Academic literature on the topic 'Educational equalization – Sweden'

This article describes and explains the movement of female relative wages in Sweden from 1920 to 1995. During this period the aggregate gender wage gap shrunk from 41 to 15%. The bulk of the change took place in two periods: 1920 to 1940 and 1960 to 1980. With regard to determining factors, the analysis distinguishes between the period before 1960, when the rise in the female relative wage was the result of employment shifts, and after 1960, when wage structure change was the prime determinant. In the interwar period, women moved from low-paid to better-paid jobs, notably in trade and commerce and public services, as legal and administrative reforms opened up the public sector to women and educational reforms raised the educational level of the female labor force. The most rapid change in the gender wage gap occurred at a time when the solidaristic wage policy doctrine was embraced by the blue-collar trade unions and formed the basis of claims in wage negotiations. This study suggests, however, that excess demand for female labor rather than egalitarian ambitions of strong trade unions was the decisive factor behind the rapid reduction of the gender gap. Likewise, supply and demand shifts may well explain why the female relative wage stagnated from the late 1970s. These observations add up to the somewhat unorthodox conclusion that institutions were of primary importance for female relative wage development in the interwar period, while market forces played the leading role after 1960.

Abstract I draw on the findings of a recently completed comparative research project to address the question: how did intergenerational social mobility change over cohorts of men and women born in the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, and what role, if any, did education play in this? The countries studied are the US, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Notwithstanding the differences between them, by and large they present the same picture. Rates of upward mobility increased among cohorts born in the second quarter of the century and then declined among those born later. Among earlier born cohorts, social fluidity increased (that is, the association between the class a person was born into and the class he or she came to occupy as an adult declined) and then remained unchanged for those born after mid-century. The association between class origins and educational attainment followed much the same trend as social fluidity. This suggests that growing equalization in education may have contributed to the increase in social fluidity. In our analyses we find that this is so, but educational expansion also led to greater fluidity in some countries. There is also a strong link between upward mobility and social fluidity. Upward mobility was mostly driven by the expansion of higher-level white-collar jobs, especially in the 30 years after the end of the Second World War. This facilitated social fluidity because people from working class and farming origins could move into the service or salariat classes without reducing the rate at which children born into those classes could remain there. Educational expansion, educational equalization, and rapid structural change in the economies of the US and Europe all contributed to greater social fluidity among people born in the second quarter of the twentieth century. For people born after mid-century, rates of downward mobility have increased: however, despite the lack of further educational equalization and less pronounced structural change, social fluidity has remained unchanged.

The article examines the problem of social justice and equality in education, and its reflection in the socio-political discourse and education systems of four Nordic countries: Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden. The author traces the movement in the Scandinavian countries towards redefining equality in the focus of the social democratic ideology from providing equal starting opportunities and equal access to educational resources to a wider equalization, which includes educational outcomes. The experience of the Scandinavian countries to achieve "education for all" is presented, reflected in the national programs and refracted through the prism of the socio-political and institutional context. The deep relation between the adopted egalitarian course in education, typical for the countries in the region and their leading positions in international educational rankings, as well as the high level of socio-economic well-being is considered.

Defence date: 14 June 2016
Examining Board: Professor Pepper D. Culpepper, European University Institute (Supervisor); Professor Sven H. Steinmo, European University Institute (Co-Supervisor); Professor Ben W. Ansell, University of Oxford; Professor Marius R. Busemeyer, University of Konstanz.
Awarded the Linz-Rokkan Thesis Prize in Political Sociology at the European University Institute conferring ceremony on 9 June 2017
In this thesis, I ask about the political determinants of educational inequalities, and posit that as school quality differs, the competition for school places poses a problem to the social right of equal educational opportunities at the compulsory education level. What are the policy options to equalise access to quality education? When are these reformed? These questions motivated the design of a typology of Student Sorting Institutions with which we can meaningfully compare formal institutional arrangements that interfere in the competition for quality school places. A critical review of sociology of stratification and economics of education literature suggests classifying Student Sorting Institutions along two dimensions: whether they grant school choice to parents, and whether the allocation process permits academic selection. Building on recent insights of the field of political economy of education, the thesis explains institutional reform with an interest-based approach. Policymakers encounter a trilemma between high choice, low selection and enhancing school quality in disadvantaged neighbourhoods: the high choice/low selection option of regulating school choice particularly benefits students that want to opt out of disadvantaged neighbourhood schools, hence risking increasing segregation of such schools. The winners of each institutional arrangement vary according to income and education. How the trilemma is solved depends on parties in government who cater to their electorates' interests. These then change with educational expansion. The high political cost and uncertain benefit structure of such institutions favour the status quo. With the use of new insights in the methodology of process tracing, I show that the theory empirically accounts for variation of reform trajectories in France, Sweden, and the UK (England for school policy) from the 1980s to the 2000s. In contrast, I argue that my findings shed doubt on the explanatory role of neoliberal ideas and path-dependent feedback effects to account for these reform trajectories.

Sweden was renowned for attempting a “middle way” between capitalism and socialism, with a market economy combined with ambitious policies for equalizing both opportunities and living conditions. Did this facilitate social mobility, and was equalization of educational attainment the mechanism behind it? We document increasing social mobility during a period of strong growth of higher class occupations, both for men and women, an increase that, however, tends to level off for cohorts born in the mid-1960s. We also verify that most of this development into a more socially open society was due to the equalization of educational outcomes. However, the very substantial growth of upper secondary and tertiary education also contributed, because this expansion meant that more people in younger cohorts received higher education where, in Sweden, the importance of social origin for class destinations is considerably weaker than at lower levels of education.