THE RESTRUCTURING OF SWEDISH ADULT EDUCATION: THE INVOLVEMENT OF ECONOMISTS AND POLITICIANS IN EDUCATION POLICY

Abstract

Restructuring in Swedish adult education it is not a national isolated artefact, but rather part of a broader, global movement of what for example Ball (1998a) terms global policy paradigms. It is often carried out within “a market discourse” emphasising “freedom of choice,” “flexibility” and the “effective deployment” and use of resources, and has generally been accompanied by a movement from central control to decentralisation and from direct regulation to steering by goals. Even though the restructuring of education in Sweden reflects a global political conjuncture it is also possible to discern processes of local translation and recontextualisation of generic policies, which is the subject, the subject of this article, using Göteborg, the second city of Sweden as an example. How the restructuring are experienced and interpreted by differently positioned actors and interest groups with varied interpretative repertoires will be discussed but also related to a more general discussion in the area of policy sociology.

Citation

Carlson, M. (2004), "THE RESTRUCTURING OF SWEDISH ADULT EDUCATION: THE INVOLVEMENT OF ECONOMISTS AND POLITICIANS IN EDUCATION POLICY", Troman, G., Jeffrey, B. and Walford, G. (Ed.) Identity, Agency and Social Institutions in Educational Ethnography (Studies in Educational Ethnography, Vol. 10), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 163-185. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1529-210X(04)10009-0