An individualistic turn: citizenship in Swedish history and social studies syllabi, 1970–2017

Abstract

This article explores representations of problems regarding citizenship in changes to the syllabi of social studies and history in Swedish secondary schools between 1970 and 2017. Previous research has shown that the general educational discourse changed from an emphasis on the societal needs of committed citizens to an emphasis on the individual’s ability to cope in a rapidly changing society in the end of the twentieth century. This study contributes to this research by exploring the impact of these discursive changes on individual school subjects. The study shows that changes in social studies and history syllabi even preceded changes previously seen in overall educational discourse regarding individualisation. While changes to the social studies syllabi have developed very closely to the overarching educational discourse in changing socialisation to be more suitable for an individualised society, changes to the history syllabi appear to have been more geared towards subjectification.