School Reform

The view of the teaching profession has been a contributing factor in the convergence of the Left and the Right in recent decades. Both political camps have been skeptical of giving teachers too much influence and often regarded teachers as an obstacle to learning and pupils’ individual liberty. This view was behind the 1992 “free school” reform, which was carried out by a center-right coalition government and consolidated by consecutive Social Democratic governments. While one of the aims of this reform was to improve pupils’ academic achievement, its design paved the way for school competition between public and private providers in other dimensions than quality of education, such as grading. This has, in turn, led to widespread grade inflation in Swedish schools. Another important change to the educational system, which was embraced by both the Left and the Right, and which this project studies, is the postmodern, social-constructive view of knowledge that became institutionalized in national curricula during the second half of the 20^th century.

This project has been financially supported by the Catarina and Sven Hagströmer Foundation.

Publications

Wennström, Johan (2019). Marketized Education: How Regulatory Failure Undermined the Swedish School System. Journal of Education Policy. Link

Henrekson, Magnus and Johan Wennström (2019). ”Post-Truth” Schooling and Marketized Education: Explaining the Decline in Sweden’s School Quality. Journal of Institutional Economics, 15 (5), 897–914. Link

Wennström, Johan (2018). ”A Plague on Both Your Houses”: How Left and Right Undermined Moral Motivation in the Swedish School System. Statsvetenskaplig tidskrift, 120 (3–4), 415–434. Link

Wennström, Johan (2016). A Left/Right Convergence on the New Public Management? The Unintended Power of Diverse Ideas. Critical Review, 29 (3–4), 380–403. Link