The Way Forward for Sweden and Other Western Countries

Abstract

In many Western countries, school systems are in deep crisis. Average results are disappointing, differences across schools and neighborhoods are increasing, and a student’s family background and gender have become more decisive for how well he or she fares. The chapter provides some reflections on the way forward for Sweden and Western education in general. It suggests that a reform strategy involving a paradigm shift in what is arguably the most crucial institution of the school system—the stipulated view of truth and knowledge—has the potential to yield radical improvement.

In Sweden, as well as in all other developed countries, children are obliged by law to attend school until age 15 or 16. This is because basic schooling is not beneficial solely for the individual student; a highly educated population is a necessary condition for a high level of social well-being. A high-quality school system has substantial positive externalities, i.e., the knowledge a person acquires in school benefits not only that person directly but also others in society as well as future generations. These benefits include strengthened democracy, human rights, and political stability as well as lower crime and poverty rates and greater innovativeness and openness to new ideas.¹ Thus, quality education may generally be seen as a public good comparable to, for example, the national judicial system, the transportation system, and national defense.

It is thus no exaggeration to claim that a well-educated and knowledgeable population is a necessary—albeit not sufficient—condition for any nation to have high levels of innovation, technological advancement, civility, and civic mindedness as well as the capacity to integrate immigrants and limit the level of corruption and destructive entrepreneurship.

Clearly, high-quality institutions (such as the rule of law, stable property rights, and a high level of generalized trust), broadly construed, are a necessary condition for a high level of social well-being and prosperity. However, a country’s institutions have evolved as a result of countless economic, political, and noneconomic private interactions among people and are more likely to evolve if the population is well-educated.² In today’s democracies, the evolution of key institutions is largely determined by the preferences of the electorate. In turn, these preferences are a function of the knowledge level of voters. Hence, in ensuring the maintenance and future development of high-quality institutions in a given nation, the role of that nation’s educational system takes center stage.

The high standard of living enjoyed by people in today’s Western democracies would not have been possible unless those countries had developed high-quality school systems that began to gain momentum in the mid-1800s. The Swedish case, which we have covered in depth in this book, is a prime example. Other spectacular examples that bear witness to the dramatic and rapid effect of educational reform are Germanyand Japan. Before 1868, Japan was a feudal society closed to influences from the outside world. Political change and extensive educational reform, including the adoption of Herbartian pedagogy, resulted in rapid modernization, and by the 1910s, Japan had achieved a level of technology comparable to industrializing countries in Europe. Educational reform in Germany started a few decades earlier, and by the late nineteenth century, Germany had become a world leader in several industries.

As we discussed most fully in Chapter 5, the structures, techniques, and methods critical to efficient knowledge acquisition and skill development are well established. The most critical factor for student achievement—even more important than teacher quality—is a detailed, coherent, and carefully sequenced curriculum organized around subject disciplines. Indeed, “a better curriculum can range from being slightly to dramatically more effective than a better teacher.”³ Furthermore, guidance and repetition are necessary for committing knowledge to long-term memory and not overloading the working memory, which generates frustration and disruptive behavior.⁴ Teacher-centered direct instruction has been found to be the most effective method for achieving this outcome.⁵ Similarly, reading and math skills need to become automated for students to become proficient in using these tools. However, because strong reading skills and cross-topic reading comprehension presuppose domain-specific knowledge, a well-rounded and knowledge-oriented education provides the basis for proficiency.⁶ The same is true of the development of other vital skills, such as critical thinkingand problem-solving skills.⁷ Moreover, the psychosocial environment in the classroom plays an important role. A lack of structure and harmony causes students’ survival instincts to react to perceived dangers, crowding out the cognitive capacity for knowledge acquisition.⁸ Testing and stringent and consistent grading are other preconditions for learning.⁹

Establishing effective disciplinary practices and providing a safe learning environment to ensure academic success is particularly important for students from families of low socioeconomic status. This includes children with immigrant backgrounds, especially if their parents have a low level of education and are weakly integrated in their new country.¹⁰ There is now considerable knowledge about which teaching methods are efficient, and research shows that using these methods helps children from underprivileged environments perform well.¹¹

Thus, we know fairly well what works, but these insights were gained through a long, winding evolutionary process. With few exceptions, the accumulation of human knowledge and technological advances proceed through an arduous process of learning by doing, and scientific evidence for why certain technical solutions or methods are efficient comes afterward. This is also true for educational instruction and learning.

In addition to knowledge of efficient teaching and learning methods, the strong economic growth in the early postwar period channeled large financial surpluses into the educational sector. When these factors were combined with strong demands for equal opportunities irrespective of social background and a broad understanding among the general population of the importance of human capital and individual skills for both private and social welfare, it seems that the stage was set for a dramatic increase in knowledge levels across the board in Western countries. However, new ideas had by then gained serious currency, which stymied development along those lines.

The Denial of Human Nature

Rooted in nineteenth-century romanticism, a progressive pedagogical reform movement led by John Dewey gained significant traction in the United States.¹² By the late 1930s, these ideas had become widely dominant in U.S. teacher-training colleges and were spreading to European countries. Most importantly, in this view, students themselves—not the teacher—should direct the learning process in the classroom. Through a winding, step-by-step process, described in Chapter 6, the ideas of the progressive movement morphed into what we call here a postmodern social constructivist view of teaching. This view holds that students should be free to discover their own knowledge and reality, building on personal life experiences rather than culturally prescribed truths.

If, as this view holds, it is not possible to acquire knowledge that is unrelated to the student and his or her own personal experience and personality, this has far-reaching effects on education. In such a context, students must “create” their own knowledge from scratch through active methods and their own investigation (“learning by doing”). Naturally, this is likely to be more readily accepted by students if the individual student’s learning is closely tied to his or her previous concrete experiences.

It also follows from this view of knowledge that teaching in the traditional sense of transferring knowledge directly from the teacher to the student is not possible. Instead, the teacher is assigned the role of mentor or advisor responsible for creating conditions favorable for learning, while learning largely becomes the responsibility of the individual student. This goes against the advice derived from scientific evidence as well as fundamental insights gained from proven experience regarding efficient learning.

This view of knowledge also gradually undermines a notion that has previously been taken for granted and has been a prerequisite for economic and social development, namely, that the primary objective of schools is to give children access to what is considered to be the most important accumulated knowledge (and requisite skills) under the leadership of knowledgeable teachers specifically trained for that purpose. In other words, schools were previously seen as communal institutions established to introduce new generations to the world by carefully selecting and presenting important cultural goods, including language, a mathematical system, and various facts and insights, to the yet unknowing newcomers. This went far beyond learning and being tested on information. The point was that new generations would gradually become and feel part of the adult world and want to act responsibly within it.¹³

This is how humanity has been able to build exceedingly complex and technologically advanced societies. The accumulated knowledge upon which these societies rest is extraordinary and far beyond what any one human being, however intelligent and well trained, could produce alone. Not even Isaac Newton was able to comprehend the idea that matter warps space and time. This was not because of any lack of intellectual capacity but because he lived before Einstein. A single individual cannot push the frontier of knowledge more than marginally in his or her own lifetime. Even making a marginal contribution presupposes that one is “standing on the shoulders of giants,”¹⁴ i.e., that one has had the privilege to go to a high-quality school where it is possible to make giant, well-structured leaps toward acquiring a relevant knowledge base to understand the world as humans have thus far developed it.

Therefore, to sustain and develop the societies and systems we have created, new generations must continuously be brought up and educated so that they are equipped to assume responsibility for those systems in the future. Ultimately, this is possible because of humanity’s capacity for cumulative culture.¹⁵ Humans have an extraordinary innate talent to learn things by imitation—things it would otherwise take forever to learn by ourselves. Such learning is greatly reinforced if the material to be learned is perceived to be relevant and if the person we learn from is perceived to have prestige and status.¹⁶

The postmodern social constructivist view of knowledge denies the existence of these fundamental traits of human nature with unfortunate and, at times, even disastrous results. Indeed, our analysis in this book has shown how the postmodern social constructivist view of knowledge and its associated pedagogy of student-centered discovery and experimentation undermine the quality and functioning of the Swedish school system. Most importantly, students’ knowledge levels have declined substantially across the ability distribution since the mid- to late 1990s.

Our assertion that a universal transition to a postmodern social constructivist teaching approach is the main factor explaining the decline in students’ knowledge, as well as the various other problems in the Swedish school system, is supported by the fact that a similar effect can be seen in other countries. With the help of data compiled by the French Ministry of Education, E.D. Hirsch demonstrated the negative impact of a 1989 postmodern social constructivist reform in the French school system on French students’ knowledge.¹⁷ In fact, the French decline in TIMSS mathematics achievements was the largest among all Western countries from 1995 to 2019 (minus 49 points). Another study found an adverse effect on students’ math scores in the Canadian province of Québec in the early 2000s following a transition to a postmodern social constructivist teaching approach.¹⁸ Finally, it is noteworthy that Finland, previously a star in the educational realm, experienced a substantial decline in student performance after importing Swedish-style pedagogy¹⁹; average Finnish scores in both mathematics and science fell the most in PISA among Western countries from 2006 to 2018.

The developments in Sweden stand out in that the transition to a postmodern social constructivist approach was combined with a radical school choice reform, which opened the education system to competition from independent for-profit and nonprofit schools funded by vouchers. A necessary condition for such marketization and competition to be efficient (if it is to be used at all) is that the central government and its agencies are willing to define what should be taught and determine what level of knowledge has been attained by students. However, that has not been the case in Sweden. Since the system has impeded schools from competing based on how successful they are at imparting knowledge to their students, competition has steered toward goals other than knowledge acquisition, including generous grading.

These experiences may be contrasted with those in Germany, which has gone in the opposite direction to societies such as France, Finland, Sweden, and Québec. Following the large deficiencies and substandard results in the German school system exposed in the PISA 2000, the country took an “empirical turn.”²⁰ It began to stress empirical evaluations in German schools and created “common core” standards for student performance, as well as procedures for external experts to review individual schools. The German PISA results have since risen substantially, inviting us to consider an alternative pedagogical model.

The Virtuous Circle

The various subjects taught in school—mathematics, biology, chemistry, history, and so forth—have evolved and crystallized over time, providing each subject with its own disciplinary core. Of course, this does not mean that what has been seen as incontrovertible truths cannot be phased out, nor that new subjects cannot emerge and be incorporated into the curriculum (e.g., business administration and programming).²¹ Based on experience and trial-and-error, humanity has collectively learned the order in which knowledge is most appropriately accumulated and at what age most students are able to master subject content at a certain level. Over time, these subject-specific didactic insights have been reflected in textbooks and other teaching materials, which are continually revised as a result of new knowledge and views being widely accepted among leading experts.

Likewise, innumerable generations of teachers and students have struggled to master their respective subjects, a procedure that has become “codified” as an appropriate way to progressively enhance one’s knowledge in a certain field. In such a way, it has become possible to teach school children what was previously mastered only by a select group of leading scholars and scientists. Subject knowledge is thus cumulative, and this makes it amenable to measurement; it becomes feasible to test students’ knowledge level in a specific area or the extent to which they have mastered the course material they have been taught. In other words, it is possible to grade a student’s performance based on externally valid and verifiable criteria.

If the level of knowledge attainment can be measured, it also follows that what matters is the level of mastery attained at the end of a course or school year or at the point when primary or secondary school is completed. This does not mean that intermittent grading is superfluous; such grading performs an important formative and incentivizing function.

Combining this view of knowledge with teaching methods based on proven experience and insights from modern brain science would imply a paradigmatic shift. In addition to boosting students’ knowledge attainment and mitigating many psychosocial and disciplinary problems, the status of the teaching profession would rise, which would greatly facilitate the recruitment of talented people to the profession. It would also mean that, at long last, Sweden would adhere to the stipulation in the Swedish Education Act that teaching should be based on “scientific evidence and proven experience.”²²

The reforms during the latter half of the twentieth century in many Western countries, beginning in the United States, overlooked hundreds of years of proven experience regarding how people acquire biologically secondary knowledge and skills most efficiently and what teaching methods are most appropriate in transferring such knowledge from teachers to students. We have now accumulated a vast amount of experience and evidence of using pedagogical methods based on a postmoderm social constructivist view of knowledge, and the results are disappointing. Any claim that those teaching methods that worked well during an earlier period are not suitable for children growing up in the current era is contradicted by the results obtained in countries that have not reformed their systems to the same extent and by schools that operate differently.

We need to return to the view that there exists true and important knowledge and that the mastery of such knowledge opens opportunities to grow and realize one’s potential in voluntary cooperation with one’s fellow human beings. A primary task of a high-quality school system would then be to select what knowledge and skills are most important. Naturally, this has to be done while weighing each student’s motivations and innate ability and, as students age, by increasingly considering their individual interests.

In addition to a good curriculum, the most important determinant of student performance is the ability of the teacher. The teacher’s primary task is to organize the teaching and learning environment so that every student can develop optimally given his or her ability and motivation. A good teacher has deep subject knowledge and uses efficient pedagogical methods. Essential ingredients for an efficient and caring educational environment are teacher demands on and expectations for student effort and continual formative assessments of students’ progress. This is the way to show real concern and respect for all students, irrespective of their inherent potential, personality, or socioeconomic background. The teaching profession would once again become attractive, and performance would improve across the board; a virtuous circle would result, as depicted in Fig. 9.1.

Fig. 9.1

The status of the teaching profession: the virtuous circle

The importance of cultivating respect for tradition and authority in schools in no way implies that children’s originality and creativity would or should be stifled. The teacher’s task is to mediate between the old and the new. Teaching children how the world works and giving them the requisite skills to master the existing world is what makes them both motivated and able to revitalize, improve, and advance the world when they become adults. “To preserve the world against the mortality of its creators and inhabitants it must be constantly set right anew. The problem is simply to educate in such a way that a setting-right remains actually possible, even though it can, of course, never be assured,”²³as Hannah Arendt observed. Of course, this can and should be done without abandoning what is admirable about progressive education; as noted by E.D. Hirsch, we need “a pedagogy that exhibits empathy with childhood and the child’s point of view, yet imparts a strong common curriculum defined by the community.”²⁴

This alternative view of knowledge is also a necessary component of a well functioning school market based on tax-financed vouchers and school choice among competing schools, particularly when for-profit providers are allowed. Then, and only then, can such competition be expected to deliver the desired effects. Competition in well functioning and appropriately regulated and monitored markets provides an institutional basis for improvements as competing providers experiment and develop more efficient ways to attain a certain result at a lower cost or attain an improved result at a given cost. The most efficient ways—the good examples—are then disseminated both within multischool organizations and to competitors via imitation.²⁵ A further advantage of this is that if the school market is functioning well, most students do not need to make an active choice to benefit from the resulting improvements; all providers will be forced to maintain an acceptable quality in order to survive.

Following the introduction of this alternative view of knowledge, schools can be evaluated with respect to their students’ knowledge attainment. This would force school providers to focus on improving those factors that have been shown to promote learning. Teachers’ subject knowledge and ample time for preparation and formative feedback would become crucial for results. This fact would greatly reduce the need for any detailed regulations pertaining to the pedagogical process since schools have no choice but to focus on achieving good results in terms of students’ knowledge attainment.

School choice and competition between different providers has proven to be most efficient in systems with external exit exams.²⁶ In such systems, the competing schools know what the goals are and the body of knowledge on which their students will be evaluated while being free to experiment and develop pedagogical methods, learning processes, and teaching material subject to the restrictions provided by the value of the voucher. Such a system also gives the producers of textbooks and other teaching material strong incentives to continuously evaluate and improve the quality of their products. When knowledge attainment not only hinges on students’ effort but the effort and the extent to which it pays off greatly depends on teachers’ knowledge, aspirations, and expectations, the status of the teaching profession will increase. This will make the profession more attractive for highly motivated and academically gifted persons.

In Table 9.1, we juxtapose what we deem to be the most important differences between the two views of knowledge discussed in this book.

Table 9.1 Contrasting the postmodern social constructivist view of knowledge with an alternative paradigm based on the classical view of knowledge

Concluding Remarks

Good education is an indispensable tool for leaving behind magical thinking, the modus operandi of our species for most of its evolutionary history and replacing it with rational strategies for navigating our lives so that we can achieve our goals in accordance with our values and feelings. It is therefore disquieting that the education systems in Sweden and many other Western countries have become increasingly dominated by ideologies that have abandoned a view of education consistent with this mission. Instead, in these revised systems, learning facts to adequately understand and engage in the society one is born into and intellectual discipline are seen as old-fashioned and oppressive concepts. This conceals the fact that in a deeper sense, the primary purpose of these concepts is to provide students with models and tools to better understand and interpret reality so that they can liberate themselves from preconceived ideas and “wishful thinking” that lacks a factual basis and instead make decisions that have better prospects of helping students achieve their goals.

The students who are the worst affected by deficient school quality are those whose homes, figuratively speaking, lack an intellectual piano. At the same time that we, with the aid of scientific methods, are building a rapidly growing body of knowledge about how the human brain works and learning occurs, it has become increasingly apparent that today’s dominant approaches to education in Sweden and several other of today’s richest countries lack a scientific basis.

Ultimately, the result is that a large share of the population will end up lacking the tools to analyze and navigate complex processes and instead accept being viewed and viewing themselves as weak or wronged. In such cases, unemployment can be seen as a manifestation of objectionable globalization and conflict in the workplace as a legitimate reason to receive support from society under the label of long-term disability.

In reality, a person growing up in Sweden or any other Western country today has exceptional opportunities to live a long and full life. To realize this potential, there is a strong need for an educational system (and a culture and public discourse that would then follow) that provides everyone with the incentives, tools, and opportunities to discover their own comparative advantages and how they can best contribute to society while leading satisfactory lives.

Based on this account, it should be clear that the broader problems marring the school systems in Sweden and many other Western countries are in no way intractable. Indeed, there are already some signs of improvement in Sweden in the most recent TIMSS and PISA assessments, which are likely in part an effect of the increased (but not officially acknowledged) use of direct teacher instruction in Swedish schools.²⁷ As these slight improvements show, even a minor shift toward a more moderate form of social constructivism results in some improvement. More importantly, a reform strategy involving a paradigm shift in what is arguably the most crucial institution of the school system—the stipulated view of truth and knowledge—has the potential to yield radical improvement.