Decentralized responsibility and individual liability : A case study of education opportunities in Sweden upper secondary education

Abstract

Abstract\nDecentralisation and deregulation in Swedish secondary education has put more responsibility on local school\norganization to manoeuvre in a competitive educational context. Political claims foregoing this form of quasimarket\ndevelopment in education stress enhanced opportunities for choices and stimulation of pluralistic\ninterests among students inside a more autonomous school organization. In this paper the issue of educational\nopportunities is underlined by discussing initial results from an ongoing fieldwork at a Swedish secondary\nschool. Shaped as a case study, the purpose is to investigate how students at both academic and vocational study\nprogrammes view their future opportunities in a wider socioeconomic context. More specifically the purpose is\nto examine how sociocultural conditions become decisive for evaluating possibilities and restraints of schooling.\nThe methodological approach uses multiple qualitative methods, and is inspired by theoretical perspectives that\nunderline the interconnection between individual, organization and society. Emphasis is in particular put on\nhow individual choices are shaped, mediated and channelled by institutional conditions. A theoretical\nelaboration will be tested by using Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of Habitus, as socially embodied structures, that\ncan be viewed upon as a mediating link between individual action and external power relations of the society.\nPreliminary results indicate that educational objectives set by the school in question are interpreted rather\ndifferently by the vocational and academic students. Individual perception of opportunities coincides with\nnorms and values in the local cultural environment, and results in individual strategies that overlap with local\ncollective beliefs. Both academic and vocational students pursue instrumental goals of material security and\nsocial establishment. However, the difference tends to lie in collectively tied practices of pursuing and defining\nthose aims. At the academic oriented programmes school objectives are commonly agreed upon, and are\nincorporated in the cultural environment. Conversely, mistrust and disagreement towards the goals of the\nvocational programme seems to prevail among the students. Organisational strategies are shifting in accordance\nto these different goals, respectively. From supportive and dialog-oriented conduct at the academic track, to\nconflict filled and disciplining relations at the vocational programme.\nThese early results indicate that students need to take an active part in the specific cultural setting with explicit\nnotions of consistency in order to allocate organizational resources to their favour. Moreover, this case study\ndemonstrate the increasing strong tendency that education is becoming a kind of quasi-market, which\npresupposes well-informed and ambitious students who seeks to utilise the gains in schooling. Hence, this\nilluminates the importance of further examination of how sociocultural structures condition students’ practical\nunderstanding of the possibilities and limitations of education.