influential CBA frameworks, and second, we exemplify how these ideas, with special reference to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, have been translated when re-contextualised within Swedish curriculum policy-making. The results show that when re-contextualised within national borders, transnational ideas of competences are reconfigured. In the case of Sweden, this process has led to a national interpretation of CBAs, discussed in this paper as ‘hybrid competences.’

KEYWORDS:

• Competences/competencies
• competence-based approaches in education
• knowledge
• discursive institutionalism
• curriculum policy
• transnational

Introduction

In recent years, many countries have experienced a significant institutional and epistemological reframing of their national curriculum policy-making, as powerful organisations such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the European Union (EU) have started to promote competence-based approaches (CBAs).¹ Although not an entirely global phenomenon, this reframing has affected the way in which curricular knowledge is developed, conceptualised, implemented, and assessed in classrooms in different parts of the world as part of travelling reforms (Anderson-Levitt, Bonnéry, and Fichtner 2017; Hopmann 2008; Morgan and Shahjahan 2014; Takayama 2013; Voogt and Roblin 2012). However, policy transfers seldom involve a linear process of implementation; a dynamic process ensues instead when powerful global discourses meet national cultures and traditions (cf. Anderson-Levitt 2003). National contexts matter for the way(s) in which global policies take shape within national borders, with attention being placed on processes of recontextualisation, translation, and legitimation (Nordin and Sundberg 2014; Steiner-Khamsi 2012; Schulte 2016; Schriewer 2016; Waldow 2012).

The promotion of CBAs has been analysed and deconstructed as part of transnational discursive agendas, promoting the building of strong knowledge economies (e.g. Labaree 2014; Meyer 2014) and individualised lifelong learning policies (e.g. Takayama 2013). It has also been examined as part of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) discourse and a more general trend towards management by measurement (e.g. Addey et al. 2017). However, although some national case studies have been carried out (e.g. Baek et al. 2018; Nordin and Sundberg 2016), studies on CBAs adopting an analytical lens that lends explanatory power to the national context are still sparse (Anderson-Levitt, Bonnéry, and Fichtner 2017).

The aim of this paper is to contribute to such comparative research on CBAs where the national context is acknowledged as the main site for understanding processes of policy transfer (cf. Steiner-Khamsi 2012). This is done first by examining and comparing influential transnational competence frameworks that, together with others, make up the complex context which national policy-makers and politicians must navigate. Second, the 2011 Swedish curriculum reform is examined as an example of how transnational discourses, with special reference to the OECD, are sometimes translated and reinterpreted in unexpected ways in order to fit domestic policy agendas, thus enabling politicians to maintain public legitimacy. The following questions have guided the analyses: (1) What characterises the conceptualisation of competence in four selected influential transnational competence frameworks, and what convergences and/or divergences can be identified? (2) How are transnational ideas on competence translated and reconfigured when re-contextualised in the 2011 Swedish curriculum reform? (3) How are competences/skills defined and positioned in the Swedish context?

The paper consists of three main sections. In the first section, discursive institutionalism (DI) is outlined as a theoretical and methodological point of departure for analysing policy-making within and between different policy levels. The second section directs the analytical focus to the four selected influential transnational competence frameworks making up the transnational context for national policy-making today, and the third and final section focuses on the 2011 curriculum reform in Sweden as an example of how transnational discourses (in the Swedish case, dominated by the OECD) can become subject to translation and reconfiguration when re-contextualised at the national policy level. The paper ends with conclusions and suggestions for further research.

Policy-making as discourse and ideas

Focusing on policy-making as a process of translation and legitimation directs attention to its discursive aspects and how it is possible to think about and act on policy-making at a certain point in time and space (cf. Broschek 2016; Waldow 2012). To capture these discursive processes, the analytical focus, in turn, has to be directed towards local policy contexts, where aspects such as timing, impact, process, and agency are crucial to the way in which global policies are translated and legitimated (Steiner-Khamsi and Waldow 2012). A focus on translation and legitimation also facilitates an understanding of policy transfer as a multi-directional and multi-purpose process that is not entirely guided by rational and calculable principles (cf. Broschek 2016). As pointed out by Steiner-Khamsi (2012, 7, italics in original), ‘local problems are sometimes created in line with packaged global solutions, rather than the other way around,’ thus highlighting the fact that global policies can be used in their entirety or in a piecemeal manner to legitimate a variety of policy actions at the local level.

In this study, we make use of Vivien Schmidt’s discursive institutionalism (DI) (2011, 2015, 2016) as a theoretical approach to analyse these discursive processes of translating and legitimating transnational CBAs, as expressed in some influential transnational competence frameworks and Swedish curriculum policy-making from 2011 onwards. We deliberately use the term ‘transnational’ rather than ‘global’ or ‘international’ when it comes to describing how policy ideas travel, since it emphasises the entanglement of the interaction between multiple levels and actors across binary demarcations of national or global policies. DI grew out of a critique of the older branches of neo-institutionalism, which Schmidt argued placed too much emphasis on institutions as historically path-dependent and populated by rational actors: ‘Discursive institutionalism, by contrast, takes a more dynamic view of change (and continuity) by concentrating on the substantive ideas developed and conveyed by “sentient” agents in discursive interaction that inform their policy-oriented actions which in turn serve to alter (or maintain) “institutions”’ (Schmidt 2011, 107). Here, the term ‘discourse’ is used in a generic way, encompassing both the substantive content of ideas and the interactive process where these ideas are conveyed. DI distinguishes between two types of discursive interaction in relation to different policy levels: coordinative discourse at the transnational and national levels, where policies are discursively constructed as a set of shared cognitive ideas guiding future policy actions of ‘sentient’ (thinking, speaking, and acting) agents, and the communicative discourse in the political sphere, where politicians interact to maintain public legitimacy. The concept of a coordinative discourse is used herein to capture the coordination of ideas taking place within and between powerful organisations such as the OECD, the EU, and the Swedish government in trying to establish what Haas (1992) has referred to as an ‘epistemic community,’ emphasising CBAs in national curriculum policy-making, while a communicative discourse refers to the interaction taking place between the Swedish government and the public in order for national politicians to gain and/or maintain public legitimacy.

Background and foreground ideas

Beyond a distinction between the two types of discursive interaction being made, we will make use of Schmidt’s distinction regarding the substantive content of such a discursive interaction in terms of background and foreground ideas.

Background ideas refer to underlying assumptions guiding human action – the lenses through which people interpret and make sense of the world and which sit at the deepest level of the generality of idea: ‘Background ideas are core principles that generally stay in the “background” as underlying assumptions, deep philosophies, or taken-for-granted ideas that are rarely questioned or contested except in times of crisis’ (Schmidt 2016, 230).

These are the principles that guide the way in which education and schooling are thought of and organised at a fundamental level. As such, background ideas are understood as malleable structures, slowly evolving and being reshaped through their use by actors at different policy levels (Schmidt 2016).

Foreground ideas, on the other hand, are conscious ideas, discussed and debated on a regular basis, which direct attention to the notion of agency and the performativity of ideas. These are the ideas and concepts structuring educational programmes and that are used in political debate. People are not just passive holders of ideas, but are active, as they share their conscious ideas with others in discursive interactions that can lead to collective action (Schmidt 2015). It is these foreground ideas that enable people to argue, deliberate, and communicate in discursive interactions on how to take individual and/or collective action to maintain and/or alter institutions and their structures. Thus, foreground ideas not only enable the questioning of the ideas of others, but also of one’s own mental disposition and hidden assumptions. Unlike background ideas, these kinds of ideas change more rapidly as actors use their agency and discursive abilities. A focus on curriculum policy-making as ideas and discourse thus means a focus on the discursive interaction of ideas, as they constitute social institutions and govern human interactions within and between different policy levels (Wahlström and Sundberg 2018).

Transnational competence frameworks

While competence-based education is a recent worldwide phenomenon, the use of the concept of competence related to education policy-making is not new. The concept has old roots in the field of curriculum studies and the so-called competence movement that started in the United States in the 1960s and that later spread internationally with its origins in the mastery learning models in vocational education and training dating back to the 1920s that drew on Burrhus Frederic Skinner’s (1904–1990) work on behavioural psychology (Tahirsylaj 2017). When the concept of competence-based education was reintroduced in education policy-making in the 1990s, it was a way to bring about a wider ideational shift from governing by input (educational planning) to governing by learning outcomes. Anderson-Levitt, Bonnéry, and Fichtner (2017) trace the new competence movement to Delors’ UNESCO Report, ‘Learning: The Treasure Within’ (1996) issued by the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-First Century. In the report, UNESCO suggests that future education should be built upon four key pillars: learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together, and learning to be, with the background idea being lifelong learning inside and outside of the formal educational system. The report started a flow of frameworks on how future education should adapt to a fast-paced, late modern knowledge-based economy.

Today, there are many international actors and organisations pushing for CBA reforms and for the integration of competences into national curriculum policies and frameworks. Along with the various notions of competences, such scripts are often accompanied by specifications for types of teaching, learning, and assessment for schools and teachers. Terminology for competences also vary, and are referred to for, example, as ‘twenty-first-century skills’, ‘lifelong learning competences’, and ‘key competences’ (e.g. European Parliament 2007; OECD 2005). These definitions have much in common and all include general elements of collaboration, communication, ICT literacy, and social/cultural skills, often along with skills such as civic participation, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving (see also Voogt and Roblin 2012). A systematic research review on competence-based curricula in international literature (Tahirsylaj and Sundberg 2020) shows that one of the most quoted and influential definitions of competences comes from Franz E. Weinert, in which they are viewed as the ‘cognitive skills and abilities individuals possess or can learn to solve particular problems, and the associated motivational, volitional and social readiness and abilities to solve problems successfully and responsibly in a variety of situations’ (Weinert 2001, 27). This definition was also used in the influential OECD DeSeCo project, which accordingly defines competence as ‘the ability to successfully meet complex demands in a particular context’ (Rychen, Salganik, and McLaughlin 2003, 2).

Influential competence frameworks

In comparing policy frameworks for competence-based curricula, one central feature concerns the relationship between the way the target competences/skills are defined and positioned in relation to knowledge as defined by traditional school subjects. These subjects are not simple categories that can be replaced by notions of general competences, but need to be understood as deeply institutionalised patterns which form strong background ideas and premises for national curriculum policy-making (Benavot and Braslavsky 2006). Since there are many different frameworks at play, it is an impossible task to try to grasp the entire picture. Herein, the scope is limited to four frameworks which we have found to be among the more influential ones in transnational policy discourses: The Assessment and Teaching of Twenty-first Century Skills (ATC21S; Binkley et al. 2010), Partnership for Twenty-first Century Skills (P21 2019a), the Definition and Selection of Competences (DeSeCo, OECD 2005) and the OECD Learning Framework 2030 as part of the OECD’s strategy for the Future of Education and Skills 2030 (OECD 2019).

The ATC21S is an international research initiative headquartered at the University of Melbourne and is sponsored by the big international technology companies: Cisco, Intel, and Microsoft. The aim of the programme is to identify and provide learning tools for the necessary skills needed to be successful in the twenty-first-century workplace. As part of the ATC21S international research project, a large group of researchers defined twenty-first-century skills as ways of thinking, ways of working, and tools for working and living in the world (Binkley et al. 2012). P21 was formed in 2002 in the United States and was dissolved in December 2018 when it was absorbed by the organisation Battelle for Kids (P21 2002, 2019a, 2019b, 2015). The organisation’s leadership in twenty-first-century education encompassed early learning, learning during school years (K–12), and learning beyond school. Even if the focus was on the American education system, P21’s ideas have spread to different parts of the world (Trilling and Fadel 2009). For example, The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperative, which includes Canada, Australia, China, and Japan among its member countries, has ‘enlisted P21’s help in formulating strategic plans for the future of education’ (Trilling and Fadel 2009, 169). The OECD formulated its own version of twenty-first-century skills and competences through the DeSeCo initiative in 1997, which also underpins PISA (OECD 2005).

In 2016, the OECD launched the Future of Education and Skills 2030 Strategy (OECD 2019). In that strategy, the concept of competency is positioned as a holistic and dynamic concept that implies knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values (OECD 2019). The OECD Education 2030 project aims to create a common language for curriculum development. It does so by building broad categories of key competences (interacting in socially heterogeneous groups, acting autonomously, and using tools interactively) that were developed in the DeSeCo project. The Education 2030 project has identified three further categories of so-called transformative competences (creating new value, reconciling tensions and dilemmas, and taking responsibility), which address the growing need for young people to be innovative, responsible, and aware (OECD 2018).

In the comparative analysis presented below, these frameworks are treated as empirical examples of the complex and increasingly transnational discursive context in which national governments are embedded, and the analysis is limited to some of the frameworks’ ideational characteristics. These characteristics are organised under the following headings and comparative categories: ways of thinking and organising knowledge, ways of learning and working, tools for working, and living in the world, which previous comparisons have identified as crucial (Voogt and Roblin 2012). Key policy documents defining competences and/or skills were selected for each framework. Searches were undertaken in each document using the following terms: content*, discipline*, subject*, competenc*, and skill*. We also looked into the word frequency in the defining texts using the search terms: competenc*, skills*, literacy*, subject*, content*, discipline* and domain*. The numbers in Table 1 show the relative emphasis (by word frequencies) in each document on the competence-related concepts as compared with school knowledge categories.

Table 1. Comparison of ideational characteristics in four influential competence frameworks.

The four transnational competence frameworks
Assessment and Teaching for 21st Century Skills (ATC21S)	A Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21)	Definition and Selection of Competencies (DeSeCo) (OECD)	Future Education and Skills 2030 (OECD)
Binkley et al. (2012) (Chapter 2, Defining 21st century skills, Binkley et al. 2012) http://www.atc21s.org	Framework for 21st Century Learning Definitions (2019a, 2019b) http://www.battelleforkids.org	Key Competencies for A Successful Life and a Well-Functioning Society (Rychen, Salganik, and McLaughlin 2003)	OECD: The Future We Want (2018) OECD: Learning Compass 2030: A Series of Concept Notes (2019)
50 pages	9 + 2 pages	31 pages	23 + 146 pages
Ways of thinking and organising knowledge
Skills	Skill	Competencies	Skills/Transformative Competencies
	Interdisciplinary themes (4)	Multi-disciplinary approach (2)	Interdisciplinary (1 + 18)
Defined related to ‘Core curriculum’ (1) home language, mathematics, and science	Undefined related to Key academic subject knowledge in: English, reading, or language arts World languages Arts Mathematics Economics Science Geography History Government and Civics	Undefined related to School subjects (1) Disciplines (1) Subject-bound curriculum (1) Subject matter areas (1)	Undefined related to Disciplinary knowledge (24) Subjects/disciplines (25)
Ways of learning and working
Skills (202) Competenc* (22) Literacy (42)	Skills (56) Competenc* (2) Literacy (7)	Skills (25) Competenc* (160 + 74) Literacy (9)	Skills (67 + 490) Competenc* (37 + 174) Literacy (7 + 62)
Creativity and innovation Critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making Learning to learn, meta-cognition Communication Collaboration (teamwork)	Communication Collaboration Creativity and innovation Critical thinking and problem-solving	Information as a product: Restructuring and modelling of information and developing own ideas (knowledge) Effective communication: Collaboration and virtual interaction	Transformative competencies: Creating new value Reconciling tensions and dilemmas Taking responsibility Knowing how to think like a mathematician
Subject (15) Subject domains (7) Traditional subjects (1) Discipline (1)	Key academic subject knowledge (3)	School subjects (1) Disciplines (1) Subject-bound curriculum (1) Subject matter areas (1)	Subject knowledge (2 + 22)
Tools for working
Web 2.0 technology User-generated content creation and remixing Information literacy ICT literacy	Information literacy, media literacy ICT literacy	Information as a source: Searching, evaluating and organising information Reading literacy Mathematical literacy Scientific literacy	Innovation Implementation in classrooms (18)
Living in the world
Skills related to:	Skills such as:	Key competencies related to:	Skills such as:
Global and local citizenship Life and career Cultural awareness and social responsibility	Flexibility and adaptability Initiative and self-direction Social and cross-cultural skills Productivity and accountability Leadership and responsibility	Ethics and social impact dimensions of communication: Social responsibility Social impact	Apply knowledge in unknown circumstances Adaptability, creativity, curiosity and open-mindedness

Note: Numbers in parentheses indicate word frequencies.

Comparison of the selected frameworks

The selected frameworks all emphasise the following characteristics: (a) transversal (i.e. competences are not directly linked to a specific field but are relevant across many fields); (b) multi-dimensional (i.e. they include knowledge, skills, and attitudes); and (c) they are associated with higher-order skills and behaviours that represent the ability to cope with complex problems and unpredictable situations, not only in schools, but also in everyday life (Gordon et al. 2009; Westera 2001). However, the distinction and relationship between knowledge and competences was only addressed in the ATC21S framework.

There are similarities and differences between the four transnational competence frameworks. To start with, there is a strong resemblance between the transnational frameworks in terms of intentions, terminology, and structure. This result is in line with previous reviews, for example, with Voogt and Roblin’s (2012) conclusion that the frameworks (ATC21S, P21, and DeSeCo) superficially converge on some shared foreground ideas/intentions and a common set of twenty-first-century competences: collaboration, communication, ICT literacy, and social and/or cultural competences (including citizenship). Most frameworks also mention creativity, critical thinking, productivity, and problem-solving. This is still the case in the newest framework, the Future of Education and Skills 2030 Position Paper (OECD 2018), which also shows a tendency towards using the concept of ‘skills’ rather than of ‘competences.’

The comparison of the frameworks also demonstrates that for the aspect of organising thinking and knowledge, subject knowledge is an implicit background idea that is not explicitly addressed in the frameworks. In the ATC21S framework, there is a discussion on how some ‘core subjects’ such as language first spoken, mathematics, and science can provide resources for specified skills (Binkley et al. 2012). However, the issue of alignment between skills and subject knowledge in the curricula is absent in all definitional texts. There is a striking imbalance in how notions of competences/skills dominate over knowledge categories (subjects, disciplines, subject domains etc.). The word frequency for competences/skills and subject knowledge/disciplines has an overall ratio of 837/54 (i.e. 16/1 or 6%).

A common feature of the frameworks when it comes to ways of learning and working is the central role of ICT. In all of the frameworks, key competences and skills for the future are closely linked to new emerging technology. Thus, modelling, searching, processing, organising, and evaluating information are crucial components of the prescribed goals and means for learning inside and outside of formal schooling. It is worth noting that the role of new technology is even more prominent in the OECD Future of Education and Skills 2030 framework (OECD 2018). Here, technology is not only seen as a goal and as providing some means for the curricula, but it is framed as the major driver for curriculum change. Comparisons of the frameworks over their chronological timelines may thus indicate that the role of digital technology has emerged not only as the content and means in the frameworks (e.g. digital literacy in DeSeCo), but that it increasingly tends to also be framed as one of the major drivers of change in learning processes (OECD 2005). In the Future of Education and Skills 2030 (OECD 2018), digital technologies are more directly focused on in terms of their role as learning and working tools in schools and classrooms, whereas they were only indirectly mentioned in earlier frameworks.

Finally, the comparisons between the frameworks regarding living in the world point to an imbalance between promoting skills for the future labour market and/or for citizenship in democracies. All the frameworks consider competences and skills related to ‘living in the world,’ but only one (ATC21S) explicitly relates to the social aims of schooling (Binkley et al. 2012). There is, however, no alignment with general pedagogical-philosophical ideas about schooling in the definitions, texts, or references. The background ideas behind the four frameworks are different, but the analysis suggests that different influences, especially from learning theories and learner-centred curriculum ideology (in broad terms, behaviourism or constructivism), provide them with their foundational premises for the definitions. Some of the cultural, political, or professional dimensions of educating for the future are addressed in all the frameworks, but it is only in the OECD’s framework (OECD 2018) that implications and implementation issues related to the national curricula represent a major theme.

A complex context for national curriculum-making

The results of the comparison are in line with previous research on transnational competence frameworks (Tahirsylaj and Sundberg 2020; Voogt and Roblin 2012), and they show that organisations adopt different vocabularies, with some speaking of ‘competency’ and others of ‘skills,’ and that there are no standardised definitions for the sets of knowledge and skills induced by the twenty-first-century competence-based curricula. Instead, there are different competing ideas on what terms to use, what frameworks to relate to, and how to manage these terms and frameworks discursively within national curriculum-making. National policy-makers thus have to navigate a highly complex discursive context.

In order to develop a more sophisticated analysis of how CBAs are constructed differently within different national and institutional contexts, Voogt and Roblin (2012) have suggested that twenty-first-century competences in relation to national curricula frameworks could be understood in any of the following ways: (a) as more symbolically added to the already existing curriculum as new subjects or as new content within traditional subjects (competence-added curriculum); (b) as integrated ad hoc or more systematically as cross-curricular competences that both underpin school subjects and place emphasis on the acquisition of wider key competences (competence-integrated curriculum); or (c) as the main design principles for a new curriculum in which the traditional structure of school subjects is transformed and schools are regarded as learning organisations (competence-transformed curriculum).

In the following section we will make use of these distinctions to analyse how the Swedish government and its National Agency for Education (NAE) navigated the transnational context of CBAs, here dominated by the OECD, when launching the 2011 curriculum reform, with a special focus on how transversal competences are related to school subject knowledge and pre-existing subject structures. The Swedish reform is an interesting national case exemplifying the challenges facing national politicians having to balance external and internal pressures, sometimes ending up with unexpected and unconventional discursive and conceptual compositions.

Hybrid competences in Swedish curriculum policy-making

During the early 1990s, compulsory schooling in Sweden was decentralised along new managerial principles of public management. The 290 municipalities took over the mandatorship from the state and a new national curriculum for compulsory schools was launched, governed by goals instead of content (as it was previously), and designed in a way that resembled what Voogt and Roblin (2012) described as a competence-transformed curriculum. The focus thus shifted from what was put into education (content) to what came out of it (outcomes), and the responsibility for goal attainment was heavily placed on the teachers. Instead of striving for a strong community and equal conditions for all, individualisation and differentiation were emphasised as drivers of the necessary educational reforms. However, these new ideas were not uncontested. In the light of declining PISA results from 2003 onwards, politicians soon started to advocate for a back-to-basics policy in terms of a reintroduction of content knowledge as the organising principle for curriculum design. The unexpectedly low PISA scores led to a widespread ‘scandalisation’ (Steiner-Khamsi 2003) of compulsory schooling, not just in the coordinative discourse among the political elite, but also in the wider communicative discourse, where the media came to play an important role in fuelling the national discourse with negative reports from every possible journalistic angle (cf. Nordin 2019). The curriculum, which was organised with a competence rationale, was identified as a problem (Nordin and Sundberg 2016), as it was viewed as not giving enough guidance for teachers. When starting to plan for the new curriculum that was to be launched in 2011, the national discourse advocating for a return to more disciplinary-oriented subject content knowledge had grown to almost hegemonic proportions.

When preparing for the 2011 curriculum reform, the Swedish government thus found itself caught in the midst of a discursive and conceptual crossfire between the OECD and its implicit pressure to conform to the DeSeCo framework underpinning PISA, and the explicit domestic pressure to bring back subject knowledge as the organising principle (Rychen, Salganik, and McLaughlin 2003). The OECD DeSeCo framework (2005), to which there were close collaborative links,² provided Swedish policy-makers with a last resort. It could provide legitimation from international experts to back up a ‘necessary’ curriculum reform, yet it was open enough to allow for core traditional subject knowledge in its construction.

Knowledge and competences in the 2011 national Swedish curriculum reform

In 2011, when the new curriculum for Swedish compulsory schools was launched, subjects and subject knowledge were reintroduced as organising principles for the curriculum design in line with domestic discourse. The official report preceding the curriculum text (Official Government Report 2007) stated that the syllabi for all subjects should describe ‘pure subject knowledge’ and should not include interdisciplinary content, as was the case in the previous curriculum. However, at the same time, each subject should offer clear guidance on the intended direction of that subject, and it is in this part of the curriculum (subject aims) that the idea of competence can now be found. The Swedish term for talking about competence is ‘abilities’ (in Swedish, förmågor), interpreted as qualities developed over time within specific subjects (NAE 2011). In a comment on the new curriculum reform, the Swedish NAE noted that, although the concept of competences had gained ground internationally within education as promoted by organisations such as the EU and the OECD, it did not occur explicitly as a foreground idea in the Swedish curriculum. However, the NAE emphasised that the concept of knowledge used in the Swedish curriculum ‘as a knowledgeable and committed participation and acting, in a specific practice’ (NAE 2010, 15; authors’ translation) was very similar to that of competences. According to the NAE (2010), the reason for not explicitly introducing the term ‘competence’ in the Swedish curriculum was that the way knowledge was already established in the curriculum was in line with the meaning of competence, and that the introduction of yet another term would not contribute in any significant way. In doing so, it was possible for the government and the NAE to publicly and politically legitimate a reintroduction of traditional school subjects as organising principles for the design of the new curriculum, while simultaneously connecting to the transnational OECD discourse promoting competences, though in terms of abilities. Put differently, the NAE somewhat paradoxically argued that a shift from a competence-focused curriculum to a knowledge-based curriculum nonetheless, at least to some extent, implied a focus on competences.

Discursive hybridity on competences

The Swedish use of ‘abilities’ is defined in the intersection between two different discourses – a neo-conservative discourse, grounded in essentialism and with a strong focus on disciplinary knowledge and school subjects; and a transnational technical-instrumental discourse emphasising learning outcomes (Sundberg and Wahlström 2012).

In analysing the elements of the 2011 Swedish curriculum, one can find both discourses represented in the text. For example, the ‘core content’ section represents an essentialist subject knowledge discourse following the Piagetian stages of development. There is a direct focus on traditional academic disciplines (such as reading, writing, mathematics, literature, foreign languages, history, art, music and science) and the acquisition of their respective bodies of knowledge, thus striving to ensure a common core curriculum.

In the section on ‘goals and aims of the subject,’ general ‘competence-like’ goals for the subject are stated and, in the section entitled ‘knowledge requirements,’ the kinds of learning outcomes required in order to achieve the different grades are stated. Both sections express a competence-oriented discourse emphasising measurable outcomes for transnational comparison. For example, problem-solving is emphasised, but not as a transversal skill; it is specific to different subject domains.

The Swedish curriculum reform of 2011 can thus be seen as a hybridisation of two radically different discourses.³ Furthermore, a semantic condensation of knowledge and knowledge requirements, in combination with an intensified interest in national knowledge tests and follow-up of results has meant that the role of instrumental values emphasising the extrinsic values and uses of school knowledge has been increased and the role of subject core content has been strengthened. Looking at the 2011 Swedish curriculum reform thus shows that the competence model has been adapted and translated by incorporating some ideas of transnational policy solutions (as understood by the DI approach) focused on efficiency and a learner-centred approach; this is apparent in the text through the incorporation of ‘abilities’ subordinated to subject knowledge. However, the programmatic aspects of creating a competence-based curriculum as well as deliberations on the background assumptions of educational philosophies are neglected. Instead, the Swedish curriculum is strongly rooted in institutionalised structures of school subjects, with only limited space for cross-disciplinary themes and competences.

A competence-added curriculum framework

Returning to Voogt and Roblin (2012) and their distinction of how competences/skills are defined in relation to subject knowledge, subjects, or disciplines in different frameworks, the 2011 Swedish curriculum could be described as a competence-added curriculum. In balancing domestic and international agendas as a legitimation strategy among Swedish policy-makers, the use of competences in the curriculum operates symbolically, adding competence vocabulary in terms of abilities into a curriculum that is otherwise organised along disciplinary subject content lines.

The PISA assessments, and indirectly, the DeSeCo framework, have had an impact on the policy discussion about the Swedish compulsory school system and school outcomes, since Swedish students have performed poorly in these more recent appraisals in relation to how they performed in the international assessment programmes during the 1990s (i.e. PISA, TIMSS, PIRLS etc.). That PISA and other international evaluations have influenced the Swedish curriculum reform of 2011 is clear from an NAE report, which shows that the design of the new syllabuses in Swedish and mathematics took, as their starting point, the results from international studies such as the PISA assessment of 2006 (NAE 2010). The DeSeCo framework thus operated actively in setting the policy agenda and building up reform pressure, but it acted more indirectly on the borderlines of the process of designing the new curriculum in 2011.

The Swedish curriculum can thus be viewed as one version of a transnational curriculum discourse, with its own specific national connotations adding ideational elements from a transnational policy discourse on CBAs, rather than embracing it as a whole. Furthermore, using Sweden as an empirical example shows how transnational policy concepts such as ‘competency’ and ‘skills’ become subject to processes of translation when re-contextualised within national borders specific to each country due to their historical, social, and/or cultural premises.

Conclusions

The competence movement has come to represent a strong coordinative discourse among powerful transnational and in case of P21, national organisations. In this paper, we have looked into four different frameworks of three such powerful organisations. However, using Sweden as an example shows that, irrespective of the competence movements’ powerful position in coordinating educational discourses, the national context can play a major role in the ways in which these discourses are communicated and manifested at the national level. As pointed out by Anderson-Levitt (2012, 451), ‘meanings are remade not only because local actors inevitably reinterpret ideas in the context of their own framework, but also because they may struggle against the meanings offered or imposed by global actors’.

From a competence-integrated to a competence-added curriculum

Sweden’s national ‘independence’ or ‘resistance,’ as referred to by Anderson-Levitt (2012), actually led to the opposite development in relation to what was advocated by the competence movement. It also led to a development away from what Voogt and Roblin (2012) talked about as a competence-integrated curriculum launched in the early 1990s, towards a competence-added curriculum launched in 2011 in the wake of declining PISA scores and a public and political demand to reintroduce subject knowledge as the organising principle for curriculum design. In the latest curriculum of 2011 (NAE 2011),⁴ the role of competences was thus downgraded and treated more symbolically within a framework that was first and foremost organised around subject knowledge. The Swedish example shows that even in small countries like Sweden, domestic discourses in terms of shared contextual background ideas shaped by history, culture, and domestic politics can play a decisive role in the way in which global policies become part of national agendas.

A hybrid competence discourse in Swedish curriculum policy-making

The act of balancing two powerful discourses, one advocating the introduction of competences at a transnational level, and another advocating the reintroduction of subject content at a national level, led to a kind of hybrid discourse where competences, referred to as abilities, were discursively embedded into a subject content-oriented framework. This was accomplished by understanding skills not as generic, as in the transnational competence frameworks described in this paper, but as subject-bound. Abilities are described as developing over time within specific subjects and then as related to the long-term goal of each school subject. In constructing such a hybrid competence discourse, the Swedish government managed to balance the two discourses in a way that enabled them to simultaneously maintain legitimacy at national and transnational levels.

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Notes on contributors

Andreas Nordin

Andreas Nordin is Associate Professor of Education at Linnaeus University, Sweden. His main fields of research are comparative and international education, education policy, and curriculum theory with a special focus on the complex interplay between national and transnational policy arenas. He is co-editor of the book Transnational Policy Flows in European Education published by Symposium Books.

Daniel Sundberg

Daniel Sundberg is Professor of Education at Linnaeus University, Sweden. His main field of research is comparative and historical perspectives on education reforms, curriculum, and pedagogy. His recent publications deal with curriculum theory and policy studies in terms of understanding and explaining curriculum change in the complex interconnections of transnational, national, and local curriculum and classroom arenas.

Notes

1 Due to the lack of uniformity in the use and understanding of ‘competence-based education’ and/or ‘competence-based reforms,’ we follow Anderson-Levitt, Bonnéry, and Fichtner (2017) in our use of the broader concept of ‘competence-based approaches’ (CBAs).

2 For example, prof. Ulf P. Lundgren was the General Director for the National Agency for Education from 1991–1999 and chaired the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI, OECD) preparing the PISA-tests.

3 For additional examples of hybridisation see Clément, Deng, and Peng, and Bordoli in this special issue.

4 A minor revision of the Swedish national curriculum of 2011 was launched in 2018 with no substantial implications for our analysis or conclusions. In the article we refer to the initial 2011 version. However, in the reference list, the hyperlink is to the revised 2018 version since the 2011 version was removed after the revision was launched in 2018 and no longer possible to retrieve digitally.