A Central School Reform Program in Sweden and the Local Response: Taking the Long-Term View Works

Abstract

This article reports the results of a longitudinal study of 35 Swedish comprehensive schools involving interviews with teachers, school leaders, students, and parents carried out in 1980, 1982, 1985, and 2001. During the 35-year period covered by the study, the schools experienced significant reforms. The most important of these reforms involved a shift from a system of highly centralized control of school activities to a system where a large degree of control over schools was devolved to local municipalities—kommuns—and to the schools themselves. These reforms are such that today, for example, local kommuns are responsible for school budgets where previously the state was in charge of them. This study makes a strong argument for the need for a process of progressive decentralization that puts the emphasis on local democracy as opposed to the alternative that tends to emphasize greater state control.