Higher VET in Sweden - A new approach to curricular formation

This paper concerns a study on policy on Swedish Higher Vocational Education (HVE). It’s focus is on how policy define what knowledge should form curricula in HVE. Documents have been thematically analysed using Bernsteinian theory of recontextualization and conceptualisation of knowledge as either horizontal or vertical. Findings show that the creation of curricula has been positioned away from the national public context and positioned in the local contexts of programme provision. It is also found that knowledge in HVE programmes should be generated in the production of goods and services and is considered legitimate if selected by employers. The paper discusses how HVE reproduces existing social divisions and students’ positions in social hierarchy as wage labour workers and that the definition of knowledge is based on employers’ demands, neglecting knowledge forming autonomous workers and individuals with full democratic inclusion and participation in civic practice.