Likvärdig skola?

Abstract

Sweden is one of the countries which has signed and endorsed The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child from 1989. According to this convention, all children have the same rights irrespective of sex, race or religion. The convention is in line with Swedish education policy, which for a long time has asserted that schooling must be open to all. The Swedish curriculum stresses that all human beings are of equal value and states, amongst other things, that “education must be suited to the needs and requirements of each pupil”. However, there is reason to strongly question whether Sweden in practice lives up to these ideals and aims. During 2005, the National Agency of Education made inspections of the schools in Malmoe and, in a report from 2006, drew the conclusion that schooling in the city was characterized by large local inequalities with regard to both opportunities and results. One aim of this study is to use the representation of Malmoe´s schools given in the National Agency report to ascertain whether Malmoe is achieving the goal of giving all pupils an equal education; ultimately, I pose the question whether Malmo can live up to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Another aim is to develop understanding of the school as a place of normative and regulating practices in relation to a changed and multicontextual childhood. The empirical data for this study is the said report from the National Agency of Education.