Marketization of the Swedish educational system has included implementations of school choice since1992. Currently Swedish municipalities design and organize school choice systems locally, and since such authorities have extensive autonomy in Sweden the organization of school choice varies between municipalities.

In this presentation, we examine variations in how parents of children are instructed to use municipalsystems for public school choice from pre-school to first grade. Our aim is to describe the different waysin which parents are ‘configured as users’ (Woolgar 1991) by school choice systems in manuals andinformational material digitally provided by municipalities.

We draw on theoretical insights from Science and Technology Studies (STS) on how technical systemsshape their own (future) users by describing, instructing, scripting, and limiting interactions (Woolgar1991; Star 1990). We use the theoretical concept of ‘user scripts’ (Woolgar 1991) to analyse variations in how the users of school choice systems are imagined.

We analyse materials from 33 municipalities through a close reading of online information provided tocitizens in their role as parents of children in pre-school who are about to start first grade. The selection- of municipalities is based on a representative sample pertaining to municipality size, location, and political majority.

We find that different implementations of school choice systems create distinct configurations of parents as school choosers (nor not) pertaining to how different meanings of choice are conceptualized and scripted.

Marketization signifies the performative processes under which markets are implemented, organizationsare adjusted, and identities are shaped to fit the logics of markets. Previous studies of how systems ofchoice are implemented show that the choosing citizen is enacted and configured in several ways (e.g.,Dabisch 2022; Sjögren 2023). This study sheds light on the work it takes to perform market-logics in education and the effects of such logics on ideas concerning the purpose of education.

References

Dabisch, V. (2022). Which child to which school? How local politicians shape catchment areas, schoolchoice and diversity. European Educational Research Journal, 147490412211162.https://doi.org/10.1177/14749041221116252

Sjögren, H. (2023) Unruly customers? How parents’ (in)actions trouble civil servants and local schoolchoice systems, Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, DOI: 10.1080/00313831.2023.2250355

Star, S. L. (1990). Power, technology and the phenomenology of conventions: on being allergic toonions. The Sociological Review, 38(1_suppl), 26-56.

Woolgar, S. (1990). Configuring the user: the case of usability trials. The Sociological Review, 38(1_suppl), 58-99.