OPaL Awarded SEK 4.3 Million from Riksbankens Jubileumsfond for the Project Threat Perceptions and Curricula

When society faces crises—such as democratic backsliding, economic uncertainty, rapid technological change, or climate change—the educational system is frequently mobilized as a political response. Education is rarely expected to resolve these threats directly; rather, it functions as an intermediary institution where complex societal problems are translated into pedagogical responsibilities, knowledge requirements, and curricular goals. Focusing on Sweden during the period 1960–2029, the project examines precisely these processes of pedagogization: how societal threats are constructed in parliamentary debate, under what political conditions they are translated into educational reforms, and how they ultimately shape schooling and teacher education.

In line with OPaL’s profile, large-scale computational text analysis is combined with qualitative discourse analysis of parliamentary records and policy documents. By integrating curriculum theory, securitization theory, and policy theory (the Multiple Streams Framework), the project expands the empirical foundation for educational policy research and offers new insights into how education is governed in times of societal uncertainty.