Individualisation in Swedish adult education and the shaping of neo-liberal subjectivities

In this article we have analysed the ways a discourse on individualisation is taking shape within adult education in Sweden, how it operates, and what effects it has in terms of shaping student subjectivity. Drawing on a poststructural theorisation we analyse interviews with teachers and students in municipal adult education and folk high schools (FHS). The analysis illustrates how both institutions contribute to the shaping of individualised subjectivities, although differently. At the end, a general question is raised about what happens with the democratic function of adult education in general when a discourse on individualisation operates in the ways described and, more specifically, asks what is happening to FHS as an educational practice that upholds its self-image as a last bastion of a collective notion of learning and subjectivity and nurturing an educational practice of learning democracy