Session Information
23 SES 04 B, Market Ideas and Practices (Part 2)
Paper Session
Contribution
The international educational policy discourses during the recent decades are prominent in Sweden as well, including decentralisation, quality, accountability, school choice and marketisation. However, Sweden can be an interesting case both as an example of a fast expanding and more full-blown ‘school market’ than most other countries and due to the fact that the Swedish ‘free school’ model is exported to other European countries (Erixon Arreman & Holm forthcoming). Several government decisions during the beginning of the 1990s resulted in the creation of a ‘school-market’. The allocation of resources was devolved to the municipalities, which facilitated school-based management, a voucher system was implemented and legislation created favourable terms for independent schools. "A stimulating competition (...) can contribute to higher quality and productivity in the school-system" (Government Bill 1992/93: 230, p. 27, our translation). Independent schools were allowed to operate profit-making. The proportion of students who go to independent upper secondary schools has increased from 2 % to 22 % of all students between 1993 and 2010 (Swedish National Agency for Education 2010). Equally important, even the public schools have to act at the market, competing over students, teachers and reputation. It is a development that has caused much debate, but research in the field is limited, especially concerning the effects on everyday life in schools (c.f. Ball 2007).
Starting in the empiric material, critical discourse analysis (Fairclough 1995) is used for the analysis of the principals’ perceptions. Conceptual tools are applied from the literature on school-leadership, accountability and the organisation and governing of schools to highlight how principals and school-organisations are shaped by the new policy context and organizational restructuring, how they are able to shape it and what kind of principal and school is constructed in the interplay between old and new contexts and cultures of schooling (Freidson 2001; Moos 2009; Suspitsyna 2010; Watson 2006).
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Ball, Stephen (2007) Education plc. Understanding private sector participation in public sector education. Abingdon, New York: Routledge. Erixon Arreman, I. & Holm, A-S. (forthcoming). Privatisation of Public Education? The emergence of independent upper secondary schools in Sweden. Journal of Education Policy. Fairclough, Norman (1995). Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Longman Group Limited Freidson, E. 2001. Professionalism, the Third Logic. Cambridge: Polity Press. Government Bill (1992/93: 230). Freedom of choice in schools. Moos, Lejf (2009). Hard and Soft Governance: the journey from transnational agencies to school leadership. European Educational Research Journal. 8(3) 397-406 OECD (2008). Improving school leadership, Executive summaries. http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/6/52/40545479.pdf (2010-11-22) Suspitsyna, Tatiana (2010). Accountability in American education as a rhetoric and a technology of governmentality. Journal of Education Policy. 25, (5), 567-586 Swedish National Agency for Education (2010). Data compiled from The Swedish National Agency for Education http://www.skolverket.se/sb/d/175. 2010-02-26. Watson, Cate (2006). Narratives of practice and the construction of identity of teaching. Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice. 12, (5), 509 – 526
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