| 1. |
- 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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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Bunar, Nihad
(författare)
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Multicultural Urban Schools in Sweden and Their Communities : Social Predicaments, the Power of Stigma, and Relational Dilemmas
- 2011
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Ingår i: Urban education (Beverly Hills, Calif.). - : SAGE Publications. - 0042-0859 .- 1552-8340. ; 46:2, s. 141-164
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Multicultural urban schools in Sweden are facing two major challenges. First, the communities the schools serve are stigmatized and economically impoverished, leading to growing concerns regarding the quality of education, lack of credibility, and outflow of students. The second challenge is the ambivalent relationships with students' parents (presumable consumers and partners, but who are also regarded as culturally conservative) and with the broader community, such as public authorities and universities. I argue that we cannot understand the practical operations and outcomes of multicultural schools if we look only at the curriculum, individual attitudes, or educational policy changes and do not examine the broader challenges facing these institutions. What is needed is a more relational approach linking together the interests of different groups, policy changes, modes of representation, and the educators' practices.
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| 4. |
- Bunar, Nihad
(författare)
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The Geographies of Education and Relationships in a Multicultural City Enrolling in High-Poverty, Low-Performing Urban Schools and Choosing to Stay There
- 2010
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Ingår i: Acta Sociologica. - : SAGE Publications. - 0001-6993 .- 1502-3869. ; 53:2, s. 141-159
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Given the institutional and financial opportunity to choose any school public or private/independent - in the city, how are we to understand students choosing to stay in their low-performing, high-poverty schools with bad reputations? Drawing on interviews with 53 students from two urban schools in Stockholm and Malmo, as well as on the secondary literature and theoretical perspectives on community discourse and the freedom of choice policy, I argue that we will never understand why students choose to stay if we consider only the values of the pedagogical commodities exchanged in the educational quasi-market. The analytical gaze ought to embrace sociological perspectives on the local community and schools, including individual strategies in relation to school choice and the power of relations, categorization and stigmatization. Thus, I conclude that neither deficiency in information, transportation costs and time nor some murky cultural-religious incentives are behind the decision to stay. The major incentive can be found in the ongoing negotiations between different aspects of community and school discourse that young people develop, whereby, among other things, the prospect of losing a network and the feeling of safety and becoming an outsider in exchange for gaining access to a 'Swedish' middle-class school is, for the time being, not deemed a fair deal.
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| 5. |
- Bunar, Nihad
(författare)
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Urban Development, Governance and Education : The Implementation of an Area-based Development Initiative in Sweden
- 2011
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Ingår i: Urban Studies. - : SAGE Publications. - 0042-0980 .- 1360-063X. ; 48:13, s. 2849-2864
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A large, area-based metropolitan development initiative (MDI) was launched in Sweden in 1999 as part of a new metropolitan policy. The Swedish government and seven municipalities invested about 400 million Euros in 24 of the most deprived urban neighbourhoods in the Stockholm region, Gothenburg and Malmo. The overall aim was to promote integration and combat unemployment, low achievement in schools, poor health, criminality and low democratic participation. The idea of urban governance was highlighted as one of the distinguishing hallmarks of the policy. Elementary schools were, after various labour-market projects, the largest receivers of MDI funding. Drawing on empirical findings as well as on secondary literature, this article describes and analyses how local school stakeholders-most notably heads of local education departments, principals and teachers-implemented the MDI with particular focus on the policy's urban government principle. It is argued that local school stakeholders, as a well-organised group with strong professional identity, captured the idea of urban governance and manipulated it to fit their own particular interests. Some effects of this process include schools becoming further isolated from their local communities, students and parents becoming further isolated from the decision-making processes within schools and money being spent on projects that are exclusively defined by the educators and the administrators, rather than by the communities they serve.
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| 6. |
- Kallstenius, Jenny, 1976-
(författare)
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De mångkulturella innerstadsskolorna : Om skolval, segregation och utbildningsstrategier i Stockholm
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- An educational reform was carried out in Sweden in the early 1990s. This reform involved implementing a far reaching policy of freedom of choice. The reform resulted in an increased establishment of independent schools, competition between schools and gave cause to substantial student flows between different city districts and public and independent schools.This study focuses on three public compulsory schools in Stockholm city with a striking inflow of students from socially disadvantaged suburbs, and an outflow of students to other schools. The aim is to describe and analyse how school leaders, teachers, parents and students relate to, and make use of, the freedom of choice policy. The study revolves around the following questions: How does the policy affect the schools’ positions in the field of education? How can the inflow of students be explained? How does the increased diversity affect identity formation and social relations among students? How can the outflow of students living within the schools’ catchment areas be explained?The empirical data were collected through an ethnographic fieldwork over the course of one year, using different techniques foremost observations, focus groups and interviews.My theoretical point of departure is that an understanding of these processes must take societal structures and social positions, as well as individual and institutional factors, into account. In my analyses I draw on Bourdieu’s theoretical framework and concepts such as field, habitus, capital and social space.The findings suggest that the schools’ positions, and the actors’ practices, are determined by objective factors, but that surrounding social and symbolic structures also plays an important role. Symbolic capital associated with “Swedishness”, and characteristics ascribed to stigmatized suburbs and the better-off inner-city districts, are important factors to understand the student flows and the development at the studied schools.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Valenta, Marko, et al.
(författare)
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State Assisted Integration : Refugee Integration Policies in Scandinavian Welfare States: the Swedish and Norwegian Experience
- 2010
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Ingår i: The Journal of Refugee Studies. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0951-6328 .- 1471-6925. ; 23:4, s. 463-483
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper sets out to provide an analysis of refugee integration policies in Sweden and Norway, by means of comparative analysis. There is a particular focus on the ideological foundations of the Swedish and Norwegian refugee integration policies, and the main programmes drawn on by the countries' authorities in order to integrate refugees. Further, the focus is widened to identify and analyse the changes, disparities and ambiguities in the Swedish and Norwegian refugee integration policies. The paper also seeks to examine how their experience can help in understanding the limitations of extensive state assisted integration measures. It is maintained here that these Scandinavian countries have developed extensive state sponsored integration programmes of a magnitude which is unique in a European context and elsewhere, and that housing and employment assistance are the two major pillars in both Swedish and Norwegian refugee integration policies. The findings suggest that Sweden and Norway have undergone similar experiences in respect of the challenges and long term outcomes of refugee integration policy-making. Although based on the principle of a strong welfare state, which provides extensive resettlement and integration assistance to refugees, refugee integration policies in Sweden and Norway have not succeeded in equalizing the initial inequalities between refugees and the rest of the population.
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