This paper examines the dynamics of political agenda-setting and policy change concerning specialist schools programmes within comprehensive education systems.

Specialist subject schools, while offering a broad curriculum, prioritise a specific subject area. Proponents argue that such elite institutions foster educational excellence and accommodate diverse learning needs. However, their establishment raises significant political concerns regarding equity and resource allocation. The selective nature of admissions frequently benefits students from more affluent backgrounds, who possess greater access to extracurricular opportunities and supplementary tutoring. Consequently, rather than promoting social mobility, specialist subject schools risk reinforcing socio-economic stratification (Gaztambide-Fernández & Parekh, 2017; Gaztambide-Fernández, Saifer & Desai, 2013; Perry & Lubienski, 2020; Weininger, Lareau & Conley, 2015). Furthermore, their predominance in urban areas exacerbates geographical disparities, limiting access for students in rural and disadvantaged regions, where travel costs and distance impose additional barriers to entry.

Given that comprehensive education systems are founded on the principle of equal opportunity, irrespective of students’ backgrounds or abilities, the integration of specialist subject schools within such frameworks generates political contestation by effectively creating a dual-track system within public education. This policy tension gives rise to the following critical research question: Why and how have elite educational initiatives gained policy legitimacy within ostensibly egalitarian education systems, leading to the proliferation of specialist subject schools? To address this question, the study applies the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) to examine agenda-setting and policy change. The MSF posits that policymaking is not a linear process but is shaped by ambiguity and the convergence of three independent streams—problems, policies, and politics—alongside the strategic mobilisation of policy windows and policy entrepreneurs (Kingdon, 2014; Zahariadis, 2016). By employing this framework, the paper offers a nuanced analysis of how specialist subject schools have been legitimised and institutionalised despite their potential to undermine the egalitarian ethos of comprehensive education systems.

In this paper, we examine the case of Sweden, with a particular focus on the historically significant role of specialised music schools. Within the contexts of local and national policy formation, these institutions served as reference points in legitimising specialist subject schools, intersecting with the introduction of voucher programmes and the implementation of the free school reform in the early 1990s (Lilliedahl, 2020, 2022). The study situates these developments within broader shifts in educational policy, exploring how specialised and elite institutions contributed to the evolving discourse on school choice and educational governance. Drawing on an extensive collection of primary historical sources—including legislative documents, official reports, parliamentary debates, political party manifestos, records from non-governmental organisations, newspaper articles, and personal correspondences such as letters and diaries—this study provides a robust empirical foundation for analysing policy change. Employing principles of qualitative process tracing, it interprets these archival sources through the MSF to trace policy development. Specifically, the study applies selective coding aligned with key conceptual dimensions—problems, policies, politics, policy windows, and policy entrepreneurs—while also engaging in process tracing to identify how political decisions were produced through coupling, initiated by policy entrepreneurs and triggered by policy windows. In doing so, the research offers insights into the complex and context-dependent nature of educational policymaking.

Centre-right governments have traditionally demonstrated greater support for elite-driven initiatives than left-wing socialist administrations. However, findings suggest that key policy drivers extend beyond government actors to encompass a diverse range of stakeholders and interest groups. These actors engage in strategic coalition-building, capitalising on critical policy windows to advance their proposals within the policymaking agenda. This research underscores the significance of cross-sectoral influences, particularly the spillover effects from cultural policy to education reform (Kingdon, 2014). While the MSF provides significant insights into the dynamics of policy change, it is not without its limitations. Foremost among these is its conceptual elasticity, which raises concerns about the clarity and coherence of interactions between the streams (Cairney & Jones, 2016; Zahariadis, 2007).

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