The value of poverty: an ethnographic study of a school–community partnership

ABSTRACT

Cooperation and partnerships between schools and public organisations, private companies and non-profit organisations have become a common model as a form of governance for addressing social problems. The aim of this article is to explore the strategies used by professionals to counteract segregation at a school located in a multi-ethnic suburb, using the model of a school–community partnership. The study is based on ethnographic fieldwork and has been analysed from a sociological-narrative perspective. The results show how the partnership examined was designed to address students’ low achievement. In order to change this, the officials planned to involve the local community. However, the officials were ambivalent about collaborating with partners in the local community and instead chose to collaborate with established associations and organisations located outside the local community. The school–community partnership thus became a market where private companies and non-profit organisations traded their services to the local district.

KEYWORDS:

• School–community partnership
• neoliberal
• education
• crime
• ethnography

Introduction

In several post-industrial nations, cooperation and partnerships between schools and public organisations, private companies and non-profit organisations as a form of governance have become an increasingly common model for addressing social problems. Here, governance refers to the intention to define and understand a problem so that solutions are created that lead to changes, for example, in individual behaviour or in the praxis in an organisation, based on what is expressed as the desirable (Lemke 2002). The emergence of these forms of governance through partnerships between public organisations and private organisations can be understood as the result of the restructuring of the public sector on the basis of neoliberal principles that have taken place in recent decades (Youdell and McGimpsey 2015; Ball 2007). As a result, schools have been transformed into markets where publicly and privately owned schools compete for students, and various forms of cooperation and partnership have been made possible with public organisations, private companies and non-profit organisations (Liasidou and Symeou 2018; Ball and Olmedo 2013).

The present article is a case study of the changes described above. The focus is on the social intervention of a school–community partnership that is actualised in a local district in one of Sweden’s largest cities. The concept of a school–community partnership covers a great range of a school’s community involvement and partnerships. The phrase ‘school–community partnership’ should herein be read as an umbrella term that describes a set of actions aimed at raising students’ achievement by opening up the school for collaboration with the local community, rather than as a set of predestined steps or a single programme for achieving this goal (Green 2017).

The overall purpose of this article is to analyse how public workers, managers and school officials reason about the needs and challenges in a school and neighbourhood. This is done from the perspective that the interventions not only indicate how the problem should be solved but also define what the problem is (Bacchi 2016).

The analysis was guided by the following questions: (1) How do local professionals and headteachers reason about the needs and challenges that are understood to be present in the school and neighbourhood? (2) What kind of reasoning do local professionals and headteachers use to determine which potential partners can participate in the school–community partnership?

Literature review

The literature on school cooperation and partnership is extensive, to say the least. In addition to giving a background to the Swedish context, this review is limited to scrutiny of some of the existing research on initiatives and programmes that are similar to the school–community partnership investigated in this study. However, most existing research about school–community partnerships focuses on the effects of different interventions (Ruiz-Román, Molina, and Alcaide 2019; Heers et al. 2016). Fewer studies have investigated how initiatives such as community schools contribute to defining what the problems and challenges are. Hopefully, this study can thus contribute to a problematisation of such social interventions. According to the perspective used in this study, social problems are not defined in an objective manner. On the contrary, what appears to be a problem is dependent on the knowledge and definition established in different institutions and fields of knowledge within society (Robinson and Smyth 2016; Lemke 2002; Foucault 1987). Thus, the aims and strategies formulated within a school–community partnership can be viewed as constituting what the problem is, and thus allowing certain actions and explanations, while causing other interventions and interpretations to appear less suitable or credible (Bacchi 2016; Hacking 2004).

In Sweden – as in the United States and other European countries – school–community partnerships are a type of social intervention that is often used in socially disadvantaged areas (Ruiz-Román, Molina, and Alcaide 2019; Destler and Page 2016). In the Swedish context, the definition of what a socially disadvantaged area is has changed over the last few decades (Dahlstedt and Ekholm 2018). When this term was presented and used by various authorities in the mid-1990s, the focus was on the fact that the residents in such areas had low or very low incomes compared with the rest of the Swedish population. In recent years, however, the term ‘especially disadvantaged areas’ has been used by police and other authorities, resulting in a change of the definition. It now refers to an area characterised by a low socioeconomic status, where criminals have an impact on the local community (Lunneblad and Johansson 2019; Wacquant 2016). It is in this context that school–community partnerships have become a strategy to counteract school students’ weak performance, as well as a strategy to handle social disturbances and crime (Dahlstedt and Ekholm 2018; Nilsson, Estrada, and Bäckman 2017).

Research has revealed how processes of social categorisation of individuals and groups may result in stigma, in which stereotypical representations reduce those individuals or groups to the stigmatic characteristics thus articulated (Voyer 2018; Wacquant 2016; Bunar 2011; Hacking 2004). For example, studies show that educators at schools located in socially disadvantaged areas avoid engaging with the local community, as they do not want the school to be associated with the problems connected to the neighbourhood (Lunneblad and Johansson 2019). In urban studies, the concept of stigma has been used in a similar way to understand how certain areas become categorised in a way that deprives their residents of recognition in defining their local identity and what it means to be a resident there (Wacquant 2016).

Previous research has also displayed the challenges of establishing school–community partnerships as a means of building trust and cooperation with the local community. Studies show how collaboration with parents and other actors is primarily seen as a means of improving students’ performance and attendance at school. The criticism has been that such policies are often characterised by a clear top-down perspective, in which the local administration and school management define the framework for this type of collaboration (Bunar 2011). Similar patterns of challenges can also be found in research in other national contexts. For example, decisions concerning the content of activities are usually based on what the local administration identifies as social problems in the neighbourhood (Valli, Stefanski, and Jacobson 2016). Research also shows how individualism and competitions – as well as distrust between educators, schools and organisations in the community – can be a challenge when developing a network that supports both students’ learning and the local community (Silva, da Silva, and Araújo 2017).

However, research also shows that there is great variation in how schools establish partnerships, and in how such partnerships affect the relationship with the local community (Green 2017; Heers et al. 2016; Valli, Stefanski, and Jacobson 2016). Research shows how the school can be part of comprehensive works to change a neighbourhood. In these cases, the school is defined as a central meeting point for the efforts to influence the social conditions in the community (Silva, da Silva, and Araújo 2017). School activities are organised on the basis of jointly defined goals and shared responsibility between the local administration, students, parents and local associations (Green 2017). Previous research has highlighted how such networks and partnerships can function as a resource for students and parents, improve students’ learning and reduce the number of dropouts (Ruiz-Román, Molina, and Alcaide 2019). Furthermore, partnerships and networks within the local community and with parents have been shown to contribute to the development of teachers’ work and to the students’ learning (Vigo Arrazola and Bozalongo 2014).

Setting the scene

This study was carried out in a district referred to herein as ‘Southfield’; this name is a pseudonym, as are all the names appearing in this text. Southfield was established in the late 1960s as a residential area, mainly for the working class. In 1960, there was a great housing shortage and a strong expansion of Swedish industry. However, the stable economy and relatively high wages meant that many of the intended tenants bought detached houses in other areas instead. Southfield thus becomes a place for incoming residents to the city and for those who had difficulty finding other accommodations. It can also be noted that few places in Sweden have been described as frequently in the media as the Swedish suburban areas. From the start, ‘the surburbs’ have been surrounded by headlines on how the geographical location of these areas have caused them to become like isolated islands, with no connection to the rest of the city. The description of an area such as Southfield is, therefore, a balancing act. It is perfectly believable to describe the scenic surroundings with forests and lakes, but there is a simultaneous truth in the description of an area located ‘in the middle of nothing’.

Since the 1960s, most of the population has been replaced several times. Today, Southfield contains about 5000 inhabitants, about 65% of whom were born abroad, with large numbers coming from Somalia, Syria and Iraq. The proportion of unemployed adults is higher and the average income is lower than those for the greater metropolitan area. The landlords in Southfield have been criticised for utilising the large throughput of tenants – who often lack knowledge regarding their rights – to neglect the necessary maintenance of the houses, while the payment of the rent has been guaranteed by the Swedish welfare system. At a commercial centre in Southfield, there are shops with halal butchered meat, a coffee shop where unemployed men spend their days, and smaller shops selling phone cards for international calls and imported goods from Arab countries. On the one hand, the commercial supply can be described as adjusted to the needs of the inhabitants; on the other hand, with the exception of a grocery store from a low-price chain, the area lacks much of the community service that is expected to be found in other communities.

At the local school in Southfield – referred to here as ‘South School’ – there are about 300 students (7–16 years of age) and about 30 teachers. Most of the students have Arabic or Somali as their first language. For several years, the students at South School have had a low level of school achievement; in recent years, almost 50% of the students have completed grade nine without achieving the necessary grades to continue their studies at an upper secondary school. Compared with other schools in the municipality, there have been several changes in headteachers within a short period, and difficulties in getting qualified teachers to the school. On a number of occasions, South School has appeared in media reports about schools with an insecure working environment and poor school results. To change this situation, the district council decided that the local school should become a community school in order to strengthen cooperation with the local community. The inspiration for this policy was received when the superintendent and the board of the district council were visiting schools in Canada. Once they returned to Sweden, they gave the managers of the departments of Culture and Leisure and Social Services, together with the headteachers at the local school, the assignment to implement a school–community partnership in the local district.

Methodology

A selective strategic research design was used for the fieldwork. Compared with traditional ethnography, a selective strategic research design involves longer periods of analysis and reflection between field study occasions. This kind of design has been described as flexible and process-oriented, and has been particularly emphasised as suitable for studying the implementation of various educational models (Jeffrey and Troman 2004). In this case, a selective strategic approach was time-saving, compared with more traditional ethnographic fieldwork, since the interventions that were implemented through the school–community partnership were not carried out on a day-to-day basis, but were rather carried out on specific occasions. This approach made it possible to focus closely on the relevant aspect of the ongoing work to counteract segregation through a school–community partnership, and allowed me to be selective to certain events while discarding paths that seemed less relevant or interesting (Jeffrey and Troman 2004).

The fieldwork began in autumn of 2017 and consisted of a number of observations of meetings and events at South School and in Southfield over a period of 18 months. These meetings included various steering group meetings, which were participated in by the head managers of the departments of Culture and Leisure, Education, and Social Services in the local district. I also attended the working group meetings, which was participated in by the headteachers at South School, the coordinator holding the operative responsibility for the school–community partnership (who was employed by the Department of Culture and Leisure), and a manager from the middle level of the department of Social Services. The meetings were organised with an agenda within a time schedule and were scheduled on different days at a frequency of approximately every third week. After and before a meeting, I often attempted to take some time with the participants to hear their personal reports about the subjects that were discussed. With the aim of receiving information about how the work was proceeding, I also took observations at the headteachers’ meeting in the district. Furthermore, I took part in events in which the school–community partnership was presented to the Southfield professionals, parents and students, and in conferences for officials in the city. The meetings normally lasted for two or three hours, while some of the events and conferences lasted for a half or full workday. For the majority of the officials involved in the school–community partnership, the meetings were the main occasion at which they gathered together. This had particular implications for the ethnographic fieldwork that I conducted. In comparison with many other ethnographic studies in educational settings (Walford 2009), occasions for casually spending time together and making informal conversation were rather limited, as the teachers and students at South School were not involved in the work or planning of the school–community partnership.

In total, the data involved approximately 110 h of fieldwork. In addition to making observations, 15 interviews were conducted with local officials and headteachers. The interviews were carried out at the workplaces. All of the interviews were held at the officials’ respective workplaces, often in their office or in a room commonly used for meetings. On average, these interviews were 45–60 min long; they were audio-recorded and subsequently transcribed. Furthermore, notes from the meetings, local policy documents and other documentation such as media reports and news about Southfield were analysed, as my presence in the field was in many senses limited to the abovementioned occasions.

This analysis is inspired by the model formulated by Carol Bacchi (2016) on how problems are constituted by different social measures. The focus is on which needs and challenges are described, how competencies and shortcomings are associated with different actors, and how different actors are thereby positioned (Hacking 2004; Foucault 1987). I also focus on the starting points and assumptions that can be inferred from verbal discussions and from texts, as well as on which actors’ knowledge is given legitimacy and which voices are silenced (Bacchi 2016). The material was coded and organised around themes corresponding to the study’s purpose and research questions.

Results

The results of this study are presented in subsequent sections, structured around the following headings: ‘Cooperation with concerns’, ‘A stigmatised condition’ and ‘A market for social innovations’. These sections are followed by a discussion on the conclusions of the study.

Cooperation with concerns

In Sweden, the achievement gap between schools located in different areas has increased in recent decades (Voyer 2018; Gustafsson and Yang Hansen 2018; Beach and Sernhede 2011), and students’ low achievements in socially disadvantaged areas have been presented as one of the main factors for the existing criminality among youth in those areas (Garrett 2017; Bunar 2011). School–community partnerships as a social invention have therefore been presented not only as a way of improving students’ results but also as a way of ensuring social security and safety in the communities.

This perspective can also be seen in the way in which the idea of the school–community partnership was presented at South School. To meet the challenges the students were having at school, greater commitment was requested from the whole community. In this problematisation of the students’ low level of achievement, the request for greater commitment from the parents in particular was made. This ‘solution’ was shared with the audience by the superintendent of the district of Southfield, while standing on a temporary stage in the schoolyard during the opening of the school–community partnership:

We have decided to transform this school into something better. However, we have said, if we are going to succeed, we have to do as much after school time as during school time. Students will therefore have the opportunity to stay in school after school hours. Different professions will work here to make this change come true. [Looking at the audience, who are mostly local officials, teachers, field assistants and sector managers:] There must be some parents here? [Facing the students standing beside the stage:] Where are your parents? Are they at home? The parents are the most important persons when it comes to the student’s education. Having the parents with us is the difference between succeeding and failing with this venture. (Superintendent, Southfield)

The parents are described as having a crucial role in supporting and encouraging the students with their schoolwork. This can be interpreted as giving the parents recognition for the importance they have in their children’s schooling (Ruiz-Román, Molina, and Alcaide 2019; Vigo Arrazola and Bozalongo 2014). However, embedded in the claim of the importance of strengthening parental involvement as a solution to the students’ low achievement is the implication that such involvement is missing or insufficient. The question directed at the students beside the stage makes it apparent that few – if any – parents are present. There are several possible reasons for this situation. First, the opening of the school–community partnership occurred during working hours, so many of the parents would have been at work or school. The inauguration was announced in the hallways of the school and on the school website. Of course, it is difficult to judge how many of the parents received this information. Nevertheless, the superintendent’s question to the audience indicated that parents were not involved in the planning of the school–community partnership, something that was also acknowledged by the professionals involved. Later, it turned out that there were concerns regarding how the parents could be involved.

A few weeks after the opening ceremony, the coordinator holding the operative responsibility for the school–community partnership and a manager from the middle level of the department of Social Services met together with teachers at the school to discuss how the work would be carried out. None of these people had been present with the superintendent during the journey to visit schools in Canada that operated using the model of a community school. During this meeting, a considerable amount of the discussion was on what the expectations were regarding what would be achieved. In this discussion, it became evident that the issue of collaboration was a complex one. There was a clear expectation on the part of the superintendent in the district that the parents should be involved in the activities offered. The following conversation comes from a group meeting with the principal of South School and officials from the Culture and Leisure department and the Social Services department.

Middle manager, Social Services: The managers at the district office want us to work with the parents.

Coordinator: There is something that is highlighted as a very important issue. We must show that parents are invited to participate and become involved. Everyone says it’s important to involve the parents. We need to include something in our programme, several activities that show that we work with parental involvement and dialogue.

During this meeting, the issue of cooperation with the parents is raised as a question of importance for the district board. In this discussion, parental involvement becomes more of a symbolic value than a recognition of the parents’ capacity to contribute to school improvement and the development in Southfield. As part of the activities of the school–community partnership, parents were offered the opportunity to participate in Swedish language education and in parenting programmes on weekends. The choice of collaboration with the parents through language education and parenting programmes can be viewed as being based on what were considered to be needs and shortcomings among the parents (Heers et al. 2016; Bunar 2011). However, very few parents participated in these activities, which can be interpreted as the activities not reflecting what the parents themselves wanted or viewed as a need. The result of only a few parents participating was discussed as a dilemma. The following conversation between the coordinator and the headteacher of the school occurred during a meeting to discuss this issue:

Coordinator: It is important that we involve the parents, so they feel that this is an arena they can be a part of and have influence on.

Head teacher: Yes, then, are the activities we have on Saturdays a good forum?

Coordinator: No, we need to do something else. We need to involve the parents together with the students in the school.

Head teacher: But what are they going to do in school together with the students? There must be an aim for these activities.

Coordinator: The aim is to work with together with parents to support the students’ learning.

Head teacher: Yes, but that is the overall purpose. What is the aim of having the parents come to school? What is the purpose of having activities here for parents and students?

On the table in this discussion is the issue of what the object of the cooperation is, and how the parents can contribute to the school. The officials clearly had difficulty seeing how parents could be part of the ‘solution’ to the situation at South School. Previous research reveals that parental involvement is not always perceived as positive by educators, who may believe that the parents do not share the same views on how education should be practiced; furthermore, there may be a general ambivalence regarding cooperation on the part of the teachers, depending on how they think such involvement will affect their teaching (Silva, da Silva, and Araújo 2017; Bunar 2011). These concerns – that is, how the parents could be engaged and what the purpose of their participation was – can be understood within the context of the parents never having been asked whether or how they wanted to participate in or influence the school. Therefore, there is reason to view the school–community partnership initiative as more of an effort aimed at the residents of Southfield than as a venture planned together with the residents. This approach to cooperation with the local community led to other dilemmas as well. Furthermore, it was clear that the officials had an ambivalent approach to collaboration with local organisations and associations. At a meeting at the district office, this was discussed:

We need to think about who we can cooperate with. The local society here is inadequate. It is divided by ethnic groups. They only talk in their own interest and have no contact with other residents outside their own group. (Head manager, Social Services)

Distrust in the local community thus contributed to reproducing the image of a socially disadvantaged and segregated district, which became a measure for the actions and strategies that were considered to be realistic (Bacchi 2016). One aspect of this was the concern of being connected with the ‘wrong’ kind of local association. This issue was elaborated by the headteacher of South School during an interview.

We were told by the police that in some associations there are links to criminality, or they have members with a criminal history. We have been strongly recommended not to have any collaboration with these associations. (Head teacher, South School)

Cooperation and dialogue with the local community were one of the city’s political goals. However, it is clear that the Southfield officials were afraid of being accused of supporting the ‘wrong’ associations. In particular, certain local associations working with youth had been accused of having members who were involved in crime. In an interview in the local newspaper, We in Southfield, a local leader from one of the accused associations was given the opportunity to respond.

The professions have demands without understanding our organization. They claim that there are crimes in the association. However, there are no crimes conducted in the name of our association. However, it is true that sometimes there have been problems with the youngsters that we are supporting. (Local association leader, as quoted in We in Southfield, 2015, April–May).

The associations explained that during the course of their efforts to support young people who wanted to change their life, they had encountered individuals with a criminal record. It was difficult to fully know whether these young people had completely stopped committing crimes. Similar suspicions were directed at some of the local Muslim associations. In particular, there was a suspicion that these associations contributed to the radicalisation of youth in the neighbourhood. The fieldnotes show how the officials in Southfield are positioning the parents and local associations – with whom they are supposed to be engaging in cooperation – as the problem rather than as part of the solution (Bacchi 2016). Studies focusing on the social welfare system have highlighted changes that have occurred in the measures aimed at young people in socially disadvantaged and ethnically segregated areas (Voyer 2018; Youdell and McGimpsey 2015; Ball 2007). For example, youths who were previously described as being in a risky situation are now described as being a risk to society (Garrett 2017). This approach to collaboration with the local community later resulted in a dilemma, which will be further discussed in the next section. The positioning of the parents and local association as part of the problem does not stem as much from the officials’ experience of collaborations as it is a result of how the social, economic and cultural relations between Southfield and the rest of the city have created certain conditions for the intervention.

A stigmatised condition

Southfield undoubtedly differs from other areas of the city and the rest of Sweden. The statistics show high unemployment levels and low incomes, and reveal that a greater number of students leave South School without the necessary qualifications for upper secondary school, as compared with students leaving most other schools in Sweden. However, it is clear that the problem as a whole is greater than these individual factors (Beach and Sernhede 2011). Therefore, this situation cannot be reduced to a matter of work or academic achievement. At a conference that was held for officials in the municipality, the headteacher of South School described the situation as a ‘condition’:

All of us have the experience of working in a so-called particularly socially disadvantaged area, as the police call it. After a while, you notice that something is not quite right. There are many things that are good. However, there is something that is not quite right. I’ve noticed that even those who are newly arrived in the area very quickly notice the stigmatization. This stigma is, however, not created from a vacuum. You are located in this place, which is in Sweden. But it is not here that the Swedes live. It is clear that the residents can feel this stigmatization. A new student started at our school this fall. I had a meeting with the parents. It was a Somali family who previously lived in a smaller city. At that meeting, it was clear that they realized that it is very different here, compared with where they previously lived. The parents and student realized that it will be much more difficult here. What we have created here is a special condition. (Head teacher, South School)

The image of Southfield can be interpreted as a stigma that affects relationships at the school and in the neighbourhood (Wacquant 2016). The point of the narrative about the family that moved to Southfield from a smaller town is that the move has reduced the family’s life chances. One of the difficulties described by the headteacher is that Southfield is an area in which the majority culture is absent. Compared with other situations, in which absence is interpreted as a condition of non-existence, in this case, the absence of the majority culture is strongly present. Categorising the area as an immigrant area is misguiding, as it is more a case of Swedish-born residents moving out of the area than a case of immigrants wanting to live there (Dahlstedt and Ekholm 2018). In fact, residents with an immigrant background leave this area as soon they achieve better life conditions, although such mobility has declined since the 1990s, as income differentials have increased (Gustafsson, Katz, and Österberg 2017).

Previous research shows that it is primarily schools in socially disadvantaged areas that become negatively affected by violence and insecurity in the local area. Neighbourhood violence has been emphasised as an explanation for why many parents in districts like Southfield choose to send their children to schools in other neighbourhoods (Bunar 2011). From a long-term perspective, such choices inevitably lead to a downward spiral in which the working environment deteriorates for both teachers and students, as it is often the students with the greatest need for support who stay (Gustafsson and Yang Hansen 2018). At South School, a large number of teachers from the previous academic year chose to leave the school. The consequences were clear: the subsequent semester at South School started out with critical remarks from the Swedish school inspection agency regarding the students’ low level of achievement and the lack of a safe environment.

Studies also show how school reputation affects how families choose education for their children (Voyer 2018). There is an obvious relationship between what is perceived to be a good school and what is perceived to be an attractive area to live in (Beach and Sernhede 2011). The opposite relationship also holds true: few families make an active choice to live in a district where the schools have a bad reputation (Bunar 2011). During a walk through the neighbourhood, after visiting the district office, one of the professionals said that it was her impression that many residents saw no future in Southfield.

Many parents I meet say, ‘No, I do not live here. I only live here now’. Something happens when everyone says that they only live here temporarily. The shooting among young criminals has also affected everyone in the neighbourhood. (Personnel, Department of Culture and Leisure)

The stigmatised image of the district is interpreted in a way that creates resistance among residents to identifying with the area and planning for a future Southfield. Violence and crime play a strong role in these stories. However, the statistics do not show more crimes being reported in Southfield than in the city centre. The difference is that crime reported in Southfield often attracts much attention from the media. As a consequence, certain areas become associated with crime and violence, even though only a minority of the residents in the area are involved (Dahlstedt and Ekholm 2018; Nilsson, Estrada, and Bäckman 2017). The head manager for the Department of Education in the district described the consequences of this stigmatised image during a discussion:

There are as many stories about Southfield as there are residents. Among these stories, there are also, of course, many stories from individuals about how they really like to live here and feel comfortable with that. However, those stories become silenced by the louder stories of violence and crime. In the end, these narratives are the only stories that are heard, even if others exist. (Head manager, Department of Education)

This comment implies that although several different narratives are being used to define the area, it is usually the negative narratives that remain in the public mind. As a result, areas such as Southfield are seen to be associated with forms of serious crime, although only a minority of the residents in the area are actually involved in such activities (Nilsson, Estrada, and Bäckman 2017). This situation can be interpreted as territorial stigmatisation on a collective level influencing the relationship between residents and officials, and thereby affecting how the problem is constituted through intervention by the school–community partnership (Bacchi 2016; Hacking 2004). These factors work together to create a situation in which the goal of inviting the community into a school–community partnership is described as problematic. However, inviting people into partnership was viewed differently when it came to cooperation with companies, associations and organisations outside the district.

A market for social intervention

During the opening of the school–community partnership, several organisations were invited to present possible contributions. In the school’s cafeteria, a square was created where companies, sports associations and ideas-based organisations could present their activities. Based on conversations with personnel on this occasion, it became apparent that in addition to financial interests (e.g. situations in which the district paid assistants from associations to help students with their homework), collaborating with South School held symbolic value. An employee at one of the city’s cultural institutions said:

We are an institution financed by public funds … We, therefore, need to legitimize our existence and show that we are part of society … We have been involved in developing an app that will increase the students’ study motivation. It’s a partnership with a company. We would really like to take part and test our product on the students here at this school … (Employee, cultural institution)

As described by this employee, one of the city’s cultural institutions has a collaboration with a company that develops mobile applications. This seems to provide a double incentive to collaborate with South School: the company has the opportunity to test its product with students, while the cultural institution is able to legitimise its publicly funded operations. Later in the text, I will further discuss not only how the cafeteria was literally made into a marketplace on this occasion, but also how the school–cooperation partnership was transformed into a market-like organisation.

At the meetings, it was common to discuss proposals from companies and organisations that were presenting different offers. In comparison with the discussions about cooperation with school parents or local associations, the officials expressed fewer concerns about cooperation with organisations outside of the local community. It was also interesting how the discussion about the latter cooperation occurred within a more business-like frame (Youdell and McGimpsey 2015; Ball 2007). One of the headteachers at South School described the situation as follows:

It’s quite a lot … of different organizations that contact us with offers. Associations, companies and individuals, they are coming to us all the time. They want to come here and take action. However, we want to keep control over who we work with and what kind of activities we arrange. These offers must pass through our organization and be chosen based on the needs that the teachers express. We have made a form they have to fill out about the objectives, period of time and costs. (Head teacher, South School)

Thus, the school–community partnership was stimulating the creation of a market for companies and organisations to sell their services. Previous research has shown how this form of cooperation creates other forms of governance, in which the problem is constituted based on what the offered services provide an answer to (Liasidou and Symeou 2018; Ball and Olmedo 2013). As a result, the activities carried out within the partnership are limited to the range of offers. In this case, the form the potential partners had to fill in can also be viewed as an ‘actor’ governing what became perceived as the needs in the neighbourhood (Bacchi 2016; Lemke 2002). The companies and organisations that contacted the officials responsible for the school–community partnership had a variety of motives. Some had a product to sell, such as a course that would be held on a number of occasions. In such cases, the components and costs of the course formed part of the tender. On other occasions, it was somewhat unclear what was being offered and what the costs might be. For example, sports associations might offer classes at the school to enable students to participate in various sports tournaments and physical activities. At other times, it was even more unclear what was being offered and what the objectives were. The following example from a steering meeting illustrates such a situation.

It is an early November morning, and the steering group is gathered at one of the meeting rooms in the district office. The dawn light is not bright enough to fully break through the windows, which look as if they have not been cleaned for a long time. The district office is situated close to the square; there is a row of eight-floor apartment buildings on the other side of the street. Like the windows of the meeting room, the apartments look like they need some care. Around the balconies, erosion is visible where the paint is losing its grip. On one of the walls in the meeting room, holes and marks show that there was once a television screen there. The head manager of the Department of Culture and Leisure glances at the blank wall while greeting everyone. The first point on the agenda is a presentation from a consultant, who introduces himself as someone with experience working with advertising management and art projects:

I am working with city development. Basically, I’m an artist. I have credits in design and economics. I work with city development … in a broad sense. Through art, I meet the really difficult issues … It’s about asking new questions, to find new perspectives. You have to dare to learn from failure. There is something magical with failure. Here we can find the true metaphors. For me, there are three main cornerstones: passions, failure and being genuine. These I see as success factors. (Consultant)

During the consultant’s presentation, little was said about Southfield; instead, the focus was on the consultant’s vision and previous experiences in working with various projects. A reasonable interpretation of this part of the meeting is that it had shifted into an employment interview, rather than dealing with issues of concern for the residents in Southfield. It seems ironic that the consultant mentions failure as one of his beliefs. In Sweden, areas like Southfield have been a target for a long series of social interventions over the past forty years (Gustafsson, Katz, and Österberg 2017). The results have been mixed and often short-lived (Dahlstedt and Ekholm 2018). These interventions often view increased economic and social segregation as a problem that emerges from local conditions, rather than understanding segregation as a consequence of greater economic and social relations (Malmberg, Andersson, and Bergsten 2014). Of course, this interpretation does not mean that the associations, organisations and companies showing an interest do not have a sincere will to contribute to the positive development of the neighbourhood. However, such an interest needs to be understood within the context of the transformation of the welfare state during the past decades, as the services that were previously provided by public entities are now being provided by private and non-profit organisations (Destler and Page 2016; Youdell and McGimpsey 2015).

Discussion and conclusion

The present article is a case study of this situation, which focuses on the social intervention of a school–community partnership that is actualised in a local district in one of Sweden’s largest cities. The overall aim of this article is to contribute knowledge about how presumed ‘problems’ are constituted and given shape and meaning within school–community partnerships. The analysis focused on the reasoning used by local professionals and headteachers when identifying the needs and challenges to be addressed and determining which potential partners could participate in the school–community partnership.

Previous research has mainly focused on how policy is adopted, and what its effects are (Hangartner and Svaton 2014; Green 2017; Heers et al. 2016). Applying an ethnographic methodology, this study contributes by providing knowledge and understanding of the micro-politics that take place during meetings and events in social interventions such as school–community partnerships (Walford 2009). However, since this work is built upon a single ethnographic study conducted at one school, it also carries limitations on the extent to which it can contribute to a general understanding of initiatives aimed at schools in socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Thus, this study draws attention to the need for continued research on interventions such as the one explored here.

The results show that the school–community partnership examined in this study was designed as a response to students’ low goal achievement. However, it became clear that the students’ performance at school was viewed as part of a greater social concern (Green 2017; Beach and Sernhede 2011). The view a local community marked by distrust, violence and crime, however, created an ambivalent relation to collaboration with parents and local associations. The parental involvement that was discussed can be interpreted as a form of governance in which the parents became the targets of various interventions to fulfil expectations of the school management (Bunar 2011; Lemke 2002). Through this process, the parents and local associations were viewed as part of the problem rather than as part of the solution (Bacchi 2016). As this categorisation is far from unique, the professionals’ definition of the challenges facing the school and community can be viewed as part of a growing policy of policing that is directed at youth growing up in poor neighbourhoods (Lunneblad and Johansson 2019; Wacquant 2016).

Against this background, it is possible to understand how the stigma associated with Southfield has led to a misrecognition of the inhabitants as collaborative partners (Bunar 2011). Problem positions such as ‘criminals’ and ‘ethnic and religious identities’ create concern among officials that complicates their collaboration with local organisations and associations (Hacking 2004; Foucault 1987). A form of symbolic violence occurs, in which humans who were viewed as being in a socially risky situation are now categorised as societal risks (Wacquant 2016; Beach and Sernhede 2011). Instead of anchoring the school–community partnership within the district, the officials at South School choose to collaborate with established associations and organisations (Liasidou and Symeou 2018; Ball and Olmedo 2013). The school–community partnership thus becomes a market where different actors offer their services to the district of Southfield (Ball 2007). What is constituted as the problem and what is presented as the solution are largely governed by the services sold by various stakeholders (Bacchi 2016; Lemke 2002). Southfield’s social vulnerability becomes a prime opportunity for companies and organisations to transform the recognition they receive for their efforts in the area into an investment in their brand. Collaboration with a school in a disadvantaged area can be interpreted as a way to strengthen a company’s brand name or provide legitimacy for non-profit organisations (Destler and Page 2016). The interests of the companies and organisations that collaborated with South School – a school known for its major problems, which have been widely reported in the media – can thus be seen as illustrations of Sweden’s transformation from a welfare state into a market state in recent decades (Youdell and McGimpsey 2015; Lemke 2002). Through such interventions, the poverty in communities such as Southfield becomes transformed into symbolic and economic value for the companies and organisations involved. However, this trend should not be viewed as a withdrawn of political power in favour of economic power; on the contrary, a number of political decisions have contributed to reformulating political governance to align with market-like principles (Lemke 2002).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Center for Intercultural Dialogue and Research. The Region Västra Götaland.