This article analyses a specific part of the actions taken to improve the quality of Swedish education, namely the expectations formulated in national policy documents for the quality work that local authorities, schools and teachers are supposed to undertake. For the empirical analysis of how these expectations have changed over the last two…

This article analyses "why" the concept of quality has become such a central theme in Swedish education policy, and "what" quality or qualities successive governments have pursued between 1990 and 2010. The analysis is based on a close reading of a collection of policy texts from the late 1980s onwards.With a linguistic and…