A history of sermons and carrots but no sticks - Educational policies on second foreign languages in Sweden: Educational policies on second foreign languages in Sweden

This paper is concerned with educational policies on Modern languages or second foreign languages (SFL) like French, German and Spanish in Sweden. Using a typology from policy instrument theory, colloquially phrased as sermons, carrots and sticks, the paper provides an historical overview and a discussion of policy objectives and policy instruments since 1945 with a particular focus on lower secondary school the last 20 years. The analysis shows that while policy and policy instruments naturally have varied over the last 80 years, there are also similarities. A central finding is that in the domain of SFLs, sermons have never been enough, carrots have led to inequalities and sticks have always been avoided.