Neoliberal tendencies are changing national school policies in Europe. One major aspect of those changes is the promotion of school markets, which in many countries culminate in the question about opening comprehensive school to selection and giving the families a free possibility to choose the school for their child. The object of this presentation is to examine the change in the diversity of pupils’ school well-being and attitudes at the upper level of comprehensive school in Helsinki, the capital city of Finland, during in a 12-year period.

This presentation focuses on studying the differences in school well-being and school attitudes. Finland is special from this point of view for two particular reasons. Finnish pupils are top students according to their learning outcomes and the Finnish school system has been, like in other Nordic countries, evaluated to be one of the most equal (OECD 2010; UNICEF 2010). In contrast to this, there is also a great concern in Finland about the new social and structural polarization in general and in education in specific. This concern includes either indications of increasing inequalities of education or challenges to it. 

According to study of school aged children (UNICEF 2010), Finland is the most equal nation when considered education, but drops down on the ranking when the equality of health or the material well-being is considered. In the educational sector there might be three kinds of polarization tendencies in Finland: the schools might segregate, the separation between high and low-educated population is widening and there are some group-specific inequalities inside specific school levels (Järvinen & Jahnukainen 2008). The Finnish school system has confronted the same pressure to change the school-choice policies although the promotion of school markets have been seen as a mechanism that at least maintains the differences in society, but possibly also produces new distinctions. Especially, the free school choice policy might diversify schools and increase social inequalities. (see for example Seppänen 2006.)

From the equality viewpoint it is most important to study existing educational differences that are founded in schools or in families. This presentation focuses on the analysis of the change in some aspects of school engagement or school attachment in the upper levels of comprehensive schools in Helsinki (588 000 inhabitants), Finland. Helsinki has promoted the free school-choice policies from the 1990’s and the amount of students choosing other than the assigned school when transferring to the 7th grade of comprehensive school has increased to 32 per cent (the year 2009). To prevent the school segregation Helsinki has also promoted the positive discrimination model, i.e. schools located in disadvantaged area are supported financially. The model takes on account the socioeconomic status of the catchment area of the schools. 

From this perspective, this presentation focuses on the following questions: What kind of socio-economical differences there are in school well-being and school attitudes? How do these differences vary between different schools and in time (between years 1998 and 2010)?

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