This case study explores school segregation prevention in Karlstads municipality. It adresses the division in Swedish schools based on students backgrounds and socioeconomic status, hindering education quality and limiting diverse interactions. Residential segregation and school choice contribute to the issue. Temporary solutions, like expanding existing schools, have been implemented, but a long-term approach is needed to maintain teaching quality and avoid overcrowding. The study acknowledges the impact of school choice freedom and the presence of private actors on the municipality´s ability to control student compositions. Within this context, the study examines the municipality´s capacity to control student flows through various measures such as reorganizing school units, constructing new schools, or adapting existing ones. Additionally, the study explores how localizing secondary schools can potentionally prevent school segregation. The study emphasize considering student composition and addressing segregation when planning school locations, particulary within the context of the proposed new secondary school in Karlstad.  The study finds that the free school choice limits municipality´s control over student flows and composition, leading to school segregation. Neo-liberal education reforms have created a market-driven school sector with private schools and free school choice. The responsibility for human development and success now lies with the local community and individuals. While attracting students based on status affects student flows and compositions, it does not prevent school segregation, as primarily resource-rich students change schools, reinforcing societal differences. Changing catchment areas, involving mixed residential areas, can partially prevent segregation but requires collaboration between politics, the municipality and the local community for legitimacy to overcome resistance. The study also finds that localization alone cannot prevent school segregation. Free school choice continues to hinder and limit the municipality´s efforts to combat segregation. Factors beyond the school´s control require actions beyond the the education sector. School choice based on socioeconomic status and student demographics increases dispaities and leads to homogeneous student compositions. While strategic localization can influence student compositions to some exent, it is insufficient when competition and school choice come into play. School localization cannot effectively counter schoolsegregation when students can opt out and attractiveness is crucial. However, ignoring free school choice is not an option for a successful investment in a new school. Factors like populaition growth and new housing in central areas contribute to increased demand, but the primary factors is students preference for central schools. Localization must consider this to compete for students and ensure sufficient capacity, benefiting students with choice while negatively impacting those remaining at unselected schools as their resources decrease.

Uppsatsen syftar till att studera hur gymnasieskolor profilerar sig genom marknadsföring. Detta tillämpas genom en diskursanalytisk studie av sex gymnasieskolor, som alla tillgodoser det Samhällsvetenskapliga programmet, belägna i Uppsala kommun. Av den marknadsföring som funnits tillgänglig har urvalet begränsats till respektive skolas hemsida. Resultatet visar på ett samband mellan hur skolorna talar om utbildning och elev. Det centrala för detta samband är hur eleven, genom skolornas marknadsföring, konstrueras som en konsument av utbildning. I denna konstruktion av utbildningsalternativ framträder olika profileringskategorier som skolorna tyr sig till genom marknadsföring. Den gemensamma profileringskategorin är den marknadsorienterade som visar hur skolorna presenterar sitt utbildningsalternativ genom att negativt särskilja sig från konkurrerande skolor. I detta finns en förskjutning från information om utbildning till marknadsföring av utbildning. I sin tur innebär detta att den information eleven tar del av inför sitt gymnasieval, också innehåller inslag av erbjudanden och reklam. I och med att eleven konstrueras som konsument har det skapats en kunskaps- och maktrelation mellan elev och skola. Denna relation konstruerar sedermera en situation där skolorna är beroende av att marknadsorientera sig för att utmärka sig i konkurrenssituationen som uppstått av det fria skolvalet. / The essay aims to study how secondary schools are profiled by marketing. This is applied through a discourse analytic study of six secondary schools, all of which meet the Social Science program, located in Uppsala. Of the marketing that has been available, the selection is limited to each school's website. The results show a correlation between how schools are talking about education and students. The key to this correlation is that the student through the schools marketing is designed as a consumer of education. This construction of educational options shows different profiling categories that schools cling to through marketing. The common profiling category is the market orientated that shows how schools will present their educational options by negative differentiate itself from rival schools. This is a shift from information on education for the promotion of education. In turn, this means that the information students take part in before secondary school also contains elements of promotions and advertising. As the student is constructed as a consumer, a knowledge and power relationship between student and school has been created. This knowledge and power relations construct later a situation where schools are dependent on market orientation to excel in the competitive environment created by the free school choice.

The study is made in Nacka, a suburb of the capital of Sweden, Stockholm, and focuses on “the parental school choice" that takes place when children start in first grade at the age of six.  New differences in the number of pupils attending various municipal schools have appeared after reforms in the early 1990s giving parents free choice of elementary school for their children. Some schools are located in areas where most children have a middle class background, while others are placed in less attractive surroundings where the parents have a lower educational status, and are more often immigrants. Parents living in the latter kind of surroundings can now send their children to schools further off, but located in more attractive areas. This leads to some schools get an increasing number of pupils and others gets a decreasing. The income of schools in Sweden is largely based on the number of pupils; the idea behind the reform is that schools with a good educational quality should be rewarded by the system. But other factors also influence the parent’s choice; bad rumors, good reputations, the number of children with immigrant background, the physical surroundings and social atmosphere where the school is located, and maybe also ethnical prejudice. My study concerns the grounds upon which school the parents choose the first school for their children in a part of Nacka municipality. The study is based on staff interviews from a school located in a socio-economically disfavored area as well as interviews and questionnaire surveys with parents having a choice between the nearby school and a school located in a more wealthy area. I found that the parent’s primary criterion when choosing schools is still proximity. When looking at the group that has opted out the most nearby schools however, the reputation of the local school – the spreading of bad rumors – proved to be a major influence. An example from the answers I received is the following: I chose a school based on the number of immigrants in it, my child should have a safe schooling, it’s said that schools with a lot of immigrants have an atmosphere that is much tougher, I’ve heard from others, that the “apartment complex” school is a tougher school to attend. (Interview Lisa, verbal, March 2010) Many parents obviously prefer not to have their children attend a school located in a socio-economic disfavored area with a large low-income and/or immigrant population. They are worried that their children will have trouble even getting the final grade from primary school, which is a precondition to entering the secondary, “gymnasium” level.

This study examines young people’s subjective experiences of changing school environments from resource-poor primary schools to resource-rich upper secondary schools in Stockholm. Previous statistics show that resource-poor primary schools located in the most socio-economically vulnerable parts of the city have the lowest grade point average and lower educational quality/standards. Based on young people’s stories (who have had such experience of school environment change), it is the purpose to understand the reason behind their decision to change school environment as well as to analyze their experience of it (with focus on well-being, adaptation and social relationships). The study is qualitative and five semi-structured interviews are conducted. Based on Bourdieu’s theories of capital, symbolic violence, social field and habitus, Collins’ theory of social rituals, and McPherson et. Al’s theory of homophily, the results show that students showing study motivation and high grades are given priority in the field of education, resulting in inequity. Therefore, teachers and school staff have a great deal of influence on peers' school choice. The reasons for the change of school differs between foreign- and Swedish-born. The former group emphasizes integration into the Swedish society, the latter emphasizes the identification with the school’s profile and has greater knowledge of the school system. The adaptation to the new school environment was problematic at first, due to the socio-economical differences between the students. The educational level was also much higher, which shows a deteriorating equivalence in the Swedish school system. In addition, the majority of the students were ethnic Swedes, which reflects the pattern of school segregation in Stockholm. These aspects lead to common feelings of exclusion, showing patterns of homophilic social relationships based on different criteria. Joint activities show that those structural differences can be blurred.