Conference Agenda

The participation of the private sector in the organisation of school provision has steadily expanded globally over the last decades (Verger et al., 2023), leading to mixed provision models characterised by the coexistence of a network of public and private subsidised schools in the organisation of school provision. This study is based on the analysis of a national educational reform that modifies the framework and guidelines that regulate mixed provision to raise the levels of equity and explores the variety of responses of the private subsidised network to changes in the conditions based on which its participation in school provision is arranged.

From a comparative perspective, reforms to mixed provision systems have focused mainly on three areas: the definition of the conditions for entrance and permanence in the subsidy regime, the mode in which school funding is organised, and the characteristics of school choice and admission processes (Zancajo et al. 2021b). These reform impulses aimed to standardise some of the regulatory dimensions of mixed models, defining a common structure for public and private schools. However, this does not necessarily include a principle of equivalence between them, nor does it imply convergence in all institutional aspects. In these institutional settings, regulators seek through educational policies to expand their capacity to influence the configuration of school provision, one of their main challenges being to align the network of private subsidised schools with the broader objectives of the education system.

Since 2015, School Inclusion Law (SIL) reform modifies at least three structural dimensions of the mixed provision in Chile: regulating practices of selectivity in the access to schools by a semi-centralised admission system, promoting to replace of obligatory charges to families including larger public funding and forbidding for profits incentive to educational administrators. The question that guides the research process consists of what are the factors that are linked to the variety of responses from the network of subsidized private centers regarding the changes in the regulatory context that the SIL promotes. The study’s main objective is to establish the patterns of interpretation and response of private subsidised schools’ networks to these regulatory changes introduced by the SIL in Chile between 2015 and 2020. Finally, the study examines how this variety of responses is associated with the problems of mixed school provision systems.

The concept of school responses pattern is operationalized, integrating elements of the literature about systemic change and logic of action (Bagley et al.,1996, 1998, Wood, 2000, Maroy & Ball, 2008, Van Zanten, 2008). In this sense, the notion of response generation is inherent to the quasi-market settings (Bagley et al., 1996) and is defined as the extent to which schools modify their practices and policies because of changes in the institutional context. For Bagley, et al. 1996, the generation of school responses is not straightforward but there are barriers that interact in complex forms that can negatively influence inhibiting the capacity of schools.

The generation of responses from schools does not constitute a simple adaptive process with respect to external conditions but rather a complex one, which is endowed with its own logic and includes, on the part of educational actors, a moment of active interpretation. It is in this intermediate zone where the actors negotiate a framework for understanding the problems, mobilizing a network of meanings, resources, and practical knowledge.On the other hand, this perspective should not lead to overestimating the response generation capacity of schools or neglecting the influence of structural factors that may either inhibit its generation or induce a unique type of response (Bagley et al. al. 1998, Zancajo, 2017, Moschetti, 2018).

Different transitions are built into all school systems, either between or within school forms. These transitions entail different changes and challenges for both students and teachers. This ongoing doctoral project aims to contribute with knowledge on how the transition between stages within compulsory school is constructed in policy, and by teachers, in a school system where compulsory school is cohesive. Although the Swedish compulsory school consist of only one school form, it bears traces from the pre-1960’s divide between primary and secondary schools, as well as several following school reforms. For a long time, these reforms aimed to tighten the cultural gap between primary and secondary school, resulting in a compulsory school without stage divisions in 1994. This lasted until the 2010’s when stage divisions were reinstated as a way of making each stage more specialised. Those traces imply that the cohesive compulsory school in Sweden can be organised in a variety of ways, with the consequence that transitions between stages can encompass many different aspects and practices. In many cases those practices are similar to transitions between school forms. The object of study in this project is the transition between stages equivalent to the transition between primary and secondary school (from year 6 to 7).

In an international, and European, context there is a large variety of aspects on transitions between primary and secondary school that have been researched – academic (e.g. Prendergast et.al. 2019), social (e.g. van Rens et.al. 2018) and comparative/organisational (e.g. Nielsen et.al. 2017). Research on transitions within compulsory school in a Nordic context, similar to the Swedish, is scarce but there are some studies about the student perspective (e.g.Virtanen et.al., 2019). In the Swedish context research mainly concern transitions between school forms: from preschool to compulsory school (e.g. Ackesjö, 2014; Kallberg, 2018) and from compulsory school to upper secondary school (e.g Sundelin and Lundahl, 2022). Most of the research on transitions shares some relation to the concept of continuity, sometimes differentiated between various types e.g. social or pedagogical. Continuity is mostly assumed to be desirable but lacking, affecting students’ well-being as well as their learning results. Criticism against the focus on transition in research include that this focus may exaggerate the problems with transitions (Bru et.al., 2010) or that this focus places blame on the transitions when there might be other structural problems that cause difficulties associated with transitions (Downes, 2019).

Focus in this paper is on policy. By using Bacchi’s (2009) “What’s the Problem Represented to be?” (WPR) approach I am investigating how transitions within the Swedish compulsory school are understood in policy. The WPR approach is a poststructural tool for policy analysis that departs from the statement that governing takes place through problematisations and that these problematisations needs to be scrutinized. The “problem” refers to the thing that needs to change through the studied policy and these representations are thought to be constructed within the policy process, not problems existing “in the real”. Representations are part of discourses but do also impact discourses. The impact of the representations also may concern how those governed view themselves and others as well as possibly having material influence. Research questions for this part of the project are:

- What is included and excluded in the discourse on transitions in Swedish school policy?

- What may be possible effects from this way of problematising transitions?