Decoding the marketization of education in Sweden through computational analyses

The radical transformation of the Swedish educational system during the last decades in a neo-liberal direction is often viewed as both paradoxical and puzzling.

A substantial body of research has analysed the marketization of education in Sweden and its consequences from a number of different perspectives.

However, there is a lack of systematic analysis of the development of the political debate related to education in the parliament during the 1980s and onward.

The process of reform of the Swedish education system was fragmented and complex, spanning over several decades and led by different governments of various political leanings.

Therefore, the task of analysing this policy process expands beyond what is possible in traditional qualitative policy analysis.

We will to utilize novel methods and data with the aim to analyse the parliamentary discourse surrounding the reformation of the Swedish educational system from the 1980s to today.

Through a combination of discourse analysis, and computational analyses of open parliamentary data we will systematically analyse the development of the political debate related to education.

Such analyses can give us a deeper understanding of how ideas about educational policy, developed and dispersed over time.