Curriculum policy, teaching, and knowledge orientations

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to explore the implications of a standards-based curriculum for what constitutes knowledge in different teaching contexts. The research question is as follows: How is the logic of uniformity within curriculum standards recontextualised into actual teaching in different school environments, here focusing on the concepts of the knowledge underpinning the teaching? Many national school systems have adapted to the current accountability movement. The accountability movement is characterised by seemingly simple and reasonable logic that defines objectives to specify what schooling should result in for learners, evaluates the result and then uses the result to improve the schooling process. In reality, however, the recontextualisation of the subject curriculum to teaching practice is a complex process. This article draws on interviews with two teachers focusing on eight recently completed lessons. The analysis reveals two approaches to curricula—integrated and performance—underpinned by two different views of knowledge: transactional realism and social realism. Although the key aim for teaching based on transactional realism is ‘coordinating the students’ interest in’ the curriculum and teaching content, the key aim for teaching based on social realism is ‘giving the students access to’ specialised knowledge.


Introduction
Over the past few decades, classroom research has largely focused on the concept of learning from a sociocultural perspective (e.g. Sahlström, 2008;Säljö, 2000). Within this sociocultural learning field, learning is manifested through the quality of participation in interactions; hence, the interest has shifted from the teacher to the learner. Prominent research has been conducted by Jean Lave (1991) and Barbara Rogoff (2003). A strong field of research on classroom discourse has been developed that includes important features of classroom life-the language of curriculum, the language of assessment and the language of personal identity (Cazden, 2001;Markee, 2015). In parallel, there has been a growing interest within curriculum theory research regarding the question of what kinds of knowledge should form the basis of curriculum (Deng, 2020(Deng, , 2022Young & Muller, 2010;Young, 2008a).
Curriculum exists not only as a document, but also as a set of enacted events arising from the context-specific interactions between teachers and students, which are understood as 'curriculum events' (Doyle, 1992). Classroom pedagogy cannot be viewed as a neutral form of teaching that lacks connections to the curriculum content and structure; rather, pedagogy can be understood as teaching together with its accompanying discourse of educational theories, values and justifications (Alexander, 2009).
Although there is a rich body of research on classroom discourse and learning, research on the relations between curriculum, knowledge concepts and teaching are rare within this kind of research. In the current study, it is the local recontextualisation of national curriculum standards into local teaching practice that is the central interest.

Purpose and research question
The purpose of the present study is to explore the implications of a standards-based curriculum for what constitutes knowledge in different teaching contexts. The research question is as follows: How is the logic of uniformity within curriculum standards recontextualised into actual teaching in different school environments, here focusing on the concepts of knowledge underpinning the teaching?
The study is at the intersection between research on curriculum, concepts of knowledge and teachers' perceptions of their actual teaching. The focus is on the processes of recontextualisation, that is, reinterpretation and reorganisation (Bernstein, 2000) of teaching content from the programmatic curriculum arena to the actual teaching in the classroom arena (Deng & Luke, 2008;Doyle, 1992) and the underlying assumptions of knowledge that underpin teachers' different selections of teaching content and teaching modes. The national curriculum model that frames the study is a standards-based curriculum. Because the study is based on research in both curriculum theory and classroom research, it is the relationships between curricula, social context and teaching-rather than the specific character of the school subject in question-that is central.

The disposition of the article
In this introductory part of the article, the research field is contextualised and the purpose of the study introduced. In the next section, some key terms are specified, along with a brief description of the national school system. In the third part of the article, a theoretical framework of two different concepts of knowledge is presented, as well as a methodology of critical discourse analysis. The fourth section contains the results of the analysis of the teacher interviews. In the fifth and final part, some conclusions are drawn.

The meaning of the term curriculum
The term curriculum can be understood as a product of different ways of understanding the relationship between schools, the State and society. In the current study, the term 'curriculum' relates to a history of national curricula in the Nordic countries as part of nation-building. As such, curriculum is not only a stable body of knowledge in accordance with a discipline. It is also about meaning making and negotiation among different actors in society and the education system, as politicians, national education authorities, teachers etc. The national curriculum has also functioned as an arena for addressing challenges regarding social cohesion in the tradition of a social democratic welfare state associated with a Scandinavian model (Karseth & Sivesind, 2010). The Scandinavian curricula are historically closely related to the German Didaktik tradition, which is based on an ideal of Bildung and the autonomy of both the teacher and learner (Hopmann, 2007). In Sweden, this tradition has gradually shifted during the past three decades towards a tradition of curriculum and teaching developed in the US, where curriculum is viewed as a 'manual' that teachers-as employees of the school system-are expected to 'implement' (Westbury et al., 2000). This movement from a German Didaktik tradition to an American curriculum theory tradition has mainly taken place through cooperation on education policy in transnational arenas, for the most part provided by the European Union (EU) and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (Wahlström & Nordin, 2020).
The international policy of standards-based curricula is part of the accountability movement that directs attention at the outcomes of students and schools (Hopmann, 2008;Lingard, 2021;Wahlström & Sundberg, 2018). The movement is characterised by a seemingly simple and reasonable logic that defines the objectives specifying what schooling should result in for learners, evaluates the result and then uses the result to improve the schooling process (Anderson, 2005). In turn, the accountability movement is connected to a neoliberal ideal of governing the public sector with market logics drawn from the private sector (Gunter et al., 2016). The political assumption is that curriculum standards reflect the knowledge needed by society, that curriculum standards dictate what teachers should teach and that standardised tests reflect the content of curriculum standards. Teachers become accountable links in the curriculum-delivery process, which risks overemphasising the impact of teachers because teachers control neither the students nor the social context of a school (Schiro, 2013).
As Sleeter (2007) notes in studies from the US, curriculum standards can mean both the standards of content and those of learning outcomes. According to the OECD, educational standards 'refer to descriptions of what students should know (content standards) and be able to do (performance standards) at different stages of the learning process' (OECD, 2013, p. 7). International knowledge tests such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) facilitate a global governance of the forming and calibration of international performance norms for what students should know by the end of compulsory school (Rizvi & Lingard, 2010;Sellar & Lingard, 2014). The aim of outcome-based performance standards is both to contribute to learning through the articulation of clear expectations for all students and provide the criteria on which assessment tasks will be judged (Fenwick, 2012). However, there is a risk that, to a large extent, private schools and charter schools are valued precisely because these schools do not include 'all students', which means that the visibility of learning outcomes can lead to a higher degree of school segregation (Yates, 2013).

Standards-based curriculum: a definition
The definition of standards-based curriculum used in the current study closely aligns between the three parts of 'aims', 'core content' and 'knowledge requirements' within the subject curricula in a nationally regulated curriculum, combined with a close connection between 'knowledge requirements' and national grading criteria, as well as with assessment criteria in national tests (Sundberg & Wahlström, 2012). The national curriculum referred to in the present study consists of two parts. The introductory part contains 'The school's foundation of values and mission' and 'Overall goals and guidelines'. The second part contains subject curricula for the different school subjects in the nine-year compulsory school, including the aims, content and knowledge requirements for each subject.

The Swedish school system-a brief background
In 1991, pervasive educational reform was launched in Sweden. The reform was characterised by a shift in responsibility for education from the state to the municipalities, the introduction of goal-and result-driven governing and the implementation of free school choice and independent, publicly funded schools (Dahlstedt & Fejes, 2019). Especially in the last decade, the Swedish national curriculum for compulsory school has focused on transnational knowledge concepts derived from international knowledge assessments while at maintaining a subject-based curriculum. In Sweden, the transnational concept of competence has been recontextualised to a domestic understanding of the abilities to be achieved within each school subject (Nordin & Sundberg, 2021).
In the Swedish compulsory school, the grading system includes six levels, with F representing approximately fail, E representing pass, C representing pass with distinction and A representing pass with special distinction. Levels E, C and A are formulated as 'knowledge requirements' in the syllabus for the subject. Levels D and B have no explicit formulated requirements; grades D and B are used when the requirements of E or C are met but not well enough to earn a C and A, respectively.

A theoretical framework-concepts of knowledge
Included in a transnational discourse on standards-based curricula is a focus on students' learning. As Biesta (2020, p. 91) notes, a problem with the language of learning and broader policy trend of 'learnification of education' is that learning alone cannot be considered a goal of education. The learning needs to be related to a purpose, that there is a well-thought-out reason to learn a specific matter and to the content selected to offer a specific student or group of students a deeper understanding of the matter at hand. A problem with the policy rhetoric of learning is that it tends to call into question the deeper purposes of educational content, purpose and relationships that are invisible or taken for granted. Biesta (2020) argues for the need to recognise the student as the subject of their own life, rather than as an object of educational interventions. To be a subject of one's own life, Biesta (2020) claims, deals with the freedom of self-realisation in terms of being a human existence in the world. With reference to John Dewey, Biesta (2020, p. 102) points out that when students are treated as the objects for learning, 'something we do to others, thus approaching them as things or objects', teaching is about training. However, when teaching means something we do 'with' students, here approaching the students as subjects while recognising their freedom, teaching becomes about education. The quote by Biesta can be understood as two different approaches towards the role of the student in relation to classroom teaching. In a similar way, the different approaches to the individual can be recognised in relation to the two different concepts of knowledge introduced below.
When students are taught to the same standards in the same subject curriculum, the policy assumption is that the students will acquire very similar subject matter knowledge. To go beyond the policy rhetoric of learning and gain deeper insights into what kinds of knowledge different groups of students actually encounter, the following two different views of knowledge constitute the theoretical framework for the present study: social realism and transactional realism. The two concepts of knowledge differ in terms of the role attributed to the individual in the knowledge process (Biesta & Burbules, 2003;Young, 2008b) and the relation to the context (Wahlström, 2022b), even though there is a consensus that knowledge is socially constructed and fallible (Wheelahan, 2010). With reference to the two curriculum traditions of 'academic rationalism', which underscores the importance of transmission of disciplinary knowledge, and 'social reconstructionism', which underscores individuals' reconstruction of their own analyses, standpoints and actions (Deng & Luke, 2008), social realism can more closely be attributed to academic rationalism and transactional realism to social reconstructionism.

Two different concepts of knowledge
Within an understanding of knowledge as social realism, Young (2008a) emphasises the need to understand knowledge as context independent and disciplinary. From a sociological perspective of knowledge, Young (2008a) argues that the task of the school is to provide students with access to specialised knowledge that marks clear boundaries between different school subjects and between specialist knowledge and everyday knowledge.
• Specialised knowledge is context-independent and refers to knowledge that has been tested and elaborated scientifically within science, 'beyond one's experience' (Young, 2008b, p. 15). • The assumption is that strong boundaries between the content of different subjects and a strong framing of the communication of knowledge facilitate underprivileged students' access to theoretical, specialised knowledge. • The argument from social realists is that, without specialised knowledge, also termed 'powerful knowledge', students are denied access to deliberations on societal matters in society. Thus, social realism contributes to egalitarianism (Wheelahan, 2010). • The fundamental pedagogical problem is the discontinuity between the culture of a curriculum and that of a student (Young, 2008b). This gap, Young argues, can be bridged by schools only if the acquisition of formal knowledge is institutionalised and prioritised.
From a philosophical perspective, Dewey argues for a pragmatist perspective of knowledge. According to Dewey, there is no presupposed gap between the object and mind because the individual is always already in a continual state of transaction with the environment with which the individual interacts (Dewey, 1991). Dewey refers to the interactions between humans and social and physical world as 'transactions'. This understanding of realism, wherein people always act in an environment of social and physical objects, is referred to as transactional realism (Biesta & Burbules, 2003;Sleeper, 1986;Sundström Sjödin & Wahlström, 2017): 'Human life itself . . . consists of transactions in which human beings partake together with nonhuman things of the milieu along with other human beings' (Dewey, 1991, p. 243).
• Dewey's transactional realism enables transactional constructivism in the sense that 'it can be argued that our knowledge is at the very same time a construction and based on reality' (Biesta & Burbules, 2003, p. 11). • The difference between everyday knowing and science is a difference of context rather than principle, where what is done and known and why it is done and known differs in purpose and form between everyday life and scientific work (Dewey, 1991). • To obtain knowledge of something simultaneously creates the possibility of finding the means to create change. Gaining knowledge has a democratic and moral aspect that is included in the form of an associated life shaping the environment (Dewey, 2008a). • Experience is the basic concept for understanding how to develop knowledge about something. Experience is not an inner process, but rather, it is a process between the individual and their environment (e.g. the classroom). It is the quality of the experience that determines if an experience is educative (Dewey, 2008b). • The pedagogical problem for transactional realists is coordinating the individual's interest with the teaching content (Biesta, 2014).
In the below sections, the meaning of knowledge will be problematised through the lens of two teachers' conceptions of teaching and underlying understanding of the concept of knowledge that can be linked to the different teaching approaches.

A methodological approach
The data are part of a larger research project involving classroom research and interviews in two high-performing and two low-performing schools (for a comprehensive report, see Wahlström, 2022a). The data were collected from four year-eight classes (14-year-old students) during the 2018-2019 school year; the subjects analysed were science and the Swedish language. The interviews were based on two teachers' considerations of the teaching content and the pedagogy in a total of eight recently conducted lessons in science. In Sweden, the school subject of science comprises physics, biology and chemistry. However, it is not the specific character of the school subject that is central, but rather, it is the relationships between curriculum, teaching and view of knowledge in a classroom as a sociocultural context.
The interviews with the two teachers presented in the current study were selected after an initial reading of 32 follow-up interviews with eight teachers regarding their recently completed teaching in the subjects of science and Swedish. The reason to conduct a deeper analysis of these two interviews was the potentially different views of knowledge that emerged from these teachers' descriptions and explanations regarding their taught lessons. The fact that both teachers taught the same subject (science) facilitated a comparison. One of the teachers taught in a high-performing school and the other teacher in a low-performing school. The performance of the school was defined in relation to the official statistics of knowledge achievements for students in year nine. One of the schools was included in the upper quartile and one of the schools belonged to the lower quartile of national knowledge results in school year nine, measured over five years (The Swedish NAE, 2022a).
The four interviews with each of the two teachers (eight interviews in total) were conducted in direct connection with each lesson. The interviews were transcribed in their entirety. The interview sessions covered a total of 3 hours and 33 minutes. The approach of the interviews was 'a general interview guide approach' (Patton, 2002, p. 342) facilitating the interviewer to explore and build a conversation around the subject area. The introductory question was as follows: 'Would you like to tell me something about the teaching of this lesson and the thoughts behind the lesson?' This was followed by questions such as the following: 'What were the most important things you wanted the students to learn from the lesson?' 'Why do you think these aspects are important for students?' 'What did you think about the curriculum content and teaching content in this lesson?'

Analysis of the data
A critical discourse analysis (CDA), in accordance with Fairclough (2001Fairclough ( , 2010, was used. According to Fairclough (2004), classroom teaching articulates particular ways of using language with particular forms of action and interaction related to structuring the classroom as a physical space. The notion that '[t]exts are the situated interactional accomplishments of social agents whose agency is enabled and constrained by social structures and social practices' (Fairclough, 2004, p. 122) captures the textual situation, which is subject to analysis in the present study, here consisting of teachers' own statements about their teaching practices. Thus, critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2010) aims to bring together text (description), an interpretation of text (discourse practice) and sociocultural practice (including social and material structures).
CDA in accordance with Fairclough (2001Fairclough ( , 2010 rests on the assumption that the natural and social worlds both exist independently of the human understanding of them. However, the natural and social worlds differ in that the social world depends on human actions for its existence and, thus, is 'socially constructed' (Fairclough, 2010, p. 4). The critical in critical discourse analysis turns attention towards the gaps between certain values claimed by social institutions and recontextualisations of these values in discursive and social practices (Fairclough, 2010).
Drawing on Fairclough's dialectical relations between text, discourse practice and sociocultural practice (Fairclough, 2010), the following question has guided the three steps of the analysis: In the first step, the focus was on the interview data as texts: (1) What content is expressed in the interviews about teaching? In the second step, the focus was on teaching as discourse practice, that is, on the interpretation of the meaning of teaching expressed by the teachers: (2) What different meanings of teaching have been expressed in the interviews? The third and final step of the analysis concerned the explanation: (3) How do sociocultural factors affect the shaping of discourse practices of teaching and knowledge? (Fairclough, 2001).
In the following results section, the results are presented according to the steps of the analysis, starting with a descriptive part, which is followed by an interpretation of the meaning of the teaching and ending with a contextualised, explanatory part.

Teachers' experiences from their teaching -results of the analysis
In this first part of the section, the focus is on the two teachers' descriptions of their teaching as carried out in their recently completed lessons.
Teacher A focused on the modes of teaching throughout the four interviews and how she could structure lessons to meet the needs of different groups of students in the class: Now, I have structured the lessons. They are structured in difficulty, from E to C to A. I used a . . . taxonomy book to help me write the lesson objectives, but it also helps me plan the lesson. If I make this lesson objective sheet from the start and I decide on the lesson title and I decide on the three objectives . . . that is the very basic lesson plan. (Teacher A) Teacher A had previous experience teaching in a level-grouped class organisation, which she preferred because it facilitated lesson planning. In her current teaching situation, she emphasised that she was teaching a class that she termed mixed-ability, even if the class was objectively part of a high-performing school environment: From experience, if I start off with the easy stuff and then level it up as it goes along, the kids who are around F, E and D level, in the first 20 minutes . . . they have a bit of success, they have learned something . . . so I can, towards the end, stretch the higher ones towards the end of the lesson. (Teacher A) The motivation for the students was assumed by Teacher A to be the prospect of reaching a higher grade. Thus, clarity of what is demanded of the students to achieve the different grade levels was seen as important: What I want them to do is to get to the next step; that's the most important thing so they know where the next step is and at least can identify the next step along the line . . . You say, 'You are there, you didn't know this, that's how you have to improve'. So I'm trying to create a system where it is easy for them to assess themselves, so they know what the next step is as far as learning knowledge . . . because that is essentially what I am doing; I am just teaching knowledge. (Teacher A) It was important for Teacher A to create an overview of the assessment system for the students so that they could become agents in their own learning.
[The summative basis for assessment constructed by the teacher in relation to the lesson objectives] becomes the strand of assessment for learning techniques to give them ownership of their own learning, and they can only do that if they can see the steps, so they see the whole system it bears upon. One question that the kids ask is, 'How do I improve?' I will, in a very simple and effective system, show, 'There you go; that's how you improve'. (Teacher  A) Teacher A had a strong focus on offering students opportunities to achieve high grades. All the students take national tests in one of the science subjects in year nine. The individual school or teacher cannot decide which subject (biology, physics or chemistry) the students are to be tested on; that is a decision for the Swedish NAE. For Teacher A, the selection of content depended more on what could be expected on national tests than on the aim of the subject and core content-or even the knowledge requirementsformulated in the syllabus in the national curriculum. She believed that the relations between curriculum content and the content in national tests were ambiguous: You have got a problem because you got a very fluffy core content [in the curriculum], 'teach them about body systems', and you have a very specific national test . . . also, there is no document that tells me exactly what can be tested on that national test. (Teacher A) In contrast to Teacher A, Teacher B started her story about the lesson by speaking about the students and how she perceived their relationships to the school: The most important thing for this particular group of students is that they should understand that if they come to the lessons, bring the stuff with them, and participate, then they can reach the knowledge requirements. Because I have understood that there are many students here who identify themselves with an F, or would like to do so, sort of . . . I do not really know-perhaps it's cool somehow. (Teacher B) Teacher B tried to combine the curriculum requirements with what she perceived as the students' perspectives on life and school: Then, I want them to come here so they can probably pass with an E, and there are three things they need to do. It is to perform a laboratory work to try to make a plan for a laboratory work and do this reasoning task, and you do it here. You do not have to prepare yourself at home in any way because there is . . . an opposition against that. And I understand that they are tired now, too; it's November. (Teacher B) Teacher B related the teaching content to the results produced within scientific research from a broader perspective. She wanted her students to pay attention to how these results have affected the development of society and how scientific discoveries also affect students in their daily lives: I try to find some everyday connections to it [electromagnetism] so that they will understand. I do not know why, maybe because I am interested in history, but I still find it very fascinating with these scientific discoveries. If this phenomenon had not been discovered, how would we have lived and what would our society have looked like? Both the positive and negative consequences that it [the discovery] has brought. (Teacher B) By making her starting point in the students' daily lives and interests, Teacher B has tried to capture the students' interest by doing practical exercises related to phenomena with which they are already familiar, instead of planning the lesson around reading a text or solving written assignments. She also argued that the practical teaching format is specifically relevant for teaching her subjects: Both Teacher A and Teacher B tried to capture the students' interest in their teaching; however, the teachers' stories differed. Although Teacher A assumed that her students were present in the classroom and tried to keep up with the teaching as much as possible, Teacher B, who was in a low-performing school context, prioritised how the students should attend her lessons by relating the teaching content to their everyday experiences and making the teaching as 'practical' as possible.

The meaning of teaching
In this second part, the results of the analysis revolve around the meaning of teaching in relation to the subject matter, teaching content and teaching relations.
Teacher A discussed her teaching in terms of simplicity. She tried to be as clear as possible about what the students needed to do to achieve different grade levels. She expected her students to be willing to learn and make efforts to reach a higher grade. When Teacher A talked about her students, she often related them to the grade level she expected from them (e.g. 'the B kids'). She was confident in her leadership in the classroom and, thus, could focus on details in lesson planning.
In Teacher A's commentary on her teaching, she was the main actor and, thus, the central subject. This focus on the teacher as a subject distinguished her from Teacher B, who included the lives of her students in the commentary about her teaching. Teacher B referred to how the students may perceive themselves and how she, as their teacher, experienced that many of her students felt resistance to learning. The students conveyed a feeling to the teacher that they believed that studying was not for them. Thus, Teacher B started her planning by trying to get the students to come to the lesson, here by creating interest in the current content of the subject. Teacher B needed to get the students to identify themselves as individuals who know and can learn more, and to that end, she had two main means. The first means was to point out the usefulness of understanding scientific phenomena in everyday life and striving to arouse students' fascination with scientific discoveries more generally. The second means was to use a pedagogy of practical exercises as much as possible. In that sense, Teacher B had a broad view of her teaching.
Both teachers noted the importance of including a perspective on sustainable development in their teaching, albeit for different reasons. Teacher B argued that the curriculum should be more prescriptive regarding teaching about sustainable development in compulsory education because of the importance for humankind to adapt to the requirements for a sustainable society to prevent irreversible climate change: Then, there is the case of sustainable development. It is represented in all three science subjects: chemistry, biology and physics. And it becomes more and more relevant . . . It should actually be more advanced in the curriculum about our impact on the environment and what we need to do to reduce it. (Teacher B) Teacher A related the importance of teaching about sustainable development to the national tests instead because, as she noted, sustainable development is a theme that is regularly included in the national tests in year nine: The consequences of the greenhouse effect. It comes up in every single national test somewhere. It doesn't matter what subject. It could be in physics . . . there is always an opportunity. From year seven, I have these slides like, with perfect answers where you . . . the effects, consequences, effects for people, effects for animals . . . I'm never wrong. Every year. It is always hidden somewhere, ah, the greenhouse effect. (Teacher A) Both Teacher A and Teacher B encouraged their students to become involved in the assessment process. Teacher A focused on the individual student and emphasised written answers to questions. She strived to construct a transparent system involving different grade levels: I have to teach them with the grade definition between the A and C and E and . . . because if they are going to reflect on that lesson, if they are going to give themselves a grade on a reflection sheet, they need a point of reference-otherwise, it is too hard for them to do. I have to make it simple as well, so it used to be like three objectives: just learn this, learn this and learn this. (Teacher A) Teacher B placed greater emphasis on peer assessment and how laboratory exercises are performed and described by the students. She strived for a more collective understanding of the requirements and their assessment: And then there is a lot of this with formative judgement. So I'm trying to get into this with peer assessment a bit . . . half the class does laboratory work, and the other half looks at how the laboratory work was conducted and how the solutions were made. Then, there were different grading levels for E, C and A . . . whether they were using measuring jars or if they just guessed and poured water into a beaker or if they weighed sugar or if they took a teaspoon of sugar. They would see that there are different levels. (Teacher B) There was a difference between the two teachers' approaches to curriculum with implications for how they conceived of their educational task as teachers. Although Teacher A took her starting point in the knowledge requirements for different grade levels, which represent the third part of the three-part structure of the subject curriculum, Teacher B emphasised the broader task of education in terms of overarching goals in the first part of the curriculum, including awakening students' interests and ensuring their understanding of the importance of acquiring new knowledge, both for themselves and for the development of society.

Teaching as socioculturally contextualised
In this final part of the results, the central focus is on understanding the teachers' considerations regarding the selection of teaching content and pedagogy, as well as their relationships with the students in relation to sociocultural realities.
The groups of students that the teachers taught both posed challenges for the teachers, albeit in different ways. Teacher A found it difficult to stimulate every student in a 'mixed-ability' class, 'which was a huge challenge for me when I came here five years ago' (Teacher A). Teacher A handled the mixed-ability situation by placing the students with lower grades in the front rows of the classroom. At the beginning of each lesson, she concentrated on what she called 'E-level questions' to include these students in the lesson conversation. In the middle and at the end of the lessons, the students at grade levels of C and A received the teacher's attention to challenge their learning and understanding of the tasks.
Teacher B struggled with a school culture in which several students in her class appeared to oppose considering themselves as learners capable of learning new skills. According to the teacher, the students often expressed in different ways that they believed school was unimportant to them. Teacher B was also concerned about the lack of material and personnel resources available to organise the teaching in parity with the students' needs: As now, when they are doing laboratory work, yes, they must do it with the whole class. Alternatively, if I divide the group, which I preferably would, I need to have a resource teacher in the class every time. Ideally, I would have like to have 60 minutes of laboratory work for half the class. That is what we want. (Teacher B) A standards-based curriculum with clear knowledge requirements can direct the teachers' focus on teaching to what will be measured. In this manner, teaching content and future assessments tended to merge. A paragraph in chapter one of the Swedish curriculum, stating that 'the teaching must be adapted to each student's conditions and needs' (Lgr 11, 2011), becomes less important compared with the demands regarding what knowledge and competences the students need to achieve to reach, here as stated in the subject curriculum for each subject. These two demands on teachers-to adapt teaching to each student's needs and to take responsibility for ensuring that every student reaches the knowledge requirements-formed a field of tension difficult for the teachers to reconcile.

Different approaches to curriculum and knowledge in two different contexts -some conclusions
In the current study, the enactment of a national standards-based curriculum has been explored at the classroom level. A curriculum structured in terms of standards affects how teaching and learning are conceptualised and realised by teachers and students (Vogt, 2021). Although the standards in the curriculum were the same for both interviewed teachers, their strategies for using the curriculum and their views of knowledge differed.

Different approaches to curriculum: different approaches to knowledge
To connect the curriculum with the actual sociocultural context, Teacher A started with the standards, here as expressed in terms of 'knowledge requirements' in the syllabus for the specific school subject, and then planned a suite of lessons with the potential to help the students reach their different goals in terms of grades. This approach can be viewed as a performance approach in relation to the curriculum, where the teacher started her lesson planning from the standards students should achieve (see Bernstein, 2000). Because of the social context in Teacher B's classroom, she made her starting point the general goals of schooling in the first part of the curriculum, where the overall aim with the students' schooling was expressed, and from there on, she specified the teaching tasks by examining the aim and content for the subject in question. Taking this approach, she interpreted her role as a teacher as more comprehensive than just teaching a specific subject. I term this way of understanding the curriculum an integrated approach to curriculum, where the teacher integrates a broader understanding of the school's mission into the lesson planning.
The knowledge discourse underpinning Teacher A's performative approach to curriculum and teaching strategies carries a view of knowledge being context independent and specialised, which, in Young's (2008b) terms, offers students access to powerful knowledge. The content of knowledge tends to be taken for granted within a subject that has a close connection to an academic discipline (Deng, 2020). Drawing on Bernstein (2000), Wheelahan (2010) argued that the boundaries and what they signify are central aspects of what counts as knowledge. The key boundaries that students must understand from their school education are those between theoretical and everyday knowledge. Other important boundaries can be found between educational institutions and workplaces because these areas represent different kinds of knowledge and between different subjects within education (Wheelahan, 2010). These boundaries are clearly acknowledged in a performance approach towards curricula, wherein the specialised understanding of knowledge is given a privileged position. This understanding of knowledge also facilitates comparisons of knowledge between students, between schools and between national school systems.
The knowledge discourse underpinning Teacher B's integrated approach to curriculum and teaching strategies was a view of knowledge that is more related to a pragmatist, transactional realist perspective. Teacher B strove to coordinate her students' interests and actions with the curriculum content (Biesta, 2014). When Teacher B was trying to direct her students' attention to the consequences of scientific research and science discoveries, she simultaneously highlighted the social aspects of teaching content. As Dewey (2008b) notes, the key question in education concerns the quality of the experiences gained by students through teaching. There is a principle of continuity in every experience in that the quality of previous experiences affects the quality of future ones. It is the engagement in the relation between the experience of the individual and teaching content that is essential for the student's learning, rather than clear boundaries between school subjects and between everyday and scientific knowledge.

Two concepts of knowledge: basic arguments and pedagogical problems
An argument from the social realist perspective, here in accordance with a performance approach to curricula, is that theoretical knowledge must be at the centre of school because this form of powerful knowledge is a prerequisite for students' understanding of how knowledge is produced within different disciplines. Moreover, specialised knowledge forms the basis for participation in the conversation about what society should be like (Wheelahan, 2010). However, teaching based on a knowledge concept of social realism risks being focused on 'learnification', with the student being an 'object' of teaching rather than a subject of their own life (Biesta, 2020). The key aim for teaching within this form of knowledge is to overcome two gaps: that between decontextualised knowledge and the student as a subject and that between specialised knowledge and discussions on societal consequences and social development (Wahlström, 2022b).
An argument from the pragmatist perspective of transactional realism, which is in line with an integrated approach to curricula, is that individuals are always interacting with an environment constituted by the physical and social world (Biesta, 2014). The school and curriculum are part of the environment with which students interact-or reject. As Hansen (2002) notes, teachers cannot 'unmediatedly bestow knowledge, insight and new outlooks on students' (p. 278). What they can do is direct their visions towards the students' environment, towards 'the classroom world before him or her' because 'the teacher can best promote learning by working out situations that draw on and extend students' knowledge, insight, curiosity' (Hansen, 2002, p. 278). From this perspective, students are the subjects of their own education (Biesta, 2020). Within this form of knowledge, the key aim for teaching is to overcome the gap between students' interests and the teaching content (Wahlström, 2022b).

Teaching from a standards-based curriculum
In Sweden, standards-driven policy initiatives have been linked to the student's right to reach the knowledge requirements. If students do not reach the knowledge standards, they have the right to receive special support efforts. Despite these rights, 15% of students were not eligible to continue to a program at upper secondary school when they completed Year 9 of compulsory school in 2022 (NAE, 2022b). It raises questions both about the effectiveness of the efficiency-driven idea of standards-based curricula and about the formulations of standards. Curriculum standards do not constitute an objective measure; standards are socially constructed and the way they are constructed and interpreted affects who is included and excluded as 'approved' students.
The results from the current study show that approaches to curriculum and knowledge cannot be determined solely by the standards in curriculum, no matter how closely the aims, content and knowledge requirements are described and related to each other in curriculum and to grading criteria and national tests., the different approaches to curriculum and concepts of knowledge related to these approaches are the result of complex relationships between the teachers' approaches towards the curriculum, their interpretations of the curriculum as discourse practice, the teachers' own beliefs and experiences and the social situations in which the actual teaching takes place. The differences in the two approaches towards curriculum and two concepts of knowledge conceptualised in this analysis is a difference in the role of the individual in both the teaching and knowledge processes.
Thus, the global language of the 'standards-based curriculum' influences the structure of the curriculum and language of education. However, what goes on in classrooms is the result of multifaceted processes of the teachers' view of curriculum and knowledge, as well as the students' positioning of being an object to, or a partner in, education-or to simply refrain from taking part.