Consequences and organisational implication of the marketisation of the Swedish school system

This text explores what consequences researchers have found for the marketization of the Swedish school system. The text focuses on both the wider societal consequences for marketization and workplace consequences at schools. Using database searches and a snowball search to gather material to study, two conclusions can be drawn from the study material. First, researchers find that marketization has led to a school system where schools prioritise market competitiveness over other values deemed important by society, such as equality and democracy. One of the texts studied finds that the consequences can be derived from the lack of regulations, not marketization in itself. This find, however, is not echoed by any other researchers. Secondly the material shows that researchers find that marketization has made employers of schools less autonomous. Instead it is found that teachers and principals are controlled by organisational bureaucracy and market forces. However, researchers also find that some schools are less affected by market forces depending on how competitive the regional market is.