High-Octane Educational Capital: The Space of Study Orientations of Upper Secondary School Pupils in Uppsala

Abstract

By international comparison, the Swedish educational system is more egalitarian than most. On upper secondary level there are hardly any equivalents to the grands lycées in France, or renowned public schools in England or liberal arts colleges in the US (Börjesson et al. 2016a; Börjesson and Broady 2016; Maxwell and Aggleton 2016; van Zanten 2016). No study fees are allowed, neither at private nor at municipality schools. All upper secondary programmes are 3 years long and until 2011, all of them had given general eligibility for higher studies. The admission to tertiary studies is centralised, not entrusted to individual universities, and what counts is school grades from upper secondary schools, alternatively scores obtained at the Swedish Scholastic Aptitude Test.