School and the future: How teachers and teacher education are articulated in the political debate

Abstract

To Govern in the name of the future is considered to be an essential part of policy-making in education. In Sweden, this is particularly evident in the political and public rhetoric used in debates on modern schooling and educational reform. However, this is not merely a national phenomenon; rather, educational governance in the name of the future is largely a global phenomenon that can be found in text and talk worldwide. These national and global narratives express ideas, hopes and visions of the future society and the school of tomorrow, but also the demands of and expectations from different actors on educational arenas. In this article I draw attention to the education policy debate in the Swedish Parliament during the period 2001-2010, with a certain focus on the debates about teacher education. The aim of the paper is to discuss how the future society is expressed in Swedish policy debate in times of changing conditions and demands of education mainly represented by knowledge-based economies and the increasing globalization of society.

Introduction

By definition, education looks to the future for the children who are in school today and are on their way into the future. This means that the six-year-olds who start school this autumn will leave it sometime at the end of the 2020s. In addition, in Sweden and other comparable countries at least half of a year’s intake will continue to higher education for several years more after high school, which is more or less compulsory today. It is, however, an almost impossible task to forecast what society will be like when it is time for these young people to enter working life. Geopolitical, economic and technological events all show that there are obvious difficulties in forecasting what the future holds in store. Nevertheless, many debaters, world analysts, researchers and futurologists try to describe what awaits us in the future. A common story in this context is that society is changing at an enormously fast rate and that citizens will have to adapt to this future and rate of change (see for example Bauman, 2000; Castells, 1998; Giddens, 1999; Rizvi & Lingard, 2010). Furthermore, it is said that education has become an increasingly important issue, which today is framed more by economic perspectives than ideals of education and the fostering of citizens. Today, education is thought of as an investment in the production of human capital to secure national competitiveness in a global economy (Rizvi & Lingard, 2010), perhaps as an insurance against future threats. But the school’s democratic objective seems to have taken a back seat. Nevertheless, the development of democracy and the fostering of citizens form one of school’s central tasks, in Sweden and in the Western world, which is reflected in the curricula and in central, transnational policy documents on education (EU, OECD etc.).

However, concepts of the future are by nature an idea, or rather a number of ideas. The importance of these ideas for societal change is one of the most heatedly debated and unanswerable questions in the social sciences (Lundqvist, 2006). The future is created when we talk about it and in our interaction with others. The future is a construction that changes, is shaped and reshaped with time, and is subject to negotiation. Talking about the future is also talking about the present (Naisbitt, 2006). This means that the future just as often involves the present; or rather an extended now in which the future is present all the time, say Novotny, Scott and Gibbons in their book Re-thinking Science, in which they write: ‘What has changed is that the future has been dramatically foreshortened and is now experienced as an extended present.’ (Novotny et al, 2001, p. 39) One consequence of this extended present and foreshortened future is the talk about visions and the pursuit of megatrends, which has developed into successful business ideas and made quite a few world analysts sought-after speakers, consultants and opinion makers in both the public and the private sector. World analysis has gained increasing importance, in both the public and the private sectors, for the analysis of societal change and the future. In this way, people attempt to ensure themselves of knowledge about the future, which is considered to be decisive, but in fact they are more concerned about the challenges of the present than those of the future. Knowledge, ideology, interests and the spirit of the time influence ideas about what is in store for us. Thus the story of the future is a kind of history of ideas in the present (Hultqvist & Peterson, 1995).

An important question in this context is: ‘Who has the power over the stories about the future, thereby holding the initiative for formulating problems?’. Steering schools in the name of the future, and hence the development of society, is an important part of public rhetoric. This is not just a national phenomenon; it exists in global talk about schools (OECD: 1999, 2001, 2006; EU Commission, 2000, 2005, 2006), which expresses concepts and ideas, hopes and visions of the future society, its citizens and tomorrow’s school. These indicate where our society is going, how changes should come about, what demands and expectations various actors place on the education system. Timewise, the issue of these ideas lies closer to our present time than to an uncertain future, if we look at time linearly. Teacher education is one of the state’s foremost tools for steering schools. By controlling the form and content of this education, politicians imagine that they are influencing schools and teachers, but in particular all the students and hence tomorrow’s society (Forssell, 2011). For this reason, teacher education, more than any other higher education, is the subject of continual reforms and lively debates (Wiklund, 2006). For example, Sweden has had two teacher education reforms since the turn of the millennium. The first reform was launched in 2001 by the then Social Democrat government and the second in 2011 by the non-socialist Alliance.

Based on the notion that the school is looking to the future, the aim of this article is to investigate and discuss how the politicians in the Swedish parliament talk about the future, with a special focus on the role of teachers and teacher education in society. A central issue is how the democratic mission of the school is expressed in the political debate on teacher education in an era characterised by globalisation, the knowledge society, knowledge-based economies and increasing cosmopolitization (Beck, 2006, 2009). In the first section, I briefly discuss the changed view on knowledge, education and the shaping of a new knowledge policy. In the second section, I continue to discuss the global challenges we are facing, starting out from the current events of 2014; this puts a particular focus on the school’s democratic mission. In the third and longest section, I examine the parliamentary debate and note that concepts of the future are mostly conspicuous by their absence. Certainly the term is used from time to time but seldom as a vision or story about the possibilities and demands that tomorrow’s society will make of young people, who one day will take part in a society which is greater than the nation of Sweden and in a changing working life. These stories usually involve the past or the present in a sort of world analysis of what today’s society requires. Thus it is the present-day challenges that are articulated rather than those of the future, which I see as an example of the extended present and the foreshortened future. In my opinion, it is of special interest to investigate how politicians describe the future, since they are in a position to set the agenda. Thus it provides food for thought that the future seems to be so evasive and that for the politicians in the Swedish parliament it appears to be considerably more uncomplicated to talk about the present and the past than the future. After all, their ambition is to influence the development of society and hence its future form.

A new knowledge policy

Since the end of the 1990s, we have been able to see how influential politicians all over the world have focused on educational problems in a new way, not least at the turn of the millennium. One example is Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, whose already classic words at the 1996 Labour Part conference, when he presented his political priorities, were: ‘Ask me my three main priorities for government, and I tell you: education, education and education.’ (Blair, 1996) Since then, the call for more knowledge has escalated (Forssell, 2011).

However, our view on knowledge and education has changed over the past few decades; today, these concepts are central in the public debate. Knowledge is a prestige word for everyone, but perhaps especially for politicians. It is a word that arouses increasing hopes and it is pronounced in an increasingly urgent voice. It seems possible to vary it in endless ways, appearing in ever-new compound forms: the knowledge economy, knowledge organisation, knowledge management, a knowledge company, knowledge capitalism, knowledge requirements, knowledge levels, and so on and so forth. Knowledge is seen more and more as a strategic resource and is considered in our time to be a key factor comparable with the role raw materials; capital and the work force have had in our earlier history. Knowledge seems to be something absolutely essential for anyone who wants to be able to manage both present and future challenges successfully. So it is not surprising that today we say that we are living in a knowledge society.

Our use of the term knowledge bears witness of its complexity and potential for change. Koselleck claims that the more a concept is connected to historical, ideological, theoretical and practical references, the more complicated, porous and disputable it will become. Koselleck has also noted that concepts are seldom static; they are complex and in a continuous state of development (Koselleck, 2004). The shift that we can see and which has become increasingly evident is that knowledge and education were previously emphasised in connection with ideals of enlightenment. Terms that went together with those ideals were common sense, development, equality, democracy and independent citizens. As Ulf P. Lundgren states, it was characteristic to see the school as a central pillar in the construction of the welfare state (Lundgren, 1999). But if in our time knowledge has come more and more to be seen as the Answer and the Solution, what is the Question and what is the Problem? Kristensson Uggla (2015) states that today it is industrial policies rather than educational policies that formulate the knowledge agenda, which is also evident in the parliamentary debates I have analysed. The first time the term the knowledge society was used in a Swedish parliamentary debate was in the debate on industrial policy, not in an educational policy debate (Forssell, 2011). Nowadays, education is more closely connected with the economy, with employability and with entrepreneurship than with an enlightenment ideal; this means, I believe, that the shift towards future challenges has become increasingly obvious. To consider education to be of advantage for society and central for the competitiveness of the labour market and the nation has been emphasised more and more in the past few decades (Lindblad & Lundahl, 2001; Ball, 2007; Rizvi & Lingard, 2010). This change is to be found in both the national and the global talk about the importance of education in society. Previously, schools had to a great extent been seen as a matter of national concern, but nowadays they are becoming more and more a concern for transnational policy actors outside the usual political context (Rizvi & Lingard, 2010).

In the early 1990s, the major institutions in the European Union emphasised more and more the role of knowledge for societal development. In 1993, the EU Commission adopted the policy document: White Book on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment: Challenges and ways into the 21^st century (EU Commission, 1993). On the basis of this White Book, the EU Commission designated 1996 as “The European Year for Lifelong Learning”. It is the last few years’ demands for flexibility that are evident in the term lifelong learning, partly in contrast to the formal educational system (Rizvi & Lingard, 2010). The EU Commission states that lifelong learning is a high-priority matter. The reason, they argue, is that Europe has developed into a knowledge-based economy and a knowledge-based society. Knowledge and competence is more than ever the key to strengthening Europe’s competitiveness and to improving the employability and flexibility of the labour force. The EU Commission’s aim is to promote employability as well as active citizenship and integration. Education has increasingly come to be considered a motor for increased growth, innovation and not least competitiveness for a well-developed working life (Ellström, 2002). There is something fateful about the emphasis on Europe as a knowledge-based society as the way to strengthen Europe’s competitiveness. The threat to Europe’s welfare comes mainly from the USA and the BRICS countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. These countries compete not only as low-wage countries but also with a growing, well-educated middle class. Central concepts are competence, employability, flexibility, adaptability and entrepreneurship. These concepts can also be interpreted as expectations of the European citizen (Johansson, 2007, Olson, 2009).

The OECD, another central, transnational policy producer, has raised a number of world and future issues at the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI). This organises a range of activities aimed at trying to understand and influence the ways the education system can be developed in the future. The fact that the OECD, an economic co-operative organisation for some 30-member states that share values concerning the principles for the market economy, pluralistic democracy and respect for human rights, is pushing for a certain type of school development is no accident. It is in full agreement with new liberal ideals and New Public Management, which are often seen as the solution to effectiveness and quality problems in the education sector. The OECD produces policy texts on the growth and welfare of its member states, where competitiveness problems are central. Education, competition and lifelong learning will ensure future welfare (see Rönnström, 2015). Perhaps the PISA reports, which were initiated by and are the responsibility of the OECD, have aroused the greatest attention.

What I have found is that today’s knowledge debate is characterised by an economic dimension and that we have new, transnational actors whose agenda is to influence a new knowledge policy. Views on knowledge and education have changed. It is quite obvious that the economic dimension has to be taken seriously. However, if we have to understand economics in order to be able to understand society and our globalised world, and if the call for more knowledge can only be explained by an economic frame of reference, the opposite must also apply – that we have to take knowledge seriously as a central dimension in the debate on globalisation. If we are to have an overall understanding of the knowledge society and the conditions and possibilities of globalisation, these issues should be brought together as a common problem and challenge. We also see contradictory signals indicating that our society today contains elements that make this discussion problematic. One example is the hymns of praise sung to Knowledge with a capital K and to a knowledge-based Europe. These may be contrasted with the growing frustration felt by many teachers and researchers working in the hard-pressed education system which – from pre-school to university – is expected to play a key role in future strategies. There are a large number of signals that the knowledge society appears to have shortcomings that are becoming increasingly difficult to deal with. There are also groups of people who are left outside of development because of unemployment and lack of education. Perhaps globalisation’s one-sided focus on the economy and technology will lead to a backlash in social, economic and knowledge matters. In the following, I will show how this also affects our democracy, which is yet another dimension of globalisation and the knowledge society that has to be taken seriously.

Global challenges

We can see that the education system has to a great extent been adapted to the current economic ideal, whose roots are to be found in a new liberal agenda (Eriksen, 1998; Lundquist, 1999), and this is something that applies to all the member states of the European Union and the OECD, for example. This agenda, which is characterised by deregulation, decentralisation, privatisation, exposure to competition, cost-effectiveness, consumer orientation, evaluation, steering by targets and results and the like, is a self-evident goal for other transnational actors who have gained ever-increasing control over the education system, for example the World Bank and the IMF. The question, however, is how the school’s democratic mission will be expressed in the debate. Democracy and active citizenship have been a central part of schooling in the Western world for over a century (Rönnström, 2011).

I believe there is good reason to pay special attention to the question of democracy and human rights in our present society. The year 2014 is a special year in a historical perspective, characterised by both war and peace. The Nordic countries can celebrate 200 years of unbroken peace at the same time, as it is a hundred years since World War I broke out in the summer of 1914. This was a war in whose aftermath we can see how the modern national states of Europe were created, a war that also to a great extent led to World War II, which broke out 75 years ago in 1939. Hobsbawn claims that World War I began the 'short 20th century', which ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, 25 years ago (Hobsbawn, 2003). This is a period characterised by ideologies devastating for humanity but also quite often with nationalistic roots like Nazism, Fascism and Communism. Today we are once again seeing right-wing extremism gaining ground in Europe (Saveljeff, 2011). Since a few decades back we have had democratically elected political representatives in some 15 of Europe’s parliaments whose policies include right-wing extremism, populism, nationalism, fascism, Islamophobia and racism, with varying shades of emphasis. After the 2014 election, the European Parliament will have a considerable number of MPs with right-wing, populist values.

In the past year, Sweden has suffered from Nazi-like actions in the form of demonstrations, graffiti and the spread of propaganda. Just after the beginning of the year, students at a school in Stockholm with Jewish classes were met by swastikas and Nazi graffiti. Thousands of people have gathered in various manifestations across the whole country to protest against the growing racism and xenophobia in society, which is considered to be due to a high rate of unemployment, the economic crisis, increasing financial inequality and uncertainty about the future. Much of the blame is put on the effects of globalisation. In the search for scapegoats, immigrants, LGBTQs, established political parties, the cultural elite and institutions like the European Union have been suitable objects for anger, and unfortunately all too often for hatred. Sometimes people say it is discontentment with what is seen to be the Establishment, those with power and status in society (Standing, 2013).

Because of this increasing discontent, xenophobia, growing socio-economic inequalities and increased anxiety in society over the past few decades, I find it important to discuss how our Swedish school system is counteracting these movements. According to the guiding document, schools have two central missions:

Schools are charged with conveying fundamental values and promoting the students’ learning in order to prepare them for living and working in society. (Lgr 11 p. 9)

This means that, in accordance with the curriculum, the school system should be based on democratic foundations and that the education should transmit and establish respect for human rights and the fundamental democratic values that Swedish society rests on. The idea that schools should also educate children and young people to be responsible members of society has been a central mission ever since the elementary school was established in 1842. This education for citizenship was, however, more closely connected to national perspectives. It was a matter of holding a nation together, creating unity and loyalty to the state and obedience to authority. The following quotation from a parliamentary debate illustrates this point:

Teachers play a key role as citizens. They should bring up the students so that they behave like civilised beings. This has been the subject of discussion at all times. (Minutes, 2000/01:18. 2)

After World War II had ended, new demands were placed on education for citizenship in schools; a democratic perspective with a critical and more scientific approach was required (SOU 1948:27). A central theme in later curricula is the international perspective. Sweden is characterised by diversity, like many other neighbouring countries. Respect for differences, cultural diversity and demands for equality influence our views on what citizenship means today. In the past few decades, the national perspective on the schools’ mission has been challenged to an ever-increasing degree. Globalisation has meant that boundaries in time and space, between people as well as nations, have changed and are losing in importance. Ulrich Beck claims that globalisation tends to undermine national sovereignty (Beck, 2006, 2009). Bengt Kristensson Uggla describes globalisation as ‘a de-regulated world economy with increasing transnational features and the rise of a new networked digital convergent information system operating in real time’ (Kristensson Uggla, 2007, pp. 211–226). Globalisation has been described in many ways, but to sum it up in Manuels Castell’s words, it has to do with central processes of change that are connected with the economy and technology (Castells, 2001). The market has moved on from being local and national to being international and global, which puts new demands on the individual as citizen, not least as a result of the deregulation of institutions and the market. Zygmunt Bauman has compared this development to ‘floating modernity’ (Bauman, 2000). This modernity puts fresh demands on individuals and society, demands for change and flexibility in every respect. Kristensson Uggla claims that one result of globalisation is that traditional hierarchies concerning meaning and identity have become increasingly fragmented as a result of the flood of information we live in and the multiplicity of competitive perspectives (Kristensson Uggla, 2000/2013). The term flexibility is a keyword for individuals, institutions and companies when they meet the socio-economic and geopolitical challenges that globalisation presents. Discontinuity and a dominant demand for flexibility mean that people lose the possibility to create a personal relationship to knowledge, which complicates the formation of identity. Taking part in an educational process that reshapes personality is not available to everyone; instead, each and every one of us is now urged to reshape our lives in accordance with the principles: employability, adaption and flexibility. This is also the meaning of lifelong learning today, which seems to be the answer to the challenges of globalisation.

These changes undeniably place completely new demands on the school system, together with the democratic challenges we can see ahead of us. The question is: How is this articulated in the political debate on education in the Swedish parliament? In the following, I report on the findings of my analysis of this debate with a special focus on the debate about the role of teachers and teacher education in society.

Teachers and teacher education in parliamentary debates, 2000–2010

I began my empirical investigation by examining the minutes of 49 debates in the Swedish parliament between 2000 and 2013 in which there was any mention of teacher education. This would give me a picture of how the MPs talk about teacher education and in what contexts. I have chosen from these 49 debates five thematic debates from the period 2000 to 2010 in which teacher training was debated in particular in connection with the two government bills on a new form of teacher education: Bill 1999/2000:135 and Bill 2009/10:89), and also the debates on the theme: teachers and teacher education in connection with the discussion of private members’ bills (Minutes: 2000/01:18, 2003/04:93, 2004/05:83, 2005/06:111 and 2009/10:111).

After having analysed the sets of five parliamentary minutes from the period under investigation, I was able to see various patterns. Certain words and terms in particular show the contexts in which politicians put forward various perspectives on the role of schools in society, on changes and on the future. I call these words and terms signal words, and my method could be compared to a kind of content analysis. These signal words can be said to indicate various aspects of schooling as a field in politics.

To begin with, I discuss how the MPs view the role of teacher training in society. A section follows this on the demands and expectations of the teachers’ role in society. One particular area of interest is the way the schools’ democratic mission is articulated in the political debate on teacher education at a time marked by globalisation, the knowledge society, a knowledge-based economy and increasing cosmopolitization (Beck, 2006, 2009), which in part is reflected in the debate on the school’s value system.

What future society?

In this section, I report on the ways in which MPs view the role of teacher education in society; in this connection, it is interesting to examine how society and societal development is presented in the debate on teacher education, and not least how MPs talk about the role of schools in this society. In the debate, society is often described as being in a state of rapid change. The MPs also say that people will have to adapt to this rate of change and be prepared for lifelong learning:

Nor does it seem as if the members attach any weight to the fact that society is characterised by an increasingly rapid rate of change and that it is the ability to learn, relearn and sometimes learn from throughout life that is of decisive importance for both society and the development of the individual. (Minutes 2000/01:18,36)

One consequence of this state of change is that people change occupations and are not expected to work in the same occupation until they retire, which has been the case for earlier generations:

In the future, it will certainly be unusual for a person who trains to be a teacher at the age of 20–25 to stay in that occupation until retirement. It will be the same in other occupations. So it is important that the teaching profession is sufficiently attractive for people who want to change occupations. (Minutes 2000/01:18, 1)

The idea that the mobile labour market has demands for flexibility in which pedagogical competence might be attractive is an argument in favour of having a new teacher education programme:

We have a new teacher education programme that is modern, in touch with the times, and go-ahead. It has a flexible structure. We have a teacher education programme that can be swift and adaptable and which can really meet future demands. (Minutes 2005/06:111, 9)

Terms like flexible, adaptable and modern are central in the debate on teacher education. Yet despite the ambition of teacher education to be modern, many politicians express anxiety that we do not have enough teachers. This threat applies not only to schools but to the whole of society and Sweden’s ability to compete with the world around it:

At any rate, we face great challenges in this field. The number of teachers retiring in the future will be huge. So many new teachers with high competence need to be trained. If we cannot maintain education at a high level, it will be difficult, even impossible, for our country to cope with the increasingly keen international competition in the future. (Minutes 2005/06:111,8)

What seems to be threatened is Sweden’s welfare and growth in the face of increasingly keen competition with the world around it. The importance of knowledge and learning in this rapidly changing society is often pointed out. Knowledge and learning are seen as decisive factors for societal development.

Swedish society is at a stage of development where knowledge and learning are becoming increasingly important. This will be the factor that decides growth and our possibilities to retain our welfare. (Minutes, 2000/01:18, 18)

If knowledge and learning are the solution, is the problem that our growth and our welfare are not good enough? There is obviously a good deal at stake here, that we are risking our future if young people do not manage to develop their knowledge and their abilities to a higher level. This is decisive for working life and industry’s future development, which affects tax revenue to pay for our future welfare:

We have to improve learning in order to be able to develop and strengthen our welfare. Knowledge and learning are our most important future field and as a consequence, those who work and have their profession in knowledge and learning have the most important profession (Minutes 2005/06:111,9)

That it is knowledge and learning that are decisive for Sweden’s growth and welfare is an idea shared by both right and left-wing politicians and is in agreement with the goals set up in policy documents from the EU Commission, for example. Europe has to develop to become the world’s most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy, which is connected both to growth and to welfare. Thus the debate presents the teaching profession as one of the most important in society. By ensuring that Sweden has a teacher education programme that is of high quality, there is hope that the future society is secured:

We should have devoted twice as much time to this debate, Madam Speaker, for the simple reason that it is the future we are talking about. It is the children who are developing now. It is the teachers who we are going to start training. We are talking about the responsibility we decision-makers have for future generations and for the future society. (Minutes 2009/10:111,71)

There is an interesting distinction between seeing schools as a spearhead for the future, a force for change, or as a mirror of society that reflects its time and hence development here and now. In the latter case, schools are more to be thought of as a trailer coach, adapting to social change and following developments:

School is an image of society. We must make sure to change things so that schools and teacher education follow this development. Knowledge is extremely important. We must not lower the level of knowledge. (Minutes 2000/01:18, 3)

This mirror metaphor occurs frequently. Its viewpoint reveals a more reactive attitude by stating that school and teacher education follow developments. In the following, the speaker says that teacher education has adapted to the needs in society:

In each era, teacher education has also adapted to the needs in society. What is the purpose of schools? What is it that makes them so important? What happens in schools has to meet certain expectations in society. They are in fact a part of society. I think it is dangerous to see schooling as an autonomous unit separate from the rest of society. That is why changes are needed all the time depending on the changes that take place in society (Minutes 2000/01:18, 2).

What might be considered a reactive attitude and a threat in this context is perhaps that schools run the risk of falling behind and not coping with social developments and changes, as well as expectations in society and working life. The spearhead metaphor is a long way off when the picture of a school that is falling behind emerges, a school that has not adapted to the demands of working life and seems more and more isolated from the rest of society. The role of schools is no longer to influence social development. There were hopes that schools would at least keep up with social development. What is interesting is that an education programme is always moving forward in time. Students who begin their education will be trained teachers about four or five years later, depending on the choice of programme, and they will be expected to work for a number of years in the profession. How is the future described that these newly trained teachers will work in? What do we think about this future? What competences will the future society require?:

The ability to search for, evaluate and collect information, the ability to communicate, cooperate and solve problems with creativity and imagination are also judged by industry and working life to be increasingly important in the future society (Minutes 2000/01:18,36).

Here we see a number of abilities that are considered important. Other debaters have as their aim that all students should leave school with a pass grade, which raises the question of what sort of knowledge is required for a pass, and what sorts are not? In addition, they should have a good view of the future and of their own learning:

Our goal is that all students should leave the compulsory school with a pass grade. They should have a good view of the future and feel that they have something in their bag so that they can tackle further education and various expectations and demands. That is why we have to develop teacher education in this way. We need a new way of thinking about teaching (Minutes 2000/01:18,3).

It is again lifelong learning we are hearing about, which many politicians see as important for the future. But in addition, a common device is to accuse the opposition of not understanding what is needed for the future and that they are old-fashioned:

Mr Speaker. When I listen to this debate, I get the feeling that it is more about the past than the present. I thought we were supposed to be debating the future (Minutes 2009/10:111,54).

But at times the future is presented as something you make use of when you lack the ability to take action and perhaps ideas. So the opposition is accused of postponing everything:

Shoulders are shrugged. Thumbs are twiddled. Let us wait and see, enquire and postpone. Everything is hunky-dory in the Social Democrats’ world (Minutes 2004/05: 83,146).

The concept of the future can evidently be used in various ways: as a threat, a possibility, but also as an accusation. That means that the future is also something to sweep under the carpet, to avoid having to deal with, for example, new proposals for change. What should be changed for the better, we can presume, is the present, where there are probably problems to be articulated. Thus the future is already here or at least foreshortened to an extended present, which, so to speak, also contains a future (Novotny, 2001).

Which future teachers?

Teachers are, of course, central figures in the debate on schools and they are by far the most frequent subjects in the debates I have examined. The teaching profession is presented as very important both for students and for social development, an opinion that is quite commonly expressed in the debates:

We agree that the teachers’ work is among the most important in society; to give all children and young people a good start in life. (Minutes 2000/01:18, 1)

This clarifies the importance of teachers for the future of children and young people. These teachers who are to be educated are given decisive significance for social development:

It is knowledge that lays the foundation for economic growth and welfare, but it is also knowledge that lays the foundation for cultural development. In this society, the teachers are of decisive importance. The responsibility for choosing content and method to reach the nationally set goals is actually in the teachers’ hands. (Minutes 2000/01:18, 1)

Thus the responsibility lies heavily on the teachers’ shoulders. It is no mean task to plan and carry out teaching. We can detect a certain concern here about whether teachers can manage this important task or even understand it, since it is actually emphasised that it is the teachers’ responsibility. The question of the schools’ and the teachers’ responsibility is a recurrent theme is the debate. In this connection, teacher education is seen as one of the state’s most important instruments for steering schooling and thereby social development:

Madam Speaker. Teacher education is one of three important national control instruments for our public school system but also an instrument for strengthening the development of learning and education in our whole society (Minutes 2005/06:111, 9).

That is why teacher education is not seen as an isolated phenomenon, like any other education, but it has to be based on what is happening in society, they say:

I would also like to claim that teacher education should be not only – if you understand me – a one-sided professional training to meet needs in society just now. Teacher education should rest on scientific foundations. This means that it should also meet needs that can arise in our future society. Admittedly, the people who are being educated in our teacher training now are being educated to a great extent for today’s needs. Thus it is occupational training. But they should also be educated in scientific thinking. That means they can take part in influencing and changing reality. That means they will be able to meet tomorrow’s problems (Minutes 2000/01:18, 2).

This MP obviously thinks that a teacher education programme that rests on scientific foundations will guarantee that those who are educated, the future teachers, can influence and change reality and will thereby be able to deal with tomorrow’s problems. The teacher’s power seems almost omnipotent. What is also interesting is the emphasis on the scientific foundations, and idea, which seems to be in conflict with an occupational training. The future appears to be a threat:

We should have devoted twice as much time to this debate, Madam Speaker, for the simple reason that it is the future we are talking about. It is the children who are developing now. It is the teachers who we are going to start training. We are talking about the responsibility we decision-makers have for future generations and for the future society (Minutes 2009/10:111, 71).

The MPs emphasise not only how important teachers are but also the demands that have to be made on both teacher education and the teachers themselves. Quite often the status of teachers is mentioned:

In a knowledge society, the teaching profession has to be the most creative and attractive of professions, but that is not the case today. Politics controls many of the teachers’ conditions such as powers, education, further education and the structure of school leadership. There is room for improvement in all these areas (Minutes 2004/05:83,123).

The responsibility for the students’ development of knowledge belongs to the teacher, and the qualities they should have is an important matter. They should get a good teacher education, they say:

The key to a better school in which all children have opportunities to learn to read, write and count lies to a high degree with the teacher. We are certainly in agreement about that. From society’s side, we must see to it that we have a good teacher education programme and that enough teachers are trained. The trained teachers must then have opportunities for further training and making a career within their profession (Minutes 2005/06:111,8).

But good is not enough; other more specific qualities have to be formulated:

We need teachers that can capture the desire to learn and challenge all the children and students to want to develop to their maximum according to their abilities. This is a decisive factor, not least for those children and students who have no study traditions from home. Teachers influence and shape children and students for many years. That is why society has to make high demands of teachers and give them a good basis for functioning well in their profession (Minutes 2009/10:111, 33).

These are heavy demands that are made of teachers. In the debate, there is a clear conflict between those who say they advocate more specialist subject studies and less general pedagogical maters in teacher education:

It is vital that the teacher is always best in the class, that he or she has the knowledge required to teach in this or her subjects and is able to answer the students’ often difficult questions. //…// That is why we believe it is very important to have a very good command of the subject matter. And this has to come first. (Minutes 2000/01:18, 6)

While others say that this means that something has to be taken away, since there is not room for everything in teacher education:

What will you take away? Is it precisely that which teaching is all about? Is it special teaching? Is it the social questions? Is it the cultural questions and the societal questions? Is it the questions about democracy, belonging and solidarity? Is it the questions about the students’ life situations and upbringing? Is it the important national tasks that parliament has given and which are in the curriculum and school regulations and which deal with democracy and value systems? That means you lose them (Minutes 2005/06:111,9)

This conflict between more subject studies at the university versus practical professional knowledge is a recurrent theme in all the debates I have analysed. Sometimes the debate becomes more heated and politicians talk about hostility to culture:

The territorial battle between the university’s subject representatives and the teacher training colleges’ defenders of well-tried experience has been and still is harmful. We live in a time when knowledge is the most valuable thing a young person can have. Research and the transmission of knowledge are playing an increasingly important role as the motors for our economy and society. Why then cling fast to doctrines that are hostile to culture about teachers and schooling? (Minutes 2000/01:18, 7)

Getting knowledge is considered to be the most central issue, which also indicates that students are seen as passive recipients and not active co-creators of their knowledge development. Here we also see a conflict between the university, which stands for true knowledge, and the teacher training programmes that do not appear to do so. When teacher education was reformed for the second time in the first decade of the 21^st century, subject studies were strengthened in relation to the overall education field, which was reduced by 30 credits; the common core for all teacher education programmes is now called the educational-scientific core. This means that we understand that the majority of MPs consider subject studies to be the answer to some of globalisation’s challenges, at least as far as schools are concerned.

Value systems and democracy?

As I wrote in the introduction to this section, the question of the school’s democratic mission was given special attention in the debate on the school’s value system, a theme that appears in all the debates I have examined. The question of the school’s common value system was raised in connection with the preparatory work for the 1994 compulsory school curriculum. The concept of a value system had been introduced in connection with the report School for Education (SOU 1992:94). Previous curricula had spoken of 'fundamental values' (Lgr-80), but from1994 onwards the term “value system” has been used, a relatively unknown concept in the early 1990s in other parts of society. Since then, the term value system has spread to a large number of sectors that need ethical guidelines as a value system. For schools, they comprise the human rights, but in addition the curriculum states that these values are congruent with Christian ethics and Western humanism, a wording that the Christian Democratic party fought for when it was in the non-socialist government between 1991 and 1994:

Our value system is founded on the ethics that have been safeguarded by the Christian tradition and Western humanism. It is the force that allows knowledge to develop. Learning is a subjective phenomenon. It is not developed in a vacuum; there is something around it that sets its mark on the environment and the intercourse between people. The value system in schools is that force./….). The value system must be emphasised strongly in the new teacher education programme. Here we have a reservation. We do not think that it clearly states what this value system is (Minutes 2000/01:18, 2).

The MPs in the Alliance1, but above all the Christian Democrats, stress the importance of including this value system in the teacher education programme, but they do not consider it is really clear what this value system is. This is a recurrent question that reveals a conflict over the use of the term. The conflict between the opposition and the majority over the school’s value system is revealed in the use of the term below, when the Social Democrat MPs speak of a social mission and our fundamental values:

In the end, it is of course a question of the social mission, the national social mission for our fundamental values, which there is an extremely broad majority for in this house. These values must be in focus in the new teacher education programme. They have to be proclaimed in a completely different way and brought to life in the schools (Minutes 2000/01:18,18).

All the parties agree that the value system is important, but the scepticism between the opponents in parliament is obvious. They don’t trust that they mean the same thing:

Otherwise Britt-Marie Danestig’s speech was a Wald to Canossa. She disclaimed classic left-wing standpoints. She spoke of the need for values in teacher education. Suddenly she wants these values to permeate teacher education. //… // Let me put a straight question, Mr Speaker. What values, Britt-Marie Danestig, are the ones that are to permeate teacher education? (Minutes, 2004/05:83,131)

The MP below considers that the party she represents has a clear understanding of the value system, but also that it is the right one, the one that should permeate the teacher education programme:

We Christian Democrats have a clear understanding about the everlasting questions. They deal with the picture we have of our society and the part schools play in it, and the picture we have of humanity and of knowledge. These are the three important issues that should set their mark on teacher education. A good society is built on the family as a foundation where people have the opportunities to develop their abilities in a value-based environment. This is our firm conviction. Schools should support the parents in their upbringing of their children. They should stimulate the development of the students’ knowledge (Minutes 2000/01:18, 2)

The same party has a clear distrust in particular of the Left Party’s ideas:

The Left Party has given up saying that there are no values, that we should not transmit them, that schools should be neutral and objective; now they have started talking about probably transmitting something, though it not clear what, perhaps democracy; as long as it isn’t democracy according to the Left model – or whatever it is: now they have suddenly started saying that it is the curriculum’s values that should permeate the teacher education programme (Minutes 2004/05:83,133)

The question of the school’s democratic mission appears in the debate on its value system, but here the conflict over terminology emerges. After the non-socialist government in the early 1990s, the Social Democrats led a minority government between 1994 and 2006, seeking support from the Centre Party, the Greens and the Left Party. That is when the Social Democrats adopted the term value system; giving it a new content concerned more with citizen education than Christian ethics:

Within the field of public education, apart from the value system, there are discussions about democracy, the social mission, the growth of preschool and school, control, the school’s role as a development and learning environment for all students, diversity as a resource and the language conditions for children with a different mother tongue than Swedish, socialisation issues – which often involve aspects of conflict management and bullying – life conditions and both local and global issues. In addition, questions arise concerning gender, class and ethnicity in relation to the learning and development of children, young people and adults. (Minutes 2004/05, p. 83, p. 126)

The global future issues are mentioned here but are not specified. This may be interpreted to mean that larger questions than the national ones were also taken seriously with regard to the content of teacher education, though it is not clear what they were. The discussion of the school’s mission to foster students to be responsible citizens has a special place in the teacher education programme. In the 2001 reform, it was called the general field of education, with 90 credits, and it was for all the student teachers. In the 2011 reform, it was reduced to a 30 points course, now called the general education core. Here, the students today are expected to develop knowledge that is seen as common for all student teachers, regardless of their programme. There is room in this teacher education programme for knowledge other than subject knowledge, but it is considerably less than in the previousprogramme. This change took place at the same time as the global challenges mentioned above increased considerably, as did the cosmopolitan challenges.

Concluding remarks

This article is based on the assumption that political engagement rests on the desire to influence the development of society, that is to say, tomorrow’s society. In that case, concepts of the future society and analyses of social development are central. Schools, with their eyes on the future, may be seen as a means for achieving this, an important arena to be influenced. I have shown that the Swedish MPs, with their rhetoric, consider teacher education to be a tool for influencing tomorrow’s society. These MPs clearly express that they want to use teacher education as a political instrument of control in the chain of factors that they believe affect students and hence the future. The future, as it is commonly described quite often in the debate, is something threatening and incomprehensible that we can influence through school teaching. However, the society that is described is rather like a story of the present. The concept of time seems to be extended from the present into the future (Novotny et al, 2007). It is of course extremely difficult to draw a likely picture of the future, so it is probably for that reason that politicians start off in the debate from the past, since after all we do know more about that. The relationship to past time as a golden era or a story of misery, the present as problematic or promising, and the future as threatening or full of promise may be discussed as political and pedagogical storiesbehind which are hidden different evaluations of the school’s goals and means and what future society we are striving for; and not least, what the citizens to be desired in that society are.

However, it can be said that the stories are relatively similar when it come to the role of the school in society, whether they present the demands of working life, society’s expectations or the wishes of individuals. The whole discussion can be summed up as mainly dealing with pragmatic usefulness. Education should benefit the economy and welfare. Education is seen as an investment for society and the individual – an economic investment. In my opinion, it is the threatening picture that reveals what is at stake and what is central for politicians. The concern is that Sweden will not be able to compete with the outside world and so will not be able to ensure growth and welfare. This concern about the future is evident. The threat is increasingly keen international competition in a globalised knowledge economy. In that context, knowledge and education seem to be the solution to the problem. The policy documents’ rhetoric from the EU Commission, for example, is familiar. Sweden risks falling behind other countries unless we make sure that the schools produce good results. In a time of continual international measurements of knowledge, in which Sweden has fallen low in the ranking over the past ten years, talk about knowledge seems to be more and more common (Forssell, 2011). But this isn’t about any old sort of knowledge; it is about competence in mathematics and natural sciences to a greater extent than social sciences, liberal arts and aesthetic subjects, which have to back down (Sahlberg, 2010). In the debates I have analysed, it is above all the fact that so few students choose to be mathematics and science teachers that causes concern. The emphasis is on Sweden the nation of engineers, which will ensure future growth and welfare with its innovative industry. Perhaps this idea is based on the needs the industrial society had in the past and not what the future labour market will require. It is yesterday’s needs rather than those of the future that are conjured up in the debate (Forssell, 2011). The paradox is that there is today strong growth in the service sector and of creative jobs such as the entertainment industry with music, computer games, fashion and design. Yet we have seen that the aesthetic subjects are being given less and less room in the schools’ timetables, subjects that develop the students’ creative abilities. We know little about what tomorrow’s labour market will look like, but it is said that a considerable part of today’s work will be taken over in the next 20 years by computers, machines and robots (Brynjolsson & McAfee, 2014). These scenarios will probably influence education in several respects, but the debate on schools ignores them. Future needs of competence in problem solving, co-operative skills, creativity and constructive skills are hardly mentioned at all.

The debate on teacher education makes clear the school’s mission to develop children and young people to become active, responsible citizens, especially when the MPs talk about the school’s value system, which is not by any means a dominant element in the debate. After having analysed an extensive amount of material, I dare to say that interest in the school’s democratic mission is, with very few exceptions, conspicuous by its absence. When it is mentioned, I note that there are two ideas about the contents of the value system. One is based on the Christian values that were introduced in the 1994 Act and the other concerns the school’s democratic mission and the education of students to be good citizens.

How the MPs in general talk about teacher education is interesting and thought provoking, since it is after all a subject of great interest. The question of what is not said or can be said in the debate reveals shifts in the sense of values. What not surprisingly becomes evident is that terms such as quality, responsibility, results, evaluation and grades are increasingly commonly used in the debates from the year 2000 onwards. This is completely in line with the control model that has been in force over the past two decades in the public sector, namely New Public Management. This can be understood as a reaction to the enormous public sector’s inefficiency and lack of productivity and creativity (Eriksen, 1998; Rizvi & Lingard, 2010). New Public Management was the answer. In the parliamentary debates in the early 1990s, it was claimed that we have the most expensive schools in the world, but not the best schools in the world (Forssell, 2011). There is good reason to remind ourselves that at this time Swedish schools were in the top ranks in international knowledge measurements – in contrast to the situation today (Björnson, 2007). A liberal agenda brought in goal and result steering and the right to choose your school competitively as solutions to the quality and efficiency problems. At the same time, responsibility for schools was decentralised to the local authorities and independent organisers. In the late 1990s, the state came back with various kinds of inspection and requirements for quality reports, which subsequently have been, strengthened considerably with a large number of other control systems and evaluation systems.

One term that can be experienced as a mantra in the debates is knowledge. The fact that it often occurs in debates on education is, of course, no surprise, but what is interesting is how the term is used. What does it mean? It is like an incantation: the more you call on knowledge, the more knowledge there will be. The solution that is most frequently presented in the parliamentary minutes consists of quantitative and qualitative improvements in knowledge in a narrow meaning and in the education system as a whole. Knowledge has a value in itself, people say, and the term is used in compound words, which are charged with hopes about the future. In the debates, knowledge is usually looked upon as something you get and is passed on (by a skilful teacher). There is practical knowledge and theoretical knowledge, subject knowledge, deep subject knowledge, important knowledge, good subject knowledge, wide knowledge, pass-mark knowledge, valuable knowledge, a good basis of knowledge, a knowledge target, a knowledge goal, knowledge development, a view on knowledge and so on and so forth. There is also an old-fashioned view of knowledge and the opposite of knowledge is 'woffle', according to several MPs in the debates. Once in a while there is mention that we are living in a knowledge society, which seems to be charged with an understanding of the term knowledge as something that teachers possess in the form of subject knowledge. This shows that the use of the term the knowledge society is problematic as it easily leads us to believe that it is just a matter of putting the two words knowledge and society together on the basis of a conventional understanding of the words. To be able to understand what is really at stake with the knowledge society, we have to realise that in our time both knowledge and society have undergone dramatic changes – which is precisely why they appear in a compound word. In my opinion, the knowledge society we can see developing now requires a broader concept of knowledge that involves learning, competence, capacity and ability as well as action, force and power. This is far beyond a theoretical concept of knowledge, but it also requires a new way of seeing what we mean by society.

Economics speaks volumes when Sweden’s competitiveness is the driving force in the discussions on the role of schools in society (See Rönnström, 2015). Companies need knowledgeable and competent staff. That Sweden must compete with highly qualified workers and not with low wages is an argument relatively often heard in the debates. That is the future teachers’ job. Globalisation is interpreted to mean new demands for adaptability, flexibility and employability; and today there is a new buzzword: young people must be trained to be entrepreneurial, that is, enterprising, innovative and creative citizens; all for the good of the nation.

However, the role of schools as social institutions is conspicuously absent in the debate. Few people say anything about the way social changes affect schools or how schools affect society. What they say is that the school and its achievements are to be found in the schools themselves (Sörlin, 2014). It is the teachers and the school managers that, due to their shortcomings, threaten to leave Sweden in the doldrums, far behind other more successful countries. The poor school results in the past decade are blamed on faults in the teaching and 35 years of policies hostile to knowledge, and not in the policies pursued in the last few years. So the solution is still in the classroom: individual development plans, earlier grades, homework, more special teachers, lack of discipline, more national exams and the like. Thus schools have been disconnected from society and the changes we have seen. In the face of increasing globalisation, it seems as if the only change that schools should adapt to is competitiveness from other countries. This is the threat that can jeopardise both our welfare and our growth. Education is still connected to national conditions, not cosmopolitan ones; that the world is already here with all its diversity: the Internet, deregulated markets, environmental and climate threats and terrorism. Living conditions have changed, both socially and economically, both politically and culturally (Beck, 2009). This state of affairs does not seem to be reflected in the parliamentary debate in the ten years I have examined it with regard to teacher education. On the contrary, the national perspective seems to have been strengthened, which was also evident in connection with the new 2011 curriculum. One example is that when the syllabuses for geography, religious studies and history were presented, there was a debate about the contents and aims. The present Minister of Education maintained that names in Swedish geography were more important than regional geography, and received the following answer from 15 teachers and professors of geography:

The overall perspective in the original proposal contrasts sharply with Bjorklund’s changes, which take the syllabus back to an old-fashioned style of studies in which the students, among other things, had to be able to rattle off names without any context. The Government’s revised syllabus reflects the ideas of a bygone age, but the problem is that the world is no longer what it was 100 years ago. (Svenska Dagbladet, 10 Nov 2011)

In religious studies, according to the proposal from the National School Agency, Christianity was to emphasise the five world religions equally, but the Minister of Education protested and pointed out that Christianity was an important part of Sweden’s cultural heritage and should have a special place in schools.

It seems to me that there is a battle in progress about the school’s national mission, whose main function appears to be to pass on a cultural heritage from one generation to the next. This could be seen as a desperate attempt to maintain the nation’s status as well as a national education for citizenship in a globalised world where national borders and a nationally formed education system are often seen as a historical parenthesis. The sovereignty that has been ascribed to the nation states, especially in the previous century, has been challenged and undermined by various globalisation processes whose forces individual nations cannot control (Rönnström, 2011).

To return to the aim of this article, I believe that schools have a forward-looking nature in their present-time situation. Students start school as little children and leave it as young adults on their way into further studies or a future working life that we today know little about. In the debate, there are seldom any serious attempts to discuss this future society, its challenges and opportunities and hence the importance it should have for schools. Perhaps that is why our elected parliamentary representatives and government members seem to close their eyes to the fact that the world does not look the same now as it did when they entered working life after completing their studies, but prefer to describe the past. There is something paradoxical about these two different attitudes that are so evident in the school world.