School inspection in Sweden: historical evolution, resurrection and gradual change

This paper aims to describe and highlight some important continuities and changes in the Swedish school inspection case, with particular emphasis on the justification and use of inspections as an enduring and recurring political instrument to govern education: what roles and functions have been assigned to the inspectorate in all its incarnations, what means of operations have been employed, and how can the continuities as well as the changes be understood? The analysis is based on policy texts, such as government commission reports and bills, as well as on a range of previous researches and studies. The theoretical resources aim to account for the dynamic relationship that underlies both drastic as well as more incremental institutional reproduction and change. School inspections were first performed in Sweden as early as the 1860s. Since then, inspections have been carried out by different national and regional agencies, and they have differed in focus, scope, and intensity. School inspection was abolished altogether in the wake of the extensive decentralisation reforms of the 1990s, but after being in the political cold for a decade, inspections were reintroduced in 2003. In 2008 a separate agency, the Schools Inspectorate (SI), was formed, intensifying inspection efforts even further. Through gradual as well as more fundamental processes of change, school inspection institutions seem to be readily adaptable to different expectations and solutions as the political context varies. It has remained, at its core, an enduring institution that manages to gain and regain legitimacy; this is amply illustrated by the Swedish case.Cet article entend décrire et mettre en évidence à la fois les continuités et les changements dans le cas de l’inspection scolaire suédoise, avec une attention particulière aux justifications et aux usages de l’inspection comprise comme un instrument politique durable et récurrent de gouvernement de l’éducation. Quels rôles et fonctions ont été attribués à l’inspection sous toutes ses formes historiques ? À quels moyens et modes de fonctionnement a-t-on eu recours ? Comment comprendre à la fois les continuités et les changements qu’ont connus les inspections ? L’analyse se fonde sur de la documentation institutionnelle (rapports de commissions, projets de loi) ainsi que sur des recherches et des études antérieures. L’approche théorique retenue entend rendre compte des dynamiques institutionnelles de changement (ou de reproduction) que connaissent les inspections, que ces dynamiques soient drastiques ou incrémentales. Les premières inspections scolaires furent effectuées dès les années 1860. Depuis cette date, les inspections ont été assurées par différentes agences régionales et nationales et leur objet, leur champ d’application et leur intensité ont différé. L’inspection scolaire fut supprimée lors de la mise en œuvre des importantes réformes de décentralisation des années 1990. Mais après un enterrement politique d’une dizaine d’années, elle fut réintroduite en 2003. En 2008, une agence à part entière, l’« Inspection des écoles » (SI, pour « Schools Inspectorate »), fut même constituée pour pousser plus loin l’effort d’inspection. En permettant des changements aussi bien graduels que plus fondamentaux, les inspections apparaissent finalement comme des institutions qui s’adaptent rapidement aux différentes attentes et solutions mises en avant selon les contextes politiques. Comme l’illustre amplement le cas suédois, l’inspection reste, dans son fondement même, une institution qui dure, qui gagne et regagne sans cesse de la légitimité

Transcending borders in higher education: Internationalisation policies in Sweden

This article examines the national and European policy contexts that shaped the Swedish internationalisation agenda in higher education since 2000, the policy ideas that were mobilised to promote it, and the national priorities that steered higher education debates. The analysis highlights how domestic and European policy priorities, as well as discourses around increasing global economic reach and building solidarity across the world, have produced an internationalisation strategy that is distinctly ‘national’. Drawing on the analysis of the most recent internationalisation strategies we argue that the particular Swedish approach to internationalisation has its ideational foundations in viewing higher education as a political instrument to promote social mobility and justice, as well as a means to develop economic competitiveness and employability capacity. In addition, internationalisation has been used to legitimise national reform goals, but also as a policy objective on its own with the ambition to position Sweden as a competitive knowledge nation in a global context. </p

Preparing Education Students for an International Future? Connecting Students’ Experience to Institutional Contexts

This article focuses on “internationalization at home” (IaH) for education students in Swedish Universities and its significance for their professional formation and future practice. We draw on research in two large institutions and explore the perceptions and experiences of internationalization of home students in education. We find that while the “intercultural” understanding of students is well developed, the international and intercultural dimensions of experiencing IaH are limited, due to several institutional and learning environment contexts. This has consequences for the social dimensions of future teaching practice. In addition, the perception of the discipline as “national” is significant in shaping the outlook of students toward international questions and their own future personal and professional mobility. We contextualize these findings using documentary analysis and staff interviews, and argue that to achieve intercultural and international learning environments of quality, social relevance, and long-term social benefit, we need to rethink how internationalization perspectives are integrated in teacher education courses. </p

Swedish free school companies going global: Spatial imaginaries and movable pedagogical ideas

Enabled by market-oriented policies implemented in the early 1990s, a nation-wide for-profit education industry has emerged and flourished in Sweden. As a more recent expansion strategy, Swedish school companies have begun exporting their school and early childhood education and care services internationally. In this article, three such companies and a selection of the foreign operations they have set up are studied to analyse how they describe the education services they are establishing in the new national settings. The findings show that the companies have developed and followed different edu-business models, using and transforming particular pedagogical ideas and connecting them to different spatial imaginaries. These include the Swedish/Scandinavian as both places and idealized spaces, infused with borderless global transformative spatial imaginaries on the creation of autonomous learners and futuristic education visions for global futures. Educational profiles and concepts from the Swedish context are both adjusted and marketed to the foreign settings, and entail stories on spaces and mobilities, encompassing pedagogy, teachers and students. </p

Inspection and the media: the media and inspection

Research on the media’s role in policy is long-established (see for example Fitzgerald & Housley 2009; Gerstl-Pepin 2007; Gewirtz et al. 2007; Wallace 2007), but there has not been so much attention to the relationship between inspectorates and media. In this chapter, we argue that inspectorates depend on the media: the capacity of the media to publicise and spread their messages about school success and failure contributes very strongly to their influence. However it also seems to be the case that as inspectorates use and exploit the media to spread their messages about school performance, and thus buttress their authority and greatly extend their reach beyond the education world, they also become vulnerable to media pressure and – to a degree – reliant on media coverage to sustain their authority. In other words, there is an interdependent relationship between inspection and the media, in which media priorities may adversely affect the image of inspection. Thus while Ofsted has become highly visible and a topic of household conversation, greatly increasing its presence in the lives of parents, pupils and teachers, this is especially the case where stories of school success and failure are presented in highly dramatic terms (as victories, defeats, struggles and disasters). There are obvious risks for Ofsted in this presentation of their work: pressure to find stories that will attract coverage undermines attention to the substantial but more mundane aspects of inspection, and creates expectations of powerful inspection effects. Indeed negative media coverage of schools ‘in crisis’ reinforces the demand for political action, and heightens the perception of inspectorates as a force for powerful, effective intervention. There is, moreover, a pre-occupation in the tabloid press with reporting ‘bad news’, so that dramatic coverage of failing schools reinforces public perception of schooling in crisis and contributes to pressure on inspectorates. Against such a background, it is apparent that the relationship with the media is complex, and that it plays a significant role in our analysis of inspection as a governing practice

The Governing-Evaluation-Knowledge Nexus : Swedish Higher Education as a Case

The aim of this chapter is to analyse how results from the 2011 to 2014 national evaluation and quality assurance (EQA) system were communicated to and via the media. First, the analysis focuses on the attempted media framing, as manifested in press releases of national evaluations from the responsible national agencies. Second, the higher education institution-media interactions, in the context of two national quality evaluations from two subject areas (education and specialist nursing), are analysed from the perspective of how four higher education institutions’ attempted framings were (re)presented by the media. The chapter concludes with a discussion pointing to interdependence and possible reinforcement of the media-quality assurance relationship and points to some possible implications for education governing. The chapter also discusses the silences and articulations that could not be detected in the studied data, as situated within the context of reputation management and media display in the contemporary “evaluation society”.</p

Tid för reformering : Försöksverksamheten med slopad timplan i grundskolan

In 1999, the Swedish Parliament decided to launch an experiment to test the idea of replacing, at the compulsory educational level, the national time schedule with localized control of schedules. This was in keeping with strategies of deregulation, decentralisation and increased local autonomy that had dominated Swedish education policy, particularly since the 1990s. The aim of the thesis is to describe and analyse the initiation, decision, implementation and consequences of this experiment The analytical framework combines several different approaches and theories from the literature on public policy and policy analysis. The framework encompasses four dimensions, which cover the experiment’s origins, local application in the classroom setting and consequences. On the empirical level, findings are based on interviews with 32 municipal school directors, and head teachers, teachers and pupils in three schools participating in the experiment, as well as written sources from schools, municipalities, and the national level. The thesis shows that the policy problem the experiment was intended to resolve was represented in an inconsistent manner: On the one hand, the experiment was perceived as a driving force for change; on the other hand, it was seen as legitimising a change that had already taken place. Furthermore, the experiment was formulated in vague terms, which accorded far-reaching discretionary space to the schools. The program’s causal theory expressed by the policy makers was complex, containing a multifaceted chain of presumptions on a range of activities and processes through which the experiment ultimately would lead to improved opportunities for pupils to reach the educational objectives. Empirically, this prediction proved to be invalid as student achievement did not increase. The degree of implementation at the local level varied according to the comprehension, capability and willingness of those involved to carry out the experiment. The courses of action taken by the schools frequently could have been undertaken within the existing legislative framework, as they mostly concerned new ways of working and organising staff and pupils. An assessment of the objectives attained showed that, even if elements of developmental work corresponding to the direction stated in the policy documents were observed, the experiment did not emerge as the primary explanatory factor for this result Thus, the net impact of the experiment can be questioned. If judged against the criterion of adaptiveness, the results are more successful than if the experiment is assessed according to goal-attainment and the validity of the program theory. The experiment was found to integrate, alter and accommodate itself readily to local needs. The thesis illustrates the complexity of formulating and implementing policy in a decentralised context and points to important aspects in the historical background of the programme, which often tend to be overlooked when policy is analysed and discussed. At the same time, the study sheds light on the significant role played by street-level implementation actors in the educational context

Tracheal Extubation of Patients Cared for in the Anesthesia Setting : Experiences Described by Registered Nurse Anesthetists and Anesthesiologists

Background In Sweden, extubation is an interdisciplinary process involving teamwork between Registered Nurse Anesthetists (RNA) and Anesthesiologists, and comprehensive demands are placed on the professionals providing anesthesia. The extubation of the endotracheal tube after General Anesthesia (GA) is a critical moment for the patient. In that moment, the patient is in a vulnerable state and at risk of suffering severe complications, such as hypoxia, laryngospasm, aspiration, and hypertension. Anesthesia deals with identifying options, making risk assessments and reconsiderations. Clinical decision-making in anesthesia includes making decisions quickly and sometimes re-evaluating these just as quickly. In the often brief meeting prior to anesthesia, a relationship with the patient emerges and an unspoken demand arises: to care for the life that is placed in the hands of the anesthetists. Aim The overall aim was to gain an understanding of the Registered Nurse Anesthetists’ and Anesthesiologists’ experiences of their decision-making practices in the process of extubation of the endotracheal tube in the anesthesia setting with patients undergoing general anesthesia. Method This licentiate thesis consists of two studies (I, II), both conducted with a qualitative design using focus-group interviews (I) and Individual interviews (II) to collect data. A total of 20 RNAs from two hospitals and 17 Anesthesiologists from three hospitals were included, using a consecutive sampling strategy. Both studies were analyzed with qualitative content analysis and adopted an inductive approach to seek a deeper understanding of the phenomena, using manifest content analysis. In order to explore how the RNAs and Anesthesiologists experience the process of extubation and to identify nuances between them, the two studies were merged together in this licentiate thesis. Results When merging these studies (I, II) together by combining subcategories from both, six themes emerged. The theme, Assembling unique decisions, deals with the how the RNAs (I) and Anesthesiologists (II) assess, prepare, prevent and reconsider when planning for the extubation. Acting upon sensibilities consists of them recognizing patterns, leaning on their experience, and being receptive to different inputs from the patient and other professionals. The third theme, Being guided by intuition, included how the RNAs and Anesthesiologists relied on their feelings and were guided by emotions when deciding when to extubate. Safeguarding the patient deals with them protecting and acting as an advocate for the patient and how they focus on and are humble in the process of extubation. In the fifth theme, Being in a vulnerable position, the RNAs (I) felt they were on their own when making the decision on when to extubate, while the Anesthesiologists (II) felt as if they were one of the team. Using their own receptivity included how they established a connection with the patient and sensed the atmosphere. Discussion In their first encounter with the patient, or when obtaining knowledge about the patient, the RNAs and Anesthesiologists had already started to tailor a mental plan of the extubation unique to each patient. The plan consisted of small pieces of information being gathered and assembled together during the anesthesia, and this information is then combined with their experience of similar situations and with their intuition with the aim of safeguarding the patient. RNAs and Anesthesiologists act upon sensibilities when deciding on when to extubate. These strategies align with the concept of phronesis, a form of knowledge understood as practical wisdom that facilitates good clinical judgement in being rational, which is based on pre-understanding, experience, and interpersonal relationships and which is difficult to teach to someone else.Bakgrund I Sverige är extubation av patienter som genomgått generell anestesi (GA) i den anestesiologiska kontexten en interdisciplinär process mellan anestesisjuksköterskor och anestesiologer, som utför extubationen självständigt eller i samarbete med varandra. Inför extubation görs bedömningar om patienten återfått tillräcklig funktion respiratoriskt, cirkulatoriskt och neuromuskulärt för att klara av att spontanandas och skydda sin luftväg på ett säkert sätt efter extubering. Anestesi handlar om att identifiera valmöjligheter, göra riskbedömningar och att kontinuerligt ompröva sina beslut. Kliniskt beslutsfattande inom anestesi innebär att snabbt behöva fatta ett beslut som ibland behöver revideras lika fort. Att utföra extubation ställer höga krav på de professioner som utför den i en högteknologisk och tidspressad miljö. Det finns risk för att patienten drabbas av allvarliga komplikationer som hypoxi, laryngospasm, aspiration eller hypertension i samband med extubationen. I det ofta korta mötet med patienten inför anestesi finns ett outtalat krav att ta hand om det liv som läggs i händerna på anestesisjuksköterskorna och anestesiologerna. I dagsläget saknas forskning kring vad anestesisjuksköterskor och anestesiologer baserar sitt beslut att extubera på. Syfte Att få en förståelse för hur anestesisjuksköterskor och anestesiologerna erfar beslutsfattande i extubationsprocessen i den anestesiologiska kontexten hos patienter som genomgått GA. Metod Denna licentiatavhandling består av två studier (I, II), båda genomförda med en kvalitativ design med induktiv ansats. För att samla in data genomfördes fokusgruppintervjuer (I) och individuella intervjuer (II). Totalt 20 Anestesisjuksköterskor (I) från två sjukhus och 17 Anestesiologer (II) från tre iv sjukhus inkluderades med hjälp av ändamålsenligt urval. Båda studierna analyserades med kvalitativ manifest innehållsanalys beskriven av Graneheim och Lundman (2004). För att identifiera mönster och nyanser mellan anestesisjuksköterskornas (I) och anestesiologernas (II) erfarenheter av extubationsprocessen sammanfördes de två studierna. Detta genom att subkategorier från de båda studierna med liknande innehåll bildade teman som resulterade i licentiatavhandlingens resultat. Resultat Att fatta beslut i extubationsprocessen utifrån anestesisjuksköterskor och anestesiologer erfarenheter, beskrivs i sex teman. Temat Utforma unika beslut beskriver hur de båda professionerna bedömer, förbereder, förhindrar risker och utvärderar sina beslut i extubationsprocessen. Agera utifrån känslointryck, hur de känner igen mönster, lutar sig mot sin erfarenhet och är mottaglig för den information som patienten och andra professioner ger. Temat Vara guidad av intuition, beskriver hur de förlitar sig på sin magkänsla när de beslutar sig för att extubera. Skyddande av patienten beskriver deras agerande som företrädare samt hur de är fokuserade och ödmjuka i extubationsprocessen. I temat, Vara i en sårbar position, beskriver anestesisjuksköterskorna att de kände sig ensamma i extubationsprocessen medan anestesiologerna att de behövde lita på anestesisjuksköterskorna när de själva inte var på plats i operationssalen vilket bidrog till en känsla av att vara sårbar. Temat Använda sin egen receptivitet beskriver hur anestesisjuksköterskorna etablerade en relation till patienten och hur anestesiologerna kände in atmosfären i operationssalen i extubationsprocessen. Konklusion Denna licentiatavhandling tillför kunskap och förståelse för anestesisjuksköterskor och anestesiologers erfarenheter av att fatta beslut i extubationsprocessen när de tar hand om en patient i ett sårbart tillstånd. Samt hur de trots att de utför extubationen i en teknisk miljö med många potentiella störningsmoment kan se patienten bortom monitorer och skapa en relation med patienten.Vid tidpunkten för disputationen var följande delarbete opublicerat: delarbete 2 inskickat manuskript.At the time of the doctoral defence the following paper was unpublished: paper 2 submitted manuscript.</p

Critical perspectives in and approaches to educaitonal leadership in two Nordic countries

What this chapter is about This chapter will situate educational leadership in the Nordic countries in relation to political-ideological transformations that have taken place during the last decades by exploring the comparatively divergent development of neo-liberal reform in Sweden and Norway and critically discussing implications for education as a public good in general and for educational leadership in particular. Our aim is to situate educational leadership within the broader political environments that often go unaccounted for in studies of school leadership. By framing schools and their leaders as political agents, we will show how school principals may enact their roles in ways that are defined not just by their local contextual conditions, but also by their macro-level political structures. By connecting two bodies of scholarship (policy and leadership), we contextualize the field of educational leadership to include an explicit consideration of the broader policy forces and political contexts that act on educational leaders’ work. This approach offers perspectives to promote critical reflection on the implications of the reciprocal relationship between school leadership and education policy

Transcending borders in higher education : Internationalisation policies in Sweden

This article examines the national and European policy contexts that shaped the Swedish internationalisation agenda in higher education since 2000, the policy ideas that were mobilised to promote it, and the national priorities that steered higher education debates. The analysis highlights how domestic and European policy priorities, as well as discourses around increasing global economic reach and building solidarity across the world, have produced an internationalisation strategy that is distinctly ‘national’. Drawing on the analysis of the most recent internationalisation strategies we argue that the particular Swedish approach to internationalisation has its ideational foundations in viewing higher education as a political instrument to promote social mobility and justice, as well as a means to develop economic competitiveness and employability capacity. In addition, internationalisation has been used to legitimise national reform goals, but also as a policy objective on its own with the ambition to position Sweden as a competitive knowledge nation in a global context