During the last two decades, the elementary, - secondary-, and upper secondary schools of especially Europe and USA have gone through a change. From being formed in the post war time and, in Europe, very influenced by the ideas of social democracy, the school today has more and more come under the influences of neo liberalism, entrepreneurship and the political and economical situations during the late 1980´s.

This undergraduate work brings up the changed discourses of education and knowledge in relation to the traditional free school system for adults in Sweden, the popular education, and especially in relation to folk high schools (folkhögskolor). By using, first and foremost, the idea of Norman Faircloughs critical discourse analysis (CDA) the rules and documents concerning the folk high schools are analyzed. The purpose of the paper is to identify and recognize the movement in the discourse to reach an understanding about the political situation for folk high schools in Sweden. In the end you can see that it is possible to define a similar development in discourse surrounding the popular education, as has been in the case with the elementary, - secondary-, and upper secondary schools.