ABSTRACT

This article focuses on how ‘problems’ regarding quality in adult education are constituted as particular sorts of ‘problems’. The analysis takes its point of departure in a poststructural analytic strategy called ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’. The material analysed consists of various policy documents concerning contemporary Swedish adult education. The results indicate that the concept of quality is described as being deficient and failing to address perceived challenges in adult education, namely the ‘heterogenous student group’ and ‘varying pre-conditions for the organisation of education’. Thus, the concepts of flexibility and individualisation are introduced as a ‘solution’. But at the same time, it is suggested in policy that the implementation of them has failed. In effect, representatives of the municipal authority and principals are held responsible and the need for more strict regulations and increased accountability in order to implement flexibility and individualisation in the adult education system are stressed in policy. Finally, the analysis of the policy documents leads to questions about the consequences for both school personnel and the students enrolled in adult education as the quality of the education seems to be assessed in relation to goal attainment and throughflow of students.

摘要

本文重点关注成人教育质量的“问题”如何构成特定类型的“问题”。该分析以一种称为“问题代表是什么？”的后结构分析策略为出发点。分析的材料包括有关当代瑞典成人教育的各种政策文件。结果表明，质量概念被描述为有缺陷，未能解决成人教育中的感知挑战，即“异质学生群体”和“教育组织的不同前提条件”。因此，引入了灵活性和个性化的概念作为“解决方案”。但与此同时，政策上却暗示它们的实施失败了。有效，市政当局的代表和校长负有责任，政策强调需要更严格的规定和加强问责制，以便在成人教育系统中实施灵活性和个性化。最后，对政策文件的分析导致了对学校人员和成人教育入学学生的影响的问题，因为教育质量似乎是根据目标实现和学生流量来评估的。