Differentiation through individualisation – an ethnographic investigation of how one Swedish school creates inequality

• The present article examines the general debate on curriculum differentiation and individualization. Based on a policy ethnographic case study of class 9a at Forest School, it critically analyses how curriculum differentiation and individualization are enacted in and interfere with classroom practice. The results show how Forest School’s curriculum model on differentiation and individualization have created and reproduced a system in which different knowledge is available to different groups of pupils. In practice, owing to this policy, some pupils are categorized as successful, some as adequate and some as failing. The analysis also shows that this practice creates differentiation in relation to school achievement and grades, but foremost that pupils in this class of 9th graders are paying a high price for their schooling, in the form of underachievement and social inequality.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Pedagogik (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Pedagogy (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences (hsv//eng)

Keyword

curriculum differentiation

individualization

policy ethnography

compulsory school

school achievements

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)