Inclusive Education and School Choice Lessons from Sweden

Overview & Synopsis

While school choice and marketisation have been studied extensively, some areas remain under-researched, for instance, the consequences of choice for the development of inclusive education. The aim of this article is to illustrate the consequences of school choice for inclusive education, as it relates to special education, using Sweden as a case study. The Swedish education system is often raised as inclusive in an international perspective. However, school segregation has been increasing in terms of attainment and pupils' socio-economic-, and immigration backgrounds, groups that are over-represented among SEN-pupils and under-represented among pupils that exercise school choice. This summary of research indicates that the increased segregation in the education system also regards special education. There is a clustering of SEN-pupils at schools with particular profiles and a lower proportion at other types of schools, resources for special educational support are less accessible at independent schools, and school choice is not as open to SEN-pupils as other pupils. These are disconcerting results for an education system renowned for being inclusive.