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.

This manuscript contains discussion and analysis of the growing number of public schools in the state of Florida that are increasingly more segregated than at the height of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Further discussion and analysis on the influence that standardized testing, like the FCAT, has on the resegregation of public schools and the economic conditions of our Florida schools are also included. Interviews, field observations, and research data are provided and illustrate the burden that high stakes testing has on Florida's K-12 public schools, its teachers, principals, and the students who attend those schools. For the purposes of this study, I have explored the realms of Florida's deteriorating public education system through direct field study and observation in public schools across the state of Florida, as well as collecting published available data regarding funding, race, ethnicity, gender, and standardized test scores. I have visited schools in Miami-Dade County, Orange County, Seminole County, as well as Broward County, Florida, in order to better analyze the gap between the "have's" and the "have not's," across Florida's public schools. This research project has permitted my investigation to further dissect the linkage between school funding, standardized testing, school environments, and cultural conditions and roles played by economics, race, demographics, family income, social environment, and standardized testing.

Recognizing the role of diversity in fostering social cohesion and economic resilience, the European Union has emphasized inclusive policies. However, urban segregation complicates this objective, significantly impacting various areas of society, including education. Previous studies have highlighted the complex social dynamics influencing equal access to education and school segregation, which are closely linked to urban segregation. In the Swedish context, national reforms in the 1990s exacerbated school segregation, deepening socio-economic and ethnic divides. This thesis explores the effectiveness of Linköping Municipality's strategies to counteract urban segregation through education, focusing on community perceptions of these measures. The strategies include reinforcement efforts, such as increased funding and staff training, and dispersal initiatives, like school closures and relocation of school sections, aimed at improving educational outcomes in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas. Using qualitative methods, including document analysis and semi-structured interviews, the study assesses the perceived effectiveness of these measures. Findings reveal that while reinforcement strategies are generally approved, practical challenges and gaps between policy intentions and outcomes persist. Dispersal strategies show uncertain effectiveness, and other initiatives require better approach in increasing the inclusivity. The study highlights the necessity of synergizing top-down and bottom-up approaches to enhance policy responsiveness and community engagement. Future research should focus on the long-term impacts of dispersal strategies, school culture, communication practices, and parental decision-making processes, particularly among immigrant and low-income families.

School segregation in Sweden is increasing and research shows that this may be due to the governance reform that has dominated since the 1990s, New Public Management. In recent years, the government has made statements that Sweden should instead move towards a new form of governance. A governance reform that has emerged from the criticism of New Public Management is New-Weberian State. In the essay, I examine which of these two governance reforms that dominates SOU 2007: 79 and SOU 2020: 28. This is done with a qualitative text analysis and the creation of ideal types that are applied in an analysis scheme. The results show that governance has not changed much over time and that it is New Public Management that dominates the most, even though Neo-Weberian State is also represented.

Today the Swedish education system faces major challenges. This research deals with school segregation and the differences in and among Swedish municipalities, more specifically between Kalmar and Karlskrona. There are well-established national goals with the aim to reduce and counteract school segregation, however we tend to find huge differences in the system and performance of schools. All schools have different grounds, conditions and needs and it forces the local government, principals and teachers to act according to factors as resources, priorities, goals and expected behavior within institutions. Deficiencies create the prerequisites for conducting, completing and maintaining the business to the extent that it can be based on the design of the requirements on national level. That brings a great decentralized responsibility and gives room for maneuver and freedom of action for street-level bureaucrats, that may not maintain national standards. The purpose of this research is to analyse how enforcement of national goals in each municipality, at local schools,  that either are segregated or may become and then compare them to see the difference. In conclusion the analysis show that national goals are used as guidelines in municipalities, but all municipalities establish their own goals according to the conditions and needs of the school. The difference that exist between schools depends on local circumstances.

This qualitative essay has been performed on the secondary school Klaraskolan in Halmstad. The school has two defined groups that derive from two separate, different and homogenous schools. The aim of the essay is to identify the pupil’s experiences, thoughts and opinions about the social environment on Klaraskolan in relation to their different backgrounds. The primary focus for the essay is to examine differences between the groups that contribute to an internally segregated school. Conclusions will be made from how the power is distributed between the groups and how that affects the social cohesion. The main theory for the essay is Pierre Bourdieus field theory with two supportive theories which is Michel Foucaults conceptof disciplinary power and Ove Sernhedes concept of territorial stigmatization. The empiricism is collected by two group interviews, four individual interviews and three observations. The result proved that there are significant differences in how the pupil’s experienced their schooling, how they chose to interact with their friends and how they experience their treatment by their teachers and surroundings. The conclusions made by this was that language and residential area is of big importance regarding how they defined themselves and how they interpreted the opposite group. Regarding power between the two groups they dominated different social spaces at school. These conclusions combined generated the final conclusion that Klaraskolan can be defined as an internally segregated school.

The purpose of the study is to create an understanding of the continued stratification within the school in relation to the school choice. Through understanding parents' motives behind choice and non-choice of a segregated school and differences between those motives. The study is qualitative interview study based on eight interviews with parents that live in a segregated area and have children that go to elementary school. This segregated area is in a medium sized city in Sweden. Theories that have been used are Jenkins social identity, Skegss disidentification and respectability and Marinis social values and norms. The results of study show that parents justify both choice and non-choice of school with what they consider to be the right social context for their children. It is important what student composition the school has for their children to feel group affiliation, but also because there is a fear of exclusion. As for differences in motives, parents choose to not choose the nearby segregated school because they do not want to be associated with the notion that exists about the area´s parents. This shows that the free choice of school can also be understood based on the parents´ identity- creating practices.

2021 utkom Skolinspektionen med rapporten Långvarigt låga kunskapsresultat – Grundskolor som under 10 år haft en hög andel elever utan godkända betyg i alla ämnen. Svensk skola har sedan 1990-talet genomgått en decentralisering och marknadsanpassning. Under samma tid har skolsegregationen i Sverige ökat, skolorna har blivit mer homogena och resultatskillnaderna mellan skolor har ökat. Skolorna i Skolinspektionens rapport har i jämförelse med hela riket en högre andel elever vars föräldrar har låg utbildningsbakgrund, en högre andel elever med utländsk bakgrund samt en högre andel nyinvandrade elever. I denna studie sätts rektors roll och arbete i relation till Skolinspektionens rapport om låga kunskapsresultat. Intervjuer har genomförts med sex rektorer på skolor som finns med i rapporten och intresset har riktats mot deras subjektiva bild av sin skolas resultat, utveckling och framgång. Studien pekar på hur Skolinspektionens och tidigare forsknings diskurs kring skolframgång marginaliseras på skolor med komplext kompensatoriskt uppdrag genom att just dessa skolor påverkas i stor utsträckning av diskurser kring segregation och resultatstyrning av skolan. Studien har fokus på hur rektorer i dessa utsatta skolor erbjuds en rekontextualiserad subjektsposition i sin yrkesroll som marginaliserar Skolinspektionens skolframgångsdiskurs. / In 2021 the Swedish Schools Inspectorate published a report Schools with prolonged low results – Compulsory schools that during 10 years have high proportion of students without passing grades in all subjects (com. author´s translation).  The Swedish school have since the 1990´s passed through a great decentralization and market adjustment. During the same years school segregation in Sweden has increased, the schools have become more homogeneous and the differences in results between schools have increased. The schools in the report of the Swedish Schools Inspectorate have compared to all Swedish schools a higher proportion of students with parents with low level of education, a higher proportion of students with foreign lineage and a higher proportion of student newly arrived to Sweden. In this study the role and work of principals are put in relation to the Swedish Schools Inspectorate´s report about prolonged low results. Interviews have been held with six principals of schools from the report and the interest which is pointed is their subjective description of their schools results, development and improvement.  This study points how the discourse of school improvement of the Swedish Schools Inspectorate and previous research is marginalized at schools with a complex compensatory mission by that they are affected by discourses about segregation and results management of school. The study is focusing on how principals at schools in social-economic fragile areas is offered a recontextualized position as subject in their work that marginalize the Swedish Schools Inspectorate´s discourse of school improvement.

This work is a discourse analysis on a case study of Swedish school politic. Whith Carol Bacchi’s ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’-method this thesis conducts an analysis of the two propositions ’Ett mer likvärdigt skolval’ and ’Ökad likvärdighet för skolhuvudmän’. The method’s strength is that it seeks what’s presupposed in policy and problematizes it. The research questions are from ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ and are as follows: 1) What problem representations can be found in P58 and P161? Is anyone more prominent? 2) What presuppositions underpin this representation of the ‘problem’? 3) What’s left unproblematic? Can the ‘problem’ be thought about differently? The analysis showed that the problem is the high concentration of students with the same weak socioeconomic background at schools and school segregation which is contingent of the residential segregation. The presupposition to this problem representation is the idea of school as a democratic meeting point for students with different backgrounds. The school segregation causes the school to fail being a meeting point of that sort. The school choice enables school segregation and the so called ‘white flight’-phenomenon. The voluntary segregation was not accustomed for in the propositions but that provides ground for further research.

Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur några röster på Flashback forum problematiserar mångkulturalitet i segregerade skolor i förhållande till skolval. Tidigare forskning visar att föräldrar med svensk bakgrund undviker mångkulturella och stigmatiserade bostadsområden, när det kommer till val av skola för deras barn. Detta till följd av den negativa uppfattning föräldrarna har om invandrarbarn. Studien genomfördes utifrån en kvalitativ forskningsstrategi med hjälp av målstyrt urval. Forskningsdeltagarna bestod av Flashbackmedlemmar som uttryckte sig kritiskt mot mångkulturella skolor och invandrarbarn. Studiens empiriska material hämtades från olika trådar på det digitala diskussionsforumet Flashback forum. För att tolka studiens resultat användes teorier om stigma och figurationen etablerade-outsiders. Resultatet presenteras genom kvalitativ innehållsanalys som tillvägagångssätt, där Flashback inläggen har analyserats utifrån ett manifest och latent förhållningssätt. Slutsatser som antagits är att Flashbackmedlemmar uttrycker en oro över att ha deras barn i en etnisk blandad skola med för många invandrarbarn. Detta med anledningen att de anser att invandrarbarn utgör ett hot mot de svenska barnens psykiska samt fysiska hälsa och skolgång, där främst barn från ett icke-europeiskt ursprung pekas ut som de farliga eller kriminella. / The purpose of the study was to investigate how some voices on Flashback forum problematise multiculturalism in segregated schools in relation to school selection. Previous research indicates that parents from Swedish background avoid multicultural and stigmatized residential areas, when it comes to school selection for their children. This being a result of the negative perception parents have of immigrant children. The study was conducted based on a qualitative research strategy with the help of a goal-oriented selection. The research participants consisted of Flashback members who were selected for being critical of multicultural schools and immigrant children. This study’s empirical material was taken from various thread on the digital discussion forum, Flashback forum.This study’s results were interpreted through the theories of stigma and the figuration of established-outsiders. The results are presented through qualitive content analysis, where the Flashback members posts have been analysed through a manifest and latent approach. The conclusions drawn were that the Flashback members have expressed concern about having their children in an ethnically mixed school with too many immigrant children. This is because they believe that immigrant children pose a threat to Swedish children's mental and physical health as well as their education. Where children of non-European origin are primarily singled out as dangerous or criminal.