Recent socio-economic changes, developments in school policy, and increased migration have added new dimensions to debates about educational inequalities. They concern one of the major challenges facing Sweden today, which is to offer all its students an equal education. What we know so far is that growing up in a disadvantaged neighbourhood with high rates of poverty, joblessness, and single parenthood are often used to explain lower levels of schooling, but that their mechanisms and interactions are not well understood. This is the focus of the present article. In it we use meta-ethnography to explore expressions about the education experiences of youths from suburban areas with high levels of unemployment and migration and educational performances lower than the national average to try to cast further light on these problems. We suggest that the common arguments used to account for the problem of school performance are strongly correlated with proficiency in the language of instruction and socio-economic conditions, but that these factors cannot account for the full extent of the problem. What it means to live within specific multicultural urban contexts is important as is the segregation and media representation of these areas and those who live in them.

This article uses ethnographic research from two Year 8 classes in two middle-sized secondary schools about a kilometre apart in a Swedish west-coast town to examine how new policies for personalised learning have developed in practice, in the performative cultures of modern schools in a commodity society. One school stands in a predominantly middle-class area of privately owned 'low-rise' houses. The other is in an area of 'high-rise' rented accommodation, where the first language of many homes is not Swedish. The differences are important. According to the article, personalised learning mobilises material and social resources in these schools that support new forms of individualistic, selfish and private accumulations of education goods from public provision and a valorisation of self-interest and private value as the common basis for educational culture. The article describes this cultural production in school and links it to processes of cultural and social reproduction.

In this article we discuss data produced about learning practices and learner identities during the past 12 years of upper-secondary school development in Sweden based on ethnographic fieldwork that has examined these issues with respect to two sets of pupils from these schools: one successful, one unsuccessful. Two things are considered in particular. One is how these pupils and their school activities are described and positioned by teachers. Another is how pupils describe their own activities and position themselves. Some policy changes have been noted across the researched period. Questions relating to participation are considered in relation to them and there is also an attempt to make a connection to a possible social-class relationship. Our main concern however, is for how recent policy changes have been enacted in schools and classrooms and what effects this enactment seems to have had on learner subjectivity and learner identities.

Läroplanen Lpo 94 frossar i begreppet ansvar, men vad står det för? Den här boken handlar om hur elever, lärare och skolledare möter och handskas med den ansvarsförskjutning som senare års decentralisering och utbildningsreformer medfört. Kraven förutsätter att elever kan och vill ta ansvar, vara flexibla och initiativrika. I klassrummet innebär ansvarsförskjutningen ofta att elever ställs inför en mängd val som kan medföra konsekvenser som lärare ­kanske inte förväntat sig. När de organiserar verksamheter som erbjuder elever personliga val skapas en oreflekterad social reproduktion och selektion grundat på elevens kulturella och sociala kapital. Boken vänder sig till blivande lärare och lämpar sig väl inom lärarutbildningarnas allmänna utbildningsområde. Dessutom passar den som kursbok inom skolledareutbildning och för kompetensutveckling av verksamma lärare samt andra yrkesgrupper med intresse för relationen mellan undervisningens organisation och elevers lärande. (Beskrivning från förlaget)

Sammanfattningsvis kan konstateras att skolorna hade väsenskilda förutsättningar för eleverna att klara av skolarbetet. Granskolans föräldrastöd stod i bjärt kontrast mot Tallskolans avsaknad av föräldrastöd. Eleverna på Tallskolan intog en betydligt mer avstressad attityd till skolans arbete än vad Granskolans elever gjorde. På den kulturella nivån uppvisades slående skillnader gällande hur personal, elever och föräldrar talade om och handlade gällande bedömning och betyg. Då eleverna förväntades registrera, avkoda och välja lämplig betygsnivå att ”satsa mot” fick elevens sociala och kulturella kapital en avgörande betydelse för hur utfallet av detta val blev. Även andra skillnader mellan skolorna kunde konstateras. En var hur betygskriterier skrevs fram och hur krav ställdes på eleverna. Då Granskolans lärare ställde förväntningarna högt på skolans elever med betygskriterier inriktade på kognitiva färdighetsmål som jämförande, analyserande och värderande hamnade Tallskolans betygskriterier snarare på en ”görandenivå”. Betyg och bedömning var ett ämne som både lärare och elever på Granskolan frekvent uppehöll sig vid i samtal och diskussioner både under lektionstid och under raster. Skillnaden var slående hur lite detta ämne fokuserades i det offentliga samtalet på Tallskolan, samtidigt som elevers oro och besvikelse framkom minst lika starkt där, som på Granskolan när t.ex. betygsatta prov återlämnades. En annan slående skillnad var hur Granskolans lärare använde betyg och kriterier för att motivera skolans elever för kommande högre studier medan det på Tallskolan, som en lärare uttryckte det, inte fanns elever som var ”aspiranter på högre betyg” och i konsekvens med det inte heller på högre utbildning. Kravet på betyg och bedömning påverkade både lärares och elevers praktik både i termer av vad verksamheten skulle innehålla, men också i termer av deras relation till eleverna. Betyg relaterades i den diskursiva praktiken framför allt till motivation och formativa aspekter på lärande och ansvarstagande, medan den socia105 la praktiken visade betygens klara relation till ordning, disciplin, kontroll, selektion och sortering.

The study uses ethnographic research from four classes in secondary school as well as from two groups in upper secondary school, to examine everyday racism as an element of the daily institutional lives of students and teachers. The study is based on long-term participant observation and 89 interviews. These were all audio-recorded and transcribed. In Sweden the education of ethnic groups is couched in a discourse of integration and inclusion. However, the research presented shows that the aims of integration and inclusion were not achieved. Unequal and discriminatory educational experiences operated through two related actions: by private everyday racism and through public racism denial.

This paper uses ethnographic research, based on longterm participant observation and interviews plus ten deep interviews with highly experienced teachers in Swedish compulsory secondary schools, to examine how teachers relate to teaching and learning in a school in transition. The studied teachers expressed that they felt they were being forced to be ‘creative and flexible’. New ways of describing their work emerged. They spoke of being entrepreneurs and of an efficiency and productivity that forced them to ‘sell themselves’ through time exploitation by a number of superimposed tasks to be performed under time pressure. An individualization of the collective emerged as a strong factor. The concept of entrepreneurial blurs the line between employee and private entrepreneurs. Teachers work, had according to studied teachers, changed in a variety of areas including much more numerous and complex tasks. Even though that was the dominant feature, also strong examples of resistance were identified. Teachers met up to expectations, but were also in accommodating to requirements becoming subject to a heavy workload. One example of resistance was how the need for documentation and action plans was met by refused collaboration with colleagues and refusals to go on staff appraisals.

The education system in Sweden has taken a strong neo-liberal turn over the past 15 years. This article uses ethnographic research from an Individual Programme (IP) in a Swedish upper secondary school to explore how alliances, collective actions and resistance can be materialised within the changed system. According to the author, the teachers in the study tried to implement consciousness-raising work in three ways: through 'encouraging critical awareness', 'encouraging students' collective actions' and 'working towards a collective'. This view of education stood in sharp contrast to a dominant ideology of education, which was characterised by self-regulation, self-governance, personal choice and other self-monitored activities.

The increasing use of ‘the private’ as a mean of delivery of public service, including several education reforms, such as decentralization, free school choice and a liberal tax-funded voucher system have paved the way for a rapid increase of upper secondary schools in Sweden. There is a strong competition between these schools. Today, half of all schools at the post 16-level are run by municipalities, while the rest is run by private owners, mainly organized as large school concerns. About 25% of all upper secondary students study at an independent school (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2012). As Bernstein stated already in 1996, the market relevance has become the key-orientating criterion for the selection of discourses. The ‘capitalisation’, which is making public schools into commodity producing enterprises (Rikowski, 2003) is now a fact. Furthermore the education market is no longer simply a matter of choice and competition, according to Ball (2004) it is a sophisticated system of goods, services, experiences and routes. In parallel with an increasing competition there is still political consensus in Sweden regarding the education’s mission of being socially compensatory and inclusive. However recent statistics and research highlight alarming results of increased segregation between municipalities, schools and between students (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2012; Östh, Andersson and Malmberg, 2012).

In recent years, the equivalence in Swedish education has decreased. The free school choice has led to homogenization of schools, which combined with peer effects and teacher expectations have widened the segregation. The competition forces schools to 'niche' their marketing to specific groups of students and to construct pedagogical identities or ‘brands’ (Dovemark & Holm, forthcoming). Some students become more desirable than others (Ball, 2004). The polarization between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ schools has made school-choice important for students´ learning outcomes and future chances (Skolverket, 2012; Östh et al, 2013). Present paper focuses on young people in two upper secondary schools in Sweden. The first is a big public school located in a deprived immigrant suburb, the second is a small independent middle class school in a city center. The schools represent different pedagogical identities (Bernstein, 2000). The study aims to examine a) students’ views of their school choice and transition from compulsory to upper secondary education, b) how current school practices prepare the students for future studies/careers. The study is based on interviews with students, principals and teachers and classroom observations, emanating from the project Inclusive and Competetive? Changing understandings and practices of social inclusion in upper secondary school´.