The aim of this Master’s thesis is to examine the ideological currents that have influenced the swedish school system since the 1990's. The background of my interest is the lively debate in schools and media about the new School reform 2011. My hypothesis is that education in 2011 largely will be influenced by neoliberal and neoconservative values.The method I`ve used is discourse and ideology critique, which examines the relationship between rhetoric and power. These concepts are useful to explain the ideological change in different policy documents and in curricula, for example Lpf 94 and School 2001.The theoretical framework is based primarily on the neoliberal and the neoconservative agenda, which are two distinct political rationalities in the contemporary postmodern world. Alongside this framework I have used scientific, educational, philosophical, sociological and cultural literature. The reason that I have included philosophical texts, is to put education issues in a wider contextOn the internationally published research articles there are literature, which criticize the neoliberal and neoconservative education discourse. This ideological thinking appears through a number of American scientists, such as Michael Apple, who advocate a different kind of education - a corrective to the mainstream - education, that denies ―grand narratives‖ such as class oppression in favor of the pedagogy based on control. Their theories are interesting and seem to be sustainable but are not very much discussed in the Swedish educational debate or education plans today.The conclusion is that the swedish school system is influenced by neoliberal and neoconservative values, through the plans to establish law and order, measurable criteria and entrepreneurship in education.

This document study aims to facilitate an understanding of the differences between the grading criteria for English 5, 6, and 7 (in Swedish upper secondary school) before 2021 and after. It also aims to facilitate an awareness of reactions to the changes among actors within the educational system. The study investigates Swedish documents published online by The Swedish National Agency for Education as well as Swedish articles including reactions from teachers, a professor, and a chairperson of a teachers’ union. The first part of the studied material contains documents showing the old and the new grading criteria as well as documents containing explanations of why the changes were made, from The Swedish National Agency for Education. The other part of the material consists of four articles from four different journals for educators, with reactions from a total of seven different people. The method of the study was content analysis. The results from the study show that aspects of knowledge and details were removed from the grading criteria. For example, the knowledge criterion of students using different strategies when listening and reading was moved to core content. The major reason for changing the grading criteria was to make them clearer. Opinions from a few of the people in the study were that the changes will not matter because they were not big enough and that the changes have not made the grading criteria clearer. However, several people thought that the grading criteria have become clearer, and one person thinks that they will help teachers to carry out a better overall assessment. / Denna dokumentstudie syftar till att underlätta förståelsen av skillnaderna mellan betygskriterierna för engelska 5, 6, och 7 (i svensk gymnasieskola) före 2021 och därefter. Den syftar också till att underlätta en medvetenhet om reaktioner på förändringar bland aktörer inom utbildningssystemet. Studien undersöker svenska dokument publicerade på nätet av Skolverket samt svenska artiklar inklusive reaktioner från lärare, en professor och en ordförande i ett lärarförbund. Den första delen av det studerade materialet innehåller dokument som visar de gamla och de nya betygskriterierna samt dokument som innehåller förklaringar till varför förändringarna gjordes, från Skolverket. Den andra delen av materialet består av fyra artiklar från fyra olika tidskrifter för pedagoger, med reaktioner från totalt sju olika personer. Metoden för studien var innehållsanalys. Resultaten från studien visar att kunskapsaspekter och detaljer togs bort från betygskriterierna. Till exempel flyttades kunskapskriteriet om att elever ska använda olika strategier för att lyssna och läsa till centralt innehåll. Det främsta skälet till ändringarna av betygskriterierna var att göra dem tydligare. Åsikter från några av personerna i studien var att förändringarna inte kommer att spela någon roll eftersom de inte var tillräckligt stora och att förändringarna inte har gjort betygskriterierna tydligare. Samtidigt tyckte flera att betygskriterierna blivit tydligare och en person tror att de kommer att hjälpa lärare att göra en bättre helhetsbedömning.