Teachers' Professional Core Competencies. Pedagogy and Educational Science in Swedish Teacher Education

Abstract

Concepts of Pedagogy[1] about nurture/cultivation, learning and education originate from our ancient cultural heritage, but Pedagogy as an academic discipline was established in Sweden more than a hundred years ago to provide teacher education with a scientific basis. Education and its goals and means became essential societal issues in connection with industrialization, and Pedagogy, as a field of knowledge, has had, and still has, great significance in the shaping of society. Evidently, Pedagogy in the post-World War era has been put forward by various stakeholders to legitimize positions and actions in a field of tension between science, politics and education. This text presents the position and function of pedagogy in Swedish teacher education with emphasis on the ways in which the discipline has been treated in connection with the major teacher education reforms in Sweden that followed the founding of the nine- year compulsory school (Grundskolan) in 1962 up to today. Particular attention will be paid to the term "utbildningsvetenskap” (educational science), which was introduced in the 1990s and established at the turn of the millennium when an "educational science core" was prescribed in teacher education. At the same time, an Education Science Committee was formed within the Swedish Research Council to promote “research on learning, generation of knowledge, education and teaching”. Educational science arose as a way out of a sometimes tenses relationship between traditional pedagogy and a more modern, content-oriented, didactic research stream in order to strengthen teachers' scientific knowledge base and professional identity. Nevertheless, educational science remains imprecise, seeking an identity in relation to other more established pedagogical disciplines.

[1] Pedagogy is used here as an equivalent to the Swedish term ‘Pedagogik’, which sometimes corresponds to English  ‘education’ and French ‘éducation’ and sometimes not.