The schoolarization of the preschool class : policy discourses and educational restructuring in Sweden

Our aim in this article is to examine policy discourses that promote positional changes for thepreschool class in the Swedish educational system. The preschool class is currently going througha watershed period, which is characterized by uncertainty regarding its position in the educationsystem. In this article, we explore changes in the Swedish education system by analysing policydocuments from 1997 to 2017 with a specific focus on the positional shift of the preschool class.The departure point for our study is that policy relates to the concepts of subjectification,qualification and socialization. In addition, we examine how these goals in education are to beachieved and the educational restructuring required to do this. The findings show that policydiscourses about the preschool class have shifted from pedagogical arguments about thebenefits of pedagogical integration, consensus and the move of preschool pedagogy into schooleducation, to more school- oriented, knowledge-economy arguments about increased goalachievement. Schoolarization describes a positional shift in the education system that containstwo collaborative processes: an approach towards school content, goals and forms for teachingand a distancing to the content and goals formulated for Early Education and Care.Förskoleklassen i en brytningsti