Similar to many countries in the Western world, educational reforms in Sweden have dramatically changed the educational system in the last few decades. The two reforms that we address in this paper concern "The Career Services for Teachers Reform" and "Teachers Salary Boost" which were implemented at the national level in…

The lack of fully trained teachers is a national challenge in Sweden despite numerous attempts by authorities to approach the issue from a long-term perspective. The proportion of fully trained teachers needs to increase by just over 50% by 2035, and the imbalance will continue for many years to come. Many actors such as the media and politicians…

The labour market outcomes for native- and foreign-born adults during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic vary considerably across countries -- with inequalities in employment even falling in some cases compared to 2017. In contrast with the 2008 financial crisis, greater educational attainment does not seem to have had a clear protective…

This article is a part of an on going ethnography project that run over six years in an Upper Secondary School in the south of Sweden. In this particular article we shed light over the implementation, enactment and reactions from the staff of one of the latest of a series of reforms that has been launched into the Swedish educational system: The…

The introduction of elementary schools in Sweden (and elsewhere) in the mid-nineteenth century required the quick hiring of many new teachers, which in turn posed challenges about their financing. This paper analyses school inspectors' reports and teachers' journals to illuminate local strategies to provide affordable teaching in the Uppsala…

This article investigates the implementation of the "förstelärare" or "First teacher" reform in Sweden. We draw upon the insights of a superintendent, union official, principal, three First teachers, and two of their colleagues in one school, and recent literature on career development reform. We employ Michael Fullan's…

For a long time, the Swedish government has tried different reforms to counteract declining student results. One action was to implement a salary-lift for teachers perceived as especially skilled. However, changes within socially complex systems tend to create tensions and resistance among the staff. In this reform, a majority of teachers were…

Based on Swedish register data from 2003 to 2012, this study attempts to explain over-education and upward mobility among tertiary graduates. Rarely used explanatory factors are central in the analyses, such as 'still in study' and 'field of education'. Tertiary graduates in low-wage jobs are regarded as over-educated. The results of this work…

Performative technologies are increasingly relied upon as a means of controlling the work of teachers. As noted in the literature, one possible outcome of this trend is the performer, a teacher identity that presupposes the internalization of, and adaptation to, a performative logic. Based on the findings from an empirical study of a Swedish upper…

This article reports an analysis of the relationship between women's increased participation in higher education and other recent social changes over the last four decades. To date, women's increased involvement in higher education has been studied as either a force for or a consequence of other sociocultural changes. Drawing on data from key…

This article argues that strong interrelations between methodological and theoretical advances exist. Progress in, especially comparative, methods may have important impacts on theory evaluation. By using the example of the "Varieties of Capitalism" approach and an international comparison of higher education systems, it can be shown…

Teachers in academia are usually not required to have teacher training but must often be evaluated by their students who expect them to have much better teaching qualifications than their high school teachers. However, teachers in elementary and high schools are required to go through several years of teacher training, resulting in a teaching…

Using data on Swedish university entrants, this study finds that earnings are significantly lower for students who change universities compared to students who do not change. Earnings differences decrease over time and over the earnings distribution. The pattern in the estimates seems consistent with non-transfer students having higher earnings…

This paper argues for the significance of Axel Honneth's theory of recognition for understanding recognition of prior learning (RPL). Case studies of the experiences of RPL by paraprofessional workers in health and social care in the UK and Sweden are used to explicate this significance. The results maintain that there are varying conditions of…

This article describes and discusses Swedish upper-secondary teachers' perceptions of the effects of individual performance-related pay (PRP) in the context of educational restructuring and governance. The empirical data were generated through semi-structured interviews of 23 teachers. Power's distinction between programmatic and technological…