ABSTRACT
The chapter explores the prevalent phenomenon of representations of education in crisis. The aim is to assess the nature of this alleged crisis in the case of Sweden, and ensuing stabilisations of specific norms about the objectives and role of education in society. The data are two widely watched and debated TV series about Swedish education. These are Lära för Livet from 1977 and Klass 9A from 2008. Using discourse analysis and a norm-critical perspective, the analysis shows different conceptions of crisis in the 1970s and 2010s. Both TV series depict a school that fails to accomplish its mission, and they both portray Swedish school as in crisis. However, the presumptions from which the presumed crisis is constructed consolidate two very different conceptions about the basic aim and motivation for providing public education. In the first case, it is to form an equal society. In the latter, it is to contribute to a growing economy. As a social institution and object for politics, education is likely always to be framed within a crisis story line. It is, therefore, important to disentangle the norms about schooling that are used and affirmed in different crisis story lines of education. I have attempted to show that it is important both to disentangle the norms about schooling that are used and affirmed in different crisis story lines of education.
