The governors of school markets? : Local education authorities, school choice and equity in Finland and Sweden

As one of the key elements of the Nordic welfare model, education systems are based on the idea of providing equal educational opportunities, regardless of gender, social class and geographic origin. Since the 1990s, Nordic welfare states have undergone a gradual but wide-ranging transformation towards a more market-based mode of public service delivery. Along this trajectory, the advent of school choice policy and the growing variation in the between-school achievement results have diversified the previously homogenous Nordic education systems. The aim of our paper is to analyse how Finnish and Swedish local education authorities comprehend and respond to the intertwinement of the market logic of school choice and the ideology of equality. The data consist of two sets of in-depth thematic interviews with staff from the local providers of education, municipal education authorities. The analysis discloses the ways in which national legislation has authorized municipal authorities to govern the provision of education.Peer reviewe

Towards Cities as Communities

Cities should be communities that ensure high quality of life promoting effective services, sustaining knowledge acquisition and developing innovation, using technology to sustain urban growth and promote value creation. Cities becoming smart communities should adopt a smart approach to driving social and economic urban development employing information technology to promote innovation. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) help cities to achieve successful issues as smart communities within knowledge-based global and local economies and open societies. Sustaining smart growth relies on rethinking the city as a smart and sustainable community using technology to support collaboration between local government, businesses, education and research centres and people to change the city in a significant and positive way. Sustainable, inclusive and open cities should evolve as communities that use technology to support human capital value, to use knowledge sources encouraging public and private organizations to believe in cooperation for sustaining change through innovation