Lisbeth Lundahl | Umeå University (original) (raw)
Papers by Lisbeth Lundahl
Social justice, choice and marketization of education in the Nordic countries : Possibilities of ... more Social justice, choice and marketization of education in the Nordic countries : Possibilities of register-based comparisons
The Nordic countries have traditionally been regarded as archetypal representatives of social dem... more The Nordic countries have traditionally been regarded as archetypal representatives of social democratic welfare states. But particularly since the 1990s the concept of universal welfare and educat ...
Att navigera bland olika framtidsvagar ar en avancerad uppgift for en tonaring, och detta blir ex... more Att navigera bland olika framtidsvagar ar en avancerad uppgift for en tonaring, och detta blir extra tydligt i samband med gymnasievalet i nian. Valet ror i praktiken inte bara kommande utbildning ...
Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, 2021
ABSTRACT Enabled by market-oriented policies implemented in the early 1990s, a nation-wide for-pr... more ABSTRACT Enabled by market-oriented policies implemented in the early 1990s, a nation-wide for-profit education industry has emerged and flourished in Sweden. As a more recent expansion strategy, Swedish school companies have begun exporting their school and early childhood education and care services internationally. In this article, three such companies and a selection of the foreign operations they have set up are studied to analyse how they describe the education services they are establishing in the new national settings. The findings show that the companies have developed and followed different edu-business models, using and transforming particular pedagogical ideas and connecting them to different spatial imaginaries. These include the Swedish/Scandinavian as both places and idealized spaces, infused with borderless global transformative spatial imaginaries on the creation of autonomous learners and futuristic education visions for global futures. Educational profiles and concepts from the Swedish context are both adjusted and marketed to the foreign settings, and entail stories on spaces and mobilities, encompassing pedagogy, teachers and students.
European Educational Research Journal
This paper focuses on the support given by schools to students who are likely to leave Swedish co... more This paper focuses on the support given by schools to students who are likely to leave Swedish compulsory education without the grades required to enter upper secondary education (USE). The aim is to increase knowledge about career counselors’ and teachers’ strategies and work in lower secondary schools in order to facilitate this critical transition, and to examine factors influencing this support. It takes as its starting point theoretical frameworks stressing the agency of professionals in welfare organizations, and the importance of support during the educational transitions of young people at risk. The paper builds on interviews with 20 teachers and career counselors in six municipalities of varying character. Teachers’ and career counselors’ micro-choices have a major impact on the support provided to students. Their work consists of direct and indirect support, with the former referring to prescribed professional assignments. Indirect support, taking the form of advocacy, rel...
Revue internationale d'éducation de Sèvres
Her research interests concern education politics, youth politics and the school-to-work transiti... more Her research interests concern education politics, youth politics and the school-to-work transitions of young people. She is the leader of the research programme "Education policy and young people's transitions" at Umeå University, and one of the team leaders of the Nordic Centre Social Justice through Education. Lisbeth Lundahl was the Secretary
Youth on the Move: Tendencies and Tensions in Youth Policies and Practices, 2020
In the 2010s, European young adults on average have more years of education than any other youth ... more In the 2010s, European young adults on average have more years of education than any other youth generation, and hence should be better qualified and have better future prospects than ever before. For many of them, however, this is hardly the situation. A general trend towards increasingly extended, fragmented and uncertain school-to-work transitions has been prominent over the last decades (Colley, 2007; Dwyer & Wyn, 2006; Pohl & Walther, 2007). Today, a rather gloomy picture emerges from research and official reports, e.g. by state authorities, the European Union and the OECD. Youth unemployment rose markedly as a result of the recession that followed after the financial crisis in 2008-09 and has remained at high levels in many countries. In the European Union on average every sixth young adult aged 20−34 in 2017 was neither employed nor in education or training (so-called NEET)-in Italy and Greece almost every third (Eurostat, 2018a). In the UK, people in their twenties were worst hit by the crisis compared to other age groups in terms of unemployment, pay and incomes (Hills et al., 2013, p. 6). Similar patterns have been found in most other countries. This situation is deeply worrying from individual and societal perspectives, since spells of unemployment leave long-term scars, e.g. in terms of lowered life incomes and health conditions, and amplifies social segregation and exclusion (Scarpetta, Sonnet & Manfredi, 2010; Scarpetta & Sonnet, 2012. Also see Barslund & Gros, 2017). It is important to recognize that the transition to adult and working life exposes considerably larger proportions of young people to difficult living conditions than have already been described. The percentage of youths aged 20-24 years who are temporarily employed is far higher than among older adults: approximately 40% in the European Union and considerably above that level in countries such as Poland, Portugal, Italy and Spain (60% or more in 2017; Eurostat, 2018b). Youth poverty is considerably more widespread in Europe than is usually acknowledged, and young people are more likely to experience recurrent poverty than older adults are. Fahmy (2007, p. 54) concludes that poverty is 'not confined to a small minority of "socially excluded" young people, but is very common for Europe's young people at various points in their transitions to adulthood'. In this conjuncture, strategies and measures to make the transitions from school to work less protracted and risky are placed high on local, national and supranational policy agendas. Raising the levels of secondary school completion and minimizing the numbers of NEETs, modernizing vocational training and education and fostering young people's 'employability' have become central components, e.g. in policies and recommendations of the European Union and the OECD (Brunila et al., 2017; European Commission, 2018; Lundahl & Olofsson, 2014). A multitude of authorities and forces, a veritable 'transition machinery' , has emerged to render young Introduction 11 This book offers a fresh and critical analysis of youth transitions, based on young people's own narratives of risks and possibilities while moving ahead in life, and on studies of transition discourses, policies and practices. The book illustrates the dilemmas and dissonances, sometimes opportunities, which young people and young adults encounter when they face the contemporary 'transition machinery'. Notes 1 The title alludes to one of the 'flagship initiatives' of the Europe 2020 strategy. 2 Young people aged 16-29 often find it difficult to decide if they are 'young' or 'adult'. Similarly, official statistics and reports use different definitions and delimitations. Here we alternate between the terms 'young adults' , 'youth' and 'young people'. 3 See Newman (2007) for a critical discussion of the different meanings of the concepts of activation and individualization in different welfare contexts.
Youth on the Move: Tendencies and Tensions in Youth Policies and Practices, 2020
In this final section, we want to briefly discuss some aspects from the seven chapters of this bo... more In this final section, we want to briefly discuss some aspects from the seven chapters of this book, in particular what they tell us about important points, missing or underdeveloped perspectives and challenges regarding transition policies and research on young people's transitions and agency at a time of rapid social and economic transformation. We believe that the contributions are well placed to make contributions to new, critical research, as they depart from different theoretical, methodological and actor perspectives and thus look at the transition landscape from various viewpoints. The contributions by Tero Järvinen (Chapter 2) and Johanna Rosa Arnardottir (Chapter 3) build on large datasets that enable longitudinal comparisons, including over the years of the deep economic recession from 2008 to 2010. They both address the trajectories of NEETs-young people and young adults who are not in employment, education or training, and, importantly, their analyses nuance the picture of the vulnerability of this group. Comparisons, across time and across countries, of school-to-work transitions help to increase knowledge about what shapes youth conditions and may complement critical qualitative analyses in this field. While international comparisons of NEET rates have become common over the last decade, other aspects of young people's transitions are more difficult to compare, because of the different constructions of post-compulsory education and training, different definitions of unemployment and weak connections to the labour market etc.
Youth on the Move: Tendencies and Tensions in Youth Policies and Practices, 2020
Departing from careership theory, this chapter aims to add to knowledge about school careers and ... more Departing from careership theory, this chapter aims to add to knowledge about school careers and school-to-work transitions of young people with a migrant background, here referring to individuals born outside or in Sweden whose parents are first-generation immigrants. 1 More specifically, we want to increase the understanding of the processes resulting in a school failure, and the subsequent process when the young person tries to enter the labour market and/or strengthen his/her educational qualifications. The analysis is based on life-history interviews with 27 Swedish young adults (21-23 years old), most of them from refugee families of non-European origins. All of the respondents left school without completing upper secondary education. Few previous studies have focused on both the school years ending in dropout and subsequent careers of early school leavers, as reported by the young adults themselves (for exceptions, see e.g. Henderson et al., 2007). As discussed in the following section, political discourses, official statistics and research often portray gloomy prospects for young early school leavers generally, and those of migrant origin particularly. However, our research provides more nuanced indications, as the young adults interviewed described not only difficulties in school How to cite this book chapter:
European Educational Research Journal : SPECIAL ISSUE Mapping the European Educational Research S... more European Educational Research Journal : SPECIAL ISSUE Mapping the European Educational Research Space: policy, governance and cultures
Uppsala Reports on Education, 2001
Svedska je bila ponavadi prikazana kot zgleden primer socialnodemokratske ureditve države blaginj... more Svedska je bila ponavadi prikazana kot zgleden primer socialnodemokratske ureditve države blaginje (Esping-Andersen, 1996), za katero sta znacilna obsežno državno upravljanje in aktivna vkljucenost ...
Var fjärde ung svensk (20-24 år) har saknar hel gymnasieutbildning. Projektet Osäkra övergångar h... more Var fjärde ung svensk (20-24 år) har saknar hel gymnasieutbildning. Projektet Osäkra övergångar handlar om karriärer i och efter ungdomsskolan för denna grupp unga och om lokala strategier och åtgärder för att förebygga skolmisslyckanden och underlätta övergångar till arbete och fortsatt utbildning. Det bygger på intervjuer med 100 unga vuxna och 45 kommunföreträdare i 20 kommuner, på enkäter och databasmaterial. Några slutsatser: Skolmisslyckandet är oftast en långvarig process där många faktorer bidrar. Skolan brister i att tidigt upptäcka och ge stöd för den unges inlärning, och att hantera mobbning och skolk, även om enskilda vuxna kan ha stöttat. På kommunnivå ses specialpedagogik och vägledning som prioriterade insatser, men man vet föga om deras omfattning och kvalitet. Lokala åtgärder för att underlätta ungas etablering uppvisar alltför stora skillnader. Särskilt i mindre kommuner är styrningen svag och resurserna små, även om ungdomsrelaterade problem kan vara betydande
Springer International Handbooks of Education, 2017
The Swedish education system has been thoroughly transformed in the last few decades, paralleling... more The Swedish education system has been thoroughly transformed in the last few decades, paralleling wider developments in other OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries. However, in some respects the shift from a uniform, centrally regulated school system to one with far-reaching decentralization and market elements has been more radical and faster than elsewhere. The marketization of education has not been confined to urban areas, but it is most tangible there. This chapter firstly aims to add to our knowledge of how competition affects schools and students; secondly, it looks to critically examine marketization mainly as an urban phenomenon and discuss the consequences for rural areas. The Swedish development is situated in a wider Nordic and historical context and the contours of the new Swedish educational landscape are outlined. Some consequences of the school choice reforms and the resulting market-like situation are highlighted at societal, institutional and individual levels. It is concluded that the school market is far more visible and has a much stronger impact in the big city areas than in less densely populated regions. However, this does not mean that schools and youth in the rural regions are unaffected.
Social justice, choice and marketization of education in the Nordic countries : Possibilities of ... more Social justice, choice and marketization of education in the Nordic countries : Possibilities of register-based comparisons
The Nordic countries have traditionally been regarded as archetypal representatives of social dem... more The Nordic countries have traditionally been regarded as archetypal representatives of social democratic welfare states. But particularly since the 1990s the concept of universal welfare and educat ...
Att navigera bland olika framtidsvagar ar en avancerad uppgift for en tonaring, och detta blir ex... more Att navigera bland olika framtidsvagar ar en avancerad uppgift for en tonaring, och detta blir extra tydligt i samband med gymnasievalet i nian. Valet ror i praktiken inte bara kommande utbildning ...
Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, 2021
ABSTRACT Enabled by market-oriented policies implemented in the early 1990s, a nation-wide for-pr... more ABSTRACT Enabled by market-oriented policies implemented in the early 1990s, a nation-wide for-profit education industry has emerged and flourished in Sweden. As a more recent expansion strategy, Swedish school companies have begun exporting their school and early childhood education and care services internationally. In this article, three such companies and a selection of the foreign operations they have set up are studied to analyse how they describe the education services they are establishing in the new national settings. The findings show that the companies have developed and followed different edu-business models, using and transforming particular pedagogical ideas and connecting them to different spatial imaginaries. These include the Swedish/Scandinavian as both places and idealized spaces, infused with borderless global transformative spatial imaginaries on the creation of autonomous learners and futuristic education visions for global futures. Educational profiles and concepts from the Swedish context are both adjusted and marketed to the foreign settings, and entail stories on spaces and mobilities, encompassing pedagogy, teachers and students.
European Educational Research Journal
This paper focuses on the support given by schools to students who are likely to leave Swedish co... more This paper focuses on the support given by schools to students who are likely to leave Swedish compulsory education without the grades required to enter upper secondary education (USE). The aim is to increase knowledge about career counselors’ and teachers’ strategies and work in lower secondary schools in order to facilitate this critical transition, and to examine factors influencing this support. It takes as its starting point theoretical frameworks stressing the agency of professionals in welfare organizations, and the importance of support during the educational transitions of young people at risk. The paper builds on interviews with 20 teachers and career counselors in six municipalities of varying character. Teachers’ and career counselors’ micro-choices have a major impact on the support provided to students. Their work consists of direct and indirect support, with the former referring to prescribed professional assignments. Indirect support, taking the form of advocacy, rel...
Revue internationale d'éducation de Sèvres
Her research interests concern education politics, youth politics and the school-to-work transiti... more Her research interests concern education politics, youth politics and the school-to-work transitions of young people. She is the leader of the research programme "Education policy and young people's transitions" at Umeå University, and one of the team leaders of the Nordic Centre Social Justice through Education. Lisbeth Lundahl was the Secretary
Youth on the Move: Tendencies and Tensions in Youth Policies and Practices, 2020
In the 2010s, European young adults on average have more years of education than any other youth ... more In the 2010s, European young adults on average have more years of education than any other youth generation, and hence should be better qualified and have better future prospects than ever before. For many of them, however, this is hardly the situation. A general trend towards increasingly extended, fragmented and uncertain school-to-work transitions has been prominent over the last decades (Colley, 2007; Dwyer & Wyn, 2006; Pohl & Walther, 2007). Today, a rather gloomy picture emerges from research and official reports, e.g. by state authorities, the European Union and the OECD. Youth unemployment rose markedly as a result of the recession that followed after the financial crisis in 2008-09 and has remained at high levels in many countries. In the European Union on average every sixth young adult aged 20−34 in 2017 was neither employed nor in education or training (so-called NEET)-in Italy and Greece almost every third (Eurostat, 2018a). In the UK, people in their twenties were worst hit by the crisis compared to other age groups in terms of unemployment, pay and incomes (Hills et al., 2013, p. 6). Similar patterns have been found in most other countries. This situation is deeply worrying from individual and societal perspectives, since spells of unemployment leave long-term scars, e.g. in terms of lowered life incomes and health conditions, and amplifies social segregation and exclusion (Scarpetta, Sonnet & Manfredi, 2010; Scarpetta & Sonnet, 2012. Also see Barslund & Gros, 2017). It is important to recognize that the transition to adult and working life exposes considerably larger proportions of young people to difficult living conditions than have already been described. The percentage of youths aged 20-24 years who are temporarily employed is far higher than among older adults: approximately 40% in the European Union and considerably above that level in countries such as Poland, Portugal, Italy and Spain (60% or more in 2017; Eurostat, 2018b). Youth poverty is considerably more widespread in Europe than is usually acknowledged, and young people are more likely to experience recurrent poverty than older adults are. Fahmy (2007, p. 54) concludes that poverty is 'not confined to a small minority of "socially excluded" young people, but is very common for Europe's young people at various points in their transitions to adulthood'. In this conjuncture, strategies and measures to make the transitions from school to work less protracted and risky are placed high on local, national and supranational policy agendas. Raising the levels of secondary school completion and minimizing the numbers of NEETs, modernizing vocational training and education and fostering young people's 'employability' have become central components, e.g. in policies and recommendations of the European Union and the OECD (Brunila et al., 2017; European Commission, 2018; Lundahl & Olofsson, 2014). A multitude of authorities and forces, a veritable 'transition machinery' , has emerged to render young Introduction 11 This book offers a fresh and critical analysis of youth transitions, based on young people's own narratives of risks and possibilities while moving ahead in life, and on studies of transition discourses, policies and practices. The book illustrates the dilemmas and dissonances, sometimes opportunities, which young people and young adults encounter when they face the contemporary 'transition machinery'. Notes 1 The title alludes to one of the 'flagship initiatives' of the Europe 2020 strategy. 2 Young people aged 16-29 often find it difficult to decide if they are 'young' or 'adult'. Similarly, official statistics and reports use different definitions and delimitations. Here we alternate between the terms 'young adults' , 'youth' and 'young people'. 3 See Newman (2007) for a critical discussion of the different meanings of the concepts of activation and individualization in different welfare contexts.
Youth on the Move: Tendencies and Tensions in Youth Policies and Practices, 2020
In this final section, we want to briefly discuss some aspects from the seven chapters of this bo... more In this final section, we want to briefly discuss some aspects from the seven chapters of this book, in particular what they tell us about important points, missing or underdeveloped perspectives and challenges regarding transition policies and research on young people's transitions and agency at a time of rapid social and economic transformation. We believe that the contributions are well placed to make contributions to new, critical research, as they depart from different theoretical, methodological and actor perspectives and thus look at the transition landscape from various viewpoints. The contributions by Tero Järvinen (Chapter 2) and Johanna Rosa Arnardottir (Chapter 3) build on large datasets that enable longitudinal comparisons, including over the years of the deep economic recession from 2008 to 2010. They both address the trajectories of NEETs-young people and young adults who are not in employment, education or training, and, importantly, their analyses nuance the picture of the vulnerability of this group. Comparisons, across time and across countries, of school-to-work transitions help to increase knowledge about what shapes youth conditions and may complement critical qualitative analyses in this field. While international comparisons of NEET rates have become common over the last decade, other aspects of young people's transitions are more difficult to compare, because of the different constructions of post-compulsory education and training, different definitions of unemployment and weak connections to the labour market etc.
Youth on the Move: Tendencies and Tensions in Youth Policies and Practices, 2020
Departing from careership theory, this chapter aims to add to knowledge about school careers and ... more Departing from careership theory, this chapter aims to add to knowledge about school careers and school-to-work transitions of young people with a migrant background, here referring to individuals born outside or in Sweden whose parents are first-generation immigrants. 1 More specifically, we want to increase the understanding of the processes resulting in a school failure, and the subsequent process when the young person tries to enter the labour market and/or strengthen his/her educational qualifications. The analysis is based on life-history interviews with 27 Swedish young adults (21-23 years old), most of them from refugee families of non-European origins. All of the respondents left school without completing upper secondary education. Few previous studies have focused on both the school years ending in dropout and subsequent careers of early school leavers, as reported by the young adults themselves (for exceptions, see e.g. Henderson et al., 2007). As discussed in the following section, political discourses, official statistics and research often portray gloomy prospects for young early school leavers generally, and those of migrant origin particularly. However, our research provides more nuanced indications, as the young adults interviewed described not only difficulties in school How to cite this book chapter:
European Educational Research Journal : SPECIAL ISSUE Mapping the European Educational Research S... more European Educational Research Journal : SPECIAL ISSUE Mapping the European Educational Research Space: policy, governance and cultures
Uppsala Reports on Education, 2001
Svedska je bila ponavadi prikazana kot zgleden primer socialnodemokratske ureditve države blaginj... more Svedska je bila ponavadi prikazana kot zgleden primer socialnodemokratske ureditve države blaginje (Esping-Andersen, 1996), za katero sta znacilna obsežno državno upravljanje in aktivna vkljucenost ...
Var fjärde ung svensk (20-24 år) har saknar hel gymnasieutbildning. Projektet Osäkra övergångar h... more Var fjärde ung svensk (20-24 år) har saknar hel gymnasieutbildning. Projektet Osäkra övergångar handlar om karriärer i och efter ungdomsskolan för denna grupp unga och om lokala strategier och åtgärder för att förebygga skolmisslyckanden och underlätta övergångar till arbete och fortsatt utbildning. Det bygger på intervjuer med 100 unga vuxna och 45 kommunföreträdare i 20 kommuner, på enkäter och databasmaterial. Några slutsatser: Skolmisslyckandet är oftast en långvarig process där många faktorer bidrar. Skolan brister i att tidigt upptäcka och ge stöd för den unges inlärning, och att hantera mobbning och skolk, även om enskilda vuxna kan ha stöttat. På kommunnivå ses specialpedagogik och vägledning som prioriterade insatser, men man vet föga om deras omfattning och kvalitet. Lokala åtgärder för att underlätta ungas etablering uppvisar alltför stora skillnader. Särskilt i mindre kommuner är styrningen svag och resurserna små, även om ungdomsrelaterade problem kan vara betydande
Springer International Handbooks of Education, 2017
The Swedish education system has been thoroughly transformed in the last few decades, paralleling... more The Swedish education system has been thoroughly transformed in the last few decades, paralleling wider developments in other OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries. However, in some respects the shift from a uniform, centrally regulated school system to one with far-reaching decentralization and market elements has been more radical and faster than elsewhere. The marketization of education has not been confined to urban areas, but it is most tangible there. This chapter firstly aims to add to our knowledge of how competition affects schools and students; secondly, it looks to critically examine marketization mainly as an urban phenomenon and discuss the consequences for rural areas. The Swedish development is situated in a wider Nordic and historical context and the contours of the new Swedish educational landscape are outlined. Some consequences of the school choice reforms and the resulting market-like situation are highlighted at societal, institutional and individual levels. It is concluded that the school market is far more visible and has a much stronger impact in the big city areas than in less densely populated regions. However, this does not mean that schools and youth in the rural regions are unaffected.