Local School Desegregation Practices in Sweden (original) (raw)
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Local School Choice Policies in Sweden
Scandinavian Political Studies, 1999
More choice for parents and students is a major recent change in school policies in most Western countries. In Sweden, these changes coincided with the decentralization of power and responsibilities within primary and secondary education from central to local government. This gave municipalities an important role in the actual implementation of choice policies. The question addressed here is how and why local authorities vary with regard to their promotion of choice in schooling. A theory of local government school choice policies is developed, focusing on the social and political composition of the locality. Four factors are seen as likely to be particularly important: the strength of liberal conservatism, the size of the middle class, ethnic diversity and urban location. The empirical investigation is based on data from the 288 municipalities in Sweden. All four factors turn out to be important, but contrary to previous assumptions, choice policies are not primarily linked to the success of the Moderate (Conservative) Party. Instead, the strength of the middle class is the major explanation. In Sweden, but also in other Western societies, the middle class has emerged as the dominant social stratum. Middle class parents, who themselves are well educated, take a keen interest in their children's education and are more likely to demand greater opportunities for choice. In the ¢nal analysis, this is linked to the changing position of the Social Democratic Party and its aim to broaden its electoral basis by appealing to middle class voters.
Research in Comparative and International Education
As one of the key elements of the Nordic welfare model, education systems are based on the idea of providing equal educational opportunities, regardless of gender, social class and geographic origin. Since the 1990s, Nordic welfare states have undergone a gradual but wide-ranging transformation towards a more market-based mode of public service delivery. Along this trajectory, the advent of school choice policy and the growing variation in the between-school achievement results have diversified the previously homogenous Nordic education systems. The aim of our paper is to analyse how Finnish and Swedish local education authorities comprehend and respond to the intertwinement of the market logic of school choice and the ideology of equality. The data consist of two sets of in-depth thematic interviews with staff from the local providers of education, municipal education authorities. The analysis discloses the ways in which national legislation has authorized municipal authorities to ...
The Deinstitutionalization and Fragmentation of the Swedish School System
Dumbing Down, 2022
The chapter shows how the educational trend of “post-truth” schooling continued in Sweden into the twenty-first century. It offers a close reading of the national curriculum that was in force at the time of writing (in 2021). The chapter also discusses how the Swedish school system in just a few years went from being very strictly regulated to being the polar opposite. These changes included a radical marketization of primary and secondary schooling that is unparalleled in any wealthy Western country. The chapter analyzes the school choice market in Sweden and describes how it interacts with postmodern social constructivist ideas, to the detriment of the teaching of knowledge in a classical sense.
European Journal of Education, 2018
In Sweden, the anti‐discrimination initiatives and the efforts against degrading treatment are promoted by two laws indicating self‐regulatory and transparent actions toward preventing both. To be successful, it is important that everybody involved in the work has the same understanding of the task and that everybody understands written formulations of local policy documents, here labelled equity plans, in order not to reinforce inequalities when counteracting discrimination and degrading treatment. Our aim is to explore the world‐views that are expressed by the schools in their equity plans. We ask what are the perceived causes of discrimination and degrading treatment within the schools, what solutions in the equity plans emerge and which subject positions are constructed and made possible. The analysis rendered three discourses of which we can see recurring signs in the material and these have been labelled The perfect school discourse, The designated discourse and The educationa...
The Complexity of Context in Legitimating National School Reforms: The Case of Sweden
Evidence and Expertise in Nordic Education Policy, 2022
This chapter examines the use of evidence in legitimating national school reforms in a globalized context. Although international policy knowledge is becoming increasingly important in legitimating national school reforms, the national context still seems to affect whether and how it is used. This chapter draws attention to the selective use of international policy knowledge in domestic policy agendas and the increasingly important role of people and institutions acting as intermediaries in selecting, interpreting, and presenting useful policy knowledge to politicians. By taking the complexity of context seriously, this chapter provides valuable insights into the multidirectional policy process that filters the expert knowledge that is ultimately used by politicians as evidence in legitimating school reforms.
International Journal of Special Education, 2010
The purpose of this article is to reflect on the effects of educational reforms (which are guided by a neoliberal political agenda) on educational processes, outcomes, and inclusive education in Sweden. It is focused in particular on the increasing marginalisation and exclusion of students with special educational needs, immigrant students, and socially disadvantaged segments of the population. It sheds light on the mechanism in which the changes are framed: neoliberal philosophies that place greater emphasis on devolution, marketization (driven by principles of cost containment and efficiency), competition, standardization, individual choices and rights, development of new profiles within particular school units, and other factors that potentially work against the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion. I argue here that marginalisation and segregation of socially disadvantaged and ethnic minority groups has increased as a consequence of this new wave of policy measures. Resultant resource differences have widened among schools and municipalities and among pupils. Swedish efforts in the past to promote equity through a variety of educational policies have been fascinating. Those early educational policies, including the macro-political agenda focused on the social welfare model, have helped to diminish the effects of differential social, cultural, and economic background on outcomes. This has come under threat. There is still some hope, however, of mitigating the situation through varied social and educational measures combined with an effective monitoring system and a stronger partnership and transparent working relationship between the central and local government systems. Research and follow-up are crucial in this process.
Revista Internacional de apoyo a la inclusión, logopedia, sociedad y multiculturalidad
Varied studies conclude that decentralization fragmented the Swedish education system and undermined cultural diversity. Evidence is the increasing inequality, segregation, and performance reduction of students of vulnerable groups. The study aims at finding out how public policy undermines the education system; the Swedish Agency of Education’s measures to stop the damage; whether teacher perception harms cultural diversity; and if suggestions to improve the system and cultural diversity would be welcomed. Method: Mixed. Design: Sequential Exploratory. Modality: Comparative and Derivative. Instrument: A five-dimensions Likert scale created ad hoc for the study and validated by expert judgment, and a semi structured interview. Participants: 423 teachers and five principals. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov normality and hypothesis test merited a Spearman rho test. Results: There is an unfavorable perception of cultural diversity among the respondents. Example. Respondents agree that diverse t...