Introduction

Background and research overview

Methodological and theoretical considerations

Results—context, process and outcome

Summary and discussion

References

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to describe, critically analyse and discuss the Swedish system of assessing ethics education in compulsory school through national tests. The publicly available tests from 2013 for grades six and nine have been studied as have the assessment instructions for teachers. Staff responsible for the test construction have been interviewed. The aims, core content and knowledge requirements of the curriculum were also studied. The concept ‘ethical competence’ was used as an analytical tool in the qualitative content analyses. Through the design of this study, the actual test, its process of construction and the curriculum were examined. The results suggest that ethics education, given (a) the curricular construction of what ability to assess, (b) complexities of test construction in ethics and (c) possible teach-to-the-test effects, runs the risk of being limited to an argumentative, conceptual competence, with ethics education being emptied of crucial content. However, being included in national testing can strengthen the position of a school subject. Is it then an advantage for ethics education to be tested in this way? The critical problems the study raises make the author conclude it to be a disadvantage for ethics education to be tested through national tests.

Introduction

‘What may be learnt in ethics education?’ is a crucial question to pose, not least in relation to contemporary ethical societal challenges such as migration, climate change, responsibilities towards future generations and the equality and rights of human beings. The urgency of present ethical challenges such as these raises questions of how ethics is taught and learnt in school. That this varies in compulsory schools in Europe is shown by Korim and Hanesová (۲۰۱۰), whose study demonstrates how ethics education is differently shaped within curricula in the European countries. In this study, Swedish ethics education for the compulsory school is at the centre. In 2013, additional national tests were introduced for grades six and nine in several school subjects, including the subject knowledge of religion [religionskunskap], in which ethics is tested. In this article, a critical analysis is undertaken of the testing of ethics education through the 2013 national test within its curricular context, i.e. the goals expressed in the new Swedish curriculum from 2011. The research interest revolves around the effects that the curriculum and a system of national tests may have for a particular subject, in this case, for a humanistic, philosophically oriented subject like ethics.