Uppfinningen av ett skolämne

Ett historiesociologiskt perspektiv på samhällskunskapsämnets logik

Abstract

From being a part of the history subject, social studies was established as an independent school-subject in Sweden during the first decades of the postwar era. By using a historical sociology analysis this article argue that the specific social and moral setting that dominated how the educational system were organized after WWII, formed durable and still present logics of the definition of subject-content, the societal function of the subject and the means of knowledge (re)production related to the subject. Social studies developed a normative content taught with progressive methods in close relation to state-ideological ideas of citizenship and democracy rather than academic production of knowledge. This developed a school-subject based on institutionalized unpredictability, a content with high elasticity and with weak links to knowledge (re)production system most often carried out by the academic system.