Antipluralistiska partier i nordiska klassrum

Political parties with anti-pluralist agendas have gained support in the Nordic countries, not least through their presence in public debates and social media. This challenge to democratic citizenship education has been addressed by educational scholars inspired by agonistic theory. Agonistic scholars have highlighted that classroom discussions containing disagreement and emotions enable a more political democratic citizenship education as students may negotiate boundaries between contrasting political identities. However, little attention has been given to students’ engagement with and boundary work related to anti-pluralist discourses. The present study analyzes video material from four Nordic countries focusing on what happens when anti-pluralist parties and ideology become topicalized in classrooms. We draw on Mouffe’s theory of agonism and us/them distinctions to discuss anti-pluralist parties in the context of social studies teaching. The concept of agonism provides us with a lens to analyze the appearance of anti-pluralist articulations in classroom discourse. Through a thematic analysis of four classroom episodes, we explore the relationships between agonism, anti-pluralist discourses, and humor and irony to negotiate the boundaries between us and them in social studies education. Humor and irony are increasingly politicized, particularly in anti-pluralistic discourses and aesthetics. As such, they are phenomena that social studies educators need to be aware of and address in their teaching practices. As humor becomes more common in political communication, we suggest a need for more classroom studies and theoretical development to address its impact on democratic citizenship education.