Progressive and Sustained School Reforms: Framing and Coalition Building in Swiss Cities

ABSTRACT:

Urban politics in the early 21st century is structured by conflicts over social cohesion and economic competitiveness. Education policy takes center stage in this struggle as schools are institutions of both social and economic reproduction. I draw on arguments of urban regime and policy frame analysis to examine the politics of urban school reform in two Swiss cities. Empirically, I analyze neighborhood-embedded bottom-up school reforms committed to social cohesion. The paths these reforms eventually take were shaped by different coalitions geared around specific school policy frames. Frames indeed play a crucial role in building a coalition toward progressive school reforms. In addition, their sustainability in a political environment, increasingly shifting toward development policies, hinges on the dominant frame underlying the reforms as well as the properties of the network advancing them.

Notes

1 The high share of foreign residents, compared to other European countries, is due in part to the restrictive and stringent naturalization law and procedure. Despite this legal framework, the number of naturalizations has increased in the last two decades (see Fibi, Lerch, & Wanner, 2007). That explains the difference between the share of non-Swiss students and the share of students with a non-German native language.

2 The governments in both cities are composed of oversized coalitions elected in a majority voting system (in contrast to the parliament where proportional representation is the rule). In Zurich, nine members make up the government. Since 2010, four members are Social Democrats, two are members of the Green Party, two are members of the Liberals (FDP), and one is a Christian Democrat. All of them are heads of an administrative unit. In Basel, the government is composed of seven members. Since 2009, three members are Social Democrats, two are Liberals, one is member of the Green Party, and one is a Christian Democrat. As in Zurich, the members of the government are heading an administrative unit.

3 The ideas of New Public Management (NPM) share the aim of making government work better and cost less. In the case of Switzerland, these administrative reforms include mainly the introduction of new budgeting regulations, performance contracts, deregulations of labor regulations, establishing principles of output, and quality management (see for Switzerland Widmer & Rieder, 2003, and more generally Peters, 1997).

4 PISA is the acronym for the OECD Program for International Student Assessment, which is an international study aiming at evaluating education systems worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students. The study has been conducted in 2000, 2003, 2006, and 2009. In Switzerland, the PISA results have received much attention by the political system and the wider public alike (see Buschor, Gilomen, & McCluskey, 2003).