Event overview
Professor Sue Winton, Faculty of Education, York University, Toronto, Canada. Professor Linda Rönnberg, and Professor Nafsika Alexiadou , Umeå Universitet, Sweden.
The aim of this seminar is to trace the development of the privatisation of education into new conjunctures –especially those established in states with strong democratic and welfare traditions, where national education systems have been reshaped to meet global reform challenges. Sue Winton will focus on the education privatisation in Canada, a country often recognised as having ‘highly equitable’ public education systems, and the implications of its transformations for social inequalities especially during and post Covid. Linda Rönnberg and Nafsika Alexiadou will talk about the emergence of a national education free-school industry, with companies now expanding abroad to operate schools based on their Swedish experiences, and the implications of this model for teacher work and agency.
Unequal Benefits of Education Privatization in Canada, Professor Sue Winton, York University, Toronto, Canada
Professor Sue Winton’s presentation will focus on education privatization in Canada, a country often recognized as having “highly equitable” public education systems. Citing research from her book, Unequal Benefits: Privatization and Public Education in Canada, Prof. Winton will demonstrate that since the 1990s governments and school districts across the country have adopted policies that encourage private actors to take on new roles and responsibilities in public education. She will show how these policies reproduce patterns of social inequality by enabling already advantaged children to accumulate more private benefits from public schooling. Sue Winton will introduce the Public Education Exchange, an initiative for researchers, educators, and the public to share knowledge about the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on education privatization.
Sweden: Privatization and the rise of a national education industry with global ambitions, Professor Linda Rönnberg and Professor Nafsika Alexiadou
In this presentation, Professor Linda Rönnberg and Professor Nafsika Alexiadou will report on research from their ongoing project ‘Going Global: Swedish school companies and their international operations’ (Rönnberg et al., 2022). They will begin by highlighting how Sweden as a national setting brings some interesting dimensions to issues of education privatization. In the early 1990s, privately operated and fully tax-funded so called ‘free schools’ were introduced and allowed to operate for-profit, leading to quite a transformation of the education system. These reforms have also prompted the emergence of a national education industry with companies now expanding abroad to operate schools based on their Swedish experiences. They illustrate parts of this development by exploring the application and interpretation of a Swedish company's education model in India, with a focus on how it affects Indian teachers’ work and agency in three Swedish-owned private schools (Alexiadou et al., 2023).
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 25 Jan 2024 |
4:00pm - 5:30pm UK time |
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