The Rise of “Post-Truth” Schooling

Magnus Henrekson () and Johan Wennström

Chapter 6 in Dumbing Down, 2022, pp 95-116 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract The chapter describes the evolution of the view of knowledge in the Swedish school system. It begins in the immediate postwar years and ends in the mid-1990s with a discussion of the radical national curriculum enacted in 1994. This curriculum consolidated the paradigm of “post-truth” schooling. It expresses, explicitly or implicitly, many of the notions that are emblematic of the postmodern social constructivist view of knowledge. It suggests that there are no objectively established facts and that what is legitimized as knowledge is a product of social and historical forces. Moreover, the curriculum recommended mixing academic subjects, incorporating “deconstruction” into schoolwork, and giving students the major responsibility for the content of their education. The chapter demonstrates that the school system of Nazi Germany was grossly misinterpreted in Sweden to justify a view that the teaching of knowledge could potentially be subversive to democracy.

Keywords: National socialism; Postmodernism; Progressive pedagogy; Social Democrats; Unity school (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-030-93429-3_6

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-93429-3_6

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