Conference Agenda

The surge of Swedish independent school has been enormous through the past 30 years as a consequence of educational marketization. While the majority of these schools have been run by smaller firms and foundations, the ownership pattern is rapidly changing as large conglomerates expand in every sector of the educational market. This expansion is supported by the directors of the education industry, i.e., board members centrally embedded in the heartland of political and financial decision-making (Larsson 2021). These directors link public and private institutions in a web of ties, function as “brokers of information” (Buch-Hansen & Larsen 2021) and central to corporate governance. As such, they represent the systematic potency of organizational control, providing insight, guidance and opportunities for investments.

This paper aims to examine corporate governance within Swedish independent school firms and foundations in the three years following the 2018 political proposal to limit
corporate profit-making in the education sector. We use untapped data set, combining an analysis of interlocking directorates in all educational firms and foundations and voluntary disclosure in annual reports. Our research questions are:

- What kind of board interlocks emerge in the network?

- How are boards of educational firms and foundations embedded in society?

- How does the behaviors of the largest 5 firms change as an effect of internal and external challenges?

We know little about corporate governance within Swedish education. Network entanglements of Swedish educational actors within global policy chains have been mapped (Rönnberg 2017) and also corporate strategies of independent school firms (e.g., Rönnberg et al. 2021; Ideland & Serder 2022). Edlund and Sahlin (2021), analyze the embeddedness of boards in Swedish higher education organizations. They display ties to organizations in public, private and civil society over time and their finding is that external board members have increased. The increasing number of board members from financial institutions as well as direct ties with external organizations, is not only seen as adjustment to corporate behavior – but also to policies mandating interaction with other societal institutions. Internationally, corporate governance and corporatization has been analyzed as part of understanding marketization in education and higher education. Pusser, Slaughter and Thomas (2006) untangle the difference between private and public universities in the US, concerning inter-sectoral variations of board interlocks. The cohesion of boards shows “institutional behavior” as boards work as “sources of information and legitimacy for institutional policymaking” (748). They claim that private institutions are far more embedded and connected to financial institutions and elite actors than public institutions. This provides advantages when prospecting future investment and navigating uncertainty. Eaton (2022) discusses the composition and embeddedness of US University boards. He argues that the density of high-profiled financiers and the ties with financial institutions reflect economic advantage of elite universities, as these convert endowments into educational and economic profits. Studies of US charter schools indicate that the density of board members originating from financial institution and the absence of educational professionals’ signals marketization advocacy rather than educational quality (Sparks, 2021).

Following Fligstein (2001, 170 ff.), we argue that corporate governance could be seen as the struggle of “managing interdependence”. That is to say, controlling “internal and external environments” as “smoothly and predictably” as possible “[t]o ensure continued growth and profitability” (Ibid.). This relates to what Mizruchi (1996) and others call “behavior of firms”. We approach corporate governance empirically, combining the study of interlocking directorates and voluntary disclosure within annual reports. This approach provides a structural analysis of educational firms and foundations, including hierarchies and variations in embeddedness, behavior and ways of exerting control.

Faced with increasingly fierce competition, Chinese middle-class parents have mobilized multiple capitals to help their children to achieve academic success and transmit their social advantage (Fong, 2004, 2011; Zhang, 2020; Soong, 2022). Interestingly, during the past decade, some Chinese middle parents began to opt for alternative education instead of sending their children to mainstream schools (Wang, 2022; Wu, 2019; Xu and Spruyt, 2022). The emergence of different types of alternative education among Chinese middle-class parents challenges our understanding of the middle class and education in China in several ways. First, with the existence of high-stakes exams, mainstream schools, especially some elite public schools, are the most experienced in training and disciplining students to prepare for the educational market. As such, choosing different types of alternative schools also does not seem to be a safe strategy for middle-class parents to guarantee their children’s success in the educational competition. Furthermore, with the authoritarian educational governance in China, all schools are under close supervision of the government (Wang and Chan, 2015). Since most of the alternative education in China is still at an ambiguous legal status, these schools also face ongoing risks for survival (Xu and Spruyt, 2022). When we take these elements together, it raises the question that why Chinese middle-class parents opt for alternative education for children.

According to the classical social reproduction theories, middle-class parents are able to mobilize multiple forms of capital to help their children to achieve academic success (Bourdieu, 1998; Lareau, 2011). It concerns here an indirect, school-mediated, transmission of the status, which also means that for the individuals involved in the game, this social reproduction is not a guaranteed destiny (Bourdieu, 1998), so parents have to always make wise choices and invest intensively in their children so as to raise their children’s chances of educational success. Following this logic, the educational practice that seems to fall out of this schema is usually attributed to a deviation or error (Bourdieu, 1998). This reasoning, however, has been criticized and some scholars argue that Bourdieu’s argument is insufficient to account for “the intricacy, deviation, and differing degrees and directions of mobility” (Atkinson, 2012). To explain the alternative choices in the educational field, three threads in the current literature studies can be identified. First, some researchers turned to the diverse dimensions of the social reproduction process (Sayer, 205; Reay, 2011; Lan, 2014). The second thread of studies attributes some deviant educational practices such as the choice for alternative education to specific fractions within the middle-class (Bernstein, 2003; Aarseth, 2018; Uboldi, 2020). Thirdly, some scholars step out of the social reproduction framework and attribute the diverse social and educational trajectories to habitus changes as a result of social transformation and increasing individual reflectivity (Archer, 2007; Yang, 2014). Overall, the above studies provided different perspectives to understand unexpected (alternative) choices and trajectories within the educational field. Thus, the three strands of research also provided us with possible theoretical frameworks to understand middle-class parents’ alternative educational choices in China.

In the current study, we formulated our research questions as follows: (1) how do these Chinese middle-class parents account for their alternative educational choice? (2) how do these parents’ educational perspectives differ from/resemble the mainstream educational logic in China? (3) what are the possible structural and individual reasons for their alternative education practice? By focusing on middle-class parents choosing alternative education, we aim to unravel the logic behind the seemingly deviant educational trajectory and explore how the phenomenon relates to social reproduction theories. By doing this, we also want to further examine the applicability of Bourdieu’s theories in the Chinese context.

For understanding the ways in which elite school students actively cultivate and maintain privilege as a component of their identity, this study relies on theoretical and empirical reports that suggest examining privilege as identity (Howard et al., 2014). Identity has been considered in terms of the descriptions by which individuals define themselves and offer accounts of themselves (MacLure, 1993). In line with post-structural approaches (Clarke, 2009) this definition of identity includes the personal, the social, and the political. This perspective does not underestimate the importance of privilege as an advantage that groups of people have over another, but emphasizes the connection between privilege and identity or privilege as a specific identity (Howard, 2010; Howard et al., 2014). The study examines two key questions: (1) How do high school students define and experience their identity? (2) Do these identities contribute to the production and maintenance of privilege, and if so, how? To resolve these questions, twenty high school students in elite schools in Israel, were interviewed.

Belonging to an elite school, which is often perceived as a privilege and marker of distinction, has been depicted, as a crucial influence on students' learning experience and identity (Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2009; Howard, 2008). Belonging to an elite school involves self-comprehension, which includes ways of knowing and acting in the world, and working in coordination with the set of justifications and legitimacies for students’ life advantages (Howard et al., 2014; Khan, 2011). In this context Khan argued that "Privilege is not something you are born with, it is something you develop and cultivate" (Khan, 2011, p. 15).

Several Studies have revealed that students in elite schools think in terms of traits, abilities, skills, and personal qualities (Howard, 2010; Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2009). Elite schools provide a wealth of resources and opportunities, such as unique curricula and access to prestigious colleges and universities, giving their students an advantage over students in other schools (Prosser, 2020). These educational experiences enable students to sustain academic success and predict a future of many opportunities for success (Demerath, 2009). These successes have been described by teachers and principals as an expression of meritocratic logic that is common in many elite educational arenas (Khan, 2011). Elite school students have reported that they deserve privileged status because of being intelligent and committed to the morals of challenging work and strict academic excellence (Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2009). Sense of Entitlement has been found to be fundamental to the establishment and maintenance of elite identities (Lareau, 2002). Researchers have described micro-interactive cultural processes associated with the development of a sense of entitlement (Calarco, 2011; Lareau & Weininger, 2003). Gaztambide-Fernandez and colleagues (2013) proposed that the sense of entitlement of students in elite schools is expressed through three components: belonging, alienation, and agency. Demonstrating entitlement was found involves cultivating a sense of ease that means meeting the expectations of the "best" effortlessly and while exhibiting a sense of control, ease, and naturalness. Self-comprehension that helps students internalize their identity and maintain their privileged status is also formed through the drawing of boundaries in relation to "others" who do not belong. students un elite school treated students belonging to the low SES and their families as lazy, indifferent to education, and making poor decisions as explanations for gaps in educational achievement (Maxwell & Aggleton, 2010). The actions of elite school students in relation to issues of social justice are based on this organizing principle of self-identity and the identity of the other. researchers described that the social work of elite students did not undermine the existing situation or strive to change the existing social reality (Howard & Kenway, 2015).