Education in democratic societies has always had to deal with the tension between individual freedom and a need for public good. Based on arguments about increasing individual freedom, free school choice was introduced in Sweden in the 1990s. Local authorities in Sweden have ever since been commissioned to organize local school choice markets. Since local authorities have extensive autonomy in Sweden, the organization of school choice varies between municipalities today. Local authorities can be regarded market organizers, and parents/guardians need to be addressed and shaped as local customers to fit these markets.

The aim of this paper presentation is to describe and analyze two different ways in which school choice markets are organized in Swedish municipalities, in order to discuss how the conflict between private and public good shapes parents/guardians as customers. 

We analyze motives and justifications for school choice organization through pilot interviews with five politicians and administrative officials in two municipalities with different political majority (one conversative and one liberal-left). The two municipalities have organized their local school choice market differently, with different interpretations and ranking of various selection criteria for the local school choice markets. We specifically focus and critically discuss how the municipalities actively work with addressing and shaping parents/guardians from particularly socio-economically weak groups to make informed choices for the sake of their children’s education. We use the notion of ”customerification processes” (Karlsson 2020) to analyze and discuss what kind of customers the different school choice systems enable, and we relate this discussion to the role of education in democratic societies.