New Public Management och det demokratiska uppdraget - Är de förenliga?

Sammanfattning: Ever since the New Public Management (NPM) reforms have been implemented in the Swedish welfare and school system there has been multiple studies on the effect of these reforms. NPM advocates an adaption of the public sector towards to the private, using the mechanisms of the market system (Tolofari, 2005). Previous research focuses on what these mechanisms mean for education, school, teachers, and students. However not many of these studies focus on how the reforms have affected the democratic mission, stated in the national curriculum. This study is addressing that research gap. The study consists of a discourse analysis of the three latest national curriculums with a mapping of how democracy, the democratic student as well as the democratic practice are presented and articulated in these policy documents. The aim of the study is to see whether NPM has affected the way this democratic mission is stated in the central values of national curricula. The study found some discrepancy and some similarity, with a somewhat tendency that the democratic mission has shifted towards a NPM discourse over time.