15. Navigating Grades and Learning in the Swedish Upper Secondary School Where Neoliberal Values Prevail

Next, in ‘Navigating Grades and Learning in the Swedish Upper Secondary School Where Neoliberal Values Prevail’ (Ch15), Patric Wallin examines students’ cultural behaviour and their everyday routines during practical exercises in chemistry laboratories. He seeks to better understand how they interact and communicate and their attitudes to asking teachers for help when they need it. Swedish students believe that to do so might affect their final grades and consequently their chances to progress to university, because their teachers, who also assess them, could deem them needy. Consequently, they deny themselves the support from which they might benefit, a paradox that teachers and students need ways to address. There is a further paradox in that they turn instead to their peers, contradicting the view that neoliberal societies normatively foster individualism.