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- Alexiadou, Nafsika, 1968-, et al.
(författare)
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Learning, unlearning and redefining teachers’ agency in international private education : a Swedish education company operating in India
- 2023
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Ingår i: Educational review (Birmingham). - : Routledge. - 0013-1911 .- 1465-3397.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Private international education is on the rise, but we still have limited knowledge on how different commercial actors operate in this field and how it affects local teachers and their work in the schools abroad. Swedish school companies have been active in exporting schooling in the international arena, including “Swedish” education models. In this article, we examine one company and their operations in India. We explore the interpretations of the company education model by teachers in the Indian schools, and how this affects their professional capacity. Mixed qualitative methods of interviews, on-site school visits and documentary reviews, were used to examine the possibilities for teachers to exercise professional agency within their working environment. Our findings show that teachers operate within a highly structured pedagogical environment characterised by a given curriculum, a centralised learning platform and training programme, and a set of dominant discourses around values and teaching practices. Teachers are expected to embrace a new professional identity in a process of discarding past experiences and adopting the new professional language given by the company's particular education model. In willingly embracing the company discourses and expectations, teachers’ agency tends to be constrained.
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| 4. |
- Benerdal, Malin, Doktor, 1984-, et al.
(författare)
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Lokala aktörers arbete för integration i rurala områden
- 2021
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Ingår i: Arbetsmarknad & Arbetsliv. - Karlstad : Karlstads universitet. - 1400-9692 .- 2002-343X. ; 27:3, s. 45-64
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Integration och särskilt etablering på arbetsmarknaden för migranter står högt på dagordningen i den politiska debatten. I artikeln fokuseras centrala aktörers integrationsarbete i förhållande till nationella riktlinjer och lokala förutsättningar i tre rurala kommuner. Analysen visar att det huvudsakligen är det rurala i förhållande till det urbana som tycks avgörande för de tre kommunerna, samt att lokala innovativa lösningar nyttjas för att främja etablering och möjliggöra för migranter att stanna och verka på orten. Nationella riktlinjer tycks både verka som stimulerande drivkrafter och förhindrande, begränsande strukturer som är opålitliga och kortsiktiga i ett sammanhang där tidsperspektivet är centralt.
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| 5. |
- Carlbaum, Sara, 1981-
(författare)
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Blir du anställningsbar lille/a vän? : Diskursiva konstruktioner av framtida medborgare i gymnasiereformer 1971-2011
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- School is one of the most important institutions society has for fostering its future citizens. Education policy can be seen as an important arena for the discursive struggle over the meaning of education, not only what it is for, its goals and purposes, but also its deficiencies. Education policies are not mirrors of reality but include a power dimension in describing the problems to be solved. Thus, a specific question or a particular phenomenon is given a certain value and meaning. The different articulations involved in representations of problems construct certain subject positions of citizenship which are not open for everyone. This makes it essential to deconstruct these gendered, racialized and classed subject positions. In the same way as in the beginning of the 1990s, the Swedish school system is currently facing changes. The most recent reform of upper secondary education, implemented in 2011, needs to be viewed in a historical perspective. This thesis analyses discursive continuity and change with regard to representations of the problems, goals and purposes of upper secondary education during the period 1971-2011. Focus is also placed on changes and continuities in how the good future citizen is constructed and in what ways gender, class and ethnicity are produced in these constructions. The theoretical framework is inspired and informed by discourse theory, feminist theory and theories on citizenship. Adopting this approach, I analyse government policy documents concerning upper secondary education reforms. The analysis shows not only changes, but also the importance of continuities in the dominating discourses of a school for all (1971-1989); a school for lifelong learning (1990-2005); and a school for the labour market (2006-2011). A shift from integration to differentiation is revealed in which the silencing of signifiers, such as democracy, equality and multiculturalism, lead to a risk of unequal opportunities for people to politicize their experience and situation. The previous demands for retraining and flexibility, for emancipation and lifelong learning are marginalised in favour of employability, skill supply and entrepreneurship. The constructions of good future citizens as consumers become instead constructions of citizens as products for business and growth. A male productive worker and male entrepreneur are constructed, privileging a white middle class. Neo-liberal and neo-conservative influences, reinforce the individual’s responsibility to become included in what is constructed as a desired citizenship.
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| 6. |
- Carlbaum, Sara, 1981-
(författare)
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Citizens governing schools : Customers, partners, right-holders
- 2015
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Ingår i: ECER Programmes.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Throughout Europe, evaluation has expanded radically at all levels of school governance as part of the broad doctrine of New Public Management including marketization, decentralization and performance management. There is a growing accountability pressure derived from globalisation of education governance resulting in evaluation systems (Leeuw and Furubo 2008) of monitoring, inspection and oversight, and benchmarking to measure performance and assess students and teachers. Sweden and other countries’ education systems increasingly rely on evaluations of different kinds as ways to control and enhance quality and performance in education and schooling but also to support competition and school choice (Merki 2011; Pollitt and Bouckaert 2011; Dahler-Larsen 2012; Lingard and Sellar 2013; Grek and Lindgren 2014). Despite the recent recentralisation effects of evaluation systems local autonomy is still high. Actors at the municipal and school level have different conditions and varying freedom of choice for local school governance in different education systems. The local context matters in a variety of ways. Local actors can assimilate, adjust or resist state policies of for example marketization and use evaluations in different ways. Evaluation systems put in place assumes that citizens are rational and active choosers using evaluation and accessible performance data for an informed choice (Musset 2012). But research indicate that parents are primarily concerned with “the atmosphere”, “pedagogical climate”, “safety” and “reputation of the school” (Ehren, Leeuw and Scheerens 2005, p. 71). However, school choice has made parents a more powerful policy actor in local school governance (Blomqvist 2004). But not only school choice contributed to the shift from macro democracy to micro democracy (Möller 1996). So did different forms of voice options for improving participation and influence in citizens daily encounter with welfare services (Jarl 2005; Kristoffersson 2008; Dahlstedt 2009b; Holmgren et al. 2012). During the 1990s the emphasis on active citizenship and collaboration was viewed as a natural part of the democratic mission of the schools. The school should be an arena for dialogue forming an active local citizenship. Progress should be achieved from the bottom-up by those involved promoting the inclusion of parents in a form of partnership with the school (Jarl 2005; Dahlstedt 2009b). This multi-actor model of governance focusing on citizens’ agency reflect what has been called a ‘will to empower’ (Cruikshank 1999), ‘politics of activation’ (Dahlstedt 2009a) or ‘government technologies of agency’ (Dean 2010).Parents become a part of local school governance when they make choices, try to influence teachers, school-principals, schools administrators or local school boards. And their need of evaluation for this influence differs. Parents perceived as customers need easily accessible performance data to support informed school choice whereas parents acting as active and responsible citizens largely need the same evaluation knowledge as other policy actors. How local authorities, local school providers and schools govern their education and schooling through different forms of evaluation therefore shapes conceptions of citizenship. Studies on local policy, i.e. schools and school providers’ strategies and use of evaluation related information is scarce and there is a need for more knowledge on how it shapes citizen roles in different education systems. In this paper I therefore begin by exploring what ways are provided for parents as citizens, to influence, change and affect education in Sweden. I then turn to answer what evaluation related information is given on school and school provider websites to analyse what citizenship ideals are promoted using the categorisation developed from the channels for influence. I finish with discussing these forms of citizen power in education in relation to the more everyday encounter with teachers and school staff by drawing on previous research and interviews with parents and teachers. Method: The material consists of government documents, reports, laws and regulation to explore the formal ways for parents to influence education. To explore what citizenship ideals are promoted in local school governance, I have analyzed four municipals websites and 8 school websites in these municipalities. The municipalities, all of which have populations of 75 000 – 100 000 have been selected strategically to reflect different contextual factors such as political majority, school performance, and share of independent schools. These have been anonymized and is referred to as “North”, “East”, “South” and “West”. The eight schools, two from each municipal, were also selected strategically on factors such as private or public provider, performance and socio-economic composition. By drawing on Hirschmans (Hirschman 1970) theory of exit and voice and Dahlberg and Vedungs (2001) categorisations of arguments for increased user orientation I categorize three different citizenship ideals when exploring formal ways for citizens to act and influence education in line with a politics of activation. These citizenship ideals functions as ideal types when analysing the websites and the evaluation and governance related information provided to (potential) users.To discuss citizen power in education and problematize how it relates to promoted citizenship ideals I draw on previous studies and research as well as interviews with parents and teachers at the schools. The interviews were conducted within the larger research project “Consequences of evaluation for school practice: steering, accountability and school development”, financed by the Swedish Research Council.Expected outcomes: Preliminary findings show that there are several ways for parents to affect and influence education in Sweden. The school choice reforms have considerably improved the power of parents in local school governance positioning parents as costumers. But user power have also been strengthened through providing different ways to complain and appeal positioning citizens as right-holders. Furthermore users are positioned as partners in influencing education through parent boards. The analysis of the websites shows how municipalities respond differently to state policies and accountability pressures in their use of providing evaluation related information. Municipalities with a right-wing political majority provide extensive benchmarking systems for informed school choice making customer the dominant position. Not surprisingly, the independent schools provide more performance data for marketing than the public schools. However, some of the independent schools also provide information on their collaboration with parents, indicating a position of citizens as partners. The position of citizens as right-holders are strongest on the public schools and public providers’ websites with information on rights and ways to claim them.Still parents don’t use evaluation related information as intended. Rather parents use grades, tests and school information more informally directly with teachers and school staff. Teachers report an increased pressure from parents on grades and changes within school, and the threat of exit makes their voice options more viable in individual contacts with staff. At least if other alternatives are present. But there are also indications that collective voice options are not used, instead exit is chosen sometimes in combination with the individual voice option of complaints and appeals. The problem of recruiting parents for collective action in parent boards or associations and the increasing amount of individual problem solving action through appeals and complaints suggest that parents mainly govern schools through individual rather than collective action.
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| 8. |
- Carlbaum, Sara, 1981-
(författare)
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Correcting Market Failure? : New inspection policies and Swedish free-schools
- 2013
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In recent decades governing processes of education in Europe and beyond has been influenced by neo-liberalism and new public management, involving policies such as decentralization, choice and competition. A far reaching marketization trend has been evident in where schools compete over students as consumers and customers (Rose 1999; Ball 2009, 2012). Alongside this trend of marketization, European countries and education systems are also witnessing increased trends of evaluation and state control through, for instance, national school inspections (Power 1999; Hudson 2011). In Sweden these trends have been remarkable with the introduction of school choice and free-schools, free of charge and state funded, in the 1990s. This has resulted in a growing school market with the unusual arrangement where free-schools also can retrieve profit from tax-funded education (Erixon Arreman & Holm 2011). With the decentralization of education, including the introduction of governing by objectives in education, state control seemed to decrease but this picture changed as national school inspections were reinstated in 2003. This reintroduction was meant to uphold educational equivalence, improve quality and pupil performance and these efforts were also reinforced with the new national agency the Swedish Schools Inspectorate, in 2008 (Hudson 2007; Rönnberg 2012). Underlying these justifications for increased control through inspection is also the belief that more control leads to a better market with more informed customers and the Inspectorate has recently introduced changes in the inspection of free-schools, such as joint inspections of educational companies and corporate groups and increased control of establishing a new free-school. The exciting and largely unexplored intersection of marketization and central state control in the Swedish education policy context is at the focus of this paper.The aim is to analyse and critically discuss how the need for changes in the inspection of free-schools in Sweden is framed and represented. The research questions concern how these inspection policies are represented, what their purposes are, how the efforts are legitimized and motivated, what is unproblematised and what interests are prioritized? In so doing, I hope that we can reach a deeper understanding of the intersecting and complex governing practices of marketization in terms of competition and choice and increased national state control through school inspection. Although the Swedish marketization of education is unique, making it an interesting case in its own right, these governing practices are present in other national contexts as well, and the paper also aims to facilitate a discussion of these issues relevant to a broader European context.Theoretically, the analysis draws on literature in the field of marketization of education (Ball 2009, 2012) as well as literature on the wider audit society (Power 1999) and school inspection (Clarke 2008; Ozga, et al. 2011; Rönnberg 2012). Mainly my interest lies in the aspect of governing and the argument that we as subjects are governed not by policies themselves but by problematisations. And that how we think about an issue or phenomenon shapes the ‘problem’ and the solutions put forward (Bacchi 2009).Methods and materialsThe empirical material includes interviews with officials at the Inspectorate involved in policy and development of inspection policies for free-schools in Sweden during spring 2013. It also includes press releases and polemical articles from the Inspectorate as well as documents, such as project plans and reports. The analytic approach is informed by Foucault and governmentality studies (Foucault 1991; Dean 2010). The material, both interviews and texts, have been carefully analysed with regards to a specific set of questions building on Bacchi (2009). What is the problem with inspection of free-schools represented to be? What presuppositions and assumptions underlie this representation of the ‘problem’? What is left unproblematic in this ‘problem’ representation? What interests are prioritized and who is likely to gain?Preliminary findings and conclusionsPreliminary findings show that inspection is represented as the universal solution to unwanted consequences of competition such as a lack of equivalence between schools, lack of equivalence in the inspection procedure and judgments made by inspectors, lack of quality, profitmaking and school actors with devious backgrounds. In the paper, I argue that by introducing changes in the inspection of free- schools, the governing through marketization is represented as more efficient and legitimate. The market principles seem to require a strong state and legitimacy for marketization as well as national school inspections are co-produced. The issue of for profit tax-funded free-schools and competition between schools is left un-discussed and silenced.
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| 9. |
- Carlbaum, Sara, 1981-
(författare)
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Customers, partners, rights-holders : School evaluations on websites
- 2016
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Ingår i: Education Inquiry. - Umeå : Informa UK Limited. - 2000-4508. ; 7:3, s. 327-348
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper explores how evaluation, which has expanded at all levels of school governance throughout Europe, shapes parental roles by studying how local school governors and schools in Sweden represent evaluation to parents on their websites. Websites are prime locations for public communications and are useful for exploring the functions of evaluations intended for parental use. In recent decades, parental influence over school has increased through “choice and voice” options, while the role of evaluations has continued to expand in school governance. Evaluations construct social roles, identities, and relations and as such are constitutive of the social world and our place in it. By drawing on Dahler-Larsen’s concept of “constitutive effects”, the discursive implications of evaluation are discussed. The dominant type of evaluation represented on websites is performance data used for accountability and informed school choice purposes. Parents are primarily positioned as customers who exert influence through choice and exit options, reinforcing the almost unquestioned norm of parental right to educational authority. Representations of evaluation differ depending on local political majority, school performance, and public versus independent provider; as such, they are not hegemonic but tend to strengthen the position of parents as individual rights-holders, marginalising forms of collective action.
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