School competition and social stratification in the deregulated upper secondary school market in Stockholm

Abstract

Drawing on the case of upper secondary education in Stockholm, this article analyses school-based responses to a superimposed market and how this is related to social stratification. Furthermore, schools' and pupils' encounters with the market are analysed in relation to Bourdieu's concepts of field, capital and strategy. Methodologically, the quantitative method of correspondence analysis is combined with semi-structured interviews with senior administrative officers and principals. Analysis shows how the overarching structure of this particular field-a historically pre-existing social order of upper secondary education in Stockholm-is related to the complex set of strategies that schools develop in the school market. Schools located at the elite pole of the field, serving the educational needs of a small minority of either the wealthy or the culturally rich upper middle class, are less affected by marketization. In the most populous social mid-tier of the field, schools are more likely to turn education into a mass-produced commodity, while schools at the socially dominated pole, without a competitive product, are more exposed to the market's stratifying impact.

Teachers’ perceptions of autonomy in the tensions between a subject focus and a cross-curricular school profile: A case study of a Finnish upper secondary school

“…Neither was the exercise of profiling and branding schools a local phenomenon. The practice of creating school-specific profiles to attract students, arguably influenced by the economic principles of competition and self-preservation, has become a common trend in Western countries (Forsberg 2018;Heinrich 2015). By creating symbolic capital through profiles and brands, schools have tried to position themselves favourably in the competition for students (Forsberg 2018).…”

“…The practice of creating school-specific profiles to attract students, arguably influenced by the economic principles of competition and self-preservation, has become a common trend in Western countries (Forsberg 2018;Heinrich 2015). By creating symbolic capital through profiles and brands, schools have tried to position themselves favourably in the competition for students (Forsberg 2018). This practice has become especially prominent in countries with a large proportion of privately run schools and has often been connected to social, ethnical and educational segregation as well as commodification of education (Cucchiara 2008; DiMartino and Butler Jessen 2016; Forsberg 2018).…”

“In Our School We Have Students of All Sorts”. Mapping the Space of Elite Education in a Seemingly Egalitarian System

“…While tuition fees are still not permitted, public funding of education from primary to upper secondary level is channelled through vouchers that enable families to engage with a free choice model of selecting schools. On the basis of this voucher system, municipal schools and a rapidly growing portion of private schools compete to attract pupils, with increased social and educational differentiation as a result (Forsberg 2018). Higher education, where privatisation has as yet hardly appeared, is increasingly marked by 'new public management' and 'academic capitalism', with more emphasis put on international excellence.…”

The use of ‘cultural capital’ in sociology of education in Sweden

“…Some schools in the central parts of the big cities attracted culturally powerful groups, while suburban schools were identified as less attractive, and so lost more successful students. The transition to a market system of schooling has, especially in the big cities, made even more visible the importance of social and cultural assets (Forsberg, 2018;Larsson & Hultqvist, 2018). The marketisation is most developed in the big cities where we find a strong concentration of resourcerich groups of students in particular schools and programmes.…”