Specialised music classes in comprehensive education: a case study of the Swedish shift from social-democratic uniformity to neoliberal diversity

Abstract

The following article examines the emerging historical legitimacy of specialised comprehensive schools in Sweden. During the 1980s, neoliberal ideas were gaining ground in Swedish educational policy. As a result, the social democratic government began to relax the rigour of the unified, state-regulated educational system. Specialised music classes played a significant role in this context, as such programmes were increasingly considered models for specialisation and deregulation. The establishment of specialised music classes in Sweden was symptomatic of the national adoption of neoliberal principles in education policy. The case study design uses qualitative document analyses of archive materials including public investigations, minutes of political meetings, and newspaper debates. The discursive legitimation of specialised comprehensive education is seen as dependent on three interrelated frame factors: ideology, economics, and law. Within this framework empirical knowledge of the transformative educational policy of the 1980s is analysed.