The purpose of the study is to investigate how social studies teachers in Sweden’s upper secondary school view the democratic challenges we face today in Sweden, as well as how they integrate these into their teaching with connections to what appears in the curriculum. These challenges come in the form of antidemocratic values, threats to the democratic conversation and democratic exclusion. The study is based on a qualitative interview study. The material that forms the basis for the work is the social studies teachers in Sweden’s upper secondary school based in Southern Sweden and from the Swedish curriculum for the upper secondary school and the syllabus for social science. Human rights, gender equality and people’s equal value are some of the fundamental values that counter democratic challenges. On the other hand, the so-called democracy mission faces challenges, as the school has doubled missions. The results have then been analyzed through Robert Dahl’s democracy model. Based on the results of the study, it can be concluded that the previous challenges to democracy still exist, while increasing at lower ages.

The purpose of the study is to investigate how the curriculum for the Swedish upper secondary school meets the democratic challenges facing Sweden. These challenges come in the form of democratic exclusion, anti-democratic values​​and threats to the democratic conversation. The study is based on a qualitative text analysis in the form of discourse analysis. The material that forms the basis for the work is the Swedish curriculum for the upper secondary school and the syllabus for social science. Social science is a subject that has a special position in the sense that the subject should also convey knowledge about democracy. The study shows that the curriculum seeks to provide students with knowledge and values​​in order to gain skills for effective participation in society. The curriculum together with the syllabus for social science seeks to create justice oriented citizens with a focus on academic reasoning. A large part of how the curriculum manages to meet the democratic challenges lies in the curriculum's intention to transfer certain values. Human rights, gender equality and people's equal value are some of the fundamental values ​​that counter democratic challenges. On the other hand, the so-called democracy mission faces challenges in itself. Discussions about the goal- and knowledge-oriented curriculum are conducted. Even the high level of interpretability of the curriculum may be the basis for a problem.