In the school political debate that is conducted in Sweden the question of grading is an ongoing topic of discussion. During the past year there has been a lively discussion about introducing grade from year four as suggested by the right wing parties. The purpose of this study is to set the teaching faculties’ view and arguments in relation to the politicians' opinion in the ongoing debate about the proposal of introducing grades from year four. Furthermore, the aim is to investigate how central the didactic arguments are in relation to other arguments in the current debate. To achieve the purpose of this study, the following questions was created:

• How do the teaching faculty and the politicians argue around the proposal of introducing grades from year four?
• Which beliefs about the functions of grades exist among these actors?
• Which learning models and didactic perspectives exist in the debate and how does these relate to the beliefs about the functions of grades?

This study is based on a qualitative method in terms of a contextual idea analysis. The theoretical basis is composed of theories about the different functions of grades, didactic perspective and learning models. The focus consist of investigating how the teaching faculty and politicians discuss the proposal in different articles. The reason for choosing this focus is to highlight the teaching faculties’ point of view in the debate which commonly is overshadowed by the politicians. The results show that the teaching faculty is critical of the proposal of introducing grades from year four, whereas the opinions among the politicians varies. The main criticism is that the proposal would involve a further waste of the school's already inadequate resources. Further criticism is that grades from year four would not work beneficial to the pupils due to different reasons.