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While Sweden is often viewed as a benchmark for equality within education, this book examines this assumption in greater depth. The author argues that Sweden's education system - even prior to the global spread of neoliberalism in education, meta-policies and privatization - was never particularly equal. Instead, what became apparent was a system that offered advantages to the upper social classes under a sheen of meritocracy and tolerable inequalities. Combining ethnographic and meta-ethnographic methodologies and analyses, the author examines the phenomenon of structural injustice in the Swedish education system both vertically and diachronically across a period of intensive transformation and reform. This revealing volume offers a mode of engagement that will be of value and interest to researchers and students of injustices within education, as well as policy makers and practitioners.
List of contents
1.The Myth of Swedish Education Equity.- 2.Education Differentiation Within Contemporary Globalization: A Meta-ethnographic Analysis of the Conferral of Power and Status in Modern Education Systems.- 3.Performativity, Creativity and Personalised Learning.- 4.Twelve Years of Upper-Secondary Education in Sweden: The Beginnings of a Neo-Liberal Policy Hegemony?.- 5.Social Class Stereotypes in Upper-Secondary School.- 6.Higher Education Expansion and Student Choices: A Critical Analysis.- 7.A Meta-ethnography of Research on Education Justice and Inclusion in Sweden with a Focus on Territorially Stigmatised Areas.- 8.Education Markets and Inequalities.- 9.Conclusions: Reconsidering Sweden's International Contemporary Recognition and Historical Standing in Regard to Matters of Educational Justice and Equity
About the author
Dennis Beach is Professor of Education at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden and the Faculty of Librarianship, Information, Education and IT at the University of Borås, Sweden. He is an International Fellow of Durham University, UK and Visiting Professor at Roehampton University, UK.
