Inscriptions and digitalization initiatives across time in the nation-state of Sweden: The relevance of shifts and continuities in policy accounts for teachers’ work

Abstract

This study illuminates the political, ideological, moral and ethical driving forces behind the Swedish governmental initiative to digitalize the educational system-the Swedish Digitalization Initiative (SDI). Taking a sociocultural point of departure, policy documents are considered mediational means and have agency. Nexus analysis is the analytical lens that is deployed. Policies are analyzed according to the public consultative discourse analysis scheme. Three main findings are reported in this study: The policy documents are chained, that is, one document is linked to one or more others. There are three important discourses that circulate in the policy documents: digital competence, programming and an economical discourse. Different policy documents have different strengths of agency, expressed rhetorically in terms of both languaging and layout. The driving forces of SDI are politically and ideologically economical liberalism. Moral and ethical driving forces can be seen in terms of equality between women and men.