"Normkritisk vaccination" - Normkritik och normkritisk pedagogik i Skolverkets rapporter och råd 2009–2014.

The study investigates the Swedish National Agency for Education’s recommendations and advice on the use of norm criticism and norm-critical pedagogy to promote equal opportunities and prevent discrimination and harassment in schools and kindergartens. The purpose is to explore how the Swedish National Agency for Education describes norms and norm-critical pedagogy, and what teachers and kindergarten teachers should do when they work with norm criticism to ensure that their practice is in accordance with the advice and recommendations. The study also investigates the understanding of norm criticism represented in the texts.

The results show that norm criticism is often presented as a ‘technique’ to be ‘introduced’, and the introduction of this ‘technique’ is described as both ‘easy’ and ‘simple’. Norm criticism is also portrayed as a ‘vaccine’ against discrimination. The researcher behind the study believes that the problem with these texts is that they take for granted that teachers/kindergarten teachers and pupils/kindergarten children are ignorant of existing norms, and therefore creating awareness of norms becomes an important method (technique). The underlying assumption that shines through in the texts is that everyone, both teachers and pupils, has the same interest in changing discriminatory norms, and that they have the same view of what constitutes discriminatory norms.

The sample of texts is made by reviewing publications published by the Swedish National Agency for Education between 2006 and 2019. A search on the Swedish National Agency for Education’s website using the terms ‘equal treatment’, ‘norm criticism’, ‘discrimination’, ‘harassment’ and ‘offensive treatment’ yielded 23 relevant hits. In addition to these, the text ‘Förskolans och skolans värdegrund – förhållningssätt, verktyg och metoder’, published by the Swedish National Agency for Education, is included.

Hill, H. (2021). "Normkritisk vaccination” - Normkritik och normkritisk pedagogik i Skolverkets rapporter och råd 2009–2014". Pedagogisk forskning i Sverige, 26(2-3):38-60.