ABSTRACT
If Swedish education policy in the post-war period were to be characterized by a few governing principles, one of them would be what Basil Bernstein (2000) calls ‘bringing together’. Two reforms that symbolized this bringing together were the comprehensive school reform in 1962 and the integrated upper secondary school in 1971, both aimed at creating a more integrated education system with equalizing effects between social groups. Since the 1990s, these principles have largely been marginalized in favor of principles derived from neoliberal ideology. An area heavily influenced by neoliberal ideology is upper secondary school, especially vocational programs. Since the latest upper secondary school reform (2011), the content of vocational programs is largely steered by the demands of employers, with student ‘employability’ being the primary goal. This is an expression of an international policy trend in which a principle of ‘market relevance’ steers vocational education. This steering of upper secondary school is working as a strongly differentiating force. This chapter sheds light on how knowledge is contextualized and distributed through curricula when upper secondary vocational education is guided by a principle of ‘market relevance’ and what this means for society’s social distribution of knowledge and social stratification.
