The study of technology as a field of knowledge in general education: historical insights and methodological considerations from a Swedish case study, 1842–2010

Abstract

Today, technology education in Sweden is both a high-status and a low-status phenomenon. Positive values such as economic growth, global competitiveness and the sustainability of the welfare state are often coupled with higher engineering education and sometimes even upper secondary education. Negative values, on the other hand, are often associated with primary and lower secondary education in this subject. Within the realm of technology education at such lower levels of schooling in Sweden, different actors have often called for reformed curricula or better teacher training, owing to the allegedly poor state of technology education in schools. Recurring demands for a change in technology education are nothing unique from an historical point of view, however. In fact, the urge to influence teaching and learning in technology is much older than the school subject itself. The aim of this article is to describe and analyse some key patterns in technology education in Swedish elementary and compulsory schools from 1842 to 2010. This study thus deals with how technological content has developed over time in these school forms as well as how different actors in and outside the school have dealt with the broader societal view of what is considered as important knowledge in technology as well as what kind of technology has particular significance. The long period of investigation from 1842 to 2010 as well as a double focus on technology as scattered educational content and a subject called Technology make it possible to identify recurring patterns, which we have divided into three overarching themes: Technological literacy and the democratic potential of technological knowledge, The relationship between school technology and higher forms of technology education and The relationship between technology and science.