‘Post-truth’ schooling and marketized education: explaining the decline in Sweden's school quality

Magnus Henrekson () and Johan Wennström

Journal of Institutional Economics, 2019, vol. 15, issue 5, 897-914

Abstract: The Swedish school system suffers from profound problems with teacher recruitment and retention, knowledge decline, and grade inflation. Absenteeism is high, and psychiatric disorders have risen sharply among Swedish pupils. In this pioneering analysis of the consequences of combining institutionalized social constructivism with an extensive marketization of education, we suggest that these problems are to no small extent a result of an unlikely combination of a postmodern view of truth and knowledge, the ensuing pedagogy of child-centered discovery, and market principles. We show how the stipulated view of truth and knowledge and the design of the system impacts on the incentives for the various agents involved: pupils, parents, teachers, principals, school owners, the municipality, the central government, and, ultimately, the general public. Our study implies that caution is necessary for countries that have a tradition of social-constructivist practices in their education systems and are considering implementing or expanding market-based school reforms.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
Working Paper: “Post-Truth” Schooling and Marketized Education: Explaining the Decline in Sweden’s School Quality (2019)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:jinsec:v:15:y:2019:i:05:p:897-914_00

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Institutional Economics from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().