The main objective of this paper presentation is to examine and critically discuss performance indicators that are used as a basis for school choice in the Swedish school system, primarily in grade 9. It focuses on the following issues: Which are the performance indicators in some of the commonly used evaluation/ranking systems? To what extent do they represent the National curriculum? How can the indicators (representations of school achievement/quality) influence what is possible and desirable or impossible or undesirable in the enactment of the curriculum in practice? 

The study focuses the Swedish case which may be of international interest and relevance as it is part the “globalized educational policy discourse” (Lingard 2013, 122) while there are also specific national characteristics. The study has connections to varying current international trends/concepts that overlap, such as the audit society/culture (Power 1999), culture of competitive performativity (Ball 2003), accountability (Lingard 2013), policy as numbers (Lingard 2011), and the standards and quality trends (Grek, Lawn, Lingard & Varjo 2009). It contributes to the examination of the international trend to couple mechanisms for generating performance data and school markets (Apple 2004, 18). Market and bureaucratic logics (Freidson 2001) may collide in the field of education but an interest in accessible information on school/student performance is shared. School choice presupposes that the ‘customers’ (i.e., students and parents) are well-informed (in line with Milton Friedman’s ideas), while democratic and managerial accountability also require communicable achievement indicators. 

The far-reaching marketization and decentralization (linked to management by objectives and results) (Lundahl, Erixon Arreman, Holm & Lundström 2013; OECD 2015) are specific characteristics of the Swedish school system. Further, over 80% of the students go to schools that report data publically, compared to the OECD average 45 % (Burns, Blanchenay & Köster 2016). These characteristics will hopefully contribute to highlighting the issues in focus.

Critical education research warns for the risks connected to the growth of a performative culture (including marketization). Dahler-Larsen (2014, 975) writes that indicators “offer interpretive keys which draw attention, define discourse and orient actions in certain directions. … Effects of indicators are truly political as they define categories that are collectively significant in a society”. Ainscow (2005, 119) admits that the increasing use of statistical data may be valuable for improvement but that the impact of narrow or inappropriate performance indicators “can be deeply damaging”. Managerial accountability has become the dominating accountability discourse across the world. This implies a focus on measurable outcomes, an approach that risks ignoring “processes that creates and sustains social justice which is not cheaply or easily measured” (Møller 2008, 40).

The study draws on certain aspects of curriculum theory, evaluation theory and a policy enactment perspective. Some crucial ideas from curriculum theory are important: That the curriculum defines legitimate knowledge, that someone has the authority to select and define goals/knowledge and that this implies the formulation and enactment of education policy. Bernstein claims that ”curriculum defines what counts as valid knowledge” (1971, 47). His concept ”three message systems of schooling” is relevant for my analysis as it links curriculum and pedagogy to assessment (including result indicators). Evaluation perspectives are used in the analysis, for example the concept “constitutive effects” (Dahler-Larsen 2012, 173), that is how ”tests, measurements, and indicators help define the social reality of which they are part”.

The policy enactment perspective (Ball, Maguire, & Braun 2012) implies that education policy is realized by the staff through a complex process of interpretation and translation, in interplay with the local context. The view differs from assumptions of simplistic linear models of policy implementation.

Ainscow, M. (2005). Developing inclusive education systems: What are the levers for change? Journal of Educational Change, 6: 109–124. Apple, M.W. (2004) Creating Difference: Neo-Liberalism, Neo-Conservatism and the Politics of Educational Reform. Educational Policy, 18(1), 12-44 Ball, S.J. (2003). The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Education Policy, 18(2), 215-228. Ball, S. P., Maguire, M. & A. Braun, A. (2012). How Schools do Policy. Policy enactments in secondary schools. London: Routledge. Bernstein, Basil (1971) On the classification and framing of educational knowledge. In M.F.D. Young (Ed.) Knowledge and control. London: Collier-Macmillan. Burns, T., Blanchenay, P. & Köster, F. (2016). Horizontal Accountability, Municipal Capacity and the Use of Data: a case study of Sweden. In W.C. Smith (Ed.) The Global Testing Culture – shaping education policy, perceptions, and practice, 279-294. Oxford: Symposium Books. Dahler-Larsen, P. (2012) The Evaluation Society. Stanford: Stanford Business Books Dahler-Larsen, P. (2014) Constitutive Effects of Performance Indicators: Getting beyond unintended consequences, Public Management Review, 16:7, 969-986 Freidson, E. (2001). Professionalism, the Third Logic. Cambridge: Polity Press. Gewirtz, S. (2008). Give Us a Break! A Sceptical Review of Contemporary Discourses of Lifelong Learning. European Educational Research Journal 7(4), 414-424. Green, J. (2011). Education, Professionalism and the Quest for Accountability. Hitting the Target but Missing the Point. New York & Oxford: Routledge. Grek, S., Lawn, M., Lingard, B., Varjo, J. (2009) North by northwest: quality assurance and evaluation processes in European education, Journal of Education Policy, 24(2): 121-133. Leeuw, F. L. & Furubo, J. E. (2008) Evaluation Systems: What Are They and Why Study Them? Evaluation, 14(2):157-169 Lindensjö & Lundgren (2000). Utbildningsreformer och politisk styrning. Stockholm: HLS Förlag Lindgren, L., Hanberger, A., & Lundström, U. (forthcoming). Evaluation systems in a crowded policy space: Implications for local school governance. Education Inquiry, Lingard, B. (2011). Policy as numbers: acc/counting for educational research. The Australian Educational Researcher, 38(4): 355-382 Lingard, B. (2013). Historicizing and contextualizing global policy discourses: Test- and standards-based accountabilities in education. The international Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives, 12(2), 122-132 Lundahl, L., Erixon Arreman, I., Holm, A.S. & Lundström, U. (2013) Educational marketization the Swedish way. Education Inquiry 4 (3): 497-517 Møller, J. (2009). School leadership in an age of accountability: Tensions between managerial and professional accountability. Journal of Educational change. 10:37-46. OECD (2015). Improving Schools in Sweden. An OECD Perspective. Power, M. (1999) The Audit Society: Rituals of Verification. Oxford: Oxford University Press.