Explaining change and inertia in Swedish and French education: A tale of two corporatisms?

Abstract

Why do western welfare states differ so starkly when it comes to educational governance and, in particular, the degree of (de-)centralization? This article focuses on two such western European countries which demonstrate highly similar educational traditions, institutions and guiding principles – France and Sweden. The Swedish education system has evolved into one of the most decentralized in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), while France has preserved the main components of its centralized education system amid a broader international trend towards decentralization. Looking at secondary education governance in both countries, the author theorizes different forms of ‘educational corporatism’ and the resulting patterns of interactions of teacher unions as key educational actors. Characterized by ‘competitive corporatism’ within the centralized bureaucracy, the French education policy framework has enabled teachers unions to capture the policy-making apparatus and exploit their internal differences to stymie education reform and decentralization. Swedish teachers unions, by contrast, compensated for the decline of centralized corporatism by creating new institutions of ‘local teacher-dominated corporatism’, which altered the incentive structure for decentralization. The research question bears significance for contemporary education policy-making, as France's weak performance in international comparisons has been traced to excessive educational centralization, while critics of Swedish education link the weak performance of Swedish pupils to the perceived excessive decentralization of the education system.

Keywords:

• decentralization
• education
• corporatism
• teachers unions
• interest group politics

Notes on contributor

Michael Dobbins is Assistant Professor of Education Policy at Goethe University of Frankfurt. He completed his dissertation on higher education policy in Central and Eastern Europe, which focused on the impact of Europeanization and the Bologna Process on existing higher education governance structures. He is also associated with the project “Internationalization of Education Policy” within the TranState Research Center at the University of Bremen. His research interests are higher education policy, secondary education policy, the European Union and American politics, Central and Eastern European and the Caucasus region.

Notes

1. See Martens et al. (2010) for exceptions.

2. For example, in their insightful analysis of French educational governance, Cole and John (2001, 108) only speak of ‘powerful teacher unions’ without elaborating on their interactions, strategies and policy impacts. Lakomaa (2011) also speaks of ‘mighty teachers unions’ in Sweden, but only cursorily addresses their adaptive strategies.

3. For the effects of decentralization and increased school autonomy on pupil performance, see Schlicht-Schmälzle, Teltemann, and Windzio (2011) and Wößmann (2007).

4. The authors drew on the PISA indexes of school autonomy (SCHAUTON). School principals reported whether teachers, department heads, principals, appointed or elected boards or a higher education authority were primarily responsible for appointing teachers, dismissing teachers, establishing starting salaries, determining salary increases, formulating school budgets, allocating budgets, establishing student disciplinary policies, establishing student assessment policies, approving students admittance, choosing textbooks, etc. (see OECD 2007).

5. France = collège; Sweden gymnasieskolan.

6. For example, curricula are still defined by the Bulletin officiel de l’Éducation nationale, while children have been required to attend schools assigned by the carte scolaire, a map with school districts.

7. For Sweden, see Oftedal Telhaug, Odd, and Aasen (2006); for France, see Lelièvre (2000); Cole and John (2001, 114).

8. In the 1960s, Sweden introduced a non-stratified comprehensive school for pupils between approx. ages 9 and 18 (Husén 1989). France maintains a distinction between lower (collège) and upper secondary education (lycée).

9. Research has also focussed on the political factors enabling the establishment of independent voucher-financed schools (Klitgaard 2008). However, independent schools only account for approx. 5% of the student population. Despite this disproportion, much less research has been conducted on the profound changes within Swedish public schools (Lundahl 2002).

10. French: Fédération des Conseils de Parents d’Élèves.

11. According to Frajerman (2008, 546), unions aim for a strike participation rate between 50% and 80% (2008, 546).

12. In this regard, centralization itself can also be seen as an additional power resource of unions, as it has the effect of politicizing all issues (Archer 1979). In other words, unions target partisan actors. In decentralized systems, headmasters are usually not political actors (Duclaud-Williams 1985, 91).

13. French: établissements publics locaux d'enseignement. This enabled them to allocate a small part of their budgets to non-core curricular activities and draw up strategic plans (projets d’établissement).

14. Cole (2001, 713) argues that the state strategically bolstered the powers of rectors to counteract local authorities and uphold the central state's pre-eminence over policy.

15. Loi relative aux liberités et résponsabilités locales.

16. The reform aimed to reduce the number of drop-outs, increase the number of baccalauréat graduates from low-income families, enhance teacher training and promote greater participation in scientific and technical tracks (filières).

17. Students voiced fears that teachers would not be able to objectively judge students’ performance without reference to their social background, i.e. the reform ran counter to the principle of educational equality.

18. Lärarnas Riksförbund held more centre-right views and was more favourable to management-by-objectives and decentralization, but not on staffing issues (Torbjörn, Kinnander, and Salin 2000). Lärarförbundet was more closely aligned with the social-democrats and preferred equality-promoting, state-centred policies and focussed its activities on salary bargaining (Johansson and Fredriksson 1993).

19. Government Bills 1989/09:41 and 1990/91:181.

20. For example, teacher salaries had declined as compared to other professions (Strath 2004; Klason 2007) and only minimally risen between 1985 and 1993. They lagged behind the OECD average and far behind those of their Scandinavian colleagues (OECD 1994b).

21. Later Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR)/Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting.

22. See Dobbins (2009) for New Zealand.

23. Swedish teachers’ wages remain below the OECD and Scandinavian average. However, the fact that teachers associations were able to reverse the trend towards declining wages during the municipalization process (OECD 2000) offers some proof of the strategy's success. See Lindblad et al. (2002) for a more critical teachers’ perspective on the new working environment.