ABSTRACT
The chapter expresses that the global neoliberal rationality has played a salient role in transforming the purpose of schooling in Denmark and the Danish science education curriculum from forming literate citizens to training qualified science workers. The increasing neoliberalization of education around the world in the last two decades has been widely discussed. Conceptualized as a particular rationality of government, neoliberalism is deployed in political strategies for inserting individuals into the logic of the market. Tracing assertions on individualization, competence, and accountability in the primary science curriculum, in particular in the topic of "the weather and seasons", allows us to show how the aims of a single topic have changed discursively over the years from an open formulation of aims to a standardized, mandatory formulation of competence-based aims. One provides evidence to support the argument that an international neoliberal rationality has contributed to shaping the changes in the school science curriculum in Denmark.
