Research project Discursive Practices and School Subject Formation: Psychology in Swedish Upper Secondary School
In this project, focus is on the formation of the school subject psychology in different discursive practices where the subject of psychology has been present during the period 1960-2015.
This project deals with the school subject psychology in Swedish schools. Focus lies on questions such as:
- What is psychology as a school subject?
- Why should students study psychology in school?
Since 1965 when the national curriculum for upper secondary school was introduced, psychology has been a subject in upper secondary school. It is often highlighted as a relatively new school subject, but psychology has been taught at secondary level in Sweden since much earlier. There are records indicating that the subject was taught as early as the 17th century.
Despite this long history as an element in Swedish schools, there are no detailed descriptions of psychology as a school subject. The purpose of this project is to map and describe the emergence and formation of the subject of psychology in the Swedish school system. In particular, texts such as policy documents, teaching materials and the teachers' debate on the subject are studied.
Ebba Christina Blåvarg will defend her doctoral thesis November 17:
Curriculum of psychology: The formation of a school subject, 1965–2015
Project description
This is the first overarching analysis of the school subject psychology in Swedish upper secondary schools. Today, in 2023, psychology is the largest non-compulsory school subject at upper secondary level, measured in terms of the number of students taking grades in the subject. It is also one of the smallest subjects in terms of the number of hours in the curriculum. The school subject psychology has been present since the start of the national upper secondary school curriculum in 1965 and has remained part of the curriculum through a series of reforms. Irrespective of the subject’s presence on the national upper secondary school curriculum for almost 60 years and also at corresponding school levels for the last 200 years in Sweden, there is no previous historical overview of the school subject psychology.
In this project, focus is on the formation of the school subject psychology in different discursive practices where the subject of psychology has been present during the period 1960-2015. The intention is to analyze the formation of the subject by highlighting how the subject discourse in different practices constitute the subject, and how these both follow and differ from each other over time. Thus, dimensions in the formation of the subject can become visible that contribute to a nuanced understanding of the subject's discourse in different contexts and at different times. The analyses are based on the following three different discursive practices: government policy documents, textbooks, and the teaching profession's discourse on the subject in professional associations and journals. The intention is to shed light on these three different discursive practices and to highlight what the school subject of psychology has meant in them, what purpose, and role the subject has been given and, ultimately, how these different practices can be seen in relation to each other.
Project members
Project managers
Members
Joakim Landahl, Main Supervisor
Professor
