The Complexity of Context in Legitimating National School Reforms: The Case of Sweden (original) (raw)
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International Legitimations of the Swedish School Reform 2015/2018
The Nordic Education Model in Context Historical Developments and Current Renegotiations, 2023
This chapter examines the use of international references as a source of legitimation in Swedish educational policy making from 1950 to 2018. Special attention is directed to the 2015/2018 Swedish school reform and the expanding role of the OECD in setting the political agenda. The discussion mainly draws on empirical findings from the POLNET-project funded by the Norwegian research council analyzing the references making up the official evidence base for the 2015/2018 school reform. Using bibliometric analysis, citations and references in white-, and green papers have been analyzed in order to find patterns in the way references are used as a source of legitimation. The preliminary result shows that transnational exchange has been an important part of Swedish schooling since the 1950’s onwards. However, moving into a context of global competition the importance of international references seems to increase. In the 2015/2018 school reform the OECD plays a central role as the Swedish government turns to the OECD for help. Externalization becomes the dominant strategy among insecure politicians to regain legitimacy. However, the result indicates that externalization is not a linear process, but rather a complex act of balancing internal and external pressures in a way that enables for national politicians to maintaining public legitimacy.
Springer eBooks, 2022
In Nordic countries, systematic inquiries have played a crucial role in the nation-states' efforts to reform public education. However, in recent decades, various stakeholders have raised serious concerns about the legitimacy of such inquiries. Both in media and in research, critiques have targeted the quality of professional knowledge, suggesting that education policy should draw on scientific evidence to reform and evaluate the education system. This chapter examines the institutional response to this critique by examining how national authorities have made policy into an evidence-based pursuit of ministries and their governmental bodies. By inquiring about two white and eight green papers published by the national authorities in Norway, we ask the following questions: How do policymakers and experts provide evidence and expertise in issuing school reforms for basic education? How do they identify options for school reform by deploying knowledge through argumentative forms of
Nordic journal of studies in educational policy , 2024
Major international surveys and reports have considerably altered the expectations and outlooks of national policymakers in education over the last three decades. Through a comparative content analysis of bibliographies in policy documents, this article explores the intermediary bodies that facilitate salient interconnections between international organizations such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and national policymakers and experts who prepare comprehensive school reforms in three Nordic countries: Denmark, Norway and Sweden. This article builds on a large Nordic research project that studied the transfer and translation of international policies in a Nordic reform context. It extends the study by examining the role of publishers as intermediary policy brokers that legitimize the usage of OECD knowledge as significant members of instrument constituencies. This study enhances our understanding of the variations in citation patterns across policy documents from three Nordic countries. It also investigates the extent to which differences in instrumental constituencies arise from institutional arrangements and the ideational foundations underpinning reform trajectories. Additionally, it examines the topics addressed by these reforms and the governments’ affiliations with new policy brokers supported by both public and private publishers.
Policy of suspiciousness -mobilization of educational reforms in Sweden
Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 2020
In this article, we explore the processes of transfer and translation of education policy in a study focusing on the relationship between the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Sweden. The purpose of the study is to investigate how selective borrowing occurs both in terms of references to different types of knowledge sources underpinning the arguments and shared discourse formations. The data were obtained from two policy reports: an OECD review report of the Swedish school system and a Swedish follow-up report proposing actual school reforms. The method was twofold: first, mapping, categorizing, and counting all the textual references in the two documents; second, critically analyzing the discourses emerging in the two policy texts. The results show that international references play a significant role in substantiating arguments for Swedish education policy. Both policy texts share a policy discourse characterized by suspiciousness toward the professionalism exercised by teachers and local education authorities.
Evidence and Expertise in Nordic Education Policy: A comparative network analysis
Palgrave Macmillan, 2022
This open access book explores how policy makers draw on national, regional and international expertise in issuing school reform within five Nordic countries. In an era of international comparison, policy makers are expected to review best practices, learn from experiences from elsewhere, and apply international standards propelled by international organizations. Do they do so? What counts, for them, as evidence and expertise? The chapters draw methodologically on bibliometric data, network analysis, document analysis and expert interviews. They show compellingly how governments use “evidence” strategically and selectively for agenda setting and policy decisions. This book will be of interest and value to scholars of education policy, specifically within the Nordic region, and international and comparative education.
The article presents different models of comparative education by discussing the government committee reports (SOU) which prepared the Swedish teacher education reforms of 2001 and 2011. These serve as examples for different kinds of policy borrowing from an international Bologna process discourse in national government document. The article facilitates Waldow (2009) term of ‘‘silent borrowing’’. The reform of 2001 shows distinct references to international discourses without making this explicit. The reform of 2011 is then an example for explicit borrowing. The related government committee report refers very obvious to the Bologna process. However, this is seen as strategy in order to mark its distinction to its predecessor reform. Our cases are assumed to show how socio-historical and political contexts condition national discourses’ recourses of legitimation.
Introduction: A Comparative Network Analysis of Knowledge Use in Nordic Education Policies
Evidence and Expertise in Nordic Education Policy, 2022
This introductory chapter establishes the context, background, and importance of studying what counts as evidence and expertise in Nordic education policymaking. The chapter gives a short overview of the theories, methods, and research design for the joint study where 17 researchers from 6 countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and the US) collaborated. Key questions are: How do policymakers in five Nordic countries draw on domestic, regional, and international knowledge? How do they legitimize national school reform policy by referencing various types of knowledge? How do they authorize evidence in their attempt to propose reform agendas and issue school reforms in their respective countries? The chapter provides an overview of the book and summarizes each of the following chapters.
Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, 2015
In this article, we present a comparative research project on municipal school policy in Sweden 1950Á2010 which in our view contributes to the research fields of education policy and curriculum theory. Our project which started in 2014 links to a line of international research on education policy concerned with the tensions between decentralisation and globalisation and comparative research investigating transnational transfers of education policy ideas. In this article, we provide some preliminary findings which display municipal school policy dealing with national and transnational school initiatives and affecting local school actions. Most of the findings in this article concern the time period 1950Á1975, during which the present two Swedish school forms, Grundskolan (a 9-year comprehensive school) and Gymnasieskolan (upper secondary school), were introduced and established. We compare local policy, through six interrelated indicators, in two municipalities with different structures and origins. On the basis of our findings, we conclude that municipal school policy research in a comparative and historical perspective is an important field of research as it reveals the complexity of school governance. Historical studies of municipal school policy and practice are crucial for exploring different dimensions of curriculum theory, including the transnational dimension.
In this article, we present a comparative research project on municipal school policy in Sweden 1950Á2010 which in our view contributes to the research fields of education policy and curriculum theory. Our project which started in 2014 links to a line of international research on education policy concerned with the tensions between decentralisation and globalisation and comparative research investigating transnational transfers of education policy ideas. In this article, we provide some preliminary findings which display municipal school policy dealing with national and transnational school initiatives and affecting local school actions. Most of the findings in this article concern the time period 1950Á1975, during which the present two Swedish school forms, Grundskolan (a 9-year comprehensive school) and Gymnasieskolan (upper secondary school), were introduced and established. We compare local policy, through six interrelated indicators, in two municipalities with different structures and origins. On the basis of our findings, we conclude that municipal school policy research in a comparative and historical perspective is an important field of research as it reveals the complexity of school governance. Historical studies of municipal school policy and practice are crucial for exploring different dimensions of curriculum theory, including the transnational dimension.
Educational Researcher, 2000
Our conventional assumptions about school policy and evaluation are that schools are known and stable entities, and that the objectives and purposes of evaluation are relatively straightforward. Drawing initially on a Norwegian evaluation of Norway's educational system, this essay views the problems of policy studies and evaluation as related to social and cultural changes that produce ambiguity and uncertainty in the practices of education. Further, the object of inquiry in this essay is the structuring of educational knowledge. Central to this examination are the sociology of knowledge and postmodern political theories, asking about the categories, distinctions, and differentiations of schooling that govern problem-solving efforts to improve education. My concern is with a method of inquiry that examines the historical circumstances through which "reason" and "reasonable people" of schooling are constructed. I proceed in this manner to frame the study of policy research and evaluation in a problematic that does not take for granted its knowledge conditions. The focus on the systems of knowledge also enables a consideration of the patterns of social inclusion and exclusion produced in school practice. I argue that one of the major difficulties of contemporary policy studies is its nonreflexivity toward the ways in which its systems of knowledge change in historical circumstances. This lack of reflexivity about "reason" denies change and obscures the issues of power embedded in school practices. . His research focuses on the politics of knowledge, examining the "systems of reason" in curriculum, teaching, and teacher education reforms and research. 18 EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER