Oslo City Council developed a “Conservative Party school” within the city’s public school system where competition for results and students is central. Oslo follows international policy trends characterised by “performativity” (cf. Ball 2003), combining accountability, autonomy, school choice and per capita funding. Ball, Maguire and Braun (2012, 19) argue that “in much policy making and research the fact that policies are intimately shaped and influenced by school-specific factors that act as constraints, pressures and enablers of policy enactments tends to be neglected”. Following this, it is important to examine how the same policies are recontextualised in different school contexts. In relation to the international picture, Oslo stands out because the competition from private/ independent providers of education is minimal. However, at the same time the marketization within the public schools is strong. Interestingly, recent findings indicate that the public schools in Oslo are in positive and negative spirals when it comes to recruiting students, leading to marginalised and privileged school contexts, where we see division along social and ethnic lines (Bjordal 2016). The question then is whether and how the pedagogic cultures of the schools develop differently within the same policy context. Pedagogic culture refers to the organizational order, and is defined as: “the mode of being of the agency´s social relations as they cope with its bias, shape, stability and economy” (Bernstein 2000, 24). By analysing teachers´ experiences of the shape, stability and economy parameters, the aim is to compare the pedagogic culture (cf. Bernstein, 2000) in marginalised and privileged school contexts in Oslo and discuss how the bias (policy context) may contribute to explain the differences/similarities in the pedagogic cultures. Important findings point out that even though there are contextual differences, the pedagogic cultures are by and large experienced in the same way by the teachers. A hard performativity culture is found in both school categories, characterised by limited space for autonomy and strong hierarchical relations. These are often stabilised through sanctions, ensuring that improving results has priority over other assignments. However, in both school categories there is a difference in whether school principals govern by fear or trust. All the teachers describe a distinction in the role elder and younger teachers typically take, and the rise of a teacher as a technical functionary. This identity is understandable as taking personal responsibility may represent a personal risk in this policy context (Haugen 2018).

Ball, S. J. 2003. The teachers’ soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Education Policy, 18:2, 215-228. Ball, S. J., Maguire, M. and Braun, A. 2012. How Schools Do Policy. Policy Enactments in Secondary Schools. Oxon: Routledge. Bernstein, B. 2000. Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity. Boston: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Bjordal, I. 2016. Markedsretting i en urban norsk skolekontekst. – Et sosialt rettferdighetsperspektiv [Marketisation in an urban Norwegian school context. A social justice perspective, in Norwegian]. PhD Thesis. Trondheim: NTNU. Haugen, C. R. 2018. A fragile autonomy in a performativity culture? Exploring positions in the recontextualising field in a Norwegian rural municipality. Journal of Education Policy, https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2017.1422152 1-20. Politiken 2017. Skoleledere fra Aalborg og København skal på norsk efteruddannelse. [School leaders from Aalborg and Copenhagen to attend Norwegian continuing education]. In Politiken, Skoleliv, 14 November 2017. http://skoleliv.dk/nyheder/art6205114/Skoleledere-fra-Aalborg-og-K%C3%B8benhavn-skal-p%C3%A5-norsk-efteruddannelse Retrieved 28 November 2017.