An officially endorsed national curriculum: institutional boundaries and ideational concerns

Abstract

Recently, there has been a notable renewal in nationalisation processes, which has had consequences on public policies and curriculum development in different countries (Winter 2018). There are both pros and cons associated with this development; increased nationalism can favour a kind of populism that hinders a society from adequately acting upon global problems, or national movements can result in domestic unification as people defend their democratic rights using institutional boundaries (Calhoun 2007; Hroch 1996). National movements can, for example, justify public education as an egalitarian project to guarantee democratic rights for all citizens. This was the case for the populist movement that evolved in the last part of the nineteenth century within the Nordic countries, where a folk movement served as a counter-force to state regulations that did not take egalitarian values and people’s interests into account (Jarning 1998; Lauglo 1995). It is from the viewpoint of relational power developed through local deliberations and public endorsement that this article examines a set of rationales for developing a national curriculum.