This work discusses how the complex relationship between welfare policies of equity and market efficiencies/deficiencies of education policies is handled in local practices. It offers contributions from the five Nordic countries - Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland - and pays special attention to questions about access and diversity in upper secondary education. The book draws on a wide range of theoretical frameworks and research projects and provides multiple perspectives of how upper secondary staff and students have experienced reforms of education governance during the last two or three decades. The research projects range from in-depth case studies to the analysis of large-scale data sets and inform practitioners, policy makers and researchers about practices of education policy that are highly influenced by market forces.

Autorentext

Annette Rasmussen is an associate professor at Aalborg University since 2010. Her main research interests are in ethnographic approaches to education policies and practices, which she has studied in several school and learning contexts. In her recent research, focus is on policy issues of employability, performativity and talent, especially in relation to social background and inequality. Her latest publication on this includes Cultivating Excellence in Education. A Critical Policy Study on Talent, which is published in the series of Educational Governance Research and co-authored by professor Christian Ydesen.

Marianne Dovemark is a senior researcher and professor emerita of Education at the University of Gothenburg. Her main research interests are in sociology of education concerning policy and politics related to marketization of education and personalization of learning. Theoretically, she belongs to a critical tradition, methodologically in critical ethnography. She is a member of the board of the international research journal Ethnography and Education. She has undertaken research and published extensively in the field of personalized learning and marketization of education. One of her latest contribution, co-authored with professor Dennis Beach, is a chapter in the edited volume Neoliberalism and Market Forces in Education. Lessons from Sweden.