In the Conjunction of Conflicting Discourses : Learning democracy and citizenship in a neoliberal educational era

• Democracy and citizenship have since long been taught and trained in Swedish schools and are today exaggerated in the Swedish curriculum as important tasks for teachers. This includes fostering of common humanistic and democratic values and equality, as well as the forming of democratic organisations, pedagogical methods and relations in the individual schools. But what happens in everyday situations when democracy training and values education are confronted with new conservative pedagogic leadership models and a neoliberal performance and market oriented educational management model and other conflicting discourses? This paper, which is informed by post-structural feminism and post-Marxism discourse analysis (Gramsci 1981, Laclau & Mouffe 1985/2001), takes an empirical point of departure in ethnographical classroom research in an upper secondary school and in a primary school. In the analysis two situations are discussed with regard to how the democracy and citizenship training is effected and regulated by the new economic and market oriented education management model, the performance paradigm, the new patriarchal leaderships models and the new conservative education policy. The aim is to describe how teachers in Swedish schools today increasingly are placed in a position where they are forced to negotiate and handle pupils democracy and citizenship training in a conjunction of conflicting marketing, democracy and childhood discourses. In one part of the paper three different citizenship and democracy concepts are critically scrutinized and compared: Habermas consensus model, Englunds deliberative democracy model and Laclau & Mouffes plural democracy model. Furthermore are pupils possibilities to agency in those concepts critically discussed. The concepts are also discussed in relation to the teachers actions, and the discourses about citizenship and democracy taught in situations observed. The results show that pupils today on the one hand are taught democratic principles and are encouraged to act and protest, discuss problems, be observant and critically question injustice and inequality. On the other hand are pupils as well as teachers and headmasters today increasingly silenced and disciplined through the hegemony of the performance paradigm and the democracy and citizenship concepts conjuncture with the new economical educational management and new patriarchal discourses.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Genusstudier (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Gender Studies (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Democracy

citizenship

democracy training

neoliberalism

school

discourse

classroom research

ethnography

poststructuralism

Other research relevant to Teachers Education

Gender Studies

Genusvetenskap

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)