On the market: Privatization and 'new' populations at a metropolitan school fair
In consideration of Stockholm, Sweden’s mature school choice policies, I ask (1) How are ethnically diverse students offered a sense of representation in Stockholm’s competitive high school market and (2) How do schools within Stockholm’s competitive school market craft their identity? Data collection consisted of gathering viewbooks and taking field notes at Stockholm’s Gymnasiemässan, a high school fair, which hosts rising students and places municipal schools in direct competition with their privately managed, public-funded counterparts, free schools. Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and ethnographical methods, along with market signaling as an analytical frame, I found that when comparing the viewbooks of schools that were present during all three years of observation that there was a significant difference in the representation of visible minorities students in viewbooks between free schools and municipal schools, with municipal schools having a greater presence of visible minorities, though these differences were not significant across all schools for all years. Additionally and of equal importance, I found that (1) though the numbers of visible minorities did not seem to increase dramatically over time, security theater and surveillance seemed to rise in response to national narratives regarding recently arrived unaccompanied minors, (2) student representatives of schools were relatively diverse, however, adult representatives were overwhelmingly white Swedish adults, (3) Gymnasiemässan is considered the “Black Friday” for schools in Stockholm, with an intentionally chaotic and mesmerizing character, and Consequently, the branding of the schools, as opposed to some metric of quality, is the principle function of schools at the event and presumably within macrocosmic space of Stockholm.
School choice, market signaling, Sweden, visible minorities.
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign