This paper investigates Norwegian education policy for private schools over the last 50 years, in particular, the study examines how global pressures and national policy is positioned in the political debate for privatization in education during this period, e.g. with regards to public funding of private schools. The aim of the study is to look at the historical development of private education policy in order to understand how education policy for private schools is legitimated in Norway over the last 50 years. In addition the paper’s scrutinizes how the political debate on private schools is interconnected with international references; or conversely, how the political debate engages in resisting the international references. I understand international references as the reference to transnational entities e.g. international organizations and their documents or other countries (Ringarp & Waldow, 2016). The main research question is: How has Norwegian private education policy been legitimated over the last 50 years?
Norway can be identified together with other Scandinavian countries as part of the Nordic model of education which is characterized by high priority on equity of education, e.g. by using a large share of the state budget on education. In the last decades, this model has been challenged by the era of globalization and neo-liberalism supported by international organizations (Telhaug, Medias, & Aasen, 2006). Freedom of choice, an assumption based on neo-liberal ideology, may be gaining space in the educational sector also due to the fact that the Nordic model is less homogenous and increasingly multi ethic, multi religious and multi linguistic (Prøitz & Aasen, 2017). However, within the Nordic model, these neo-liberal and international pressures have affected the Scandinavian welfare systems in different ways (Sivesind & Saglie, 2017). The case of Norway is particularly interesting because from 2002 to 2017 private school attendance in the Norwegian education has increased by 106,5% (Statistics Norway, 2017), while at the same time Norway is renowned for protecting the welfare state, the comprehensive school model and hesitant towards neo-liberal policies (Wiborg, 2013).
One way to study international references in national policy is through the concepts of legitimacy. Legitimization is a concept that comes from the works on political authority of Max Weber, however nowadays the concept can be used to explain a larger spectrum of phenomena, for instance, policy agenda (Waldow, 2013). A general definition of legitimacy was found by Suchman (1995): legitimacy is a “generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an entity are desirable, proper, or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs, and definitions” (Suchman, 1995, p. 574). Therefore, in order for a policy to get legitimization, it needs to be recognized desirable, proper and appropriate in line with the values embedded in the society. It appears that the process of social construction is determinant for triggering legitimacy for a policy.
Another approach that can be useful to understand how international references may function as a legitimacy device is through the externalization thesis by sociologist Niklas Luhmann (in Waldow, 2013). It has been demonstrated that contested reforms at home, as for instance privatization of education or new accountability policies, are more likely to be legitimized by referencing other systems of education (externalization) (Steiner-Khamsi, 2004). However, it does not imply that through reforms something is actually transferred, externalization suggests that there is a reference to an external point, which could be a set of values, international organization or discourse.
