Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy

ISSN: (Print) 2002-0317 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/znst20

Curriculum Vitae – The Course of Life

Eva Forsberg

To cite this article: Eva Forsberg (2016) Curriculum Vitae – The Course of Life, Nordic Journal of
Studies in Educational Policy, 2016:2-3, 33742, DOI: 10.3402/nstep.v2.33742

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.3402/nstep.v2.33742

© 2016 Eva Forsberg

Published online: 29 Nov 2016.

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 æ

WORK AND LIFE IN ACADEMIA

Curriculum Vitae
The Course of Life

Eva Forsberg*
Deparment of Education, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

Curriculum Vitae
The Course of Life is the title of the lecture given by Eva Forsberg as promoter at the
Conferment Ceremony at Uppsala University in spring 2015.
Keywords: curriculum vitae; curriculum; assessment; evaluation; standardisation

*Correspondence to: Eva Forsberg, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden, Email: eva.forsberg@edu.uu.se

he theme of this lecture, Curriculum Vitae
The In a meritocracy, the question of what is considered

T Course of Life, is grounded in my interest in

curriculum theory and in evaluation. The research
group STEP combines these interests through, among
other things, studies of higher education and assessment
cultures. We analyse various so-called message systems,
that is, the communication systems through which schools
and employers mediate the types of knowledge, abilities,
values and norms they prioritise. This is evident in
curricula content and assessments of students’ learning
achievements, as well as in the transition from life as a
student to life as a worker.
My focus is on this latter aspect, approached from the
perspective of how we can understand the Curriculum
Vitae (or CV as it is commonly termed). In other words,
the CV is examined in order to understand its value as a
signpost in the assessments on which employee recruit-
ment and promotion are based.
The professional use of the CV has its roots in the late
1400s, when it was introduced by Leonardo da Vinci. But
it was not until the second half of the twentieth century
that the modern CV took on a more definite shape. This
was linked to the population’s growing mobility as well as
ideas about putting ‘the right man in the right place’ in
accordance with contemporary male reasoning.
The twentieth century’s social changes also led to new
emphasis on utilising what educational researchers termed
the talent reserve. This meant, ideally, giving everyone an
equal opportunity to study, irrespective of social and
geographic background.
Eventually, a society emerged in which access to a
given occupation was determined (supposedly) neither by
family background, nor social status, but formal merits.
This is the context that gave the CV its central, funda-
mental and axiomatic role for those seeking to enter and
move within the job market.
But what is it, in fact, that decides who is to be called
to a job interview, who is to be recruited or promoted?
Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy 2016. # 2016 Eva Forsberg. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
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Citation: NordSTEP 2016, 2: 33742 - http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/nstep.v2.33742
a merit is entirely decisive to which merits are to be
accorded value in different contexts. I will, for the nonce,
set aside the larger question of whether our society is a
true meritocracy, although it should be noted that much
has been written on the issue.
The Latin term curriculum vitae becomes the course of
life in English, livsförlopp in Swedish. The English use
the word curriculum, moreover, for what Swedes term
läroplan. Figuratively, thus, we can understand the CV as
a curriculum for life.
The CV and the curriculum both present a selection of
content as well as a form for organising, packaging and
mediating this content. Furthermore, both are linked in a
process of assessment and appraisal.
These similarities are, however, accompanied by decisive
differences. The CV constitutes a historical documentation
of the individual’s career and qualifications, that is, experi-
ence already gained. The curriculum, by contrast, points
towards achievements to come
not those already attained.
The CV has its place first and foremost in the space of
experience; the curriculum’s centre of gravity lies in the
horizons of expectation. The curriculum of life, moreover,
is concerned with a broader spectrum of experiences,
those which connect the private and the public, the per-
sonal and the professional, the negative and the positive,
as well as aspects of socialisation, education and what the
Germans term Bildung.
But the CV is also directed towards the future. It,
too, alludes to what is to come
a future task, position,
appointment, a promotion or a project. When creating
their CVs, job-seekers also use their power of anticipation
to predict what will be required of them. In addition, the
CV is often placed in a context which includes job-seekers’
plans and ambitions for future tasks.
By the same token, the curriculum of life is not solely
concerned with the future. At any given moment, we
have a part of life behind us; further
of necessity
the
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Eva Forsberg
curriculum of life is embedded in the life experience of
the individuals. Seen through this lens, the boundary-
line between the CV and the curriculum of life seems
potentially less sharp.
Processes of accounting for, scrutinising and evaluating
achievements have become cornerstones in what we term
late-modern society. This, combined with information and
communications technology (ICT) and social media, has
created greater expectations of, innumerable opportunities
for, and increasing demands that individuals account for
themselves, as persons and/or as professionals.
Dating and dieting sites are examples of this in the
private sphere. In individuals’ professional lives, examples
include the employees’ own home pages with CV, located
on employers’ websites. These personal and professional
accounts are both of autobiographical character.
There exist, today, a large body of literature and many
websites, as well as career-counselling agencies and courses
providing information about how a relevant, effective CV
should be written. Furthermore, the rules for how a CV
should be put together and what it should contain have
become more explicit, which has led to a high degree of
standardisation and formalisation.
Today, indeed, the function of the CV is so insti-
tutionalised that one speaks of the importance of ‘CV
maintenance’. This includes
among other things
the
continual development of one’s CV by editing out and
adding things, as well as constant updating and develop-
ment with the aid of tools and arenas provided by new
technology and by CV guides, such as, for instance, the
network LinkedIn and the ability to link video clips to
one’s CV.
One can state that within the university sector, the CV
has grown into a life nerve. It has become integral to the
infrastructure and routines of academia. As an auto-
biographical document, the CV is a tool with which
academics can present and continuously re-present their
professional competence and their academic expertise.
But more than academic expertise is thus subjected to
reflection. Academic identity is also at stake. In certain
contexts, the CV is spoken of as one of our era’s great
confessional writings. In these cases, the CV is a means of
monitoring one’s own self, of creating and controlling
that self, in order to exhibit one’s strengths and
to a
very moderate degree
admit shortcomings and provide
explanations for possible gaps, as well as any lack of the
progress expected.
The CV’s function is to transform qualities into mea-
surable quantities that can be used in competitive situa-
tions which often involve ranking both individuals and
their merits. As a result, the CV exists in an interstice, in a
space located between two worlds.
On the one side, we have the traditional academic world.
Here, quality is identified and evaluated in collegial and
disciplinary discussions. Issues of the degree, identification
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Citation: NordSTEP 2016, 2: 33742 - http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/nstep.v2.33742
and evaluation of quality are decided in collegial and
‘disciplinary’ discussions almost entirely innocent of
quantification. On the other side, we find a recently emerged
world, which emphasises that which can be quantified

such as the number of publications, extent of research
funding, number of teaching-hours etc. The ways in which
a given CV achieves a balance between these worlds will
vary according to scientific tradition and academic ideals.
The CV plays a decisive role in academic selection
procedures, both through election and selection. The
applicants’ experience and knowledge, as well as pre-
judices concerning the academy and its evaluation prac-
tices, affect the creation of their CVs. Furthermore, there
is an interplay between employment advertisements,
regulations, guidelines, networks with significant others
and traditions, as well as decision-makers’ and external
experts’ conceptions of what is important.
In the end, the concepts of academic merits, academic
expertise and academic identity are subjects of negotia-
tion and co-production. The interplay is also affected
by the fact that a person’s CV is easily internalised as
a marker of academic self-worth. The CV becomes, in
short, a marketing device that works in both directions:
inward and outward.
We know from research on evaluation that few things
determine the individual’s actions as strongly as that which
is prioritised in assessment practices. The CV’s increasing
standardisation entails the risk that academics will become
increasingly reactive. What is codified as important, in
guidelines and how-to texts, has great signal value. It has
an impact on the applicant’s autobiographical CV. The
development towards more stereotypical CVs may also
entail the devaluation of the CV as instrument for selecting
qualified applicants. This is worrying, insofar as the
problems that the CV is meant to solve are democratically
anchored in equal opportunity, social mobility and
utilisation of competence.
Given the centrality of the CV in the world of em-
ployment, one would have expected extensive research
on the subject. But this is not the case. Scientifically
grounded knowledge of the CV’s character, functions and
consequences for individuals, organisations and busi-
nesses is relatively limited.
We must examine what long-term effects the produc-
tion of CV’s may have on us and our practices. Nowa-
days, young people are early introduced to ideas of how
they should think strategically about their career, and
offered templates specifying which merits, competences
and identities are in demand.
More and more people create personal and profes-
sional archives in order that everything be remembered,
nothing forgotten. This concept does not seem to include
the option of making a new beginning.
When the blank areas of the template become clearly
visible, and when the academic self-worth is tied to

this, strategies are easily directed towards filling the gaps.
This places us, potentially, in some sort of backwards-
directed, deficiency-oriented order of things, where
insufficiencies in people’s CVs govern academic practices
and culture.
In short, it seems that the creation of a CV entails
a hidden curriculum that directs attention towards the
individual academic’s predictable, not-yet realised results.
Citation: NordSTEP 2016, 2: 33742 - http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/nstep.v2.33742
Curriculum Vitae
The Course of Life
But how can we avoid ending up there, in the already-
thought? How can we instead open up for that which is
not given beforehand? Perhaps, we must approach this
as we do life and love. We must bracket that which is
strategically goal-oriented; we must simply lose ourselves
in our objects, our interests. This demands a measure of
courage, but it also makes it possible for us to live for the
future
and also create a CV for life.
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