ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Special Educational Needs
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1602264
Democratic inclusiveness, knowledge focus or something else? Critical analysis of the curriculum for Swedish pupils with intellectual disabilities
Provisionally accepted
- Mälardalen University, Västerås, Västmanland, Sweden
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
The extent to which compulsory school for pupils with intellectual disabilities (ID) differs from regular compulsory school is partly reflected in its curriculum. Regarding elements such as democracy and democratic inclusiveness, research is typically lacking. An analysis of the latest curriculum for Swedish pupils with ID shows that discursive themes such as knowledge, learning, values, and democracy are salient features. That in turn indicates a substantial overlap with the regular compulsory school in terms of aims, values, and syllabi contents. However, the curriculum fails to convey how pupils with ID should learn or elaborate on elements such as democratic participation and be prepared for a future life as democratic citizens, leaving teachers and other stakeholders without guidance in terms of implementation practices. Hence, while the set goals are high it is unclear if they are to be deemed as aspiration goals rather than realistic goals for most pupils with ID.
Keywords: democratic inclusiveness, pupils with intellectual disability, special needs education, Democratic inclusion, Curricular studies
Received: 29 Mar 2025; Accepted: 18 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Boman and Hultin Rosenberg. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Björn Boman, Mälardalen University, Västerås, 721 23, Västmanland, Sweden
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.