The educational systems in the Nordic countries share common values and ideologies for geographic, cultural and historical reasons. During the last 50 years the Nordic welfare state has been established as a unique model (Telhauga, Mediåsb & Aasenc, 2006), with a strong emphasis on equity of access to education of a high level of quality. In the 1960s and 1970s the Nordic countries abolished organizational differentiation and introduced comprehensive compulsory schooling for at least nine years.

Previous research has shown that the most important determinant of school level performance is the composition of the student body with respect to social and ethnic background, and with respect to previous level of performance (e.g., Thrupp, 1999, Thrupp & Lupton, 2006). Thus, the mechanisms through which students are selected into schools are the most important determinants of school performance differences.

In the comprehensive educational systems in Nordic countries school performance differences are smaller, and typically amount for less than 10 % of the total performance variation. However, even school differences of this amount may be of substantial importance (e.g., Yang, 2003). However, a global trend in educational reforms since the 1980s has been to adopt market principles in the field of schooling. The reforms thus have been characterized by an orientation towards output of schooling rather than on input of resources, decentralization and deregulation of decision making, accountability, and choice and competition (e.g., Sahlberg, 2011).  Such educational reform ideas have also influenced the Nordic countries, albeit to a different extent and in different ways.

Sweden for example, introduced a system of free school choice in the early 1990s, both municipalities and independent providers of schooling were allowed to establish schools, with financing through a voucher system. This market-like system has been in operation for over two decades now, and the existing research shows that the extent of school performance differences has increased considerably during this time. Evaluation studies from other countries also indicated that the recent school reforms and policy changes have great impact on achievement differences among students and schools; the changes also strengthened the role family plays in their children’s education, and increase the educational inequality (e.g., Gewirtz et al., 1996; Levin, 1998; McEwan, 2000).

OECD (2010) in its trend report observed that the level of reading achievement deteriorated in all the Nordic countries between 2000 and 2009. However, only Sweden has simultaneously increased the variation in reading achievement. The between-school differences in reading and school level increased in Sweden, Iceland and Finland. So did the relationship between socio-economic background and reading performance between schools in 2000 and 2009 for these three countries. The development of performance differences and SES effects between schools in Denmark and Norway followed a different path.

Thus, the proposed study is to examine the performance differences and SES effects on educational performance at both individual and school levels in the Nordic countries. It is of particular interest to examine how different dimensions in SES related to reading performance differently, so that we can gain knowledge about between-school differences in the different aspects of intake composition to better understand the selection and self-selection mechanism in these countries. Bourdieu’s social theory and forms of capitals (e.g., economic, cultural and educational, 1977, 1997) and interrelation among them will be applied to identify different dimensions of SES.

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