Carl Anders Säfström
Biographic Data
| ID | 757466 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Carl Anders Säfström |
| GIVEN NAMES | Carl Anders |
| FAMILY NAME | Säfström |
| SIGNATURE | SÄFSTRÖM C A |
| AFFILIATIONS | National University of Ireland, Maynooth |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1517-9819 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 34 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
A meditation over a capitalist ego in the face of climate emergency. A provocation
In this meditation, I will challenge my own inability to take in and act on the seriousness of the situation of today’s world: Its planetary crises affecting all life. I do so by addressing the violence and domination inscribed in me through being schooled in the western capitalist culture in which I live. A culture in which perfection is the end goal of everything. I challenge this ego of perfection, by embracing the un-harmonizable plant-ness o…
Some notes on the necessity of autonomous educational practice and two concerns
This article suggests a sophistical autonomous practice in response to Platonian Aristotelian philosophy’s domination over education. It shows the dangers of empty education in which education is reduced to schooling the perfect citizen in the image of a perfect state. An example is given in which schooling in empty education is reduced to a tool for authoritarian capitalism inscribed in the formation of the State to increase profit while undermi…
Teaching as Improvisation
In this article, we discuss the centrality of improvisation for teaching, based particularly on readings of Cassin (2014, 2020), Rancière (1991, 1999, 2013, 2020), and Bailey (1992). Our starting point is that there simply can be no teaching without improvisation, i.e., the delicate practice of responding to, situating, and attuning to events within educational encounters that cannot be foreseen, but constantly call for attention and action throu…
New Publicness of Education
The marketisation of education and the democratic deficit
This article deals with the question of what has happened to ‘the public’ in the Swedish education system during the last three decades. In our search for an answer we illuminate and discuss how the process of marketisation, together with the learnification and individualisation of education, replaced ‘the public’ from public education with the logic of the market place. To shed some further light on the current discourse on Swedish education, we…
The Destruction of a Great Idea
This article explores the erosion of public education as a project of democratization. It locates this erosion in the neoliberal world order that has redefined our understanding of schooling the democratic citizen in terms of developing market assets. In it, Carl Anders Säfström investigates specifically how this shift is apparent in the ways in which schooling operates and demonstrates how education itself stands in stark contrast to this view o…
Teaching militant humility against the aggressions of a neoliberal world
This article develops a militant teaching humility regarding the foundational aggression and violence of a neoliberal worldview within late capitalism. Mainly the article shows how such aggressions and violence take shape as schooling the self-interested consumer within a school market. This article also shows how such self-interest understands education in terms of individualism, comparison, and competition, ultimately leading to the destruction…
Contested childhoods across borders and boundaries
Conceptualisations and constructs of children and childhood are temporally and contextually grounded. Historical documents are rich sources of insight and understanding regarding how children were understood, valued and treated at various times by particular societies. This article explores the conceptualisation of children and childhood in the 26‐county Irish Free State (South) and the 6‐county Northern Ireland (North) in the 1920s following the…
Philosophy of education in a new key
Public education is not just a way to organise and fund education. It is also the expression of a particular ideal about education and of a particular way to conceive of the relationship between education and society. The ideal of public education sees education as an important dimension of the common good and as an important institution in securing the common good. The common good is never what individuals or particular groups want or desire, bu…
The ethical-political potentiality of the educational present
This paper will explore a Sophist tradition of educational thought, which is concerned with the world and not a sphere of ideas as distinct from the world, and to suggest some central distinctions and concepts following from such tradition today. The distinctions which are discussed are between; upbringing, schooling and education; aristocratic versus democratic principle of education; aristocratic versus democratic conception of nature; and, cul…
A Pedagogy of Equality in a Time of Unrest
A Pedagogy of Equality in a Time of Unrest addresses education and teaching as fundamental democratic forms of equality. It offers an alternative route for democracy and education and shows how particular shifts in ways of thinking and practising can lead to an education in favour of a democratic life for all. The book identifies the distributive paradigm in education, and dismantles central aspects of such a paradigm. It revolves around the them…
Transactive Teaching in a Time of Climate Crisis
This article discusses three problems that need to be tackled when the climate crisis becomes ‘a sustainability issue’ to be taught in schools. The article highlights, first, how knowledge concerning sustainability in schools risks being reduced and made into knowledge about ‘things’. Secondly, it also discusses how students in such a context risk being treated as instruments for ways of being in the world, rather than being subjects with ethical…
Paideia and the Search for Freedom in the Educational Formation of the Public of Today
Journal Article Paideia and the Search for Freedom in the Educational Formation of the Public of Today Get access Carl Anders Säfström Carl Anders Säfström Correspondence: Professor Carl Anders Säfström, Centre For Public Education and Pedagogy, Faculty of Social Sciences, Maynooth University, Co Kildare, Ireland. Email: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Philosophy of Edu…
Rethinking Emancipation, Rethinking Education
What I Talk About When I Talk About Teaching and Learning
The Immigrant Has No Proper Name
In this article I discuss the role of the immigrant in Swedish society and especially how such a role is construed through what I call the myth of schooling, that is, the normalization of an arbitrary distribution of wealth and power. I relate this myth to the idea of consensual democracy as it is expressed through an implicit idea of what it means to be Swedish. I not only critique the processes through which immigrants are discriminated against…
The European knowledge society and the diminishing state control of education
In this article I explore the changing relation between education and the state as this is expressed through a new language of education within Sweden, structured by terms such as the knowledge society, life‐long learning and validation. I read closely a policy document on life‐long learning, taking as my point of departure the 'authentic state', a state that is possible only when the desires of individuals for a good life are made the conditions…
Teaching Otherwise
On the Way to a Postmodern Curriculum Theory -- Moving from the Question of Unity to the Question of Difference
Teaching Otherwise
Philosophy of education in a new key
Public education is not just a way to organise and fund education. It is also the expression of a particular ideal about education and of a particular way to conceive of the relationship between education and society. The ideal of public education sees education as an important dimension of the common good and as an important institution in securing the common good. The common good is never what individuals or particular groups want or desire, bu…
Transactive Teaching in a Time of Climate Crisis
This article discusses three problems that need to be tackled when the climate crisis becomes ‘a sustainability issue’ to be taught in schools. The article highlights, first, how knowledge concerning sustainability in schools risks being reduced and made into knowledge about ‘things’. Secondly, it also discusses how students in such a context risk being treated as instruments for ways of being in the world, rather than being subjects with ethical…
The Immigrant Has No Proper Name
In this article I discuss the role of the immigrant in Swedish society and especially how such a role is construed through what I call the myth of schooling, that is, the normalization of an arbitrary distribution of wealth and power. I relate this myth to the idea of consensual democracy as it is expressed through an implicit idea of what it means to be Swedish. I not only critique the processes through which immigrants are discriminated against…
The European knowledge society and the diminishing state control of education
In this article I explore the changing relation between education and the state as this is expressed through a new language of education within Sweden, structured by terms such as the knowledge society, life‐long learning and validation. I read closely a policy document on life‐long learning, taking as my point of departure the 'authentic state', a state that is possible only when the desires of individuals for a good life are made the conditions…
Teaching militant humility against the aggressions of a neoliberal world
This article develops a militant teaching humility regarding the foundational aggression and violence of a neoliberal worldview within late capitalism. Mainly the article shows how such aggressions and violence take shape as schooling the self-interested consumer within a school market. This article also shows how such self-interest understands education in terms of individualism, comparison, and competition, ultimately leading to the destruction…
Paideia and the Search for Freedom in the Educational Formation of the Public of Today
Journal Article Paideia and the Search for Freedom in the Educational Formation of the Public of Today Get access Carl Anders Säfström Carl Anders Säfström Correspondence: Professor Carl Anders Säfström, Centre For Public Education and Pedagogy, Faculty of Social Sciences, Maynooth University, Co Kildare, Ireland. Email: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Philosophy of Edu…
Rethinking Emancipation, Rethinking Education
On the Way to a Postmodern Curriculum Theory -- Moving from the Question of Unity to the Question of Difference
On the Way to a Postmodern Curriculum Theory -- Moving from the Question of Unity to the Question of Difference
Teaching Otherwise
The European knowledge society and the diminishing state control of education
In this article I explore the changing relation between education and the state as this is expressed through a new language of education within Sweden, structured by terms such as the knowledge society, life‐long learning and validation. I read closely a policy document on life‐long learning, taking as my point of departure the 'authentic state', a state that is possible only when the desires of individuals for a good life are made the conditions…
The Immigrant Has No Proper Name
In this article I discuss the role of the immigrant in Swedish society and especially how such a role is construed through what I call the myth of schooling, that is, the normalization of an arbitrary distribution of wealth and power. I relate this myth to the idea of consensual democracy as it is expressed through an implicit idea of what it means to be Swedish. I not only critique the processes through which immigrants are discriminated against…
Rethinking Emancipation, Rethinking Education
What I Talk About When I Talk About Teaching and Learning
Paideia and the Search for Freedom in the Educational Formation of the Public of Today
Journal Article Paideia and the Search for Freedom in the Educational Formation of the Public of Today Get access Carl Anders Säfström Carl Anders Säfström Correspondence: Professor Carl Anders Säfström, Centre For Public Education and Pedagogy, Faculty of Social Sciences, Maynooth University, Co Kildare, Ireland. Email: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Philosophy of Edu…
The ethical-political potentiality of the educational present
This paper will explore a Sophist tradition of educational thought, which is concerned with the world and not a sphere of ideas as distinct from the world, and to suggest some central distinctions and concepts following from such tradition today. The distinctions which are discussed are between; upbringing, schooling and education; aristocratic versus democratic principle of education; aristocratic versus democratic conception of nature; and, cul…
A Pedagogy of Equality in a Time of Unrest
A Pedagogy of Equality in a Time of Unrest addresses education and teaching as fundamental democratic forms of equality. It offers an alternative route for democracy and education and shows how particular shifts in ways of thinking and practising can lead to an education in favour of a democratic life for all. The book identifies the distributive paradigm in education, and dismantles central aspects of such a paradigm. It revolves around the them…
Transactive Teaching in a Time of Climate Crisis
This article discusses three problems that need to be tackled when the climate crisis becomes ‘a sustainability issue’ to be taught in schools. The article highlights, first, how knowledge concerning sustainability in schools risks being reduced and made into knowledge about ‘things’. Secondly, it also discusses how students in such a context risk being treated as instruments for ways of being in the world, rather than being subjects with ethical…
Contested childhoods across borders and boundaries
Conceptualisations and constructs of children and childhood are temporally and contextually grounded. Historical documents are rich sources of insight and understanding regarding how children were understood, valued and treated at various times by particular societies. This article explores the conceptualisation of children and childhood in the 26‐county Irish Free State (South) and the 6‐county Northern Ireland (North) in the 1920s following the…
Philosophy of education in a new key
Public education is not just a way to organise and fund education. It is also the expression of a particular ideal about education and of a particular way to conceive of the relationship between education and society. The ideal of public education sees education as an important dimension of the common good and as an important institution in securing the common good. The common good is never what individuals or particular groups want or desire, bu…
The marketisation of education and the democratic deficit
This article deals with the question of what has happened to ‘the public’ in the Swedish education system during the last three decades. In our search for an answer we illuminate and discuss how the process of marketisation, together with the learnification and individualisation of education, replaced ‘the public’ from public education with the logic of the market place. To shed some further light on the current discourse on Swedish education, we…
The Destruction of a Great Idea
This article explores the erosion of public education as a project of democratization. It locates this erosion in the neoliberal world order that has redefined our understanding of schooling the democratic citizen in terms of developing market assets. In it, Carl Anders Säfström investigates specifically how this shift is apparent in the ways in which schooling operates and demonstrates how education itself stands in stark contrast to this view o…
Teaching militant humility against the aggressions of a neoliberal world
This article develops a militant teaching humility regarding the foundational aggression and violence of a neoliberal worldview within late capitalism. Mainly the article shows how such aggressions and violence take shape as schooling the self-interested consumer within a school market. This article also shows how such self-interest understands education in terms of individualism, comparison, and competition, ultimately leading to the destruction…
Some notes on the necessity of autonomous educational practice and two concerns
This article suggests a sophistical autonomous practice in response to Platonian Aristotelian philosophy’s domination over education. It shows the dangers of empty education in which education is reduced to schooling the perfect citizen in the image of a perfect state. An example is given in which schooling in empty education is reduced to a tool for authoritarian capitalism inscribed in the formation of the State to increase profit while undermi…
Teaching as Improvisation
In this article, we discuss the centrality of improvisation for teaching, based particularly on readings of Cassin (2014, 2020), Rancière (1991, 1999, 2013, 2020), and Bailey (1992). Our starting point is that there simply can be no teaching without improvisation, i.e., the delicate practice of responding to, situating, and attuning to events within educational encounters that cannot be foreseen, but constantly call for attention and action throu…
New Publicness of Education
A meditation over a capitalist ego in the face of climate emergency. A provocation
In this meditation, I will challenge my own inability to take in and act on the seriousness of the situation of today’s world: Its planetary crises affecting all life. I do so by addressing the violence and domination inscribed in me through being schooled in the western capitalist culture in which I live. A culture in which perfection is the end goal of everything. I challenge this ego of perfection, by embracing the un-harmonizable plant-ness o…
Sociology (17 works) · Law (15 works) · Political science (15 works) · Politics (13 works) · Epistemology (11 works) · Philosophy (10 works) · Critical and Liberation Pedagogy (8 works) · Democracy (8 works) · Higher education (8 works) · Global Educational Policies and Reforms (7 works)