The Gatekeeping of Social Science Education and the Struggle for Recognition in four Swedish Classrooms

This paper discusses social science education in four Swedish upper secondary schools as conceptualized – by teachers and students – and as carried out in the classroom. More specifically, it addresses education on migration, public international law and human rights in a classroom where about a third of the students have immigrant background. Analysing data collected through classroom observations and video-stimulated interviews, the paper aims to discuss how the subject social science (social studies/civics) adapts to the increasing plurality in Swedish classrooms. It places itself in the debate between on the one hand the idea of an open and somewhat unpredictable subject – focused on social issues and dependent on the students’ participation and influence on the content, and on the other hand the idea of a content-focused subject keeping close to its related academic disciplines.How do teachers’ and students’ understanding of the subject social science relate to the way the subject education is carried out? How and by whom is the gatekeeping of the subject performed in the classroom? And, with special attention towards the increasing plurality in Swedish classrooms, in what way is the struggle for recognition part of the struggle about, or gatekeeping of, the subject social science in the researched education? A preliminary conclusion in the paper is that the struggle for recognition tends to fall outside of the limits of the subject in the researched education