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´.

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.

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.

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).