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- Carlbaum, Sara, 1981-, et al.
(författare)
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Organizing local preschool markets in sweden : municipalities as key actors
- 2022
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Today, one out of five Swedish children attend a privately operated preschool. Even if there are national policies targeting for instance parental choice and right for private actors to provide pre-primary education, municipalities in Sweden have extensive local autonomy in organizing and governing their ‘local preschool markets’ or, rather, quasi markets. As Brunsson and Jutterström (2018 p. 8) put it; “markets are formed by processes of organization. They are the objects of decisions. There are people and organizations that decide not only on their own actions in markets, but also on the actions of others”. Swedish municipalities are such key organizations that create market infrastructures via market shaping activities (c.f. Flaig et al 2021) including for instance to facilitate, support and police the market actors. The aim of this paper is to explore the different ways in which Swedish municipalities create their local preschool markets to analyse how they act as market organizers in the pre-primary education setting. We do this through analysing documents, websites and interviews with municipal officers from 30 municipalities characterized as having either a large (N=10), medium (N=10) or small (N=10) private pre-primary sector. Theoretically, we turn to literature on organizations, governing and public-private relations.Our preliminary findings show that there are large variations on how municipalities act as local preschool market organizers and the paper elaborates three (ideal typical) modes: Endorsers are municipalities that actively promote, support and sponsor market actors. Frontiers denotes municipal territories that are unattractive or not yet fully explored by private preschool actors. Keepers are municipalities that strive to maintain balance or status quo between public and private providers, using various strategies and tools to this end. In sum, this paper seeks to contribute to the discussion on how public actors work to organize, enable or limit, private actor involvement.
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- Carlbaum, Sara, 1981-, et al.
(författare)
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The local market makers : Swedish municipalities as preschool quasi-market organisers
- 2024
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Ingår i: Education Inquiry. - : Routledge. - 2000-4508. ; 15:1, s. 63-84
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- National policies aiming at marketisation and privatisation in welfare sectors such as Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) require governance and organisation to be realised. In Sweden, the municipalities are key but largely under-researched organisers for preschool quasi-market infrastructures. This study explores the different ways in which Swedish municipalities act as quasi-market organisers in the preschool setting. Following organisational theory, we analyse their market shaping activities in translating national regulations in efforts to influence, support and control their local preschool quasi-market. Documents, websites, and interviews with public officials from 30 municipalities characterised as having either a large (N = 10), medium (N = 10), or small (N = 10) private ECEC sector are analysed. The analysis highlights large variations on how municipalities act as market makers, which is further discussed in the form of three ideal types: the Frontier, the Keeper, and the Endorser. We conclude that municipalities' varying and hybridised market shaping activities and local characteristics are important to understand the implications that emerge in terms of different rules of the game, stakeholder interdependencies and relationships, composition of market actors etc. Attentiveness to the sub-national/local actors are essential in understanding different welfare quasi-markets within national policy frameworks of marketisation and privatisation.
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- Högberg, Björn, et al.
(författare)
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Consequences of school grading systems on adolescent health : evidence from a Swedish school reform
- 2021
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Ingår i: Journal of education policy. - : Routledge. - 0268-0939 .- 1464-5106. ; 36:1, s. 84-106
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Education reforms that entail increased emphasis on high-stakes testing, assessment and grading have spread across education systems in recent decades. Critics have argued that these policies could have consequences for stress, identity, self-esteem and the overall health of pupils. However, these potentially negative consequences have rarely been investigated in a systematic and rigorous way. In this study we use a major education reform in Sweden, which introduced grades and increased the use of testing for pupils in the 6th and 7th school year (aged 12 to 13 years), to study the consequences of grading and assessment for health outcomes. Using data from the Health Behaviours of School-Aged Children Survey, we find that the reform increased school-related stress and reduced the academic self-esteem of pupils in the 7th school year. This, in turn, had an indirect effect on psychosomatic symptoms and life satisfaction for these pupils. Moreover, the negative effects of the reform were generally stronger for girls, thereby widening the already troubling gender differences in health. We conclude that accountability reforms aimed at increased use of testing, assessment and grading can potentially have negative side effects on pupils’ health.
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| 7. |
- Högberg, Björn, et al.
(författare)
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From a crisis of results to a crisis of wellbeing : education reform and the declining sense of school belonging in Sweden
- 2023
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Ingår i: Comparative Education. - : Routledge. - 0305-0068 .- 1360-0486. ; 59:1, s. 18-37
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In response to declining results in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) surveys, the then governing Swedish coalition in 2010–2014 introduced earlier grading, more national testing and a new standards-based curriculum. These reforms coincided with a greater emphasis on inclusive’ education understood in the ‘narrow’ sense of placement in mainstream schools. The combination of these two sets of reforms presents an interesting national case where traditional conservative demands for a core curriculum, testing and accountability were combined with calls to increase educational opportunity.Using PISA data, we show that the reforms coincided with a decline in the sense of school belonging among pupils that was exceptional compared to other high-income countries, and especially among marginalised pupils. The study adds to previous studies on policy effects on wellbeing, concluding that the Swedish compulsory school went from undergoing a mediatised results crisis to a wellbeing crisis among pupils.
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| 8. |
- Högberg, Björn, et al.
(författare)
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Outcome-based accountability regimes in OECD countries : a global policy model?
- 2021
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Ingår i: Comparative Education. - : Routledge. - 0305-0068 .- 1360-0486. ; 57:3, s. 301-321
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The global diffusion of outcome-based accountability in education is contested, with accounts of universal convergence being challenged by perspectives emphasising heterogeneity across different national or local contexts. This study uses data from PISA to explore, firstly, the spatial and temporal diffusion of accountability across OECD countries, and secondly, whether accountability is implemented as a single coherent regime. Using cluster analysis techniques, we find that most countries fall into a ‘Thick’ accountability regime, with widespread use of most forms of accountability tools. However, this regime is not fully coherent, with some countries relying more on horizontal, and others on vertical, forms of accountability. A sizeable minority of countries fall into a ‘Thin’ regime, in which most accountability tools are largely absent. We also find indications of convergence across countries over time. We conclude that while accountability in education is indeed widespread, and increasingly so, it is not a universally dominant regime.
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- Jeffrey B., Hall, et al.
(författare)
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Inspectors as information-seekers
- 2019. - 1
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Ingår i: Inspectors and enforcement at the front line of government. - Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan. - 9783030040581 - 9783030040574 ; , s. 35-58
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Just as in other forms of government and areas of society, the role of the inspector is adjusting to new expectations and shifting accountability mechanisms. Acting as 'street-level bureaucrats' and enforcers of the law, inspectors collaborate with and depend on others in their quest to assemble information from multiple, complex sources. Their work is characterized by discretionary power where inspectors are entrusted to enact policy that is based on the principle of best judgment in addition to the demands put forward by legal norms and regulations. In sum, this information-seeking activity is utilized to collectively produce various documents, such as inspection reports. Furthermore, information seeking is considered a vital step in the development of their knowledge in order to make qualified judgments. Using 'visible' maps, e.g. inspection frameworks, and 'invisible' maps, e.g. inspectors' professional experiences, to navigate and execute discretionary tasks, school inspectors sometimes struggle to develop an adequate knowledge base that makes sense of the 'inspectees' worlds'. Drawing on the concepts of visible and invisible maps, this chapter examines the information-seeking practices of school inspectors based on previous comprehensive research on supervision systems in Germany (Lower Saxony), Norway and Sweden. This chapter addresses the following key questions: What type of information do inspectors look for?, How and where do they look for information?, How do inspectors handle different kinds of information, e.g., statistics, documents, and interview, observation- and survey data, and how do they decide what information is credible and useful? By studying inspectors as information-seekers, and more closely, school inspectors, this chapter demonstrates how these representatives of the state incorporate multiple visible and invisible maps, and how they make sense of the schools they are mandated to scrutinize using limited resources.
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| 10. |
- Linde, Jonna, et al.
(författare)
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High-Stakes counselling : when career counselling may lead to continuing residence or deportation of asylum-seeking youths
- 2021
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Ingår i: British Journal of Sociology of Education. - : Routledge. - 0142-5692 .- 1465-3346. ; 42:5-6, s. 898-913
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this article we analyse what happens to career counselling when it is intertwined with the asylum process. A Swedish example is an amendment to the education legislation, regarding residence permits for upper secondary level students. Following the resulting changes in juridical, educational and interpersonal conditions, career counsellors must deliver ‘high-stakes counselling’ that can profoundly affect individuals’ prospects of asylum or deportation. Our analysis is based on ethnographically inspired fieldwork, a survey and Bernsteinian theory. In current Swedish conditions, tight matching to demands of the labour market is essential in this ‘high-stakes counselling’. We conclude that a consequence is institutional introduction of conditional citizenship of asylum-seeking students. This allows countries to select migrants through education, which severely conflicts not only with counselling ideals, but also democratic and equality values regarding possibilities to make choices for the future, thus creating ethical dilemmas for counsellors.
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