Since the publication of The Salamanca Declaration 1994, inclusive education has been a significant international aim. However, due to ambiguities of the concept of inclusive education, the organizational conceptions vary greatly both between and within countries, both as regards what is seen as sufficient measures of inclusion and as regards “who” is seen as the focus of the concept. While some countries have maintained a focus on the placement of pupils with diagnoses and physical disabilities in mainstream classrooms, other countries have adapted a wider scope. For instance, in Sweden, the notion of a pupil in need of special support is comparatively wide, primarily focusing on the risk of not achieving knowledge goals of the curriculum. Thus, any child can be seen as in need of special educational support for a period of time, which can also be seen in Swedish statistics (cf. Giota et al., 2009). In that sense, Sweden maintains a broad definition as regards “who” is in focus for special educational intervention, but a narrow organizational view as regards what inclusion means in practice, namely a placement-oriented one. Additionally, focus tends to be on school problems that are typically related to low achievement (due to the focus on knowledge goals) and behavioral/social problems.

In recent years, the concept of giftedness has been receiving increased attention in the Swedish education discourse, in particular as regards the notion of inclusion. The question has been whether or not the education system is prepared to accommodate pupils that may need more challenges and faster pace and whether the system is able to acknowledge or recognize problems that these pupils may have within the system.

The aim of this paper is to critically engage the issue as a matter of definition, and of policy. What are the prerequisites for the recognition of the gifted students in Swedish policy documents? Are they encompassed within the general framework of inclusion in the education system and what measures can be seen as possible within the policy framework?

In this presentation we provide an analysis of how a selection of policy documents regulating Swedish education portray this dilemma. What tensions are created and what possibilities are offered as a way of moving forward? The theoretical and methodological framework for analysis and interpretation is adapted from Ball (2006), his concepts of ‘policy and text’, and ‘policy as discourse’. We will also use Bacchi’s framework of poststructural policy analysis (Bacchi, 1999), using particular questions to tease out normative notions of “the problem” in policy as well as the measures seen as desirable or undesirable.

We believe our results have implications for the theoretical development of the notion of inclusive education as well as the policy environment in Sweden and, more broadly, the Nordic context.