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Can Multicultural Urban Schools in Sweden Survive Freedom of Choice Policy?

Author

Listed:
  • Bunar, Nihad

    (Stockholm University Linnaeus Center for Integration Studies - SULCIS)

Abstract

The aim of this article is to describe and analyze how a number of multicultural urban schools in the Swedish cities of Stockholm and Malmö identify, understand and respond to the competition they have been exposed to on the emerging educational quasi-market. Based on interviews with school leaders and research on a wide range of secondary literature it is possible to identify three types of competitors: “white” schools, ordinary and religious/ethnic free schools and neighboring multicultural schools. The responding strategies vary from the logic of resignation and condemnation of parents for making “wrong” choices to a critical redefinition of pedagogical practices towards minority students and the equivocal alliances. I argue that the competition as an exclusive incentive for school development, as proposed by the neoliberal educationalists, only partly has proven its aptitude. If the education system is to maintain its transformative capacity then interventions are needed in the very basis of the structure of inequality that generates social differences; in the way the educational market is organized as well as; in the multicultural urban schools’ daily operations and communications with their local communities.

Suggested Citation

  • Bunar, Nihad, 2009. "Can Multicultural Urban Schools in Sweden Survive Freedom of Choice Policy?," SULCIS Working Papers 2009:3, Stockholm University, Linnaeus Center for Integration Studies - SULCIS.
  • Handle: RePEc:hhs:sulcis:2009_003
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    File URL: http://www.su.se/content/1/c6/01/18/05/SULCIS_WP2009_3.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Caroline M. Hoxby, 2003. "The Economics of School Choice," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number hox03-1, May.
    2. Thomas J. Nechyba, 2000. "Mobility, Targeting, and Private-School Vouchers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 130-146, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    school choice; multicultural urban schools; competition; resignation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education

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