Marianne Dovemark

Making Right Choices : an Ethnographic Investigation of Creativity and Performativity in Four Swedish Schools

This article uses ethnographic research from two Year 8 classes in two middle‐sized secondary schools about a kilometre apart in a Swedish west‐coast town to examine how new policies for personalised learning have developed in practice, in the performative cultures of modern schools in a commodity society. One school stands in a predominantly middle‐class area of privately owned ‘low‐rise’ houses. The other is in an area of ‘high‐rise’ rented accommodation, where the first language of many homes is not Swedish. The differences are important. According to the article, personalised learning mobilises material and social resources in these schools that support new forms of individualistic, selfish and private accumulations of education goods from public provision and a valorisation of self‐interest and private value as the common basis for educational culture. The article describes this cultural production in school and links it to processes of cultural and social reproduction.This article uses ethnographic research from two Year 8 classes in two middle-sized secondary schools about a kilometre apart in a Swedish west-coast town to examine how new policies for personalis ...

Twelve years of upper-secondary education in Sweden: the beginnings of a neo-liberal policy hegemony?

In this article we discuss data produced about learning practices and learner identities during the past 12 years of upper-secondary school development in Sweden based on ethnographic fieldwork that has examined these issues with respect to two sets of pupils from these schools: one successful, one unsuccessful. Two things are considered in particular. One is how these pupils and their school activities are described and positioned by teachers. Another is how pupils describe their own activities and position themselves. Some policy changes have been noted across the researched period. Questions relating to participation are considered in relation to them and there is also an attempt to make a connection to a possible social-class relationship. Our main concern however, is for how recent policy changes have been enacted in schools and classrooms and what effects this enactment seems to have had on learner subjectivity and learner identities.

Academic work on a back-burner: habituating students in the upper-secondary school towards marginality and a life in the precariat

This article takes its point of departure in ethnographic data from what in Sweden is called the Individual Programme (IP). This programme was for upper-secondary school pupils who were not eligible for one of the countrys academic or vocational programme. Its main formally expressed goal was to enable students to become eligible for these programmes. Our data show that this aim risks going unfulfilled as attending the kind of programme represented by the IP increases the likelihood of marginalisation and a precarious existence. The policy of freedom of choice was a problem. This policy allowed the students to opt out of academic work and staff to encourage students to opt for easy study options and activities that took them away from academic routes.

Personalised learning as repressive tolerance: a comparative ethnographic analysis from research in three Swedish schools

ABSTRACT The idea of personalised learning is built upon a liberal tradition that values tolerance in enabling the process of human autonomy. In this article, we elaborate on this notion, its theoretical base and effects on the learning conditions of upper secondary school students. We draw upon data from three different studies of the Swedish upper secondary school. The aim of the article is to elaborate on values that are implemented and how these values affect how the notion of tolerance can be used as a tool to explore and explain the idea of personalised learning. For the purpose of analysis, we use parts of Kyle Moore and Walkers [2011. “Tolerance. A Concept Analysis.” The Journal of Theory Constructing & Testing 5 (2): 48–52] work. Our analysis shows that personalised learning was legitimised in our studied settings, but in its extension it did not benefit and challenge the ongoing learning and development of the students. In fact, tolerance appeared repressive and confirmed status quo.

From learning to labour to learning for precarity

A demand on national economies in the 1970s was that they should begin to increase their labour market flexibility, which came to mean transferring risks and insecurity onto workers. Education was one way to prepare future workers for this new situation. The present article examines this preparation of learning for precarity some 40 years on. It is based on long-term ethnographic research in the Swedish upper-secondary school sector in particular kinds of educational programmes that have been devised and promoted as a means of integrating ‘lost pupils’ into either academic or vocational studies. The findings show this is not what is developing in practice in these programmes.

Pupil Responsibility in the Context of School Changes in Sweden: market constraints on state policies for a creative education

Swedens present school curricula emphasise personal flexibility, creativity, responsibility for learning and suggest new understandings of quality in learning, where individual freedom of choice is meant to help produce creative, motivated, alert, inquiring, self-governing and flexible users and developers of knowledge. These curriculum changes relate to similar changes in the relationships between the state, professional agencies and market interests in education planning and delivery. In this article I discuss these new developments and their effects from the perspective of different students in school. The article is based on ethnographic studies and student interviews that suggest that whilst rituals that previously indoctrinated individuals into submissive behaviour in school, through the mechanical memorisation of others facts, have been replaced by outwardly self-monitored activities and self-determined learning, some things remain the same. Students are still graded, separated and characterised by teachers in terms of being weak or superior products and students adopt these labels in their self-understanding. Furthermore, the curriculum that is meant to stimulate creativity and inclusiveness dampens creativity and positive involvement for many students.

How private "everyday racism" and public "racism denial" contribute to unequal and discriminatory educational experiences

The study uses ethnographic research from four classes in secondary school as well as from two groups in upper secondary school, to examine everyday racism as an element of the daily institutional lives of students and teachers. The study is based on long-term participant observation and 89 interviews. These were all audio-recorded and transcribed. In Sweden the education of ethnic groups is couched in a discourse of integration and inclusion. However, the research presented shows that the aims of integration and inclusion were not achieved. Unequal and discriminatory educational experiences operated through two related actions: by private everyday racism and through public racism denial.

Managing Inclusion in Competitive School Systems: The Cases of Sweden and England.

The last 40 years have seen great political attention paid to issues of inclusion in education, both from international organisations and also individual nations. This flexible concept has been adopted enthusiastically in education reforms concerned with increased standardisation of teaching and learning, decentralisation of education management, reduced teacher autonomy and marketisation of school systems. This paper draws from a research project that explores inclusion as part of the education transformations in England and Sweden. These two countries have been very different in their state governance and welfare regimes, but have been following similar directions of reform in their education systems. The paper evaluates the changing policy assumptions and values in relation to inclusion in the schooling changes of the last few decades, through an analysis of policy contexts and processes, and a presentation of selected empirical material from research in the two countries. We argue that, despite the similar dominant discourses of competition and marketisation, the two education systems draw on significantly different paradigms of operationalising inclusion, with distinct outcomes regarding equality.

Pedagogic identities for sale! Segregation and homogenization in Swedish upper secondary school

Abstract The aim of this article is to illustrate how Swedish schools construct different pedagogic identities in the way they marketize themselves. We examine through a Bernsteinian lens how upper secondary schools promote themselves; what identities are being called for by the schools and how these identities are expressed. Moreover, the article intends to study how these identities are reflected in studied school actors and how they can be understood in relation to the labour market. We have analysed texts from various kinds of marketing materials, including websites and prospectuses of the schools. The empirical data also include interviews with various school actors. In addition, we attended and recorded observations at open houses and school fairs. Our findings indicate a strong differentiated market-oriented education system, mediated not only through distinctions in courses and programmes, but also through schools creating highly specific niches and targeting specific students as valuable commodities.

A School for All? Different Worlds: Segregation on Basis of Freedom of Choice

This chapter uses ethnographic research from two public secondary schools. The study is based on long-term participant observation and interviews. All interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. The data focused in the present chapter has been developed principally around interviews and transcription field notes. It describes the cultural production in two 8th-grade classes and links it to the cultural and social reproduction. Despite the discourse of ‘a school for all’ and with the objectives of equality in view, the study shows a strong differentiation and segregation on the basis of class boundaries with ethnic overtones. Freedom of choice in relation to the school voucher system, responsibility and flexibility has made it possible to create a kind of ‘magnet school’ with the side effect that the ‘poor school’ in the neighbourhood was further drained. Even though the teachers at both schools demonstrated commitment with regard to creating well-functioning school activities, the study shows quite different outcomes. The most striking result is the large differences in practice in terms of pedagogical organisational principles and content of knowledge, expectations and demands placed on pupils, status, etc.