Abstract
This article explores how John Dewey’s concept of democracy can contribute to our understanding of what is required from education amid growing nationalism and populism, even in what are usually perceived as established democracies. The purpose of the study is to explore how standards-based curricula for citizenship education can be problematised in relation to the broad concept of democracy. The meaning of citizenship education in curricula is examined through two cases from western countries (Sweden and the USA) with standards-based curricula. These social studies curricula deal with democracy as something ‘to teach about’, rather than focusing on helping students learn to understand and recreate democracy for their own generation. However, the concept of democracy, as a moral and ethical ideal, becomes difficult to express in a curriculum logic of standards and knowledge outcomes emphasising measurability. Now, when democracy is challenged, also seems to be the right time to confront the logic of a standards-based curriculum and the selective traditions of subjects within the social studies, as well as to ask the questions ‘why?’ and ‘what for?’ in relation to basic social values and students’ competences.
Introduction
Currently, tendencies towards renationalisation are evident across the European Union (EU) and beyond. Such tendencies aim to link the nation state with a nativist understanding of ‘the people’. This is particularly true for right-wing populist parties who tend to offer simple answers to the fears and challenges of a globalised society by constructing the ‘others’ as a stereotype of the enemy. The characteristic assumption for right-wing populist thinking is that such a homogenous people really exists (Wodak, 2015) or, at least, can be brought into existence through political measures, such as closing borders and building walls. This article addresses the theme of populism and democracy against the backdrop of such populist tendencies worldwide.
Populism in this context is defined as an ideology that views society as divided into two groups—‘the pure people’ and the ‘corrupt elite’—and argues that ‘the will of the people’ constitutes the only grounds for politics (Mudde, 2014: 99). In numerous countries, populist parties have gained influence by developing into large parties that shape the political agenda. In the USA, for example, the Republican Party has developed strong populist tendencies. In Sweden, the Swedish Democrats—a political party with historical roots in the extreme right—has gained increased support and became Sweden’s third largest party in the 2018 election. Both parties have an anti-immigrant agenda. However, populism and radical right-wing currents are part of a wider phenomenon that extends beyond organised political parties to communication in traditional and social media and, thus, can be viewed as a rapidly growing social discourse. Such a discourse includes, for example, anti-Muslim rhetoric and ‘right-wing feminism’ that ‘links feminist values to traditional family values and campaigns against pro-choice movements’ (Wodak, 2015: 22).
As a result of their propensity to simplify social and societal questions, far-right and populist parties are now established as an independent component of the multi-party democratic system. However, civic education has a contradictory aim: to educate students to live with complexity (Krüger, 2008). In a time of rising populist support for anti-democratic forms of governance, the longstanding belief in the importance of civic education to ensure democracy—which has characterised a century of school reforms in the USA—must once again be brought to the fore (Westheimer, 2019). Further, Westheimer (2019) states that there is a risk that curriculum standards and standardised tests exclude complex discussions and learning outcomes that are difficult to measure—for example, creativity, critical thinking, social engagement, and other thinking skills necessary for strong civic engagement. Standardised curricula may—particularly in combination with high-stakes testing—directly contradict efforts, such as students’ influence on teaching, to make schools more democratic and responsive to local needs, as well as to promote student engagement in personally meaningful tasks (Mathison et al., 2006). Campbell (2012) argues that instead of high-stakes civics testing, it is more productive to attempt to identify methods for evaluating civics outcomes that are meaningful, reliable, and politically feasible.
There is no singular explanation why confidence in democratic leadership is being undermined; however, in general, globalisation in terms of, for example, transnationalisation of law and the financial market (in the EU)—and its unwanted side effects—certainly offers conditions for populist nationalistic movements. National–national relations have partially been replaced by national–global and global–global relations (Beck, 2006), which may lead to a fear that the own nation has decreased in importance.
Given these indicators, a broad educational question then is how we must think of the mission of schools to educate individuals to become democratic, critical, and independent citizens at a time when democratic institutions and democracy itself are under pressure in various countries. Rather than presenting a complete answer, this article helps explore the question by examining the relationship between democracy and education, both as a philosophical and curriculum problem. The purpose of this article is to explore how standards-based curricula for citizenship education can be problematised in relation to the broad concept of democracy. The following two research questions direct this study: How is the content of social studies syllabi constructed within the framework of a standards-based curriculum? Which aspects of democracy are addressed and which are missing?
As its point of departure, the study adapts John Dewey’s understanding of democracy, particularly in his texts entitled ‘Creative democracy—The task before us’ ([1939] 1991) and ‘Nationalizing education’ ([1916] 1980). This will enable an examination of the conclusions and lessons that can be drawn from a discussion early in the last century when nationalism, as it is once again, was prominent in Europe and many other countries. Then, the focus shifts to an examination of two social studies curricula for 15-year-old students from two different continents, Europe (Sweden) and North America (USA). The two school systems were selected because they are both based on standards-based curricula and employed in countries with long democratic traditions. Finally, the phenomenon of standards-based curricula is discussed in relation to citizenship education and democracy.
What is educative in democracy? A theoretical starting point
The American pedagogue and philosopher John Dewey believed the greatest threats to democracy come from within democratic countries themselves. Democracy’s fundamental institutions and conditions can be used by social forces to destroy it (Bernstein, 2000). This observation is worryingly applicable today, particularly in countries usually regarded as well-established democracies. There has been an increase in the proportion of people, even in mature democracies (Germany, Sweden, the UK, etc.), who agree it would be better to have a strong leader who leads—without asking parliament or the people in elections. Drawing on data from the World Values Surveys from 2011, 24 percent of American ‘millennials’ (in their late teens or early 20s at the time) considered democracy to be a ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’ way of running the country. The same trend was significant in Europe, although somewhat more moderate: 13 percent of European youth (aged 16 to 24) expressed such a viewpoint, which represented an increase from 8 percent among the same age group in the mid-1990s (Foa and Mounk, 2016).
Dewey understood democracy as an ethical ideal related to individual self-realisation. In this sense, democracy is a normative concept. Dewey emphasised the mutual relationship between individual capacities and the environment. The key to Dewey’s ethics of self-realisation is the notion of ‘function’, which describes ‘an active relationship between particular individual capacities and the particular environments that advance the well-being of that individual’ (Westbrook, 1991: 43). The environment is essentially a social environment comprising individuals striving for personal fulfilment and well-being. The aim of the relationship between the individual and society is not for the individual to conform to or reproduce society but to transform prevailing conditions. Therefore, the relationship between the individual and society must never be construed as the unilateral adaptation of the individual to a society, as that would hinder the development and welfare of both the individual and society.
Dewey’s idea of personally lived democracy has two main characteristics. First and foremost, democracy is a moral ideal, not an institutional fact. Second, democracy entails pluralism: To cooperate by giving differences a chance to show themselves because of the belief that the expression of difference is not only a right of the other persons but is a means of enriching one’s own life-experience is inherent in the democratic personal way of life. (Dewey, [1939] 1991: 228)
Taken together, these two features point to the conclusion that democracy can be expressed primarily through the manner in which ordinary people live their everyday lives. As Dewey repeatedly formulated throughout his rich text productions, individuals live by and through their experiences. Therefore, he placed the concept of experience at the centre of the meaning of both democracy and education. Thus, democracy itself must be understood as educative in terms of people’s experiences. Experiences involving careful inquiry, reflection, and inferences increase knowledge of things ‘as they are’, which ‘is the only solid ground for communication and sharing’ (Dewey, [1939] 1991: 229). Since aspects such as inquiry and reflection on ‘real’ physical and social objects are built into this conception of experience, experiential knowledge is prevented from being merely subjective.
According to Bernstein (2000), the word ‘creative’ in Dewey’s concept of ‘creative democracy’ highlights important aspects of the understanding of democracy. First, it denotes a sense of situated creativity that fosters creative individuals. A democratic personality is educated to develop the creative imagination required to deal with novel situations in ways that promote experimental and imaginative approaches to intelligently handle social situations. Second, creativity is about the need for democracy to recreate itself. As things change and our world expands, creative democracy must cope with new risks and uncertainties. Democracy cannot be a fixed ideal or become stuck in procedures or issues that do not engage people. Thus, the task of democracy is always before us.
Democracy and cosmopolitanism
There is a close similarity between the philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah’s (2007) view on cosmopolitanism and Dewey’s pragmatism, although Appiah did not employ that term himself (Westbrook, 2006). Appiah (2007) argued that positivism and fundamentalism, although they have been strongly criticised in academia, both continue to have strong influences on how we think and act in society. However, in contrast to these two orientations, Appiah advocated ethical pluralism, which rests on the rejection of both relativism and scepticism (Westbrook, 2006). Appiah (2007) argued for a ‘practical-ethical’ understanding of cosmopolitanism in an increasingly interdependent world that inevitably poses cultural challenges.
According to Appiah (2007: 57), ‘all cultures have enough overlap in their vocabulary of values to begin a conversation’. He used the term ‘conversation’ broadly as a metaphor for engagement with others’ ideas, whether through direct dialogue, literature, film, or other media. Moreover, ‘[c]onversation doesn’t have to lead to consensus about anything, especially not values; it’s enough that it helps people get used to one another’ (Appiah, 2007: 85). For Appiah (2007: 168), cosmopolitanism includes curiosity, engagement, and intelligent action in both individuals and social policies. His statement echoes Dewey, who argued that intelligence is not a trait but a reflective and well-grounded way of acting (Hickman, 2006).
Dewey’s concept of democracy has weaknesses. It can be criticised for placing very little emphasis on analysing the institutional arrangements and economic changes necessary to underpin his democratic vision. Instead, Dewey’s democratic focus was communication among neighbours in everyday life. He suggested ‘[d]emocracy must begin at home, and its home is the neighbourly community’ (Dewey, [1927] 1991: 213). In this sense, Dewey was a ‘rooted cosmopolitan’ (Bernstein, 2000, 2010). This term is used by Appiah (2005: 222) when he argued ‘tenable cosmopolitanism’ needs to take seriously not only the value of human lives but also the value of particular human lives in communities contributing to forming those lives. Cosmopolitanism, Appiah claimed, grows from the county, the town, or the street, rather than from the state. Additionally, communities are overlapping circles within and across states.
Nations, nationalism, and teaching
In ‘Nationalizing education’, Dewey ([1916] 1980) formulated the contrasts inherent in the concepts of ‘nation’ and ‘nationalism’: the former is desirable, whereas the latter must ‘be avoided as an evil plague’ (Dewey, [1916] 1980: 202). One understanding of belonging to a nation is that nations have the ability to offer the benefits of communities beyond a narrow family or village. Citizens of a nation can be members of a larger community that develops common standards and rules for living open, reasonable lives together. This desirable attitude is the opposite of nationalism, in which politicians ‘play cleverly upon patriotism, and upon ignorance of other peoples’ to spread feelings of hostility against all those outside the nation (Dewey, [1916] 1980: 202).
When Dewey was writing his text on nationalism in 1916, he considered the ongoing First World War to be the ultimate expression of this evil form of nationalism. In his text, he urged schools and teachers to act as bulwarks against this destructive form of nationalism. To accomplish this task, Dewey primarily placed his trust in public schools as agencies that can prevent those forces ‘which are always making for a division of interests’ from becoming dominant; thus, public schools are institutions that can avert the deterioration of democracy (Dewey, [1916] 1980: 203). Dewey warned that the same causes that result in enmity against neighbours in other countries can do the same in the USA; moreover, he considered schools to be responsible for instilling a ‘good’ version of nationalism in their students. The spirit of a nationalised education must promote the national idea, democracy, which includes ‘amity and good will to all humanity (including those beyond our border) and equal opportunity for all within’ (Dewey, [1916] 1980: 209). Dewey appealed to teachers to remember that they need to be the advocates of this democratic idea.
Dewey argued that one can never be sure that the acquisition of knowledge in subjects such as civics and history will foster students’ interest in other people and the conditions of their lives. For Dewey ([1937] 2008), the crucial question is whether these and other subjects are taught as facts about present society or as ‘action’—that is, taught in relation to what is done, what needs to be done, and how to do things in better ways. In the first approach, knowledge consists of information; in the second, knowledge constitutes the capacity to live a democratic life. The individual is placed at the centre, not of himself/herself, but of a social and societal community. The experimental approach uses past experiences and knowledge as sources of proposals to work on to be able to intelligently handle present situations. As a moral idea, democracy strives to connect the ‘liberations of individuals’ with the ‘promotion of a common good’ (Dewey, [1932] 2008: 349).
The communicative grounds for education emphasise the inter-subjective aspect of knowledge formation related to the shared ‘objective’ world of physical and social objects (Wahlström, 2010). The hope for democracy, Dewey ([1937] 2008) argued, is that the school relates science to actual social forces shaping society. Dewey claimed that this combination of knowledge and communicative action is a prerequisite for transforming ‘organized intelligence’ into ‘organized social action’ (Dewey, [1937] 2008: 187). Education and democracy are intertwined and constitute each other. This is because education presupposes free communication and thinking between different groups and democracy presupposes that everyone is intellectually educated to promote thinking, knowledge, and understanding. Therefore, it is impossible to distinguish between academic learning in school, on the one hand, and social and moral learning linked to democracy, on the other (Van der Ploeg, 2016; Wahlström, 2010). Instead, education is about learning knowledge related to societal conditions.
The democratic mission of schools
The basic idea permeating Dewey’s ‘Democracy and education’ ([1916] 2008) is that society and education are inextricably linked. Pinar (2009) expressed this link from the perspective of curriculum theory, whose basic question is what knowledge has the most worth—that is, what knowledge must be selected to be taught to new generations in schools. As Pinar (2009) noted, this question can only be answered in relation to the world around us—it is a ‘wordly’ question. Therefore, the response must come from individuals in the world at a specific historical moment who are addressing pressing individual and societal challenges. Thus, how can teachers today respond to Dewey’s appeal to fulfil their role as defenders of democracy?
Dewey’s experience of the evil side of nationalism in First World War Europe and the European political climate today have an uncanny resemblance. That said, we must also remember that we live in a different world than Dewey did 100 years ago. The world today is characterised by short distances between humans. People are connected with one another and can reach out within seconds using digital technology and within hours using transport connections. How, then, can we understand today’s schoolteacher as a messenger of the democratic idea of plurality, including ‘expression of difference’ as ‘not only a right of the other persons but [as] a means of enriching one’s own life-experience’? (Dewey, [1939] 1991: 228).
The research focus that emerges from a cosmopolitan starting point discusses this question. The basis for the cosmopolitan idea advocated here is that we all inhabit one world simultaneously (Wahlström, 2016). Appiah (2005: 257) captured the spirit of basic human interdependence when he stated that ‘We can learn from each other’s stories only if we share both human capacities and a single world: relativism about either is a reason not to converse but to fall silent’. Just as Dewey’s concept of democracy is an educative activity, so is cosmopolitanism when it adopts a communicative approach to learn from that which is not immediately familiar (Wahlström, 2016). Hansen (2011) indicated that taking on new perspectives and habits can be challenging (although we do it constantly without noticing), as well as a slow and uncomfortable process full of difficulties and annoyances. Teaching with a democratic, cosmopolitan approach in Dewey’s terms implies creating opportunities for students to constantly reconstruct and learn from their past experiences by developing subsequent experiences with more complex, reflective dimensions. Hansen’s (2011: 11) educational cosmopolitanism constitutes an approach of being ‘open reflectively to the new and loyal reflectively to the known’. Thus, cosmopolitanism, as well as living a democratic life, has nothing to do with abandoning those close to us, but it has everything to do with how we respond to those foreign to us. After all, what is required of us is not much more than to ‘get used to one another’ (Appiah, 2007: 78), and one important place to get used to and learn about one another is school.
The following section explores the combination of standards-based curricula and citizenship education in social studies, civics, and history. The purpose of this reading is to investigate how students are expected to encounter the concept of democracy in areas commonly viewed as the core subjects of citizenship education.
Citizenship education for 15–16-year-old students in two parts of the world—a contextualisation
A standards-based curriculum is characterised by the close alignment of its purpose, content, and goals (standards), with the priority being centred on goals (Sundberg and Wahlström, 2012). This results-driven curriculum, based on a ‘technical-instrumentalist’ view of education, emphasises the need to prepare for a more global, competitive, and knowledge-based economy in the future (Young, 2008: 21). The purpose of standards is to provide a common body of knowledge for all students within a country or state. The standards-based movement can be related to an increasingly globalised economic and political system (Beltramon and Duncheon, 2013). The creation of standards always spurs controversy over what knowledge must be included and excluded, with social studies standards tending to be among the most controversial. The creators of standards attempt to approach school subjects systematically, tying them to test score results (Null, 2011). The content of state and national tests reveals the implications of standards. Additionally, such tests and similar evaluations administered by national school authorities make teachers feel that they must adhere to prescribed standards.
In the following account, social studies curricula in Europe (Sweden) and the USA (California) for 15-year-old students are examined. These locations were not selected because they are representative of their nations or geographical locations; rather, they were chosen for their potential similarities. Both states can be characterised as holding relatively progressive views in areas such as culture, lifestyle, and environmental sustainability. For example, both Sweden and California have signed a letter of cooperation focusing on climate change (Swedish Government, 2017). Both states have undertaken standards-based curriculum reforms that have had consequences for the formation of subjects, as well as the emphasis placed on assessment and results (Null, 2011; Wahlström and Sundberg, 2018). In Sweden, the standards are expressed through the knowledge requirements in the syllabus for each school subject; in California, the standards are formulated in accordance with the California Common Core State Standards (CCSS, 2016).
The American school system can be divided into kindergarten (5–6 years old), elementary school, junior high school, and senior high school, together constituting 12 years of schooling. Students complete high school at 17–18 years of age. In this analysis, the high school syllabus for the 10th grade (15–16 years old) is the focus. For the California school system, content standards are set for each year. In 1995, California officially adopted standards-based reforms for public education. Three years later, the State Board of Education adopted ‘History–Social Science Content Standards for California Public Schools’ (HSSCS, 2000). According to Fogo (2015), the content defined in the standards has been very influential and has driven the development of curriculum frameworks and materials, textbook adoptions, and assessments in California since 1998. California has three primary frameworks for history education that are assumed to harmonise with each other, and the CCSS (2016) clearly expresses what students are expected to learn. ‘History–Social Science Framework for California Public Schools’ (HSSF, 2016) offers teaching guidelines based on recent research. These framework documents established California as a leader in standards-based reforms for history education. The state tests schools’ and students’ achievements in relation to the standards in the ‘California Standards Tests for History–Social Science’ (CSTs) implemented in 2003. However, it is difficult to ensure governing documents harmonise. While the HSSF emphasises multiple forms of assessment, historical thinking skills, and the central importance of writing in the history classroom, the CSTs are multiple-choice tests focused on the recall of content (Fogo, 2011). Fogo (2011) suggests that the asymmetric relationship between the framework, standards, and tests reflects a lack of horizontal integration of policy at the state level. The standards dominate California’s curriculum, while the HSSF frameworks are reduced to a guide on how to teach in accordance with the standards. Consequently, the state—which traditionally leaves the question of how to teach to teachers—has expanded its governance to include instruction and assessment. Further, California history tests comprising multiple-choice exams have changed the balance between governing documents, prescribing the previously proposed content of ‘History–Social Science Content Standards’ (HSSCS, 2000). As Fogo (2011) explained, the conservative wing advocating content-heavy chronological history has won the struggle over content. Referring to examples from the California history multiple-choice tests, Breakstone et al. (2013: 54) have questioned what happened to ‘thinking’ within history and to students’ ability to interpret past events within their context.
In the Swedish ‘Curriculum for the Compulsory School, Preschool Class and the Leisure-Time Centre 2011’ (Lgr 11, 2011), social studies includes history, civics, geography, and religious education, each with its own syllabus in the curriculum. Grade nine represents the last year of compulsory school (15–16 years of age). Afterwards, students enter one of the programs at the upper secondary school level. The core content and knowledge requirements in syllabi express what students should have the opportunity to learn by the end of grade nine. The Swedish syllabi referred to in this analysis represent the three years in junior high school, as in this school system, core content and knowledge requirements are formulated for three-year periods. All grade nine students take national tests in one of the four social studies subjects. The Swedish National Agency for Education decides the test subject for each school. The national tests comprise a mix of multiple-choice items and questions requiring substantiated, argumentative answers.
The theme of democracy in social studies—an analysis
The present study focuses on history and civics within the broader concept of social studies in order to make the Swedish and California curricula more comparable.
The reading of curricula documents
In this fourth section of the article, social studies syllabi from two school systems with standards-based curricula on both sides of the Atlantic are studied. There, two features of the ‘creative’ aspect of ‘creative democracy’ highlighted by Bernstein (2000) are added to the organisational and parliamentary understanding of democracy: (a) situated creativity and (b) the need for democracy to recreate itself. Situated creativity emphasises that democratic individuals are creative individuals who are willing to deal with new social situations in imaginative, intelligent ways. In relation to recreating democracy, creativity entails handling risks and uncertainty in a globalised world in ways that engage people, rather than making them withdraw from the world. ‘Cultural pluralism’, a third term added to the understanding of democracy that comes from Dewey’s text ‘Nationalizing education’ ([1916] 1980), indicates an attitude in which ‘cultural differences are appreciated, respected and cultivated’ (Bernstein, 2015: 355). Taken together, in this study, the concept of democracy is understood as situated creativity, cultural pluralism, and the recreation of democracy along with representative parliamentarism. I argue that it appears reasonable to consider these democratic elements as important with reference to the definition of civic education used by Campbell (2012: 2, italics in original), who conceived of education in civics to be composed of ‘the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and experience to prepare someone to be an active, informed participant in democratic life’.
The two state curricula are interpreted through the broad lens of situated creativity, recreation of democracy, and cultural pluralism. In the analysis, examples of the theme of recreating democracy are related to society, examples of situated creativity are related to the individual, and examples of references to cultural plurality are related to human interactions. This implies that in the reading of the curricula documents, traces of these phenomena are particularly notable in terms of citizenship competences. In the results section, the findings are structured according to the society, the individual, and human interactions.
Different curricula—similar emphases
The Swedish pedagogic discourses in history and civics largely align, thereby addressing students’ citizenship skills and ability to use their knowledge to understand the community, albeit with somewhat different emphases. The focus of both history and civics is on the future, with the aim to contribute to students’ personal development and understanding of their own and others’ use of history and ideology (Sandahl, 2014). However, very little of this pedagogic discourse is evident in the civics syllabus in Lgr 11 (2011). This syllabus holds the ideal of an analytically educated citizen who views societal development from an academic perspective and through an academic conceptual apparatus; this citizen has no explicit aim either to participate in society or change living conditions (Wahlström, 2014). Instead, the subject of history presents a future perspective by inviting students to examine lines of developments within ‘migration, politics, and living conditions’ and to see their ‘possible continuation’ with ‘references to the past and the present’ (SH, 2011; cf. Sandahl, 2014).
The California and Swedish curricula in history and social studies for 15-year-old students have many similarities in their subject content, although the California framework is more detailed than the Swedish one. 1 Democracy, given its foundation and consequences, constitutes the focus of social studies and history in both curricula, which view Christian values as the basis for western democracy. The syllabi discuss political developments such as imperialism, nationalism, and colonialism from a historical perspective, as well as examine the causes and realities of the two world wars. However, there are also a few differences between the two curricula. When considering democracy, Sweden emphasises human rights, gender equality, and the international role of the United Nations (UN); on the other hand, California emphasises the US Constitution and the dilemma of democracy—that is, the separation of powers. While the California curriculum refers to the family in some detail, the Swedish discourse is more individualistic and, in certain respects, places more emphasis on the relationship between the individual and the state than the individual and the family (Berggren and Trägårdh, 2006).
From a polity perspective, the two curricula express different views on the state. In California, the state is considered an institution from which the individual needs protection ‘against the tyranny of government and its infringement on the property and liberty of individual citizens’ (HSSF, 2016: 22). In the Swedish curriculum, the state is considered an institution on which the individual should rely, a welfare state sharing the responsibility for the individual—for example, in terms of what financial responsibility ‘rests on individuals . . . and what is financed by common funding’ (SC, 2011: 222). Thus, whereas California’s curriculum promotes an ideal of citizenship based on distance from the state and an American identity, Sweden’s curriculum fosters a citizenship of academic reasoning and a closer relationship with the state and public institutions. Such differences in views on the state have implications for the meaning of democracy on a parliamentary and representational scale. However, both the curricula examined from these two school systems primarily present syllabus content based on the subject tradition.
In the following account, a few signs of democracy as social action in accordance with Dewey’s understanding of the term have been traced; when it comes to assessment in relation to standards, such general formulations are seldom measured.
Recreating democracy: societal citizenship skills
As core content in the Swedish history syllabus, a central theme of democratisation in Sweden is the emergence of the welfare society through political and social reforms, as well as continuity and change in views on gender, gender equality, and sexuality. With regard to international cooperation and conflicts, the EU, UN, and cooperation among Nordic countries are highlighted as significant themes (SH, 2011).
In the California framework, it is important that students understand the nation’s democratic form of government characterised by separation of powers. The framework classifies US democracy as ‘participatory democracy’, denoting citizens’ willingness to vote, take individual responsibility for their actions as citizens, and actively participate in local, state, and national governments (HSSF, 2016: 23). The framework emphasises virtues such as fair play, give and take on issues, and the search for middle ground or consensus.
Situated creativity: individual civic competence
The teaching of civics in Sweden is aimed at providing students with the ability to see societal issues from different perspectives. Based on personal experiences and current events, students must be given opportunities to express and examine their stances during encounters with other beliefs (SC, 2011).
The course outlined by California’s HSSF begins with studying major contemporary world issues. It is essential for students to become aware of the various organisations that work to alleviate such severe problems. By discussing opportunities for aid, ‘students can develop a positive response to many world problems and can feel that their involvement will make a difference’ (HSSF, 2016: 125).
Cultural pluralism: the human interaction at the centre
The general curriculum for Swedish compulsory school suggests that an ‘awareness of one’s own cultural origins and sharing in a common cultural heritage provides a secure identity’ (Lgr 11, 2011: 9). School is viewed as a venue for social and cultural meetings, during which various groups learn to understand and appreciate one another’s viewpoints. The goal of compulsory education is for all students to feel confident forming personal views on ethical questions based on knowledge of human rights and basic democratic values. All students are required to respect others’ intrinsic value and must reject oppression and degrading treatment (Lgr 11, 2011). However, this perspective is not explicitly contained in the syllabi.
The California HSSF (2016: 14) states that students must ‘understand the rich, complex nature of a given culture: its history, geography, politics, literature, art, drama’. Students must comprehend US identity and ‘recognize that American society is and always has been pluralistic and multicultural, a single nation composed of individuals whose heritages encompass many different national and cultural backgrounds’ (HSSF, 2016: 20). Teachers have the obligation ‘to instil in students a sense of pride in their individual heritages. Students must recognize that whatever our diverse origins may be, we are all Americans’ (HSSF, 2016: 20). Further, the syllabus notes that the multiracial, multiethnic, and multireligious character of the USA ‘makes it unusual among the nations of the world’ (HSSF, 2016: 21).
A curriculum enabling creative democracy?
This study has brought to the fore the relationship between current societal movements and challenges, on the one hand, and national and state curricula, on the other. One social challenge today is that there is a growing worldwide trend for groups to perceive democracy as an ‘elite’ project, in contrast to the tone and content in curricula presenting democracy as stable and unquestioned. It is evident that the two social studies curricula examined here treat democracy as a system to teach. Instead, they should consider democracy to be both a system and an approach for which each new generation of students needs to develop tools in order to recapture and recreate it.
These standards-based curricula do not have very much to offer in terms of recreating democracy. Their logic presumes an instrumental view of expected needs for living in a global knowledge economy (Null, 2011; Young, 2008). The content in all syllabi is, in a certain sense, a combination of subject traditions and existing education policy. As Apple (1993) indicated, a curriculum is always part of a selective tradition and never simply a neutral assemblage of knowledge. However, for syllabi in standards-based curricula, another dominant aspect is added: assessment of students’ knowledge performance. The focus on results and the need to assess students’ knowledge through tests and other documentation directs syllabi to what is measurable, towards knowledge and skills individual students can demonstrate they possesses. In the results-based curriculum discourse, teachers have the responsibility to demonstrate how grades are fair in relation to knowledge requirements and other students. This logic also applies to social sciences curricula, as the syllabi in standards-based curricula also have a standardised structure and design. Within such logic, there is some difficulty in terms of handling values, purposes, and actions. Instead, the values and purposes of education are usually included in the overarching curriculum and excluded from the course plans in social studies. These course plans tend to become neutral, using phrases such as ‘from different perspectives’ (which, of course, is important) rather than ‘from a democratic perspective’.
A hundred years ago, Dewey ([1916] 1980) interpreted the term ‘nationalism’ in a ‘desirable’ manner in order to emphasise the possibility of feeling solidarity with one’s country without resorting to the ‘evil’ interpretation of nationalism. Today, nationalism and migration remain highly controversial issues, with conflicting standpoints among social groups. As a result, in a curriculum framework built on standards and consensus, it is difficult to handle these questions. Opening up thoughtful, respectful thinking with regard to alternatives, possibilities, and nuances in discussions on social challenges—such as democracy, climate change, and migration—is an educational task, but it risks falling outside teaching that is directed towards what can be measured. A curriculum cannot be reduced to raising standards. Instead, a curriculum is a text that is related to how we collectively organise and interpret the world in meaningful ways in the process of organising and producing knowledge (Sundberg and Wahlström, 2012).
Dewey ([1916] 1980) advocated that ‘in the face of every hysterical wave of emotion’, teachers ‘remember that they above all others are the consecrated servants of the democratic ideas’. However, this burden cannot rest on teachers alone. A more modest appeal is to explicitly open up social values in the curricula and syllabi by placing less emphasis on what is measurable in terms of knowledge content and greater emphasis on what is desirable for students to know and be able to do from the perspective of democracy. Such a displacement of the curriculum structure and content must provide a robust framework within which teachers and students can adopt democratic views on social issues at different levels of society and from continuously new perspectives.
The perspectives of situated creativity, cultural pluralism, and recreation of democracy are helpful in acknowledging the subjective, societal, and interactive aspects that prevail simultaneously in the concept of democracy. The contemporary recreation of democracy is aimed at the future, built on conditions we already know and on what we desire to happen in the promotion of the common good. Consequently, the common good needs to be a constantly contested concept in curricula and classrooms, thereby reflecting the extent of trust that citizens in a society are willing to place in each other and the democratic governing system. The concept of democracy as a moral and ethical ideal is based on the assumption that it is possible to initiate social change benefitting the community as a whole. However, this concept becomes difficult to express in a curriculum logic based on standards, knowledge outcomes, and standardised assessments.
Today, when democracy is being challenged, is also the right time to dispute the logic of a standards-based curriculum and the selective traditions of subjects within the social studies, as well as to ask ‘why?’ and ‘what for?’ in relation to basic social values and students’ competences. Promoting ‘critical thinking’ as an academic competence is not sufficient to foster democratic citizens unless it is linked to a social purpose—in other words, making room for situated creativity bearing in mind the recreation of democracy.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
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