Market Competition in Upper Secondary Education: Perceived Effects on Teachers' Work

Abstract

The development and expansion of market solutions is one of the most important changes in Swedish education in the last 30 years. The aim of the article is to describe and analyse how students and staff in upper secondary schools perceive the impact of market competition on teachers' work. Three groups of actors in two Swedish regions were interviewed: students, teachers and principals. The interviews were carried out at eight schools in five municipalities, at both public and independent schools. The results show that competition relations are more complex than is often assumed. Intensification of teachers' work is a common theme in the interviews. Traditional professional values and identities are challenged by the market competition and a market-oriented teacher is shaped -whether the teachers like it or not. The extension of teachers' tasks is increasingly about marketing. A new type of service-minded and flexible teacher is created. Regarding the effects of competition on teacher performance, the results are contradictory. The quality discourse is problematised as there is no evident link between winners in the school competition and the quality of teaching and student outcomes. The Swedish case is interesting in the international literature as an example of a rapidly growing upper secondary school market which is closer to the logic of the market than many other nations' school systems.

Changes in teacher education in Sweden in the neo-liberal education age: Toward an occupation in itself or a profession for itself?

“…1 However, in the last two decades the State has been radically transformed in a neo-liberal direction, including extensive decentralisation and marketisation of the public sector, with this bringing about significant changes in relation to education policy and the management and organisation of schools and teachers' work (Beach 2008;Lundahl et al 2013). These changes have also been extensively researched in this (Allan 2014;Lundström and Holm 2011) and other journals (Carlgren and Klette 2008;Solbrekke and Englund 2014) and the evidence of their existence and effects is compelling. As, for instance Brante et al (2015) pointed out recently, teachers from both Swedish teacher unions are amongst the professionals in Sweden who most emphatically see their work and working conditions as dramatically changed in recent years by the $ neo-liberal reforms and the introduction of new public management, in terms of workload and levels of external control, with this creating negative effects on core professional duties and job satisfaction.…”

Vol 6, No 1 (2016)

“…First, the Swedish case can be described as a rather full-blown school market (Blomqvist & Rothstein, 2000). Although a quasi-market, it lies closer to a real market logic than many other countries (Lundström & Holm, 2011). It should also be noted that despite the decentralization of education, the state sets the national curricula for public as well as independent schools 3 .…”

“…This indicates that not only are new tasks being added, but some tasks considered valuable are now being given less room. This change can certainly be seen in the light of the NPM reform movement; it is widely established that teachers' work has become intensified and that teachers experience more stress (Aili & Hjort, 2010;Lundström & Holm, 2011;NUT, 2013;Sveriges Företagshälsor, 2014:1;TCO, 2012;TCO, 2013). In fact, primary school teachers estimate that they work 9 hours and 40 minutes per day, equalling a 48-hour weekly workload (SNAE, 2013b).…”

Global politics and education systems: towards education markets?

“…which are practices determined by policies, are expressed through marketing, the media, noticeboards and other social media, acquire not only a "pedagogical" dimension, but also a social and competitive (global) one. Lundströn and Holm (2011) have studied how this network operates in the practices of educational players in higher secondary education in Sweden; Mansell (2007) studies the case of Great Britain (focusing on the "tyranny of empirical testing"). For his part, Felouzis (2011) considers the education systems of countries like Belgium, Great Britain, South Africa, the United States, Switzerland and France, on the one hand, in order to explain the different theoretical approaches to the "schooling markets", and on the other, in order to offer us an interpretation pattern combining policies, practices and forms of expression of these global networks.…”