In Sweden, as in many modern European and international democracies, ways of governing have shifted in several ways, with profound implications for education policy and practice (cf. Lindgren et al, 2020; Murphy, 2022). Among changes such as comprehensive marketization, juridification, as a mode of welfare regulation, is a central feature (e.g. Novak, 2018; Rosén et al., 2021). The juridification of education is visible by a shift from collective social rights to individual and legally assured rights, with a growth of legal complaint systems (e.g. Carlbaum, 2016; Novak, 2018). In Swedish education, this shift has been specifically evident regarding issues of equality and diversity.

Intertwined with a development of expansion of EU-law on discrimination and equal treatment, Sweden in 2006 introduced a legal policy forbidding discrimination, harassment[1] and other kinds of degrading treatment. This policy includes possibilities to report incidents to the Child and School Student Representative and the Equality Ombudsman who can represent students in national courts (SFS 2008:567; SFS 2010:800). Such endeavors – in the name of democracy and of meeting needs related to diversity in societies – are difficult to question (cf. Rosén, 2023). However, as has been discussed by Teubner (1987) and Habermas (1987), juridification as means of democratization may challenge ethical and political qualities of social spheres, such as in education (cf. Habermas, 1987; Teubner, 1987).  In similar ways, Wendy Brown (2000) has pointed to the paradox inherent in rights, as both enabling and challenging emancipation and equity. These dilemmas and tensions have also been discussed in the growing body of, so far mainly Nordic, empirical research on juridification of education (cf. Karseth och Møller, 2018; Lindgren et al 2020; Murphy, 2022; Novak, 2018; Rosén et al 2021; Rosén and Arneback, 2021; Stefkovich, 2014).

As both the theoretical and empirical literature suggests, juridification is an ambivalent phenomenon. However, rather than repeatedly pointing this out, or simply adding to the discussion of the challenges of juridification, I argue there is a need for a better understanding of these ambivalences, inherent in juridification as a process of democratization. In contrast to earlier research, this study therefore aims at exploring and conceptualizing ambivalences of juridification in relation to education, by using the Swedish case of equal treatment as an empirical case.

In this study juridification is understood as a multidimensional phenomenon, including different kinds of empirical processes; such as expansion and differentiation of law, increasing use of legal experts, legal framing of subjects and relations, increasing conflict-solving by using law (Rosén et al, 2021; Blichner & Molander, 2008). Altogether, these processes increase the prominence of the legal system in the governance of education (Blichner & Molander, 20008). The study thus has an interest in how juridification takes place at different levels in the education system, as well as taking shape in different ways.

Furthermore, juridification is understood as a process (Blichner & Molander, 2008), which refers to an understanding of law and policy (Ball et al., 2012) as made by different actors at different levels, as well as having no certain direction in its enactment. Such an understanding relates to an understanding of juridification as potentially enabling processes of democratization, as well as potentially challengingprocesses, qualities and values in education (cf. Habermas, 1987; Teubner, 1987; also see Brown, 2000), which this study further explores, through an abductive exploration of ambivalences.

[1] Whereas discrimination concerns structural disadvantages, harassment concerns interpersonal degrading treatment – ones och repeatedly, discriminatory grounds of gender, transgender identity or expression, ethnicity, religion or other belief, disability, sexual orientation, or age” (Chap. 1, 4§, my translation)

Although ambivalence is often discussed in the literature, not least in research on juridification of education, it is rarely conceptualized. Specifically, it is discussed in fields such as psychology, sociology and philosophy, and conceptualized in relation to rationality, recognition, paradox and feelings (cf. Broogard & Gatzia, 2020). Ambivalence can thus take different forms. Through the abductive exploration (Peirce, 1931) of ambivalences, three forms of ambivalence have successively developed and functioned as a direction in the analytical process. Those are: 1. ambivalence as contradictory feelings towards juridification 2. ambivalence as paradox in relation to juridification 3. ambivalence as discursive tensions, as a consequence of a shift towards juridification These three forms of ambivalences work as analytical tools and are used to analyze how ambivalences are expressed in the empirical material. The empirical material consists of three articles on juridification of education, using the Swedish case of equal treatment (Rosén et al 2021, Rosén & Arneback, 2021 and Rosén, 2023). Each article builds on several references within the research fields of education policy, curriculum theory and democratic education. Altogether the articles capture different dimensions of juridification, at different levels in the education system, as well as implicitly and explicitly discuss ambivalence in a variety of ways. In this paper I present the second step of my dissertation study, which is a meta-analysis of the three articles, where I explore and conceptualize ambivalences of juridification, aiming at contributing to the research field juridification of education. For Peirce (1931), who coined the concept of abduction, puzzlement is the very starting point for research and the development of new discoveries. For me as a researcher, the puzzlement has followed me during many years as a policy actor at a national level, working with the legislation on equal treatment, and later several years of researching it. An abductive process of inquiry is a creative research process without a given direction, driven by an interest in clarifying observations that appear puzzling (cf. Balldin, 2022). It is a movement between empirics and so-called 'sensitive concepts' that open the mind to new ways of understanding (Balldin, 2022), a knowledge production that highlights possible answers. In this way I have successively developed new concepts of ambivalence, which clarify some puzzling observations in the empirical material, and altogether offer a possible way of understanding ambivalences of juridification.

As a result three different ambivalences are suggested: Ambivalence of differentiation: ambivalence in relation to differentiation of education policy • Ambivalence as a discursive tension in the formation of law • Ambivalence as a paradox, in the formation of legislation on equal treatment • Ambivalence towards differentiation of education policy/grounds of discrimination Ambivalence of juridification: ambivalence in relation to juridification of and in education • Ambivalence as a discursive tension, as a consequence of a shift towards juridification • Ambivalence towards juridification as a phenomenon Ambivalence of risk reduction: ambivalence in relation to risk reduction in democratically challenging situations in education • Ambivalence as a discursive tension, as a consequence of a shift towards risk reduction • Ambivalence as a paradox, as an ontological condition for action, where the sides of the paradox opens up a world of action • Ambivalence towards risk reduction All together, the three ambivalences make visible different aspects of juridification as an ambivalent phenomenon, as well as how the three forms of ambivalence relate to each other. The empirical material contributes to conceptualizing ambivalences at different levels within the education system, and capturing different kinds of juridification processes in and of education. All in all, the ambivalences contribute to developing the complexity of juridification as a process of democratization further, and raise questions about what law can enable as well as challenge in relation to education. The ambivalences thus contribute to placing ourselves to think both with and against – as well as beyond – juridification of education.

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