School as “Edu-business”: Four “serious players” in the Swedish upper secondary school market

摘要

In the early 1990s, Sweden experienced state policy reforms, which opened the way for new, private actors to run publicly funded independent schools. In 2010 the independent schools recruited almost a quarter of the upper secondary students. More than eight of the ten schools were managed by limited companies. Against this backdrop, and drawing on Ball (2007) and Whitfield (2006) who focus on policy trends of the transfer of public education (and other public services) to the private sector, this article explores and analyses current commercial trends in Swedish upper secondary education. The aims are to identify expansion trends inside and outside Sweden, including new trends of business formations. In the study four large actors were identified on the basis of official data, company reports, school and company websites and national and international media. The study indicates that the upper secondary education in Sweden has today become “big business”, or “edu-business” (Ball 2007:67).