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Abstract
Sweden has commonly been regarded as a striking example of a social democratic welfare-state regime (Esping-Andersen Citation1996), characterized by strong state governance and active involvement in welfare matters. In the last two decades, however, the Swedish public sector and education system have been radically and extensively transformed in a neo-liberal direction, a move that was preceded by extensive decentralization of decision-making from the state to municipalities and schools. In this article the scope, character and some of the consequences of internal and external marketization of Swedish education in the early 2000s are summarized, and the impact of competition on the internal workings of upper secondary schools is highlighted in particular. We conclude that the external marketization of education has proceeded a long way and Sweden also fully embraces new public management, i.e. ‘inner marketization’, of education in most respects. However, aspects of the older social democratic policy paradigm are still visible with regard to the assigned functions, values and governance of education.
Lisbeth Lundahl is Professor at the Department of Applied Educational Science at Umeå University, Sweden. Her main research interests concern contemporary education politics, youth politics and young people′s transitions from school to work from Swedish and European perspectives. Email: [email protected]
Inger Erixon Arreman is an Associate Professor at the Department of Applied Educational Science, Umeå University in Sweden. Her research interests include the areas of teacher education, education policy making, with particular focus on marketization and privatization policies in Swedish upper secondary education, and academic writing in teacher education settings.
Ann-Sofie Holm holds a PhD in Pedagogy and is Associate Professor at the Department of Educational Studies, University of Borås, Sweden. Her research interests include the marketisation of upper secondary education and the field of gender constructions in school. Currently, she is involved in two ongoing research projects; “Inclusive and competitive?” and “Study achievements and gender”, both financed by the Swedish Research Council. Email: [email protected]
Ulf Lundström is an Associate Professor at the Department of Applied Educational Science, Umeå University in Sweden. He has a background as a teacher and principal in upper-secondary school and holds a Ph.D. in Educational Work. His research examines the teaching profession, evaluation and education policy. He is currently engaged in three research projects examining: how inclusion aims can be paired with competition on a school quasi-market, how evaluation is enacted in comprehensive school, and local safety policy. Email: [email protected]
Lisbeth Lundahl is Professor at the Department of Applied Educational Science at Umeå University, Sweden. Her main research interests concern contemporary education politics, youth politics and young people′s transitions from school to work from Swedish and European perspectives. Email: [email protected]
Inger Erixon Arreman is an Associate Professor at the Department of Applied Educational Science, Umeå University in Sweden. Her research interests include the areas of teacher education, education policy making, with particular focus on marketization and privatization policies in Swedish upper secondary education, and academic writing in teacher education settings.
Ann-Sofie Holm holds a PhD in Pedagogy and is Associate Professor at the Department of Educational Studies, University of Borås, Sweden. Her research interests include the marketisation of upper secondary education and the field of gender constructions in school. Currently, she is involved in two ongoing research projects; “Inclusive and competitive?” and “Study achievements and gender”, both financed by the Swedish Research Council. Email: [email protected]
Ulf Lundström is an Associate Professor at the Department of Applied Educational Science, Umeå University in Sweden. He has a background as a teacher and principal in upper-secondary school and holds a Ph.D. in Educational Work. His research examines the teaching profession, evaluation and education policy. He is currently engaged in three research projects examining: how inclusion aims can be paired with competition on a school quasi-market, how evaluation is enacted in comprehensive school, and local safety policy. Email: [email protected]
Notes
Lisbeth Lundahl is Professor at the Department of Applied Educational Science at Umeå University, Sweden. Her main research interests concern contemporary education politics, youth politics and young people′s transitions from school to work from Swedish and European perspectives. Email: [email protected]
Inger Erixon Arreman is an Associate Professor at the Department of Applied Educational Science, Umeå University in Sweden. Her research interests include the areas of teacher education, education policy making, with particular focus on marketization and privatization policies in Swedish upper secondary education, and academic writing in teacher education settings.
Ann-Sofie Holm holds a PhD in Pedagogy and is Associate Professor at the Department of Educational Studies, University of Borås, Sweden. Her research interests include the marketisation of upper secondary education and the field of gender constructions in school. Currently, she is involved in two ongoing research projects; “Inclusive and competitive?” and “Study achievements and gender”, both financed by the Swedish Research Council. Email: [email protected]
Ulf Lundström is an Associate Professor at the Department of Applied Educational Science, Umeå University in Sweden. He has a background as a teacher and principal in upper-secondary school and holds a Ph.D. in Educational Work. His research examines the teaching profession, evaluation and education policy. He is currently engaged in three research projects examining: how inclusion aims can be paired with competition on a school quasi-market, how evaluation is enacted in comprehensive school, and local safety policy. Email: [email protected]
1. In addition, the European Convention on Human Rights, especially the article enshrining parents’ right to ensure that their children receive education conforming with their own convictions, was used to bolster decisions to extend school choice and establish independent (‘free’) schools in the first half of the 1990s (Wahlström Citation2009).
2. Until the 2011 Education Act came into force, the legal regulation of free-schools was far more liberal than that of public schools, e.g. with regard to providing formally qualified teachers and other staff, and some facilities such as school libraries. The 2011 Education Act introduced a common legal framework in these respects. However, the regulation of public and free-schools still differ in other important respects; for example the latter are private and excluded from requirements to allow public scrutiny of financial transactions and relationships among the different schools, ownership affiliations and companies (CitationErixon Arreman & Holm 2011a).
3. See National Agency for Education (Citation2012b) for an overview in English of the new upper secondary education system and its steering documents.