The development and expansion of market solutions is one of the most important changes of Swedish education in the last 30 years. This paper is part of a larger research project “Upper-secondary education as a market” whose aim is to analyze the occurrence of market solutions and market steering, the strategies towards them from involved actors, and their impact on upper-secondary education. Municipalities and schools in two different regions are studied more extensively, as well as in an in-depth investigation of local decision-makers, school staff and pupils in a small number of the schools. Furthermore, the market discourse and market actors in the two regions are surveyed and analyzed. The focus of this paper concerns two themes: firstly, how the respondents perceive the strength of competition in their municipality and, secondly, what they believe are the effects of increased school competition, on students, staff and schools. The development of a competitive school market in Sweden was influenced by international policy diffusion. The marketization trend included neoliberal ideology, free-market individualism-values and what Ball calls “the new culture of competitive performativity”. Choice- and qualitydiscourses were part of the trend and was adopted by the Swedish government: "a stimulating competition (...) can contribute to higher quality and productivity in the school-system" (Government Bill 1992/93: 230, p. 27, my translation). Several government decisions during the beginning of the 1990s resulted in quite a liberal school-market. The allocation of resources was devloved to the municipalities, a voucher system was implemented and legislation created favourable terms for independent schools. Schools were allowed to operate profit-making. The proportion of students who go to independent secondary schools has increased from 2% in 1995-96 to around 17% in 2007/08. It is a development that has caused much debate, but research in the field is limited. State, discourse and actors are central concepts for the overall design and analysis. Bernstein´s (1996) theoretical model of a link between the dominating social and political discourse and pedagogical identities, in particular that of the de-centered market identity serve as a point of departure.

This paper presents the findings of research into how the school market competition is perceived by four groups of actors in two Swedish regions: students, headmasters, counselors and heads of the upper-secondary school administration. Data were gathered through questionnaires and interviews. The sample of the inquiry study comprised all municipalities and upper-secondary schools in the regions, Västerbotten and Västra Götaland, which resulted in 193 answers. The interviews were made at eight schools in five municipalities, representing high and low degrees of urbanity; high and low degrees of school competition; public and independent schools.

The overall picture of the tentative results is complex. Regarding the perceived effects of increased competition there are some trends. The most striking one is that there is little support for the main argument of stimulating a school market: that it will increase student performance. Only a small minority support that idea. A majority think that competition leads to positive effects on professional and school development. The effects on the administration is mainly regarded as negative: the intensification of work increases and the handling of resources and planning becomes more difficult. In the literature, some researchers define the strength of school competition as how large share of the students go to independent schools in the municipality. This study adds something new to that definition: that the competition from schools in other municipalities is regarded as at least as strong as the one from the independent schools in the municipality.