Swedish Higher Education Research Articles

Massification, unification, marketisation, internationalisation: a socio-political history of higher education in Sweden 1945–2020

ABSTRACT Since the mid-twentieth century, higher education has been subject to spectacular growth. While the expansion of higher education is undoubtedly a general trend, its actual characteristics in terms of its specific conditions and driving forces vary by context. In this article, our aim is to develop such a socio-political historical narrative of Swedish higher education since 1945. We focus on how the Swedish case evolved in four salient aspects: (I) the transformations of the welfare state and the economy broadly defined; (II) the policies directly involved in redesigning the higher education system; (III) the scale, composition and structural relations between the parts of the higher education system; and (IV) the way different social groups (vis-à-vis gender and class) have used the system. We show that higher education policy has shifted its focus from massification and unification to marketisation and internationalisation. We notice that the conditions for the expansions differ substantially during the first three decades after 1945 compared to the 1990s in political, economic and demographic terms. While the system has opened up for increased participation overall, the way students are sorted into different institutions and fields of study by gender and class reveals a remarkably rigid social structure.

Facilitators and barriers along pathways to higher education in Sweden: a disability lens

ABSTRACT The salience of education for better life outcomes is well accepted, but people with disabilities continue to be underrepresented in higher education. Building on Weedon’s approach to the intersection of impairment with socioeconomic factors, this paper identifies the facilitators and barriers encountered and/or experienced by young people with disabilities along their diverse pathways to and through higher education in Sweden. The data comes from longitudinal ethnographic case studies of persons with ADHD. While the findings show similarities in impairment-specific barriers, such as transition and inadequate support available at university, they make even more visible the existing heterogeneity among people with ADHD and the inadequacy of support structures at higher education institutions. Parents, economic security and individual factors, such as ease of learning and belief in one’s own capacity, were found to be strong facilitators. ADHD and socioeconomic disadvantage together magnified vulnerabilities and hurdles faced while aspiring to and accessing higher education. The article concludes by highlighting the urgent need for universities to change entrenched structures that perceive students with disabilities as a homogeneous group and disability as an individual problem, in order to enable participation of all.

Positioning oneself in relation to sources and context – Enactments of independence in undergraduate supervision

Independence is becoming an increasingly important factor in Swedish higher education, especially in relation to undergraduate degree projects. Despite this, there is no shared understanding of what independence is or whether it is to be found in the finished text or in the supervision interaction. In this article I look at one specific definition of independence: the ability to position oneself and one’s work in relation to sources. Three supervision meetings are analysed, selected from a larger body of recorded material from teacher education courses in Sweden. I explore how independence can be enacted in the supervision of undergraduate degree projects, drawing on the analytical framework of appraisal. The theoretical framework is derived from the socio-cultural and dialogical perspective, which proposes that learning and understanding develop in context through interaction and dialogue. Independence, from this perspective, is something that can be explored in enactments in interactions of different kinds. The findings show that the students use different resources in order to relate to sources on different levels, and these levels could be related to independence in different ways.

The opportunities and challenges of working with the development of the ellipse-project before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic

COVID-19 pandemics has influenced many research and educational projects, and it influenced also ELLIPSE-project, aiming at the creation of a free online curriculum in suicide prevention for students in the higher education in Sweden, Austria, Hungary, Norway and Poland (September 2019-August 2022). The ELLIPSE (E-Lifelong Learning In Prevention of Suicide in Europe) (www.e-llipse.com) is the first international project in the area of education in suicide prevention in the higher education co-founded by the European Union Erasmus+ programme. We will reflect on some opportunities and challenges due to COVID-19 pandemics. Identified opportunities: 1) learning a new way of communicating, 2) reaching more participants (in case of Sweden we were able to get participants from more regions, 3) more frequent meetings heightening the quality of the project, 4) travelling less (online is the more eco-friendly solution). But there were also some challenges: 1) not be able to proceed according to the preliminary plan generated much more administrative work, 2) online meetings was a challenge for those partners who had problems adjusting to the online form of communication, 3) more negative attitudes to the canal of communication resulted in avoiding it, leading to less frequent interactions what resulted in diminished motivation to the project, and being unable to proceed with project tasks, 4) resignation of some patients from participation because of difficulties in accepting the online form of communication. We will discuss these issues in a more detailed way during the interactive workshop.DisclosureThe E-Lifelong Learning In Prevention of Suicide In Europe (ELLIPSE)-project is co-funded by the European Union’s Programme Erasmus+ (Project ID: 2019-1-SE01-KA203-060571). The EU Commission’s support for this project does not mean that the Commission end

Geographical differentiation in access to higher education in Sweden

Using Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice, this study examines the practices of Swedish students when entering higher education. Logistic regression is used to examine relationships between the educational resources and geographical origins of students born 1973–1982 (N = 382,198) and 1) their probability of migration when entering higher education and 2) the type of institution they entered. The results indicate that students’ practices differ by geographical origin, suggesting that students use migration in different ways to access higher education. For example, the students with the highest probability of migration are students originating from rural areas with high upper-secondary grades and students from large urban areas with low grades. Implications for expanding access to higher education while also creating sustainable communities are discussed.

Situating ICT in early childhood teacher education

Preparing the next generation of preschool teachers who can integrate and make use of ICT to capitalise on and develop young children’s digital competences remains a challenging goal for teacher education programmes (TEP). Given the current gaps in the literature, this study aims to expand and deepen our understanding of the extent to which early childhood pre-service teachers encounter ICT during their training and how they are prepared to use digital technologies in their future practices. The empirical data was generated through a focus group study with pre-service teachers and interview with their teacher educators at an institution of higher education in Sweden. The findings of the study suggest that pre-service teachers feel they have not been adequately prepared to integrate ICT into their future educational practices in preschool. Teacher educators, however, demonstrated a completely different perspective, highlighting a variety of initiatives that they were implementing to prepare the next generation of preschool teachers to use digital technologies. It will discuss why pre-service teachers, unlike teacher educators, feel they are not being adequately prepared to use digital technologies in early childhood education. The study also provides a detailed account of the varied procedures involved in preparing pre-service teachers’ digital competences and makes recommendations to teacher educators on how to enhance future preschool teachers’ TPACK.

Four different assessment practices: how university teachers handle the field of tension between professional responsibility and professional accountability

Various efforts have been made in higher education in Sweden to meet the demand for more transparent governance and increased efficiency and quality. The purpose of this article is to investigate how university teachers handle standardized models for assessment and examination and orientate in this field of tension between professional responsibility and professional accountability. This study examines school-based courses in teacher education programs at a university and is based on observations from 20 seminars, 10 interviews with university teachers, and 11 focus group interviews with 55 students. The results show that university teachers interpret governing documents in different ways leading to a lack of equivalence. Within one course, four assessment practices are identified: governance as confirmation, governance with need for reinforcement, governance as distrust, and governance as others’ responsibility. This study reveals the variation in university teachers’ professional assessment practices that challenge and interplay with the context of a curriculum in different ways. Aspects of the university teachers’ professional obligation are under tension in the context of a more pronounced accountability. University teachers’ professional assessment practices emerges as fragmented in terms of what professional responsibility includes and what professional discretion involves.

Curriculum development and quality work in higher education in Sweden: The external stakeholder perspective

This article provides an external stakeholder perspective on the influence of higher education in Sweden, exploring their views on curriculum development and quality work at the programme level. Semi-structured interviews with a selected number of representatives of external stakeholders involved in various educational areas were conducted at seven higher education institutions. The participants argued that changes in their business sectors, and subsequent changes in the knowledge and skills in the labour needed, should encourage higher education institutions to adjust and develop their programmes. They did not anticipate or demand immediate changes in response to their comments, nor did they see themselves as a part of any quality assurance scheme. Uncertainties about the internal decision-making process and organisation in higher education institutions apparently do not facilitate external stakeholders’ understanding of their role in the larger scheme. However, all informants had comments on quality in higher education, perceiving it predominantly as something connected to the world of work. The practical implication of this study is that curriculum development at higher education institutions would benefit from communicating the internal decision-making processes to external stakeholders and agreeing on the expectations with them, in collaboration.

The social context of nearest neighbors shapes educational attainment regardless of class origin

We study the association between sociospatial neighborhood conditions throughout childhood and educational attainment in adulthood. Using unique longitudinal microdata for a medium-sized Swedish town, we geocode its population at the address level, 1939 to 1967, and link individuals to national registers, 1968 to 2015. Thus, we adopt a long-term perspective on the importance of nearby neighbors during a period when higher education expanded. Applying a method for estimating individual neighborhoods at the address level, we analyze the association between the geographically weighted social class of the nearest 6 to 100 childhood neighbors (ages 2 to 17), and the likelihood of obtaining a university degree by age 40, controlling for both family social class and school districts. We show that even when growing up in a town with relatively low economic inequality, the social class of the nearest same-age neighbors in childhood was associated with educational attainment, and that the associations were similar regardless of class origin. Growing up in low-class neighborhoods lowered educational attainment; growing up in high-class neighborhoods increased attainment. Social class and neighborhoods reinforced each other, implying that high-class children clustered with each other had much higher odds of obtaining a university degree than low-class children from low-class neighborhoods. Thus, even if all groups benefited from the great expansion of free higher education in Sweden (1960s to 1970s), the large inequalities between the classes and neighborhoods remained unchanged throughout the period. These findings show the importance of an advantageous background, both regarding the immediate family and the networks of nearby people of the same age.

Academic Leadership and Governance of Professional Autonomy in Swedish Higher Education

ABSTRACT This article concerns how spaces of professional autonomy are defined and formed in Swedish higher education institutions (HEIs). Swedish HEIs have become increasingly characterised by rivalling principles of management and professional autonomy. The relational aspects of how a professional habitus is formed and negotiated in relation to management ideals and practices are investigated. The research methods used in this study were interviews with HEI management, strategic human resource management (HRM) representatives and research and teaching staff at three HEIs under different conditions of collegial influence and forms of management. The results show that professional negotiations are undergoing conversion pressures under New Public Management (NPM)-implemented governance, but because professional identities are strongly rooted in academic core values, they are relatively resistant to NPM imposition and encroachment. In light of this, the article offers a discussion on the dilemma of conforming to managerial demands and priorities without losing a professional self.

Evaluation of integration of sustainable development in higher education in Sweden

PurposeSince 2006, higher education institutions (HEIs) in Sweden, should according to the Higher Education Act, promote sustainable development (SD). In 2016, the Swedish Government asked the Swedish higher education authority to evaluate how this study is proceeding. The authority chose to focus on education. This paper aims to produce a report on this evaluation.Design/methodology/approachAll 47 HEIs in Sweden were asked to write a self-evaluation report based on certain evaluation criteria. A panel was appointed consisting of academics and representatives for students and working life. The panel wrote an evaluation of each HEI, a report on general findings and recommendations, and gave an overall judgement of each HEI in two classes as follows: the HEI has well-developed processes for integration of SD in education or the HEI needs to develop their processes.FindingsOverall, a mixed picture developed. Most HEIs could give examples of programmes or courses where SD was integrated. However, less than half of the HEIs had overarching goals for integration of SD in education or had a systematic follow-up of these goals. Even fewer worked specifically with pedagogy and didactics, teaching and learning methods and environments, sustainability competences or other characters of education for SD. Overall, only 12 out of 47 got a higher judgement.Originality/valueThis is a unique study in which all HEIs in a country are evaluated. This provides unique possibilities for identifying success factors and barriers. The importance of the leadership of the HEIs became clear.

Shadow Management: Neoliberalism and the Erosion of Democratic Legitimacy through Ombudsmen with Case Studies from Swedish Higher Education

We argue that the neoliberal tradition and new public management reforms of the public sector effectively erode the core (liberal) democratic values of the rule of law and transparency. The tension between public law and managerially-influenced governmental policy is in practice resolved by the emergence of what we call “shadow management” in public administration, whereby managerial decisions that clash with constitutional and administrative law are dealt with in internal memos or consultancy reports and hidden from public view. The consequence is a duality in the public sector, which potentially reduces public trust in institutions and undermines their democratic legitimacy. Finally, we argue that when governmental neoliberal policy clashes with legal requirements, the likely effect is that the popular institution of the (governmental or parliamentary) ombudsman, originally introduced for legal supervision over civil servants, takes on the new deceptive role of providing pseudo-legal justification for neoliberal reform, making neoliberalism and ombudsmen a particularly problematic combination from a democratic and legal perspective. We support our contentions by a case study of Swedish higher education and hypothesize that the mechanisms we highlight are general in nature.

Using a pod as a platform Library-faculty collaboration

Universities tend to have two main tasks, namely research and education. Since 1999 the law that govern higher education in Sweden added a third task for the universities: to relate to their local environment. In other words they had to reach out with their research to the public. 
 At the Philosophy department of the Humanities faculty at Lund University we had a meeting amongst the staff of the administration in 2016. Point of the discussion was the third task and how to reach out with our research. An idea, not too original, arose. What about starting a pod? After a few months of discussion regarding what it should contain, how to record and who should produce we were on our way. 
 Fast forward 3 years we have recorded 30 episodes with philosophers on all levels on varying subjects such as Free Will, Epistemology and the Philosophy of Truth. To date we have over 15000+ listeners all over the world. 
 So why should a librarian engage in such activity? Well, first of all it’s a fantastic way to learn about your subjects and get to know your researchers. For the library it’s also meaningful to package research, sort it and make it available to people all over the world for a very, very long time. This with a minimal effort regarding time and resources.

“Of course we have criteria” Assessment criteria as material semiotic means in face-to-face assessment interaction

Abstract Assessment criteria and grading rubrics have received much attention in terms of their ability to support teachers' grading and students' learning processes in higher education. This study addresses an underexplored aspect of the institutional use of assessment criteria and explores their function as communicative resources in assessment delivery. The study is based on a small corpus of video-recorded grade delivery meetings in Swedish higher education. Using interaction analysis, the study aimed to uncover how participants used an institutional criteria sheet as a means to support their collaborative communicative work of delivering and receiving a grade on student writing. Three main functions of the criteria sheet were determined. First, the list of criteria inscribed on the sheet provided structure to a meeting that lacked a formal agenda. Second, the list of criteria was used as a mnemonic device, connecting grade delivery to teachers' original grading efforts. Third, the criteria sheet was used as an analogous abstraction of the report, providing spatial orientation for complex discussions of student writing. The paper argues that assessment criteria, when used in assessment delivery, may provide useful support for participants' efforts to achieve the joint task of grade delivery.

Encouraging student independence

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine if and how supervisors’ use of two kinds of potential scaffolding means – asking questions and giving instructions – could contribute to fulfilling the scaffolding intention of student independence, in the context of supervision of degree projects within higher education.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on qualitative content analysis of two series of supervision meetings between a supervisor and a student in Swedish higher education, comprising a total of eight recorded sessions. The theoretical framework of the paper is centered on scaffolding and independent learning, and central concepts are contingency, fading, transfer of responsibility and student independence.FindingsThe analysis shows how the supervisors’ use of questions, and in some respect instructions, could contribute to fulfilling the scaffolding intention of student independence through enabling active participation of both student and supervisor and that the supervision was based on contingency. The analysis further shows that the supervisors tended to become more directive as the work came along, especially when students appeared to be running out of time. The supervision processes did thus not appear to be characterized by fading and transfer of responsibility.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the research field of higher education through discussing student independence as a potential scaffolding intention within supervision of degree projects, based on recorded supervision meetings. Supervision of degree projects is a highly relevant context for discussing scaffolding, since it combines increased student independence with close interaction between student and supervisor for an extended period.

Evaluation systems and the pace of change – The example of Swedish higher education1

The aim of this article is to illuminate and discuss evaluation and evaluation systems in relation to the pace of change. It is argued that evaluation promotes and accelerates change. The article will thus contribute to a critical scrutiny of evaluation as a societal phenomenon and as a widespread practice in education. To accomplish this aim, the inherent purpose of evaluation and evaluation systems is brought forward. National evaluation systems for Swedish higher education are used as an empirical example. An analysis using Rosa’s three aspects of social acceleration (technical acceleration, acceleration of social change, and acceleration of the pace of life) is offered to demonstrate how the evaluation systems are related to, sustain, and promote an increase of the pace of change (acceleration) in educational practice in higher education.

Strategic choices in the design of entrepreneurship education: an explorative study of Swedish higher education institutions

ABSTRACT This article proposes a taxonomy of entrepreneurship education, with the aim of enhancing our understanding of how higher education contributes to society. Entrepreneurship education programs have become a prominent feature in the curricula of many universities and business schools. Often it is developed in parallel with national policy, as described for our empirical context of Sweden. We identify four types using broad principles in terms of four different key variables described within. To identify our proposed types, we perform a cluster analysis of all 37 universities with entrepreneurship educations in one country. Previous literature provides mixed evidence about entrepreneurship programs’ effect on the likelihood of alumni starting a business afterwards. Our contribution is to specify this taxonomy through broad principles, leading to interesting questions about the competing goals between theory and practice in learning outcomes. We conclude with suggested directions for future research and implications for higher education policy.

A Women-Only Leadership Development Program: Facilitating Access to Authority for Women in Swedish Higher Education?

This article explores a national women-only leadership development program in Swedish higher education, the so-called IDAS program (an acronym for Identity, Development, Advancement, Support). IDAS encouraged and supported women academics to pursue leadership/administrative careers in higher education and was a unique intervention, aiming to increase the number of women Rectors. By drawing on interviews with some of the women who participated in the IDAS program and subsequently became Rectors, the article provides a valuable case study over best practices to increase women senior leaders in higher education. Notwithstanding the success of the leadership program, the article also deals with resistance and criticism linked to equal opportunity initiatives such as this. The article analyzes the criticism voiced by the women interviewed and suggests that it can be understood in relation to different conceptions of gender and gender (in)equality.

HIGHER EDUCATION OF SWEDEN: EUROPEAN STANDARDS AND SCANDINAVIAN STYLE

The article analyzes certain aspects of the development of higher education in Sweden in the context of modern globalization and integration of socio-economic processes in the countries of the European Union. The article studies the position regarding the features of modern higher education, connected with its output beyond the limits of individual states and transformation into an international institution. It is proved that this circumstance determines significant achievements in the integrated development of the European higher education, leaving, at the same time, the risks of losing its national features and dropping the level of higher education in countries that are not well targeted for the welfare of the population. The necessity of taking into account the essence of these risks has been substantiated in order to increase the competitiveness of Ukrainian higher education institutions in their interrelation and cooperation with universities of Europe. The expediency of studying and introducing the best foreign experience in the national higher education system of the Scandinavian countries in particular and, namely, of Sweden, has been proved.

Examining Gender Differences in Students’ Entrance into and Persistence in STEM Programs in Swedish Higher Education

Encouraging students to enter and persist in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programs in higher education has been the focus of STEM education worldwide. To promote social e ...