Conference Agenda

In an era marked by post-truth discourses, alternative facts, and increasing challenges to democratic institutions (Wikforss, 2019), a central task of education is to provide students with access to powerful knowledge i.e. subject-specific and disciplinary knowledge that enables them to understand, interpret, and critically engage with society (Young, 2008). This research examines how such knowledge is represented and operationalised in Swedish curriculum and national tests in the social studies subjects of civics, geography, history, and religion. In a later stage, it will investigate students’ knowledge manifested in responses in the tests. The curriculum and National tests can be understood as institutionalised expressions of a collective standard of knowledge (Bernstein, 2000; Lynch, 2021), defining what is considered legitimate, valuable, and assessable within a given education system. Because the social studies subjects address issues central to democratic participation such as governance, historical consciousness, spatial understanding, religion, ethics, and citizenship, they provide an important site for examining how knowledge standards are constructed and communicated. The overarching research question is: What views of knowledge, educational purpose and abilities are expressed in Swedish national tests in social studies subjects, and to what extent do the tests provide students with access to powerful knowledge? More specifically, the study asks: 1. What forms of subject matter knowledge and disciplinary reasoning are emphasised in syllabi and national tests in the social studies subjects of civics, geography, history, and religion? 2. What similarities and differences can be found between syllabi and questions in the national tests in relation to the analytical framework of the study? 3. What collective standard of knowledge and competence is communicated through the curriculum and test questions? The study is grounded in a social realist theory of knowledge, drawing primarily on the work of Young and Muller (2010, 2016) and their concept of powerful knowledge. From this perspective, powerful knowledge is characterised by its disciplinary structure, conceptual coherence, and capacity to transcend everyday experience. It is distinguished from generic skills or context-bound knowledge and is seen as central to educational equity, as it provides all students, regardless of background, with access to forms of understanding otherwise reserved for social elites. This research contributes theoretically by operationalising powerful knowledge as an analytical lens for assessment studies, and empirically by providing a systematic analysis of national tests in four social studies subjects. Disciplinary reasoning is treated as a key indicator of powerful knowledge. Tasks that require students to reason according to the epistemic norms of a discipline, such as historical causation, geographical interpretation of maps, ethical reasoning grounded in formal models, or political argumentation, are understood as expressions of a social realist educational tradition (Moore, 2013). In contrast, tasks that rely primarily on factual recall are associated with essentialism, while tasks drawing on personal experience or generic reasoning are categorized as social constructivist. The study addresses issues of relevance within European and international educational contexts. Across Europe, national testing regimes play an increasingly significant role in curriculum governance, accountability, and standard-setting (Au, 2011). Yet, questions of what knowledge is assessed, and how this relates to democratic education and equity, remain underexplored. By conceptualising national tests as expressions of collective knowledge standards, this study contributes to comparative discussions about how different education systems balance disciplinary knowledge, generic competencies, and accessibility. The findings are relevant not only to the Swedish context but also to other European systems grappling with similar tensions between competence-based curricula, disciplinary knowledge, and democratic aims of education. Moreover, the focus on powerful knowledge resonates with ongoing European debates about curriculum content, social justice, and the role of schooling in countering epistemic relativism (Deng, 2020).

This proposal presents findings and design principles from a European project (Project No. 2023‑1‑SE01‑KA220‑SCH‑000156400) initiative to develop a transnational in‑service training curriculum for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) professionals. The countries involved are Sweden (Municipality of Vänersborg), Italy (Sweden Emilia Romagna Network and Bambini Bicocca), Latvia (University of Liepaja), Belgium (Erasmus Hogeschool Brussels) and Spain (University of Vic-Central University of Catalonia). Specifically, this contribution presents the evaluation results from an international and local pilot course on school–family relationships held at UVic‑UCC (Spain). The proposal argues that sustainable educational change in ECEC depends on strengthening curricular coherence across system, school, and classroom levels, a point widely supported in European policy frameworks and research on the professionalisation of the ECEC workforce (European Commission, 2014; 2019). This emphasis aligns with scholarship showing that high‑quality ECEC requires a highly qualified, continuously developing workforce capable of responding to diverse pedagogical, social, and cultural challenges (European Commission, 2021). The curriculum model integrates shared European values—child‑centred and rights‑based approaches, inclusive pedagogies, and collaborative professional cultures—and situates Continuing Professional Development (CPD) as a process grounded in research on pedagogical leadership and situated professional learning (Fonsén & Ukkonen‑Mikkola, 2019). It incorporates methodological principles identified in comparative reviews of effective CPD, including the interweaving of theory and practice, collaborative reflection, and workplace‑embedded experiential learning (Jensen & Iannone, 2018). Research further indicates that continuous professional development correlates with improvements in learning environments, professional competence, and pedagogical quality (Peleman et al., 2018). The abstract also synthesises a recent review on partnerships with immigrant parents in ECEC, which identifies language barriers, power asymmetries, cultural disagreements, and structural constraints as frequent obstacles, while highlighting facilitators such as multilingual resources, translanguaging, respectful and proactive professional attitudes, recognition of parents’ perspectives, and practices that foster equality and shared goal‑setting (Norheim & Moser, 2020). These insights reinforce the need for CPD that equips professionals to design welcoming environments, enact culturally responsive communication, and organise time and institutional support for equitable partnerships (Norheim & Moser, 2020). Against this backdrop, the international UVic‑UCC course blended seminars, reflective dialogue, hands‑on workshops, and site visits, enabling boundary‑crossing learning and concrete transfer to practice. Participants reported plans to redesign welcoming spaces, apply pedagogical documentation purposefully, and create structured opportunities for collaboration among families and professionals. Trainers emphasised coherence between objectives, methodologies, and the development of reflective, competent practitioners. Situated within broader debates on the role of education research in times of rapid societal change, the proposal underscores the need to understand how knowledge is produced, translated, and enacted within professional communities, while maintaining high‑quality, rights‑based practices for children and families (United Nations, 1989; Siraj, Kingston, & Neilsen‑Hewett, 2019). Overall, the contribution lies in: (1) presenting a theoretically grounded, research‑aligned transnational CPD curriculum that emphasises curricular coherence; (2) offering empirical results showing that short, intensive, transnational courses can catalyse concrete professional changes (internationalization, diversity and inclusion, social and green sustainability, STEAM, and family participation); and (3) proposing an evaluation framework that supports schools in integrating teacher learning with organisational development, thereby strengthening ECEC quality across diverse European settings (Bove et al., 2018).