Children’s existential questions – recognized in Scandinavian curricula, or not?

Karin Sporre

doi:10.1080/00220272.2021.1962982

Abstract

ABSTRACT Do curricular texts address children’s existential questions and how are such questions to be met in school? This is the crucial question of this study. It consists of a comparative content analysis of Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish national curricula for religious education, in use in 2019. To provide a background to this content analysis the varying and shifting ways in which Swedish curricula from 1969 up to 2011 expressed ‘livsfrågor’ and educational responses to them have been studied. As a new theme ‘livsfrågor’, meaning existential questions, was introduced in 1969 in the Swedish curriculum for compulsory school. A comparison of the Scandinavian curricula of today shows that the Danish one most explicitly addresses the importance of children’s existential questions; the Norwegian subtly emphasizes a dialogue with school children; while the Swedish syllabus links existential questions to worldviews, general systems of thought, and not to addressing students’ own questions. In the characterization of the curricula, two curricular codes, a proclamatory and a dialogical, as suggested by Hartman , and the three purposes of education by Biesta (qualification, socialisation, and subjectification) have been used. Although it studies students’ existential questions in religious education, this study contributes towards general didactical discussions on the role of children’s questions and possible educational responses to them.

Highlights

There is a strong emphasis on assessment and accountability in education (Hopmann, 2008), which can be interpreted as derived from a prime interest in the outcomes of education
Do curricular texts address children’s existential questions and how are such questions to be met in school? This is the crucial question of this study
A comparison of the Scandinavian curricula of today shows that the Danish one most explicitly addresses the importance of children’s existential questions; the Norwegian subtly emphasizes a dialogue with school children; while the Swedish syllabus links existential questions to worldviews, general systems of thought, and not to addressing students’ own questions

Summary

Introduction

There is a strong emphasis on assessment and accountability in education (Hopmann, 2008), which can be interpreted as derived from a prime interest in the outcomes of education. The concept of ‘livsfrågor’, here translated as ‘existential questions’, was introduced in the Swedish curriculum in 1969 in the school subject ‘religionskunskap’ [knowledge of religion] to open up space for the questions of children and youth. This study exemplifies a study with interest in curricular matters of content (cf Friesen, 2018) When the former Swedish school subject knowledge of Christianity [Sw. kristendomskunskap] was renamed to knowledge of religions [religionskunskap] in the curriculum adopted in 1969, the concept of ‘livsfrågor’ came to play a crucial role, not least in relation to the curricular discussions that took place during the 1960s. Given the studies above what the present one adds is the specific focus on the relationship child and curriculum in a contemporary comparative perspective

Methodology

Concluding discussion

Notes on contributor