Bildning för alla! - DiVA

One which was travelled by children from poor backgrounds and involved just a
few years of schooling before entering into work life. The other path was reserved
for children coming from the wealthy part of the population. It involved many
years of schooling and in some cases also studies at the university.
This dual system was criticized by influential liberal commentators as soon
as before the middle of the 19th century. Several arguments were raised in this
debate about the advantages and disadvantages of a comprehensive school system.
The main arguments for the need to replace the dual system with “one school for
all” were that it would reduce tension between classes in the emerging industrial
society and provide opportunities for talented children from less privileged backgrounds.
The evolving industrial society involved fierce social conflicts and several
liberal politicians considered the school to be a place where the rising generations
could learn to live in harmony with each other. The social democratic party, which
gained influence steadily, considered the school system a way to provide a better
future for the workers’ children. To make a long story short, in the beginning of
the 1960’s the Swedish “one school for all”, in the form of a 9 year compulsory
school for (almost) all children was established.
There were, however, some aspects of the 9 year compulsory school that were
hard to reconcile with the notion of “one school for all”. First of all, the increasing
urbanization involved an increase of segregated housing areas. Therefore, especially
in larger cities, the children of wealthier parents tended to end up in the same
schools and/or classrooms. Moreover, in order to make the compulsory school attractive
for the upper classes, the demands of the curriculum were set quite high.
Several children could therefore not reach the goals of schooling, which resulted
in a dramatic increase in special education in the 1960’s. Often special education
was provided in a parallel system which, as the critiques of special education
pointed out, involved the re-establishment of dual systems. In this way, the new
system recreated the problems it was supposed to solve.
However, special support was increasingly being provided integrated with
the regular education in the classroom. In addition, special schools were closing
down as there were demands from parents and professional groups that children
with disabilities should have the right to be integrated into the regular classroom.
Thus, even if the 9 year compulsory school was not created with the needs
of children with disabilities and/or in need of special support as a starting point,
it did become more prone to let more and more children be part of its classrooms.
On the other hand, several commentators raised questions about the appropriateness
of the education provided in the “one school for all”. A lot of children failed
in school. However, the Swedish school system also came to be the system where
the educational background of the pupils’ parents had less importance, comparatively,
for educational outcomes. Moreover, Swedish pupils did quite well in international
comparisons of educational outcomes (Skolverket, 2009). To sum up, in
the beginning of the 1990’s it seemed as Sweden were doing well as regards both
equity and educational outcomes. In addition, Sweden was also considered a comparatively
integrated system. On the other hand, it should be pointed out that the
system still recreated social structures to a large extent, that several children failed
to reach the goals of the system and that not all children were thriving at school.
162 • BilDning fÖr AllA!