The constitutive values of Swedish schooling: A challenge to the inner life of schools

Abstract

Schooling has always been a tool for transferring values to future generations. Despite social changes such as globalisation, information technology and the retreat of national capital, schools are still institutions where a civic identity is promoted. In a multicultural society, the challenge is to advocate constitutive values without excluding citizens. The Swedish curriculum identifies educational goods by emphasizing constitutive values such as democracy, solidarity and equality in accordance with ethics linked to Western Christian humanism. In addition, these values have to be interpreted and concretised in local contexts. This article examines these aspects of curriculum and the national question. It has three sections. It discusses constitutive values in Swedish schooling; it links deliberation to the localisation and concretisation of these national values, and it reflects on the implementation of these values in a Swedish school. Overall, the article focuses on possibilities for deliberative practice in a multicultural school. © 2001 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.