Over the previous decades, education policy research has built up a narrative of the proliferation of neoliberalism across most parts of the world (Cannella & Koro-Ljungberg, 2017; Krejsler & Moos, 2021; Marginson, 2006; Mintz, 2021). The narrative has gained so much strength that neoliberalism is often referred to as a self-evident phenomenon. However, in the process, neoliberalism as an ideological category sometimes appear to have become more an obstacle than an analytically fruitful category. In some cases, it is unclear how the concept of neoliberalism is defined, and in particular how it is delineated from other categories. In other cases, the strong narrative implies blind spots concerning empirical changes that cannot be sufficiently described with the category of neoliberalism.

In this paper, we ask whether this narrative holds: To what extend is education policy across the Western world distinctively neoliberal? We approach this question by presenting three separate cases of contemporary education policy from Denmark, ranging from primary and lower secondary school to upper secondary school and higher education, thus encompassing the most central educational institutions in the Danish context. We analyze the three policies in terms of the policy ideologies embedded in them by drawing on various conceptualizations of neoliberalism and social democracy. Based on our analysis, we raise a discussion of whether Danish education policy is neoliberal after all.

By asking this question, we open up two alternatives to the narrative of the spread proliferation of neoliberalism. The first alternative is that neoliberalism never spread as widely and deeply as education policy research has indicated, thus implying that education policy research has drawn stronger conclusions of neoliberalism in policy than what the empirical reality warrants. This alternative could be enforced by the conflation of neoliberalism and New Public Management, as empirical signs of the latter are also often interpreted as signs of the spread of neoliberalism, and much more widespread. The second alternative is that neoliberalism has spread, but is currently diminishing, thus implying that neoliberalism has proven itself more fragile than previously assumed. This alternative stresses the need for a renewed policy research that explores whether this trend is more widespread than what can be concluded based on our study. We use these discussions to raise a research agenda of analyzing policy ideologies in contemporary education policy in contextually sensitive ways.

In the paper, we outline the policy ideologies through which we analyze our cases of contemporary education policy, including a conceptualization of social democracy as a theory of justice (Platz, 2022), as well as three conceptualizations of neoliberalism, encompassing a governmentality conceptualization (Ball & Grimaldi, 2021; Foucault, 2009; Rose, 1999), a Marxist conceptualization (Harvey, 2011), and a conceptualization based on intellectual streams (Cahill & Konings, 2017). We juggle these three conceptualizations alongside each other in our analysis in order to accommodate the diversity in understandings of neoliberalism characterizing previous policy analysis. With our inclusion of three policy cases, we aim to study indications of cross-cutting trends rather than analyzing each policy in depth on its own terms. After the analysis, we discuss the shared trends across the three policies and their implications for education policy research.

methodology of reading and categorizing case examples of policies through these concepts. The Theory of justice concept of social democracy (Platz, 2022) entails that we categorize policy elements as social democratic if they promote an equal distribution of both rights and work. The Foucauldian concept of neoliberalism (Foucault, 2009; Rose, 1999) entails that we categorize policy elements as neoliberal if they encourage a competitive or entrepreneurial self of the governed subjects. The Marxist concept of neoliberalism (Harvey, 2011) entails that we categorize policy elements as neoliberal if they produce inequality (or maintain existing inequalities) in society. The Intellectual streams concept of neoliberalism (Cahill & Konings, 2017) entails that we categorize policy elements as neoliberal if they promote a minimization of the state and markets as a dominant organizational principle of society. In our analysis, we are cautious not to interpret empirical signs of ‘new public management’ instruments and/or human capital thinking as signs of neoliberalism per se. While some of the principles behind new public management overlap with intellectual streams found in neoliberalism (for example the promotion of market-type mechanisms) as well as subjectivizing discourses, others cannot be ascribed neoliberal thinking per se. Furthermore, we argue against the idea that the commodification and capitalization of education captured in the term ‘human capital’ necessarily is neoliberal. We can merely look back in time to when national governments first and foremost prioritized a general increase in the educational level of their populations (Henry et al., 2001: 99) to see how human capital theory has not always been about commodification and individualization, but instead has been configured as a highly collective effort to strengthen the nation in a geopolitical race related to security (Bürgi & Tröhler, 2018). Human capital can thus both be adapted to neoliberal and social democratic ideologies (and probably many more). The policy cases selected for analysis represent three different sectors of the Danish education system: Primary school, upper secondary school, and higher education. The cases were selected to display different aspects of the social democratic ideology currently permeating Danish education policy. The policies all represent recent policies, proposed between 2021 and 2023. They represent a combination of policy proposals made by the government and adopted policies.

The three policies are mainly shaped by social democratic influences, including: a desire for social, occupational, and geographical equality; a glorification of vocational work; an approach to the distribution of students in educational tracks as a collective state issue; corrections of the market mechanisms; and a centralized economic engineering aimed at adjusting higher education provision in line with the needs of society. The social democratic influences are however complemented by traces of neoliberalism, such as a liberation of schools from state regulation and the promotion of private actors in the public school system. The analysis thus underscores that neoliberal elements, such as allowing private operators to play a role in schools, are incorporated into the system, but within the constraints of not conflicting with overarching social democratic values. Importantly, schools are viewed as crucial institutions for fulfilling state objectives, prioritizing economic regulation, promoting a vocational labor ethos, cultivating social justice, and addressing inequality over market-driven dynamics and potential disparities.

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