First grade school choice from a consumer culture parental perspective

When school choice was introduced in Sweden in 1992, parents were given a key role on the school market in line with the rest of Europe.

Still, the Swedish policy is unique by offering free school choice via municipal, commercial and foundation run schools that are all 'free of charge' through a publicly funded voucher system. The policy also gives non-public schools the opportunity to make a profit on these publicly funded means.

The work that parents are expected do to familiarizing themselves to a (sometimes) complex market in order to be able to make a choice that can be perceived as having a lot at stake, and for which they are solely and fully responsible, deserves greater attention.

Research that explicitly focuses on a parental perspective of school choice in the Swedish context is surprisingly scarce, especially first grade school choice where parental influence can be assumed to be substantial.

While previous research in economics and educational sciences has meritoriously shown the effects of school choice both in the education system and at the societal level, the parents' situation as consumers on the school market in particular needs a clearer elucidation.

This project's consumer culture parental perspective aims to deepen the understanding of the school choice from a parental perspective by studying whether and, if so, how cultural systems such as parenting, worklife, gender, citizenship and others intersect with the market logic/s of the school market.