Session Information
23 SES 08 B, Policies & Politics of Exclusion and Inclusion (Part 2)
Paper Session continued from 23 SES 07 B
Contribution
The landscape of education policy and practice is changing fast across Europe, where governments in different countries adopt similar processes of transformation in a context of economic, social and political restructuring that is captured by the term of ‘neoliberalism’ (Dale & Robertson 2009). Sweden is not an exception and has today one of the most liberal school-systems in the world (Lundahl et.al. 2014). The boundaries between traditional public and private logics have been eroded through the introduction of market mechanisms and an extensive involvement of private actors in the provision of education activities (Beach & Dovemark, 2011).
The Swedish school was during some decades (1960-1990) shaped by a long period of a policy stressing the importance of equity, a ‘school for all’. During the 1970s and early 1980s the concept referred to a common curriculum and equally allocated resources, ensuring that all students would have an educational experience that was both shared and equal. In the 1990s, this meaning of equivalence was challenged by something quite different: a reference to a form of curriculum distribution and resource allocation that put primary emphasis on allowing students and their parents to freely pursue educational choices and on providing an array of curriculum possibilities that varied according to the interests of students and their parents (Englund 2005).
Today the school system is characterized by policies of school choice, competition and commercialization, driven by the belief that diversity of school providers (public and private) and their competition for resources will increase the effectiveness and responsiveness of the system. The political argument is that these mechanisms give incentives to schools and teachers to improve the quality of education they provide. Parents and students are supposed to select the most appropriate education for the individual child.
Free-schools, which are licensed by the national Schools Inspectorate, can be set up by a broad variety of actors including non-profit and for-profit organisations. Initially the free school sector largely consisted of single schools run by for example parental and staff co-operatives, faith and other interest organizations. This has though been changing fast. In the early 2010s, the private school market is dominated by large groups of companies (Erixon Arreman & Holm, 2011).
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Beach, D. & Dovemark, M. (2011) Twelve Years of Upper-Secondary Education in Sweden: The Beginnings of a Neo-liberal Policy hegemony. In Educational Review. 63:3, 313-327. Routledge. Dale, R., and Robertson, S.L. (2009) Beyond methodological ‘isms’ in comparative education in an era of globalisation. In R. Cowen & A. M. Kazamias (eds) International Handbook of Comparative Education. 1113–1127. Springer Science and Business Media B.V. Dovemark, M. & Holm, A.-S. (2015) Pedagogic identities for sale! Segregation and homogenization in Sewedish upper secondary School. British Journal of Sociology of Education. DOI. 10.1080/01425692.2015.1093405. Englund, Thomas (2005) The discourse on equivalence in Swedish education policy. Journal of Education Policy, Vol. 20(1). 39-57, DOI 10.1080/0268093042000322829 Erixon Arreman, I., and A-S. Holm. (2011)“Privatisation of Public Education? The emergence of independent upper secondary schools in Sweden.” Journal of Education Policy 26 (2): 225–242. Fairclough, N. (1995) Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Longman Group Limited Lundahl, L., I. Erixon Arreman., A-S. Holm, and U. Lundström. 2014. Gymnasiet som marknad [Upper secondary school as a market]. Umeå: Borea.
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