刘昊
Introduction
Social stratification or social class is always the topic of politicians and the gap between the poor and rich is highlighted when people are trying to eliminate justice and equality. Educational equality is one way to show democracy and social equality.
Through comparing England and Sweden, whether school choices have positive or negative influences on the equality of eaducational opportunities will be discussed.
I．The development of school choice policy in England and Sweden
In UK, the implementation of school choice under the decentralization of power has led local education authority to become service agencies in giving suggestions about teaching and to measure school effectiveness.
Sweden is a high welfare country and its education system has been an integral part of the Swedish the welfare state. In the early 1990s, the crisis promoted changes in the orientation of macroeconomic policy with an emphasis being placed on price stability as a prerequisite to achieving balanced growth at sustainable high employment levels.
II．Social-economy factor
Sweden and England both are created through market theory and caused marketization of education.
Education marketization is the feature of education reforms about school choices both in England and Sweden but the reforms in England are more clearly market-oriented than those in Sweden. Privatized education is the mainstream in Sweden (Wiborg, 2013:412). The Annual Report of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Schools points out that the number of good primary and secondary schools increase 5800 from the year 2004 to 2005. Driven by interests and market forces in England, families with good financial condition might have more consideration in school choices.
It seems the equality exists between the similar economic status families and more negative impact has created on equality of educational opportunity in England than Sweden.
III. Social and cultural diversity factor
Priority for disadvantaged students
In order to eliminate some disadvantage element that restrains school choice, like geographic distance, and enable students to have the same start in schooling. The government also proved the proper support..
Immigration students
In England, parents can choose different types of schools for children, which extends the right of choosing schools and keeps diversity. Although all schools will set the curriculum that enables students to pass A-level, the school diversity and social integration can hardly achieve. Swedish government considers the equality of educational opportunity for people with special needs, both in ethnic and ability minorities.
The chart below shows the gap between immigrant students and non-immigrant students in Sweden and UK.
Compared Sweden and the UK in Immigrant Student. PISA 2015 http://www.compareyourcountry.org/pisa/country/SWE?lg=en
To sum up, disadvantaged students like immigrant students could have additional support to eliminate the gap caused by social factors between disadvantaged students and normal students.
Conclusion
The school choice policy guided by the market-oriented education system in the UK and Sweden have different emphasis and results in the equality of educational opportunity. From the perspective of social-economy difference between England and Sweden, the impact of school choice policy in Sweden is less clear than that in England thus fewer influences. England does better in school diversity than Sweden but keeping the diversity might have shortcomings in cultural integrity.
Schools and parents in UK facing more inequality in the implementation of school choices than those in Sweden because of social-economic differences. However, England does better in keeping school diversity than Sweden, considering the disadvantaged group of people like immigrants.
The implication and suggestions on school choice’s influence in education equality
Extending choice in education is currently a popular policy in England, which is welcomed by both Labour and Conservatives (Burgess,2009). In Sweden. liberal-conservative government used ambiguity with regard to the results of freedom of choice at the national level and the absence of results from the local level to solely on an ideological basis push further for marketization and deregulation. While different from real market, education needs to consider the public value, citizenship and other aims rather than focusing on economic aims.
References
Burgess, S., Propper, C. & Wilson, D. (2007) The Impact of School Choice in England. Policy Studies, 28(2), pp.129–143.
OFSTED. (2005) The Annual Report of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Schools 2004/2005, Summary tables. (Accessed 13th April, 2018).
Wiborg, S. (2013) Neo-liberalism and universal state education: the cases of Denmark, Norway and Sweden 1980–2011. Comparative Education, 49(4), pp.407–423.