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Gymnasieskolan som konkurrensfält

(The competition field of secondary education)

Ett forskningsprojekt finansierat av Vetenskapsrådets utbildningsvetenskapliga kommitté
(A research project funded by the Swedish Research Council's Committee for Educational Science)

Projektperiod jan 2002-dec 2004.

Projektplan
Medarbetare (collaborators)
Objectives (in English)
Publications
Results (In English)

Projektplan

Projektplanen återfinns i rapporten Studier av högskolan och gymnasieskolan som fält. Forskningsprogram 2002-2004, SEC Report 28, ILU, Uppsala universitet, dec. 2001.
PDF-version (495 KB) <http://www.skeptron.uu.se/broady/sec/sec-28.pdf>

Sammanfattning (hämtad ur det nämnda programmet)

Projektet skall studera de sociala effekterna av den alltmer uttalade profileringen inom den kommunala gymnasieskolan, den ökande andelen fristående skolor och ändrade antagningssystem såsom när närhetsprincipen slopats i Stockholm. Exempel på frågor är: Vad skiljer rekryteringen till de fristående skolorna från den till de kommunala? Tränger flickor, som i genomsnitt har högre grundskolebetyg, ut pojkarna från vissa elitutbildningar? Hur fördelar sig elever med olika slag av invandrarbakgrund på skilda utbildningsvägar? Vilka mönster finns i rekryteringen av lärare och deras mobilitet?

Projektet inrymmer översiktliga studier av elevrekryteringen i hela riket, fördjupade studier av utvecklingen i regionerna Stockholm, Uppsala och Gävle, samt pilotstudier av lärarkårens sammansättning och mobilitet. Totalregister med data (kön, socialt ursprung, nationell härkomst, betygsprestationer i grundskolan m.m.) om svenska gymnasieelever skall upprättas, liksom register över lärare i gymnasieskolan åren 1990-2001. Elever, lärare och administratörer i de tre regionerna skall intervjuas. Stort intresse kommer att ägnas åt vilka slags tillgångar (kulturellt kapital, ekonomiskt kapital, socialt kapital, skolkapital etc) eleverna har i bagaget, samt hur gymnasieskolan är strukturerad som ett konkurrensfält där skilda utbildningsinriktningar intar olika positioner.

Medarbetare (collaborators)

Donald Broady, projektledare (project director)
Mikael Börjesson
Mattias Eriksson
Gergei Farkas
Jonas Gustavsson
Elisabeth Hultqvist
Monica Langerth Zetterman
Ida Lidegran
Sverker Lundin
Ingrid Nordqvist
Mikael Palme

Objectives (in English)

In the 1990s, Swedish upper secondary education was subject to a radical transformation initiated by the reform of upper secondary education launched in 1991. All Swedish secondary school study programs were made homogenous in terms of length (3 years) and status as regards formal qualification for the entry into post-secondary education. Affirming the formally equal status of all upper secondary education study programs in all schools throughout the country, the reform abandoned the previous sharp division between "theoretical" programs and vocational training programs. However, the shift towards a unified upper secondary education system was accompanied by a parallel shift from a bureaucratic, rule-based management of the education system to a goal and result-oriented type of management ("decentralization"). Great freedom was given to secondary schools to create their own local "profiled" versions of the 16 national study programs, creating a previously unknown heterogeneity of upper secondary education programs.

Also, in 1992, Sweden opted for a voucher system in all compulsory education, giving families the right to freely invest the public funding for the schooling of their children into any private ("independent") school, regardless of district or municipality boundaries. The 1990’s witnessed, especially in the large cities, a rapid expansion of independent schools, both at primary and secondary levels, and a sharp increase of secondary school study programs, also in government schools, with a local "profile".

As a consequence, the tendency towards homogenization inherent in the reform of upper secondary education in 1991 was counter-balanced by the creation of an educational market in which both schools and students and their families have to compete. The education reforms preserved and even strengthened the form of the organizationally homogenous secondary school, while simultaneously creating unparalleled institutional and political conditions for increasing social and cultural differences between schools and study programs. Our former studies of Swedish upper secondary education conclude that the competition became more intense. Especially the science programme has become more socially and scholastically selective in its recruitment.

The project aims at studying the recruitment to upper secondary education on a national as well as regional level (Stockholm, Uppsala, Göteborg and Gävle). Important will be to analyse differences between public and private schools, between different programmes and between different programmes at specific schools in terms of gender, social and national origin, former educational careers, etc. A special attention will be given to the relations between the socio-geographic dimension, the political and administrative level and the social recruitment of the schools and the interplay between these three levels.

Publications

Journal articles

Broady, Donald & Mikael Börjesson, ”En social karta över gymnasieskolan i Stockholm i slutet av 1990-talet”, Studies in Educational Policy and Educational Philosophy: E-tidskrift, 2002:1. (PDF-version)

Book chapters

Broady, Donald & Mikael Börjesson, ”Gymnasieskolans sociala karta”, pp. 32-37 i Utbildningsvetenskap 2005 – resultatdialog och framåtblick, Vetenskapsrådets rapportserie 13:2005, Stockholm 2005.

Lidegran, Ida, Mikael Börjesson, Ingrid Nordqvist & Donald Broady, ”I korsningen mellan kön och klass. Gymnasieskolan, i riket, i Uppsala och i Gävle,” forthcoming in anthology from The National Agency for Education.

Conference contributions

Palme, Mikael, Donald Broady, Mikael Börjesson, Monica Langerth Zetterman, Ida Lidegran, Sverker Lundin & Ingrid Nordqvist, Using correspondence analysis for exploring regional differences in the Swedish educational system, Paper presenterat på International conference on correspondence analysis and related methods (CARME 2003), Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Sunday 29 June - Wednesday 2 July 2003. (27 p.)

Lidegran, Ida & Mikael Börjesson, Svenska eliter och deras utbildningsstrategier förr och nu, Paper presenterat på 2:a nordiska pedagogikhistoriska konferensen, Stockholm, 25-27 sept. 2003, sessionen ”Eliternas utbildningsstrategier”.

Börjesson, Mikael, Donald Broady, Sverker Lundin & Mikael Palme, Swedish Education in Science and Technology: Expansion and Transformations. Paper read at the first meeting of the international working group on science students in higher education, Université des Sciences et Technologies de Lille, 20-21 November 2003.

Börjesson, Mikael, Social rekrytering till läroverk och universitet. Ett bidrag till den svenska sociala klassificeringens historia, presenterat vid sessionen ”Eliternas utbildningsstrategier”, Svenska Historikermötet 2005, Uppsala 22-24 april 2005.

Lidegran, Ida, Utbildningsstrategier i kulturstarkt fäste, presenterat på ACSIS nationella konferens för kulturstudier, Norrköping 13-15 juni 2005.

Research reports

Börjesson, Mikael, Gymnasieskolans sociala struktur och sociala gruppers utbildningsstrategier. Tendenser på nationell nivå 1997-2001, Rapporter från Forskningsgruppen för utbildnings- och kultursociologi, nr 32, SEC/ILU, Uppsala universitet, Uppsala 2004.

Nordqvist, Ingrid & Monica Langerth Zetterman, Gymnasieskolan som konkurrensfält. Ett regionalt perspektiv. Gävleborgs län, Rapporter från Forskningsgruppen för utbildnings- och kultursociologi, nr 33, SEC/ILU, Uppsala universitet, Uppsala 2004.

Lidegran, Ida, Uppsala – en akademiskt dominerad gymnasieskola, Rapporter från Forskningsgruppen för utbildnings- och kultursociologi, nr 34, SEC/ILU, Uppsala universitet, Uppsala 2004.

Eriksson, Mattias, Sociologisk atlas över Stockholm, Rapporter från Forskningsgruppen för utbildnings- och kultursociologi, nr 34, SEC/ILU, Uppsala universitet, Uppsala 2005.

Other

Sverker Lundin, Gymnasieskolan som konkurrensfält. Göteborgsregionen, C-uppsats i pedagogik, ILU, Uppsala universitet, 2004.

Marie Nordmark, Gymnasieskolan som konkurrensfält. En kartläggning av utbildningsstrategier hos gymnasieungdomar i Västerås, C/D-uppsats i pedagogik, ILU, Uppsala universitet, 2004.

Ingrid Nordqvist, Att utmana det etablerade. Striden om innehåll och undervisningsformer i läroverket vid 1800-talets mitt. Exemplet Athenæum – Sveriges första realläroverk, avhandlingspm, framlagt den 27 september 2005.

Gergei Farkas, Invandrade skolelever och deras val av gymnasieutbildning. Skåne län 1998 och 2001, Manuscript Jan 2006. [Written in conjunction with the research project ”En komparativ undersøgelse af ungdomsuddannelsesfeltets struktur i Malmø og København”, lead by Dr Bolette Moldenhawer.]

Results

Though everybody knows that properties such as social origin, gender, ethnic characteristics and previous school achievements are of importance to pupils’ trajectories within the educational system, it is difficult to gain an overview over the functioning of the entire system in relation to such assets. In order to contribute to a synoptic view on the system we have constructed "social maps" for the upper secondary educational system, both on a national basis and in the form of regional maps for Stockholm, Uppsala, Gävle and Gothenburg.

These maps reveal a triangular structure. The gender difference is accentuated at the triangular base where we find pupils mostly coming from working class families. When we move up in the social hierarchy, the gender differences decrease. The boys and girls of high social origin are mixed at the summit of the social hierarchical structure, more precisely at the science program with specialization in science.

This gender-based main pattern found is very stable. It appears in upper secondary education both on a national level and in the different regions. However, there are also notable changes in the last years. Among the most important transformations is that the science program with specialization in science has become more selective during the 1990’s. A larger proportion of pupils with high social origin and also pupils with high grades—which is not the same thing—have taken this path. One explanation of this phenomenon is the ongoing inflation within the educational system. With the general expansion of upper secondary studies, the former great division between two-year vocational programmes (with a predominantly lower class recruitment) and theoretical three-year programmes (with more of higher class recruitment), has transgressed into the theoretical programmes, This transition has created a more significant cleavage between the social science programme and the science programme, the latter distinguishing itself even more, both socially and meritocratically.

We also find interesting changes regarding the recently established technical programme, and new specialisations within the science programme. One conclusion is that one of the objectives of the creation of the technical programme, viz. to recruit a larger portion of girls into technical education, has failed. The effect was the opposite. The portion of girls has diminished compared to before when the technical path was a branch within the science programme. This could have been predicted. When the technical programme was created it lost the social aura related to being part of the science programme. With a less selective social recruitment, the domination of men followed. On the other hand, with the establishment of the environmental branch of the science program, a science programme dominated by girls was created for the very first time.

During the project period it has been increasingly obvious that besides overall national analyses it necessary to explore the regional levels. Not the least the ongoing decentralisation and differentiation of the upper secondary education means that national figures have a limited explanatory power. Our analyses of the Stockholm, Uppsala, Gothenburg, and Gävleborg regions indicate that the social outcomes of the educational reforms of the early 1990’s have been determined, firstly, by the socio-demographic composition of each region, and, secondly by the varying policies regulating admission and school expansion and funding.

The by far most advanced region as regards diversification is Stockholm. The specific socio-demographic topography of Stockholm and its effects on the political landscape, with poorer versus richer municipalities and social democracy versus centre or right wing policies, probably have prevented the development of a common strategy for the whole region. A reasonably hypotheses is that the market model of free choice and the establishment of independent schools are ingredients in the strategies used by social groups that are richer in economic capital than in cultural capital to oppose the supremacy held of the culturally dominant groups in the education system. Their investment—political as well as educational through families’ choice of schools—in independent schools has forced the culturally strong groups to follow by increasing their own competitive strategies. This "demand," in turn, has created an expanded market for independent schools and a competition between schools for students in which also schools owned by the municipalities get more and more involved. As a result, differences between schools have become by far larger in Stockholm than in other areas, as have the creation of elite schools where the scholarly elite sometimes unite with the economic elite.

The development in Stockholm stands in sharp contrast to other regions. For example, in Uppsala, a region dominated by its universities and its university hospital, there is a strong presence of social groups disposing large amount of educational and cultural capital which corresponds to a strong preference for public schools and the science programme. The private schools have—at least up during the period investigated—only been a concern for the lower middle classes, since the cultural élite has been satisfied with the offers of the public system. The same is true fore Gävle, the major city in Gävleborg county. There has until recently not existed any private alternatives and the traditional school and its science programme have been the royal road for the local elites, leading to the university in Uppsala, and not the regional university college in Gävle. While the Göteborg region represents quite another political and social landscape, with its much more integrated upper secondary school system, functioning more like a coordinated cooperation than as a competition field.

URL of this page is http://www.skeptron.uu.se/broady/sec/gyko.htm
Created by Donald Broady. Last updated 2002-12-31
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