| 1. |
- Allan, J, et al.
(författare)
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Knowledge exchange with Sistema Scotland
- 2010
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Ingår i: Journal of education policy. - : Routledge. - 0268-0939 .- 1464-5106. ; 25:3, s. 335-347
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper reports on a knowledge exchange project, funded by the Scottish Funding Council and undertaken by a group of researchers from three higher education institutions in Scotland and the project partner, Sistema Scotland. This newly established charity is attempting to implement a major programme of social change, developed in Venezuela, within the Raploch, a disadvantaged area of Scotland. The researchers’ combined knowledge of education, music and psychology has guided their knowledge exchange activities with the project partner and among themselves. The paper outlines the development of Sistema Scotland and the programme, El Sistema, on which it is based. It details the knowledge exchange activities undertaken, which used Derrida’s notion of aporia to try to engage Sistema Scotland with different perspectives and understandings, and a practical method for conducting meetings based on Open Space Technology. The various ‘encounters’ with children, service providers and stakeholders are reported and this is followed by a critique of the processes of knowledge exchange. The paper ends with a discussion of the prospects for successful knowledge exchange.
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| 2. |
- Beach, Dennis, 1956
(författare)
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Changing higher education: converging policy-packages and experiences of changing academic work in Sweden
- 2013
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Ingår i: Journal of Education Policy. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0268-0939 .- 1464-5106. ; 28:4, s. 517-533
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The past two decades of international higher education reform are often described by researchers as having produced new managerial and neoliberal policy turns that have brought about a fundamental global shift in the way institutions of higher education are defined, run and justify their institutional existence and practices. Universities in Sweden were felt able to offer some possible resistance and based on ethnographic research at three Swedish universities this idea is explored in the present article. The article suggests however that resistance has been circumscribed through a coordinated collection of policies and that as elsewhere, the proliferation of competition based on quasi-markets and the standardisation of quality assurance through new accountability systems predominates, with significant effects on universities, their interactions and agents, and the relative social positions, influence, status and relationships of these agents.
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| 3. |
- Bunar, Nihad
(författare)
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Choosing for quality or inequality : current perspectives on the implementation of school choice policy in Sweden
- 2010
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Ingår i: Journal of education policy. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0268-0939 .- 1464-5106. ; 25:1, s. 1-18
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A policy of school choice has, in various shapes, been implemented in educational systems across the world during the last decades. Drawing on various empirical and theoretical sources, the aim of this article is to distinguish the key defining elements of the Swedish school choice policy and to present and discuss some of its outcomes in terms of segregation, costs, and student achievements. Thus I show that the policy design contains some peculiarities since it nourishes both a strong market-orientation and an equally strong market-skepticism. Regarding the outcomes I show that the research is pervaded by ambiguity and uncertainty regarding whether the policy has delivered its promises or, on the contrary, it has worsened the state of education by increasing segregation and crowding out some schools of their socially strongest students. Finally, I argue that due to its peculiarities the school choice policy in itself so far has, surprisingly or not, had a relatively small impact on the overall educational quality and equity in Sweden. I also argue that since the market forces are definitely gaining the upper hand under the current liberal-conservative government, we can soon expect some decisive changes in the way school choice operates and with what results in Sweden.
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| 4. |
- Dahlstedt, Magnus, et al.
(författare)
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The will to (de)liberate : Shaping governable citizens through cognitive behavioural programmes in school
- 2011
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Ingår i: Journal of education policy. - : Taylor and Francis. - 0268-0939 .- 1464-5106. ; 26:3, s. 399-414
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Lately, a deliberative conception of democracy has gained influence in policy debates throughout Europe. Individuals are here seen to be fostered into responsible, mature - democratic – citizens by being involved in dialogue. In the 1990s, calls for “democratic education” intensified in Sweden. This article analyze two pedagogical models influenced by programmes developed in the US that have recently had a large impact in Swedish schools and elsewhere, Social and Emotional Training and Aggression Replacement Training, both teaching pupils the “art of democratic deliberation”. By analyzing manuals and interviews with school staff, we find that both models are based on the idea that through constant dialogue, pupils develop a “democratic mentality”. Referring to Foucault, this kind of dialogue can seen as a technology of confession, where pupils are encouraged to reflect upon themselves and their behaviour, abilities and qualities, as a way to change themselves and become democratic subjects.
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| 5. |
- Erixon Arreman, Inger, 1954-, et al.
(författare)
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Privatisation of public education? : The emergence of independent upper secondary schools in Sweden
- 2011
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Ingår i: Journal of education policy. - London : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. - 0268-0939 .- 1464-5106. ; 26:2, s. 225-243
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article explores the upper secondary (or post-16) school market. The study on which it is based, funded by the Swedish Research Council, was entitled 'Upper-secondary education as a market'. Empirical data include official statistics, policy documents, school publications, company reports and school visits. Printed and other news media were also scrutinised to identify how the marketisation of education is represented in public discourse. A number of themes emerged from the study which included mapping the expansion of the school market, chains of ownership and influence, marketing strategies, choice and the school market and issues raised in the media. These imply that there is a new market discourse which represents a clear break with previous social democratic education policies primarily aimed at enhancing citizenship and wider democratic values within an inclusive public school. However, critiques have also emerged including a call for strengthened regulations of and control over independent schools and concern about an education market equated more with shares and profits rather than pedagogy and student citizenship. Keywords: upper secondary education; independent schools; Sweden; privatisation; marketisation; education funding; profit-maximisation; discourse
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| 6. |
- Gofen, Anat, et al.
(författare)
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Parental entrepreneurship in public education : a social force or a policy problem?
- 2014
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Ingår i: Journal of education policy. - London : Taylor & Francis. - 0268-0939 .- 1464-5106. ; 29:4, s. 546-569
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Parental involvement in public education is an expression of joint responsibility between parents and the state in which parents are expected to comply with current educational policy. Moreover, parents are often perceived as reactive, whereas the educational administration is seen as proactive, mainly by reducing barriers and establishing mechanisms for parental involvement. Referring to proactive involvement in which parents practice noncompliance while fighting the system, this study conceptualizes ‘parental entrepreneurship.’ The practical aspects of parental entrepreneurship are analyzed based on three well-known manifestations: homeschooling, the integration of children with special needs, and parental cooperatives within early childhood education and care. Parental entrepreneurship further exemplifies the blurry boundaries between parents and administration as regards children’s education and demonstrates that the entrepreneurial role parents may play in reforming formal public education. Parental entrepreneurship also illuminates the ongoing renegotiation of the foundations of the social contract between parents and the government, primarily in relation to professionalism, legitimacy, and authority.
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| 7. |
- Lange, Bettina, et al.
(författare)
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Policy learning and governance of education policy in the EU
- 2010
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Ingår i: Journal of education policy. - : Taylor & Francis Group. - 0268-0939 .- 1464-5106. ; 25:4, s. 443-463
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Open methods for coordinating (OMC) education policies in the EU rely on a number of techniques, one of which is policy learning. This article examines how policy learning and governance transform each other. More specifically, policy‐learning in the education OMC becomes differentiated into four distinct learning styles: mutual, competitive, surface and imperialistic learning. While they overlap with some forms of policy learning discussed in the literature, they are also different by focusing upon interactions and political dynamics between the European Commission and the member states. In seeking to understand how governing through learning occurs, we argue that any 'impact' of EU‐level policy‐learning is co‐constructed by both the European Commission and the member states. The analysis of this article is grounded in a discourse analytical and institutionalist perspective. It draws on qualitative data derived from semi‐structured interviews with officials from the Directorate General for Education and Culture in the European Commission and on EU documents generated during policy‐learning activities.
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| 8. |
- Lilja, Peter
(författare)
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A quest for legitimacy : on the professionalization policies of Sweden's Teachers' Unions
- 2014
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Ingår i: Journal of education policy. - : Taylor & Francis. - 0268-0939 .- 1464-5106. ; 29:1, s. 86-104
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The aim of this article is to contribute to the ongoing discussion on teacher professionalism by analyzing the professional strategies of Sweden’s two teachers’ unions from an organizational perspective. Drawing on institutional theory, the article argues that the teachers’ unions’ focus on strategies of professionalization has as much to do with questions of legitimacy in the eyes of the public, as with any specific effort at transforming the practice of teaching in a professional direction. Against the background of two recent Swedish education reforms, the article shows that the unions are ‘trapped’ within a normative order emphasizing professionalization as the primary way of organizational development and legitimacy, resulting in a need for the unions to adopt professional attributes. In the case of the Swedish unions, this is accomplished through mimetic processes whereby union policies, aimed at the improvement of teaching, are modeled upon the medical profession, regardless of the differences between the technologies and practices of the occupations. In this way, the professional rhetoric of the unions is decoupled from the practice of teaching in order to maximize the public legitimacy needed for improving the declining societal status of teaching.
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| 9. |
- Nicoll, Katherine, et al.
(författare)
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Opening discourses of citizenship education : A theorization with Foucault
- 2013
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Ingår i: Journal of education policy. - London : Routledge. - 0268-0939 .- 1464-5106. ; 28:6, s. 828-846
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We argue two major difficulties in current discourses of citizenship education. The first is a relative masking of student discourses of citizenship by positioning students as lacking citizenship and as outside the community that acts. The second is in failing to understand the discursive and material support for citizenship activity. We, thus, argue that it is not a lack of citizenship that education research might address, but identification and exploration of the different forms of citizenship that students already engage in. We offer a fragmentary, poststructuralist theorization oriented to explore the 'contemporary limits of the necessary', drawing on specific resources from the work of Michel Foucault and others for the constitution of local, partial accounts of citizenship discourses and activities, and exploration of their possibilities and constraints. We argue this as a significant tactic of theorization in support of an opening of discourses of citizenship and in avoiding the discursive difficulties that we have identified. Our theorization, then, is significant in its potential to unsettle discourses that confine contemporary thought regarding citizenship education and support exploration of what might be excessive to that confinement. © 2013 Taylor & Francis.
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| 10. |
- Rönnberg, Linda, 1977-, et al.
(författare)
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In the public eye : Swedish schoolinspection and local newspapers: exploring the audit–media relationship
- 2013
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Ingår i: Journal of education policy. - : Taylor & Francis. - 0268-0939 .- 1464-5106. ; 28:2, s. 178-197
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper focuses on the dual dependencies apparent at the intersection of the media society and the audit society by empirically exploring and discussing the relationship between Swedish local newspaper coverage and school inspection activities. The research questions pertain to the Inspectorate’s media strategy, how inspection is represented and conveyed, the messages sent, and who gets to speak. Literature on governance, and the role and function of the media in the wider audit society is applied theoretically. Four municipalities were selected to represent different demographical and economical structures and previous inspection experiences. The empirical material includes interviews with leading inspection officers and newspaper articles. The local newspapers portray the Inspectorate as a legitimate institution acting on behalf of and protecting the public, and even more so, the educational consumer. The current format used by the Inspectorate – a succinct reporting only on deviations – links with a favored format of the media, reinforcing the tight media–inspection relationship and leading to implications for education governance and policy
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