Deregulation, privatisation and marketisation of Nordic comprehensive education: social changes reflected in schooling

Abstract

The Nordic countries are often perceived as a coherent group representing the Nordic model of welfare states, with a strong emphasis on the public provision of universal welfare and a strong concern with social equality. But today we see a change in the Nordic model as part of a global knowledge economy. The aim of this article is to examine education in the five Nordic countries utilising three dimensions of political change: deregulation, marketisation and privatisation. We also analyse the parallel changes in relation to segregation and differentiation in education. The analysis shows that the themes related to deregulation seem to show fairly similar patterns and structures in all contexts. The emerging differences were discovered mainly in the themes of marketisation and privatisation. Institutional segregation emerges in all Nordic countries to different extents along the lines of these three processes, and we observe a simultaneous social segregation and differentiation with an ambiguous connection to them. Based on these findings, the question of what is left of the "Nordic model" could be raised.

Parental school satisfaction in the context of segregation of basic education in urban Finland

“…Notes 1. Generally, school choice can be defined as a policy whereby schools may select some or all of their students, and families may, to an extent, choose a school or an educational track for their children (Dovemark et al, 2018). 2.…”

“…Bernelius, 2013;Kupari et al, 2013;Lundahl, 2016). While not as pronounced as in, for example, Denmark and Sweden, the increase in the use of market mechanisms in the field of education is also very much evident in Finland (Berisha, Rinne, Järvinen, & Kinnari, 2017;Dovemark et al, 2018).…”

“…The advocates of these neoliberal educational policies insist that education works best when it follows the market logic (see Baltodano, 2012;Bunar, 2008;McGregor, 2009;Rinne, 2000) because the free choice of services and competition between providers are expected to improve the quality and efficiency of the use of public funds (Dovemark et al, 2018). This is seen to increase educational democracy by enabling students and families to choose instead of being assigned, and to promote social and ethnic integration by shattering the social enclosures of the poorest students in the highpoverty, low-achieving schools claimed to have been caused by the attendance zone policy (Bunar, 2010).…”

Gender and choice: differentiating options in Swedish upper secondary STEM programmes

“…Recent studies of the Swedish school system have pointed in a similar direction, outlining an increasing tension between market interests and a 'free choice discourse', on the one hand, and an increasing differentiation between and within schools, on the other hand (e.g. Beach 2018;Dovemark et al 2018;Yang Hansen and Gustafsson 2016). Furthermore, studies show that Swedish pupils are easily influenced by market discourses when choosing upper secondary education (Lidström, Holm, and Lundstrom 2014;Lund 2008) but also that the understanding of 'freedom of choice' tends to differ between boys and girls (Asp-Onsjö and Holm 2014).…”

Education governance and privatization in Portugal: Media coverage on public and private education

“…These trends are being researched and discussed on a worldwide level and questions have been raised regarding social justice, equality or marginalization outcomes, effects and consequences on educational, and learning participation, and life chances of underprivileged, disadvantaged or impoverished children and youth (Robertson & Dale, 2013). Some of the research points out the fact that in Nordic countries, for example, social differentiation and segregation between schools and social groups grew at the same time as privatization, marketization and deregulation (Beach, 2017;Dovemark et al, 2018;Östh et al, 2013). Similarly, in Chile where measures to privatize public schooling have a longer history, recent studies have shown there are high levels of school segregation (Rambla et al, 2011) while selection mechanisms for the recruitment of elite students by private schools remain in place (Belleï, 2009).…”