In the 1990s, Sweden implemented the internationally debated school choice reform, introducing unprecedented freedom in education for students within its school system. This allowed students to attend the school of their choosing without being confined by school district. In order to maintain relevance since its inception, the reform has required several amendments to the Education Act, made over the years by a variety of governments and parliaments with differing political ideologies. Despite the political divergence of these governments and parliaments, however, the motivation behind and implementation of these amendments have shown to be quite similar across the board. From this vantage point, it is of sociological interest to investigate how free school choice is portrayed in the government's bills and the parliament’s debates when adopting changes to the Education Act during the years 1992/93, 2009/10 and 2020/21 within the various discursive fields. To do so, this study has employed Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe's (2014) perspective on discourse theory and found three prominent discourses; the free student, the quality of the education and the diversity and segregation in the school. By examining each discourse and its signs and elements, nodal points have been identified. Through analysis of said nodal points, the study concludes that there has been a shift in the analyzed documents’ central discourse over time through discursive struggles for hegemony and the re-articulation of nodal points and elements. This highlights a possible underlying ideological and power struggle within the overarching discourse surrounding free school choice.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-529742 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Bjerregaard, Ida |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Sociologiska institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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