Umeå University's logo

umu.sePublications
Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
A Recent Swedish Attempt to Weaken State Control and Strengthen School Autonomy: The Experiment with Local Time Schedules
Umeå University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Political Science.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-0209-558X
2007 (English)In: European Educational Research Journal, E-ISSN 1474-9041, Vol. 6, no 3, p. 214-232Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

In 1999, after a series of far-reaching reforms aiming at decentralisation, deregulation and increased local autonomy in Swedish education, the Government decided to introduce a five-year experiment, which would develop these reform efforts even further. Even though Swedish compulsory schools already were the most autonomous in Europe with regard to decision making on school time, an experiment which allowed schools to freely decide time allocation and time management was launched. At least on paper, the experiment indicates a shift from state control to local autonomy, allowing school professionals to be free to make decisions on time distribution previously controlled by the state. The aim is to analyse and discuss whether the experiment has affected school autonomy or not and how this can be understood. The theoretical point of departure is a two-dimensional view of autonomy, where both freedom of action and capacity for action need to be taken into account. The freedom of action (the discretionary space for local actors) provided within the experiment is analysed through three properties of the experimental programme: programme clarity, division of responsibilities and control mechanisms. The schools' capacity for action concerns the extent participating schools make use of the discretion provided within the experiment. This is analysed in three schools with reference to their ability to organise themselves in a flexible way, as well as to what extent the schools have shown previous capacity for action and readiness for reform. Based on this analysis of the experiment, it is concluded that if reform efforts are made to increase school autonomy, they should not one-sidedly be focused on increasing local actors' freedom of action (such as abolishing the national time schedule). Such efforts should also be accompanied by measures to reinforce local actors' capacity for action. Unless local actors can make use of the discretion given to them by a superior (political) body, local autonomy will be far less than was intended, since freedom to act exceeds the actual capacity to act.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2007. Vol. 6, no 3, p. 214-232
National Category
Pedagogical Work Educational Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-17076OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-17076DiVA, id: diva2:156749
Available from: 2007-10-29 Created: 2007-10-29 Last updated: 2023-03-28Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

No full text in DiVA

Other links

http://ejournals.ebsco.com/direct.asp?ArticleID=48B486EB5B69E99AA8D1

Authority records

Rönnberg, Linda

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Rönnberg, Linda
By organisation
Department of Political Science
In the same journal
European Educational Research Journal
Pedagogical WorkEducational Sciences

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar

urn-nbn

Altmetric score

urn-nbn
Total: 90 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf