School subjects, policy and curricula

This paper highlights and problematises the state’s selection of subject content in Mathematics and Art teaching, and how this has changed over time, based on syllabi from the introduction of elementary education in 1842 to the present syllabi from 2022. The analysis employs qualitative content analysis. Bernstein’s concepts of classification, framing, knowledge structure, and recontextualisation offer an analytical framework for understanding the dynamics of shifting subject boundaries. The results indicate that the two subjects initially were closely connected but then diverged. Moreover, the two subjects have fundamentally different foundations: Mathematics, with strong ties to the academic discipline of Mathematics and a hierarchical knowledge structure, contrasted with Art, which has a more tentative connection to various fields and subjects and features a horizontal knowledge structure. This combination creates different conditions for a clear and stable core subject, with varying opportunities for stability – that is, openness to changes in content.