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In this paper we explore datafication through a specific kind of evaluative practice in Swedish early childhood education and care (ECEC): the creation of quality reports by individual preschools. A theoretical framework is developed based on Dahler-Larsen's descriptions of three ‘evaluation imaginaries’ (the modern, reflexive modernity and audit society), with elaboration of their respective characteristics and complementary notions from other sources. We then apply the framework, and a qualitative text analytical approach, to analyse eight quality reports from diverse Swedish preschools, purposefully selected to represent preschools that vary in terms of ownership, geographical location, size and pedagogical profile. We find that the reflexive modernity imaginary is most clearly influential in the ECEC quality reports, but there are emerging indications of the audit society imaginary's influence. We also find variations in prioritised focus in the reports among ECEC providers, underscoring the need for further exploration. The study calls for future research to delve into provider-specific nuances, expand the investigation to other kinds of evaluations and scrutinise the broader implications for ECEC operations and practices.

National policies aiming at marketisation and privatisation in welfare sectors such as Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) require governance and organisation to be realised. In Sweden, the municipalities are key but largely under-researched organisers for preschool quasi-market infrastructures. This study explores the different ways in which Swedish municipalities act as quasi-market organisers in the preschool setting. Following organisational theory, we analyse their market shaping activities in translating national regulations in efforts to influence, support and control their local preschool quasi-market. Documents, websites, and interviews with public officials from 30 municipalities characterised as having either a large (N = 10), medium (N = 10), or small (N = 10) private ECEC sector are analysed. The analysis highlights large variations on how municipalities act as market makers, which is further discussed in the form of three ideal types: the Frontier, the Keeper, and the Endorser. We conclude that municipalities' varying and hybridised market shaping activities and local characteristics are important to understand the implications that emerge in terms of different rules of the game, stakeholder interdependencies and relationships, composition of market actors etc. Attentiveness to the sub-national/local actors are essential in understanding different welfare quasi-markets within national policy frameworks of marketisation and privatisation., Published online: 18 Jul 2023

Collaboration between universities and schools has been emphasised byboth governments and within educational development research in the Nordic countries. However, educational research has tended to focus onthe practitioners’ perspectives and experiences, i.e., researchers andteachers. Our intention is to contribute to the field with research from another perspective; that of organising for collaboration. This is done by focusing on the experiences of university representatives responsible for the organisation of collaboration within a Swedish nation-wide initiative,the ULF project. Our theoretical framework draws on the literature of partial organisation. The results indicate that the different approaches and solutions used by universities could not only potentially strengthen schools’ opportunities to participate in educational collaboration with universities but also lead to different opportunities, reinforcing previously existing differences between school organisers. The results are discussed in relation to governmental intentions and guidelines.

National policies aiming at marketisation and privatisation in welfare sectors such as Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) require governance and organisation to be realised. In Sweden, the municipalities are key but largely under-researched organisers for preschool quasi-market infrastructures. This study explores the different ways in which Swedish municipalities act as quasi-market organisers in the preschool setting. Following organisational theory, we analyse their market shaping activities in translating national regulations in efforts to influence, support and control their local preschool quasi-market. Documents, websites, and interviews with public officials from 30 municipalities characterised as having either a large (N = 10), medium (N = 10), or small (N = 10) private ECEC sector are analysed. The analysis highlights large variations on how municipalities act as market makers, which is further discussed in the form of three ideal types: the Frontier, the Keeper, and the Endorser. We conclude that municipalities’ varying and hybridised market shaping activities and local characteristics are important to understand the implications that emerge in terms of different rules of the game, stakeholder interdependencies and relationships, composition of market actors etc. Attentiveness to the sub-national/local actors are essential in understanding different welfare quasi-markets within national policy frameworks of marketisation and privatisation.

Collaborative arrangements between schools and universities explored through a lens of organizing Malin Benerdal1, Anna-Karin Westman2 1Umeå university, Sweden; 2Mid university, Sweden Knowledge production in collaboration between academia and society has been put forward in governmental policies on research and development to an increasing extent over the last two decades (Jonsson et al., 2022; Skoglund, 2022) in the Nordics and beyond. This article focuses on one such effort, abbreviated ULF in Swedish, aiming at testing different models of collaboration between universities and school organizers in Sweden. It was initiated as a state-funded trial during the years 2017-2021. Drawing on an evaluation of the work at six participating universities, the aim of the paper is to analyze the organizing of the collaborative project focusing on university representative’s experienced efforts and challenges in relation to organizing the collaboration. The framework for analysis builds on literature of partial organization (Ahrne & Brunsson, 2011) and the analysis was conducted in two steps. First, we analyzed the material to determine which organizational elements were present and visible in the setup of the collaboration at the different universities. In the second step we focused on expressions and statements tied to the different elements focusing expressed efforts, solutions and difficulties in relation to the different elements of organization. The material consisted of transcripts from group interviews with 22 representatives from six universities and written responses from a survey. The results indicate a partial organization where the elements of membership, hierarchy and rules being present. Different solutions were sought in relation to the universities and school organizers different contextual conditions, and different solutions to overcome hindrances was evident. The execution of the elements of organization were partly similar, but variation in prerequisite

I denna rapport presenteras en genomlysning av Högskolan Dalarnas arbete med den nationella försöksverksamheten kring praktiknära skolforskning, ULF. Genomlysningen avser försöksperioden, åren 2017–2021. Datainsamlingen har gjorts via intervjuer och samtal med lärosätesrepresentanter och representanter för skolhuvudmän. Data har också samlats in genom enkäter till dessa grupper. En ytterligare datakälla har varit webbplatser och annat skriftligt material. Analyser har gjorts utifrån en organisationsmodell vilken fokuserar på processer i organisationen. Resultaten visar att lärosätet i utformningen dragit nytta av en tidigare etablerad samverkansstruktur med skolhuvudmän men att en stor del av det löpande arbetet har skötts internt på lärosätet. Resultaten visar också att de medverkande upplever att aktiviteterna i ULF passat in i den kultur av att driva utveckling- och forskningsprojekt som redan fanns på lärosätet. Det framkommer också utmaningar i aktiviteterna som genomförts, såsom att ge de medverkande rimliga arbetsvillkor och att få fler intresserade av utveckling- och forskningsprojekt internt på lärosätet. Aktiviteterna som genomförts inom ramen för ULF har i stor utsträckning varit sådana som redan funnits vid lärosätet men som förstärkts genom försöksverksamheten. Det framkommer också att många typer av aktiviteter har prövats men att det än så länge skett i liten skala och att det inte är helt tydligt vad som är bidrag från ULF. Slutsatsen är att det finns potential att växla upp ULF-verksamheten och att den etablerade samverkanskulturen ger förutsättningar för detta.

Hösten 2020 påbörjades en genomlysning av Umeå-nodens försöksverksamhet ULF-avtal (Utveckling, Lärande, Forskning). Genomlysningens syfte var att undersöka hur respektive lärosäte skapar förutsättningar för ULF:s försöksverksamhet med utgångspunkt från nodens gemensamma ställningstaganden som uttryck i nodens ULF-plan; samt identifiera övergripande hinder och möjligheter till samverkan mellan lärosäte och skolhuvudmän inom ramen för utgångspunkterna. I föreliggande rapport redogörs för Umeå-nodens försöksverksamhet ULF ur ett generellt perspektiv, där en samlad bild av lärosätenas arbete med ULF och generella hinder och möjligheter för samverkan synliggörs. Rapporten är en av sju rapporter som författats i genomlysningen, övriga rapporter berör respektive lärosätes ULF-verksamhet. Till Umeå-nodenärutöver Umeå universitet, fem lärosäten knutna; Luleå Tekniska Universitet (LTU), Mittuniversitetet (MIUN), Örebro Universitet (ORU), Mälardalens Högskola (MDH) och Högskolan i Dalarna (HDA). Materialinsamlingen har skett via enkäter, intervjuer och gruppintervjuer med lärosätesrepresentanter och dialogforum med skolhuvudmanna-representanter. Analysen av resultatet har utgått från en organisationsteoretisk modell där bland annat aspekter som struktur, kultur och politik lyfts fram. I Umeå-nodens ULF-plan framhålls vikten av; att testa olika samverkansmodeller, utgå från ett symmetriskt komplementärt förhållningssätt, att skolans behov ska vara vägledande, praktiknära forskning av kvalitet och i nära samverkan med verksamhetsutveckling och att lärarutbildningen involveras i försöksverksamheten. Resultatet indikerar att det finns utmaningar och möjligheter relaterade till samtliga områden i ULF-planen. ULF-arbetet i noden genomsyras att ett undersökande förhållningssätt, med låg grad av styrning och hög grad av delaktighet och inflytande. Det finns en ambition och vilja att samverka och föra dialog, där professioner, kompetenser och erfarenheter tas tillvara. Ambitionen angåe

Today, one out of five Swedish children attend a privately operated preschool. Even if there are national policies targeting for instance parental choice and right for private actors to provide pre-primary education, municipalities in Sweden have extensive local autonomy in organizing and governing their ‘local preschool markets’ or, rather, quasi markets. As Brunsson and Jutterström (2018 p. 8) put it; “markets are formed by processes of organization. They are the objects of decisions. There are people and organizations that decide not only on their own actions in markets, but also on the actions of others”. Swedish municipalities are such key organizations that create market infrastructures via market shaping activities (c.f. Flaig et al 2021) including for instance to facilitate, support and police the market actors. The aim of this paper is to explore the different ways in which Swedish municipalities create their local preschool markets to analyse how they act as market organizers in the pre-primary education setting. We do this through analysing documents, websites and interviews with municipal officers from 30 municipalities characterized as having either a large (N=10), medium (N=10) or small (N=10) private pre-primary sector. Theoretically, we turn to literature on organizations, governing and public-private relations. Our preliminary findings show that there are large variations on how municipalities act as local preschool market organizers and the paper elaborates three (ideal typical) modes: Endorsers are municipalities that actively promote, support and sponsor market actors. Frontiers denotes municipal territories that are unattractive or not yet fully explored by private preschool actors. Keepers are municipalities that strive to maintain balance or status quo between public and private providers, using various strategies and tools to this end. In sum, this paper seeks to contribute to the discussion on how public actors work to organize, enable or l

Although there is a growing body of literature addressing different aspects of implementation and translation of market-oriented policies, privatisation and choice reforms in both Nordic and European educational research, such processes in pre-primary education have received limited scholarly attention. Indeed, as in other sectors of education, European pre-primary education systems display great variation with regards to, for instance, the extent to which public and private for-profit and/or not-for-profit actors are responsible for preschool provision. In addition, funding policies and regulation varies extensively as well (c.f. Eurydice 2019; Loyd & Penn 2014; Ruutiainen et al 2020; Trætteberg et al 2021). This paper focuses on the Swedish pre-primary education case and is part of an ongoing research project entitled The Preschool as a market (Carlbaum, 2020). Today, one out of five Swedish children attend a privately operated preschool. Even if there are national policies targeting for instance parental choice and right for private actors to provide pre-primary education, municipalities in Sweden have extensive local autonomy in organising and governing their ‘local preschool markets’ or, rather, quasi markets. By creating a market infrastructure via market shaping activities (c.f. Flaig et al 2021) including for instance to facilitate, support and police the market actors, the 290 municipalities have extensive discretion on how to organise the local market for private preschool provision. Thus, market freedoms do not just appear, they require institutions and rules as well as protection and maintenance from, in this case, local authorities (c.f. Wilkinson, 2013). As Brunsson and Jutterström (2018 p. 8) put it; “markets are formed by processes of organization. They are the objects of decisions. There are people and organizations that decide not only on their own actions in markets, but also on the actions of others”. In the Swedish pre-primary education sect

This chapter explores the Swedish case as an example of how privatisation and commercialisation intertwine by following the flow of public funding to private actors. We do this by studying two segments of the Swedish education market: i) education delivery and ii) training, consultancy and support services sold to municipalities and schools. Analysis of a longitudinal dataset based on municipal invoice data enabled us to identify the main actors and to shed light on issues of 'who buys what from whom'. The main private actors are analysed to identify who they are, their core missions, rationales and ownership. The analysis of market segments and the private actors illustrates how political reforms open up markets and invite private education companies to both deliver and profit from education and public funding in different ways. From a wider international perspective, the Swedish case offers some cautionary tales about the blurring of public–private boundaries in education, primarily in education delivery and the expansion of for-profit free schools, the 'privatisation of knowledge' when private consultancy actors become knowledge providers and the increasing financialisation of education.

Hur friskolor och det fria skolvalet har påverkat det pedagogiska arbetet i Sverige har varit föremål för både forskning och reformdiskussioner. En långt mindre studerad aspekt av denna utveckling handlar om hur reformerna har möjliggjort framväxten av en svensk utbildningsindustri med internationella exportambitioner. Kapitlets syfte är att beskriva och diskutera hur tre stora svenska friskoleföretag beskriver sin verksamhet i skolor och förskolor utomlands. Kapitlet illustrerar hur anpassningar görs både i förhållande till den valda affärsmodellen och till den nya nationella kontexten liksom i förhållande till den tilltänkta elev- och föräldragruppen. I detta profileringsarbete kommer den svenska bakgrunden i företagens verksamhet och pedagogiska ansats till uttryck på olika sätt. Kapitlet bidrar med perspektiv på hur det pedagogiska arbetet transformeras i en global tid och vilken roll kommersiella privata aktörer kan spela i sådana processer.

Despite being traditionally characterized as social democratic welfare states (Esping-Andersen 1994), or as following a Nordic path to privatization (Verger et al 2017), Sweden and Finland have adopted quite different approaches to private actor involvement in public welfare. In Sweden, the public is increasingly depending on private providers to deliver core welfare services, such as elderly care, social services and health care. Education is no exception. In fact, it is a large and expanding market. In 2017, Swedish municipalities spent about 45 billion SEK (appr. 4.3 billion EUR) on purchases from private actors providing education, and this is more than twice as much that municipalities spent on private providers in 2007 (SKL 2019). In this paper we pursue a largely under-examined perspective in educational research by ‘following the money’ from the public to the private education industry. We analyse a longitudinal dataset covering the flow of public funding to private actors. This data cover all invoices from purchases made by municipalities from private actors in two segments of the education market: i) Private education delivery at the compulsory level and ii) Professional learning, in-service training, consultancy and support services. This paper thereby aims explore issues of who buys what from whom. ‘Who buys’ refers to municipalities as purchasers of education and related services. The ‘what’ is limited to the two segments and the ‘whom’ refer to the main sellers, including their core missions and ownership. Our analytical approach focuses on actors’ formative roles and the interrelatedness of the public and the private, with a particular focus on commercial and business actors (Ball 2015) and political decisions and policy frameworks that enable or constrain private actor involvement in the growing global education industry (Verger et al 2016; Thompson & Parreira do Amaral 2019; Steiner-Khamsi 2018; Au & Ferrare 2015; Ball 2012). The two nationa

The reception and integration of immigrants has become a prioritized issue in Sweden, being one of the European countries receiving most asylum applications since 2014. For rural communities immigration can be a possible solution in reversing problems of population decline. At the same time the urbanisation rate of international migrants is very high while their employment rate in rural areas remains comparatively low (Hedlund et al, 2017). Increasing international immigration creates challenges for rural communities in organizing reception and activities to match immigrants to education and the local labour market. These challenges are not unique to rural areas, but the specificity of the rural have often been overseen in immigration establishment studies. Thus, this paper focuses not on the migrants and what they 'bring', but on the receiving municipalities and the local labour market which they are to settle in to. The aim of the paper is to explore a) how the rural municipalities are organizing and working in promoting immigrants establishment, through for example workplace learning and education, and b) actors on the local labour markets perceptions regarding possibilities and obstacles for immigrants establishment. The paper focuses on the understandings and practices in the municipalities work regarding immigrants and the labour markets in line with theories of policy work. Masseys (1994) theories of space, place and gender is also used since what is seen as possibilities and obstacles for immigrants' establishment and the activities created has to be seen in a cultural, material and historical context. The study is part of a larger project on integration and education of adult migrants in rural areas in three municipalities in the rural north of Sweden. Municipal policy documents are analyzed and interviews conducted with municipal actors organizing activities such as education and workplace learning. Possible and actual employers such as CEOs and company

The demand for evaluation and monitoring in governance is well known. A development that has taken different forms in different countries, this paper focusing on Sweden and the educational sector. Even though evaluation is an old practice within the government of Sweden, different times have called for different kinds of evaluation (see e.g. Vedung 2010). In the late 1980s the governing of the education system was reformed to a system of management by objectives and results, hence demanding new functions for evaluation in the governing of education. This could be seen as a shift into governing by evaluation (see Foss Hansen 2013). But how this takes shape can be expected to be a constant struggle since the question of what evaluation is, and should be, in a specific governing setting is a political question in a world of symbols, ideologies and power relations (Hanberger 2012). Therefore, how evaluation is perceived, what is being evaluated and how and whom having a voice are matters concerning governing of evaluation. The argument here being that by focusing on, and scrutinizing, evaluation policy these kinds of questions can be explored, questioned and possibly criticized. With evaluation policy being defined as the formal and informal rules, routines and norms that is used to shape, conduct or change decisions and actions regarding evaluation. This means that both explicit and implicit evaluation policy can be studied. The aim of the paper is to explore and describe how evaluation policy is formed and steered within the educational sector in Sweden during two periods of intense educational reforms (1988-1994 and 2008-2014). Drawing on a policy design framework different design elements is identified from empirical material such as governmental and educational agencies documents, and by mapping of evaluation systems and evaluations conducted by responsible agencies. The analysis show that the amount of evaluations and evaluation systems has increased over the year

Evaluation is assumed to support democratic governance and promote accountability and policy and program improvement (Boswell 2009; Chelimsky 1995; Hanberger 2006; 2012; Pollitt 2006; Weiss et al. 2005). Thus, from this perspective evaluation is conceived as a governing tool or a governing technique. It could be assumed that different modes of governing require different roles concerning types of evaluations and evaluative knowledge, however empirical investigations is by no means plentiful on this respect and thus needs further studying. Also, evaluation has mostly been regarded as one of many different governing techniques. Lately, however, scholars are raising the issue of systemic evaluation governance (Hansen 2013) which also brings an additional element to it. This paper discusses the role of evaluation in a specific policy area; Swedish education policy. Sweden has been criticized by OECD in lacking coherence among the different evaluation parts which also calls for an investigation of why and how the different parts of the evaluative functions have emerged and what demands they responded to, and how evaluation has been designed and governed. The paper will examine the purposes of evaluation in education governance by analyzing public policy documents, governmental investigations and previous research, focusing on the time after the Second World War and the building of a comprehensive school system. Different periods are identified on the basis of different modes of education governance. The paper will discuss the implications of the study results for the literature on evaluation governance.

The concept of evaluation policy usually refers to "the way to do evaluations" in line with SIDA's (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency) strategy for conducting evaluations (SIDA 1999; 2012). This way of framing evaluation policy is in my experience, the most common way to think of the concept. A strategic and written plan for how evaluations should be conducted. That is, policy is the product of authoritative decision making and the policy work contains the implementation of this decision. However, this is not the only way to view evaluation policy, and a few years back New Directions for Evaluation devoted a special issue to highlight evaluation policy. With scholars such as Mark, Cooksy, Trochim and Chelimsky (2009) arguing for the need of a "fresh look on evaluation policy" and especially the intimate relation with the evaluation practice (Trochim 2009). Although this sounds like an attempting and promising opening for a debate, these scholars have not adequately addressed the issue of evaluation policy by focusing solely on the hierarchy of policy-making, thus ignoring the vertical dimension of evaluation policy, which is highly relevant to develop a deeper understanding of the making of evaluation policy. My paper addresses the issue of making evaluation policy and with special attention to the vertical and horizontal dimension, emanating from the understanding of policy as a contested, interactive process and activity of many hands. Specifically, in my PhD-project, I will be looking at the making of evaluation policy in the education field, a frequently evaluated domain. This paper will be devoted to the discussion of the concept of evaluation policy and the different dimensions of policy, that is the vertical and horizontal aspect (Colebatch 1998) with examples of evaluation policies from the educational field. This also involves evaluation steering which affect and constitute the conditions for how the evaluation practice can evolve (Hanber