Winning the War by Losing the Battle? The Marketization of the Expanding Preschool Sector in Sweden

Autor/inn/en	Westberg, Johannes; Larsson, Esbjörn
Titel	Winning the War by Losing the Battle? The Marketization of the Expanding Preschool Sector in Sweden
Quelle	In: Journal of Education Policy, 37 (2022) 5, S.705-722 (18 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Westberg, Johannes) ORCID (Larsson, Esbjörn)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0268-0939
DOI	10.1080/02680939.2020.1861338
Schlagwörter	Child Care; Decision Making; Preschools; Foreign Countries; Educational Vouchers; Preschool Education; Social Systems; Political Attitudes; Policy Analysis; Educational History; Commercialization; Private Schools; Public Schools; Educational Change; Public Policy; Access to Education; Financial Support; School Choice; Sweden + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Kinderfürsorge; Kinderbetreuung; Decision-making; Entscheidungsfindung; Ausland; Educational voucher; Bildungsgutschein; Pre-school education; Vorschulerziehung; Social system; Soziales System; Political attitude; Politische Einstellung; Politikfeldanalyse; History of education; Bildungsgeschichte; Private school; Privatschule; Public school; Öffentliche Schule; Bildungsreform; Öffentliche Ordnung; Education; Access; Bildung; Zugang; Bildungszugang; Finanzielle Förderung; Choice of school; Schulwahl; Schweden
Abstract	This article analyzes how childcare vouchers were introduced in the context of the Swedish welfare state by examining vital political decisions from the prohibition of publicly funded private preschools in 1984 and onwards. Basing our argument on theories of political institutions and historical institutionalism, we argue that this remarkable shift in preschool policy was due to a set of specific historical premises that included an expanding preschool sector and incremental reforms that did not abolish public preschools, but merely complemented them with private preschools. Instead of perceiving childcare vouchers as the mere results of marketization ideology, we interpret this reform as the result of a sequence of decisions, institutional layering, vested interests, and positive feedback mechanisms, where the expansion of the early care and education sector played a significant role. In this context, we argue that the marketization may be seen as a successful support of the rapidly growing sector of publicly funded preschools in Sweden. Although the Social Democrats lost the battle of marketization, they certainly won the war on publicly funded preschools for all. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01