Policy Futures in Education
Volume 10 Number 3 2012
www.wwwords.co.uk/PFIE
The Problem of the Welfare Profession:
an example - the municipalisation of
the teaching profession
JOHANNA RINGARP
Södertörn University, Sweden
ABSTRACT As an answer to the welfare state’s transformation and increased focus on goal- and resultoriented regulation, Swedish educational policy is in a state of change. The matter of the teaching
profession’s aspirations with regard to professionalisation has come up once again: reminders that
reference the introduction of teacher certification in order to guarantee the quality of education have
emerged from political quarters, while union quarters are pleading for greater status for the teaching
profession. The article discusses whether the municipalisation of the teaching profession in 1989 was a
break with the goal of Sweden’s previous political debate on education - namely, a comprehensive school
for all - and whether the increased control over the work of the teachers can be said to be a
consequence of the reform.
A project financed by the Swedish Research Council investigated the altered position of Swedish
civil servants; as my contribution, I studied the teaching profession. The objective of the study was
to use two themes – the transformation of the welfare state, and the professionalisation of the
teaching profession – to analyse the municipalisation debate up to the 1989 decision.
The transformation of the welfare state deals with the comprehensive social process of the
1970s and 1980s, which signified that a more economically inspired [1] control system would have a
greater influence on the public sector. Changes in the welfare state also had consequences for the
so-called welfare professions. The term welfare professions refers to those professions whose social
sanction, status and job assignments were created in close connection with the establishment of the
modern welfare state and its development (see e.g. Brante, 1989).
The profession’s status and role were discussed during the reform work both by politicians,
who wanted municipalisation, and by the teachers’ union, which wanted to retain its connection to
the state. In the years since municipalisation, there have been discussions about whether it led to a
deprofessionalisation of the teaching profession. I will come back to the following question later:
Was there/is there a connection between municipalisation and the deprofessionalisation of the
teaching profession?
Extensive research has been carried out on professions and professionalisation. The definition
of the concept of profession has changed over time, just as the emphasis on what criteria must be
met in order to belong to a profession has fluctuated. The development depends on social change
on the whole but also on the professions that have strived to achieve professional status. One
definition that most people can support is that professions have a knowledge base that is built on
systematic theory, authority, social sanction, ethical rules and an internal culture (see Larson, 1977;
Abbott, 1988; Selander 1989; Burrage & Torstendahl, 1990).
In my study, I have differentiated between external and internal professionalisation. External
criteria include abstract knowledge, autonomy, room for manoeuvre and self-monitoring. Thus,
power is in the hands of the professional groups, owing to the fact that they decide who can be part
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The Problem of the Welfare Profession
of the association, either via certification or due to the fact that they play a part in shaping
education and thereby help to determine what knowledge a member in good standing should
possess. This is the area of professionalisation that I investigated. The internal criteria for a
profession encompass norms and core values such as ethical rules, professional language and
professional identity. On the basis of my material, I do not feel qualified to comment on this topic.
My point of departure was a study of the driving force behind municipalisation, with an emphasis
on the professionalisation process of the teaching profession and on social transformation as a
whole during the 1980s.
The study’s overall conclusion is that the municipalisation reform was linked to a greater
transformation in the public sector. The welfare state was adapted to new economic conditions at
the same time that responsibility for the teaching profession was transferred to the municipalities.
Among the driving forces behind the change were different actors at both the regional and the
national levels. The municipalities’ own organisation – the Swedish Association of Local
Authorities – urged the municipalities to become more autonomous, but it was the social
democratic politicians who forced change at the national level. By relying on their historical
heritage and on the ideological changes within the movement and in society at large, they
developed goals and visions to suit the new times.
Municipalisation Reform and the Teaching Profession
On 8 December 1989, the Swedish Parliament voted to end the state regulation of teaching
positions, beginning on 1 January 1991. Instead, total employer responsibility for these positions
would fall to the municipalities (Rikdagens protokoll [Parliamentary minutes], 1989/90:42). The
parliamentary decision concluded a rancorous debate that took place both in teaching staff rooms
and in public during the course of the year. The discussions dealt in part with how school
organisation would look in the future and in part on whether some form of ministerial rule had
occurred and Parliament, with the municipalisation proposition, had been drawn into a contract
negotiation.
Municipalisation meant, therefore, that total responsibility for the teaching staff would be in
the hands of the municipalities. Since 1962, Swedish teachers in compulsory comprehensive schools
and upper secondary schools had been municipal employees; however, they were governed by
state regulations and salary grades, meaning that responsibility for these groups was divided.
During the 1970s and 1980s, the advocates of municipalisation believed that the employment
structure for teachers caused them to fall between the cracks – neither the municipalities nor the
state had accepted responsibility for their staff welfare. On the other hand, with cohesive staff
responsibility in the municipalities, the teachers would enjoy a better work situation (Aktuellt i
politiken, 1989, vol. 20). Opponents believed that municipalisation would mean that the teachers’
control over their work situation would deteriorate because, instead of having one employer, they
would be split up among several (Lärartidningen/Svensk skoltidning, 1989, vol 15). The teachers
were also afraid that if municipalisation became a reality, other professional groups, such as school
principals and municipal administrators, would take control of their work, which, from the
perspective of professionalisation, could restrict the profession’s room for manoeuvre.[2]
Furthermore, the media pointed out that the teachers’ interests would not carry as much weight
when municipal politicians were responsible for all decisions, and that school matters would have
to make way for other issues when schools became one of the municipalities’ obligations
(Helsingsborgs Dagblad, 19 March 1989; Lärartidningen/Svensk skoltidning, 1989, vol. 14). In many
ways, the state regulation of teaching positions gave them a more independent role vis-à-vis the
municipal politicians than most municipal employees had.
When the municipalisation decision was made, the National Union of Teachers in Sweden
(previously known as the Union for Grammar School Teachers) wrote the following in its member
newsletter: ‘We are not going to hide the fact that there are also some very negative elements in
the contract settlement’ (Skolvärlden, 1989, 30½). In its newsletter, the Swedish Teachers’ Union,
which is a member of the Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees (TCO), concluded
that it was time to heal the wounds that split the unions (Lärartidningen/Svensk skoltidning, 1989,
vol. 3). What was the conflict about? How are we to understand the debate that took place? What
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Johanna Ringarp
were the teachers afraid of? What was the motive behind the municipalisation? And why did the
various teacher groups have such different attitudes to the reform? The article will address these
questions.
Swedish Educational Policy in Retrospect
In order to understand the debate that took place in the late 1980s and the turbulent feelings that
the decision on municipalisation brought to the surface, one must first understand the history of
the Swedish educational system. Today, two big associations organise the teachers who work in
comprehensive and secondary schools. The situation has not always been so homogeneous;
previously, there were several teacher organisations that were often in conflict with one another,
and the school forms in which they worked differed considerably: during the period of parallel
schools, there were several school organisations, for primary schools, elementary schools, lower
secondary schools and high schools. The two biggest teacher groups consisted of elementary
school teachers and grammar school teachers.
The genesis of these two separate groups was related to social development in Sweden during
the nineteenth century. In 1842, Parliament decreed that every parish should have a public
elementary school, and that the teachers had to be graduates of a teachers’ college. The elementary
school teachers were recruited primarily from the rural population and the peasant class and hired
as municipal functionaries (Florin, 1987; Persson, 2008). On the other hand, grammar school
teachers taught at the state-run grammar schools. These teachers often came from a bourgeois
background and had university educations. From the beginning, grammar school teaching was not
a stand-alone profession; rather, it was part of an ecclesiastical career. It was not until the midnineteenth century that grammar school teaching became a separate vocation. An academic career,
often within the department of philosophy, became the normal path into the teaching profession
(Florin & Johansson, 1993).
The grouping of school forms and teachers remained in existence until the 1960s, when the
parallel school system was abolished and the comprehensive school, which would provide all
children with the same education, was established. The decision to abolish the parallel school
system and introduce a nine-year comprehensive school was made in the 1940s after several years
of discussion and the deliberations of two education committees. The idea was that all children,
regardless of their social class, would go to the same type of school; it was felt that this
arrangement would bridge the class differences that prevailed in society (Persson, 2008).
The nine-year school, which the comprehensive school later came to be called, was divided
into three different grade levels: 1-3, 4-6 and 7-9.[3] This grouping would become important for the
different teacher categories since previously teaching was based on other principles. For the
elementary school teachers, the introduction of the comprehensive school was a victory related to
both politics and status. At the time, Fridtjuvs Berg, a well-known Swedish politician and
elementary school teacher, conceived the idea of an elementary school for everyone, built on the
educational ideals of elementary school teachers; this is obvious in the visions behind the new nineyear school system. However, the new grouping into junior, intermediate and upper levels meant
that the elementary schools would face new challenges. How would the teachers, as a professional
group, react to the fact that under the new school structure, elementary school teachers’
instruction would be limited to the intermediate level, since, for the most part, primary school
teachers assumed responsibility for the junior level, and the grammar school teachers taught at the
upper level? The Union for Grammar School Teachers’ strategy was to demand that after further
education, its members would also be recognised as special subject teachers at the upper level.
Because of a shortage of grammar school teachers, the National Union of Teachers in Sweden, in
spite of some protests, agreed to the proposal (Ringarp, 2011b).
The grammar school teachers reacted negatively to the proposal because they had more
academic training than the elementary school teachers and did not want their status to be
diminished. A compromise was reached under which elementary school teachers who wanted to
teach at the upper level would be required to enrol in continuing education courses arranged by
the National Board of Education; alternatively, they could take a university exam in a subject
related to the humanities. There were other reasons that the grammar school teachers did not look
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The Problem of the Welfare Profession
positively on the comprehensive school. A teacher’s competence lay in teaching homogeneous
classes in the last years of grammar school and lower secondary school; the greater heterogeneity
of the comprehensive school’s classes was considered to be more problematic. From the
educational point of view, the members of the Union for Grammar School Teachers had passed
exams in one or more subjects, and their job description was special subject teacher or senior special
subject teacher, which meant that they were qualified to teach specific subjects. When the decision
on the comprehensive school was finally made, it was up to the grammar school teachers to see
how the association could best address the new organisational structure. (Once secondary schools
were abolished, the organisation changed its name from Union for Grammar School Teachers to
the National Union of Teachers in Sweden). The federation also decided to begin recruiting those
elementary school teachers who worked as special subject teachers at the upper level (Carle et al,
2000).
Comprehensive School Teachers or Special Subject Teachers?
The establishment of the comprehensive school also meant that teacher training needed to be
changed. This in turn signified that the difference among teaching categories would decrease even
if some hardliners still existed among the various professional groups. The new training for
teachers in nine-year schools, which was the result of an inquiry on teacher training in the 1970s,
LUT74, also meant that the National Union of Teachers in Sweden faced yet another dilemma.
From the beginning, the idea behind the inquiry was to introduce joint teacher training for all
teachers in comprehensive schools with a view to creating a corps of nine-year school teachers
(Wickman, 1997).
The aversion of the National Union of Teachers in Sweden to the new line of thinking with
regard to training nine-year school teachers dealt primarily with the question of where the training
of special subject teachers would take place. Both the university and the special subject teachers
emphasised the importance of continuing to give courses on special subject studies at the university
level. Increased association with the old-style seminar training was viewed as demeaning to the
profession (Carle et al, 2000).
The entire issue ended with a compromise – the different traditions of teacher training were
united into one cohesive type of training for comprehensive school teachers with two different
concentrations. One would target teachers who teach grades 1-7, while the other would focus on
teachers who teach grades 4-9. The duration of the training for the two concentrations varied
somewhat. Training for the teachers of grades 1-7 was one year shorter and focused less on indepth training on individual subjects than the training for the teachers of grades 4-9 did. In spite of
some ‘loosening up’ among the participants, the division signified that the difference between the
former elementary school teachers and the grammar school teachers would also continue within
the organisation of the comprehensive school (Parliamentary proposal, 1984; Wickman, 1997).
In addition, the new teacher training gave rise to a recruiting struggle among the teachers’
associations. The National Union of Teachers in Sweden, which had previously locked out juniorand intermediate-level teachers, believed that on the eve of the decision on new teacher training
for comprehensive schools and on the organisation of the schools themselves, they also needed to
open their federation to intermediate-level teachers. It was not an easy decision for the federation,
as both the members and the board were divided as to whether it was right to broaden the
recruitment base. One of the reasons not to accept intermediate-level teachers as members of the
federation was that the latter had not previously promoted their issues. However, the federation’s
congress resolved that an association for intermediate-level teachers would be created within the
federation in the fall of 1989 (Lärarnas Riksförbund [Minutes of the National Union of Teachers in
Sweden], 1989).
The Swedish Teachers’ Union and the Swedish Association of Specialist and Technical
Teachers [Svenska Facklärarförbundet] looked on with disapproval as the National Union of
Teachers in Sweden opened its membership to intermediate-level teachers. For years, the
recruitment base of the Swedish Teachers’ Union had been the junior- and intermediate-level
teachers, and the Swedish Association of Specialist and Technical Teachers assumed that the
National Union of Teachers in Sweden’s next step in the membership struggle would be to begin
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Johanna Ringarp
recruiting from their membership ranks, primarily vocational teachers (volumes 2 & 5, 1989;
Johansson & Fredriksson, 1993). For the National Union of Teachers in Sweden, the decision
meant that membership would increase once the members of the Swedish Teachers’ Union and the
Swedish Association of Specialist and Technical Teachers who were intermediate-level teachers
were allowed to apply for membership in the union (Lärarnas Riksförbund, 1989).
As a professional strategy, one can ask if the decision was a wise one. Was the strategy in line
with the Union’s previous goal - namely, to be an association for teachers with academic degrees?
Nonetheless, considering the nature of the educational paths, the decision should be viewed as a
realistic one. Judging from historian Klas Åmark’s discussion on open and closed cartels, one could
see that the National Union of Teachers in Sweden opened its doors so that it could expand its area
of activity (Åmark, 1989, 1994). Given the changing conditions in society, the association also
needed to re-examine its position. Nevertheless, it retained the principle that only those individuals
who were certified to teach could become members.
A Centralised or Decentralised School System?
In the late 1970s, the entire public sector came under attack for being too rigid and centrally
managed. Some groups demanded increased democratisation and insisted that homogeneity make
way for individual solutions. These currents were a part of liberalisation in the society as a result of
both New Public Management and the growing democratisation process from below. With regard
to schools, this meant that the centralised homogeneous school also needed to be opened up to
more pedagogical elements and school forms. Because increased decentralisation was required to
make this a reality, it was proposed that dual responsibility be eliminated and that the
municipalities accept sole responsibility for the schools’ operations and their personnel (Montin,
2007).
Prior to 1989, all teachers’ unions were opposed to municipalisation; however, conditions
changed after 1989, and the elementary school teachers began to see the fight over municipalisation
as their last chance to acquire the same working conditions, salaries and status as the high school
teachers. The teachers who were members of the Swedish Confederation of Professional
Employees also received help from the Social Democrats in the struggle. The Social Democrats
believed that the municipalities constituted the foundation of the welfare state, which should exist
at the local level, close to the citizens (Gustafsson, 1988). Centralisation was needed to achieve the
goal of ‘A Comprehensive School for All’, but once the comprehensive school was established, the
municipalities would assume overall responsibility for it. As far back as the early 1970s, the then
Minister of Education and later Prime Minister, Ingvar Carlsson [4], had recognised the limitations
of the centralised school system, but the resistance to change during his time at the Ministry of
Education had been far too great. Instead of pushing for extensive reforms in the 1970s, Ingvar
Carlsson, as the minister responsible for education, tried to pave the way for the changes to come
with regard to the development of the content and control of the schools by establishing different
commissions in the field of education (Ringarp, 2011a).
Nevertheless, the goal to create a school that answered to the municipalities more than it did
to the state still existed, and in the late 1980s the time was ripe for carrying out the reform. Once
the welfare state was in place, it was criticised for being too rigid and centrally managed. Some of
its critics wanted more democracy from below; others appealed for stronger elements of
individualisation and privatisation. Their demands coincided with the fact that the state’s finances
had declined. In order to remedy the situation, the state needed to save; therefore, it began to
exercise greater goal- and result-oriented control over the public sector (Blomqvist & Rothstein,
2000; Quennerstedt, 2006). Thus, the municipalisation of the teaching profession could be
implemented, because conditions in the rest of society as a whole had changed.
Göran Persson [5] was commissioned to carry out the reform, and after barely four months at
his post as Minister of Education, the plans for the municipalisation of the teaching profession were
closer to becoming a reality than ever before. The Minister of Education, with his background in
the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and the county school board, and as the municipal
commissioner in Katrineholm, knew the mood in the municipalities and could argue against dual
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The Problem of the Welfare Profession
responsibility. To help him, he gathered a team at the Ministry of Education that went by the name
of ‘The School Project’ (Elfsberg, 2006; Ringarp, 2011a).
How could Göran Persson come up with the municipalisation proposal so quickly, and why
was Ingvar Carlsson unable to bring about change earlier? The answers have to do with the spirit of
the times in the late 1980s, which was markedly different from that of the early 1970s, primarily
because ideas with regard to increased individualisation were fuelled by the management ideas that
influenced the West. These influences, often combined under the name ‘New Public
Management’, signified that more economy-based thinking was taking hold in the public sector.
When they finally gained a foothold, it was the rhetoric that underwent the greatest changes, but
practices changed as well. Instead of rule governance, it was goal- and result-oriented regulation
that managed public-sector activities; citizens began to be called customers, and they could make
their own selections from the public sector’s offerings (Hood, 1991).
In his work to make the reform a reality, Göran Persson had the support of the Ministry of
Finance, headed by Minister of Finance Kjell-Olof Feldt [6], who worked together with a group of
young economists to formulate the new social democratic policy. Concurrent with the social
changes and global financial situation, the group called into question the ideas on welfare
expansion of previous generations of Social Democrats and in doing so determined that in the late
1980s, the issue was to bring order to the country’s finances and decrease disbursements in the
public sector. In the ensuing discussion, arguments related to greater efficiency and changes in the
control of public funds made a huge impact (Feldt, 1991; Andersson, 2003).
For schools, this meant that dual responsibility would disappear, and teachers would become
more involved in the municipal service structure. By advancing the idea that the municipalities’
financial situation was better than that of the state, both groups – the decentralisation enthusiasts
outside the party, and those within the Social Democratic Party who considered the municipalities
to be the foundation of the welfare state – went along with the decision. In this way, the
municipalities guaranteed that social democratic policy would continue to represent ‘a human
face’, whilst at the same time development would pave the way for a more individualised school
sector (Feldt, 1991, p. 438).
The Welfare State and Market Solutions
How did this equation – continuing the welfare state on the one hand and increasing
decentralisation on the other – come together for the government? The Ministry of Finance,
particularly after consultations with the Swedish Association of Local Authorities, reached the
conclusion that decentralisation was a feasible option for streamlining and reducing public
spending while maintaining the functions of the welfare state. In order to make the public sector
more efficient, a type of control other than the one in place was required. Goal- and result-oriented
regulation of public activities signalled the need for a new way of thinking and governing the state,
one that would also affect civil servants. For the welfare professions, which in this dissertation are
exemplified by the teaching profession, the new management system meant greater control over
their work. Moreover, looking to the future, even Göran Persson believed that the economic
situation was and would continue to be more favourable at the municipal level than it was at the
national level (Ringarp, 2011a).
However, Bengt Göransson [7], Göran Persson’s predecessor as Minister of Education, saw
things differently. In his last proposal in this post, Göransson recommended that teaching positions
continue to be regulated by the state. He based his reasoning primarily on the notion that
municipalisation would mean the end of the concept of equality. In Göransson’s opinion, it was
precisely the centralised system and the national proficiency criteria for teachers that made it
possible for students, no matter where they lived in Sweden, to receive the same education
(Ringarp, 2011a).
The Political Parties Trade Places
Municipalisation meant that the Social Democrats carried out far-reaching decentralisation, while
the opposition, which had pressed for both decentralisation and increased freedom of choice for
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schools, fought against it. The roles were reversed because the concept of decentralisation meant
something completely different to the Moderate Party and the Liberal Party (and, to a certain
extent, the Green Party) than it did to the Social Democrats. Throughout the 1980s, during the
parliamentary debate, the position of the non-socialist parties was that individual choice should
play a much greater role. In their opinion, decentralisation would not stop at the municipal level
but would continue down to the professionals in the school, as well as the students and the parents,
who would select the type of school and exert influence on the working methods of the school
(Schüllerqvist, 1996). The Green Party also wanted parents and students to be able to exert more
influence. On the other hand, the Social Democrats viewed the reform more as an organisational
change – from one political level to another. For a variety of reasons, the Centre Party’s ideology
was closest to that of the Social Democrats, as it too believed that the municipalities constituted the
foundations of the welfare state. At first, therefore, it looked as if the Centre Party would join
forces with the government. However, during the parliamentary debate, all of the members of the
Centre Party, with the exception of the party’s spokesperson for educational matters, voted against
the proposition (Johansson, 1997). In all likelihood, bloc solidarity took precedence over an
agreement with the Social Democrats.
However, the municipalisation proposition was passed because the Left Party – Communists
- voted in favour of it, in spite of the fact that this was the party that was most resistant to the
change and wanted to retain the centralised school system (Schüllerqvist, 1996). The reason for the
Communists’ decision concerned the agreement they had reached with the Social Democrats on
the Parliamentary Standing Committee to invest more money in schools over the course of the
next ten years. The consequence for the schools and their personnel was that working conditions
and regulations changed because of the decision (Utbildningsutskottet protokoll 1989/90 [Minutes
if the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, 1989/90]).
The Problem of the Welfare Professions
About the same time that the municipalisation of the teaching profession was taking place, similar
reforms in other areas, which also led to changed working conditions for the relevant professional
groups, were carried out. The mental health reform is one example, and a newly published
dissertation on political science from Uppsala University reveals that the reform’s goals and
objectives were similar to those of the school reform - namely, to increase the efficiency of a public
activity. At the same time, the decision meant that the social sanction of social workers would be
weakened (Maycraft Kall, 2010). However, the state’s control of professions through the use of
reforms differed from one profession to another. For the teachers, reform meant that their
profession would be more stringently controlled. On the other hand, Maycraft Kall’s study suggests
that the social workers were not at all controlled in the same way as the teachers; nor did they take
an active role in the implementation of the mental health reform (Maycraft Kall, 2010). In spite of
the state’s different procedures with regard to the reforms, the consequence for both professions
was deprofessionalisation. Why did this happen, and how do these two examples relate to current
research on professions? I believe that both cases dealt with what are referred to as weak professions,
whose low status from the onset prevented them from fighting back when the social sanction over
the exercise of their professions disappeared. Their low status can also be linked to the
predominance of women in these professions, a matter that both historian Christina Florin and
sociologist Sofia Persson have elucidated in their dissertations (Florin, 1987; Persson, 2008).
The picture that emerges in both of these studies gives me grounds to introduce sociologist
Andrew Abbott’s theory, which states that regardless of where the professions carry out their work,
there is a demarcation or competition between and within professional groups, which he calls
jurisdiction. Therefore, in order to protect its status and its monopoly, a profession must have
control over its knowledge base. Those who do not have this end up on the lower end of the
professional hierarchy, and their status and room for manoeuvre are weakened because they are
considered inferior (Abbott, 1988).
It should be added that even those professions that remained in state government service
were aware of the increased control. This can be linked to the introduction of New Public
Management ideas into the public sector. As a result of the financial-based orientation, there was
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more standardisation of control mechanisms and greater cost effectiveness of operations. For the
professions, this meant that their position shifted from one of having responsibility and room for
manoeuvre in their work to one of being accountable (Parding & Ringarp, 2008; Svensson &
Karlsson, 2008). The Swedish legal and medical professions, long considered to be stable
professions, represent two examples of this shift; as a result of greater control, they have watched
their room for manoeuvre shrink (Nordgren, 2000; Ställvik, 2009).
In one of his articles, sociologist Lennart G. Svensson introduced the notion that the changes
in the welfare state led to the concept of commercialised professionalism (Svensson, 2003, p. 331ff.).
Further, sociologist Julia Evetts attempts to explain the change with the help of the concepts of
organisational professionalism and occupational professionalism. The former refers to the increased
standardisation of work from management’s side, while the latter builds on the idea that
professionals, by virtue of their autonomy and room for manoeuvre, control themselves (Evetts,
2006).
In my study, one example of the increase in organisational professionalism is the Swedish
Association of Local Authorities’ discussion on the teaching profession’s role and work that began
in the association in the early 1990s. It is clear from the association’s internal documents that, going
forward, the school’s administrative management, with greater influence from students and
parents, would make decisions on the substance of the teachers’ role (Svenska Kommunförbundet
[Swedish Association of Local Authorities], 1992).
One cannot help but wonder if the change, which resulted in freedom of choice, school fees
and competition between municipal and private schools, really meant that a professional teacher’s
role could be maintained. The Swedish Association of Local Authorities’ answer was that the
teachers would become more professional if they took a more active role in developing their
working methods and curricula and collaborated with other personnel in the educational system so
that school efficiency and productivity would increase. But in order for this to happen, the pay
system would also have to change so that salaries would be based more on individual performance
(Svenska Kommunförbundet [Swedish Association of Local Authorities], 1992, 1993). This line of
argument is diametrically opposed to the professional group’s image of a profession with high
status and autonomy, and instead provides a clear picture of organisational professionalism’s
ingress into the school. It is also possible to link Julia Evett’s discussion to Professor of Pedagogy
Ewald Terhart’s argument that the school administration as a controlling body breaks down the
systematic connection that exists between the profession’s autonomy and professional ethics
(Terhart, 1990). Taken together, these descriptions support my argument that a new professional
group, managers, exerts greater influence over the welfare state’s operations, and thereby over the
professionals who work within them as well (see Exworthy & Halford, 1999).
The management policy development may not have been unique to the local level, but the
change affected the municipalities to a considerable degree. Society’s financial crisis made it
necessary to streamline the public sector in order to continue to maintain the welfare state at an
acceptable level. One example of the increased economising of the municipal administration is
presented in a brochure published by the Swedish Association of Local Authorities in 1995. The
text states that New Public Management was introduced precisely to improve results at the same
time that all departments would become more cost-effective (Hjalmarson, 1995). The economic
argument increasingly got the upper hand and affected both the welfare professions and the
citizens who lived and worked in the community.
Nevertheless, I maintain that it was more than just changes in purely economic terms that
came to light; there were also other determinants - for example, citizens began exerting more
power during this period. These changes represented both individualisation in a move toward
greater freedom of the public sector, and a trend designed to strengthen citizen democracy. In both
cases, however, greater citizen influence signified a depoliticisation in the sense that individuals
could select schools and health and social care without having to take a detour via politically
elected entities, as had previously been the case.
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Johanna Ringarp
Social Democracy in a New Era
Social democracy’s adaptation to liberal market trends was not a typical Swedish phenomenon.
International research provides several examples of what social democracy’s adaptation to a more
economically oriented policy has meant and continues to mean for the movement’s future
development.[8] The question is: will it be seen as a break or as continuity? The answer? A little of
each. It was a long-term aspiration and ambition of the party to bring decisions down to the local
level. The break had to do with the times and the new-liberal elements in politics, which made it
possible to bring about changes, even if the ultimate objective became something other than what
had been intended at the onset.
However, in the opinion of economic historian Jenny Andersson, it is problematic to simply
say that ‘the third way was or is new-liberal by nature’ (Andersson, 2010, p. 127). If one accepts this
point of view, it is more difficult to look at social democracy as ‘a responsible, acting subject’
(Andersson, 2010, p. 127). As my dissertation has demonstrated, social democratic politicians had
goals and visions that, with the help of their party’s historic legacy and as a result of the ideological
changes within the movement and in society in general, were developed in order to suit the new
era. In effect, the innovation of the 1980s meant that more attention would be paid to the
individual’s opportunity to be shaped in line with the changes that the market and social policy
required.
Nevertheless, one consequence of the social changes was a weakening of the municipalities in
favor of privatisation and more individual choice in the welfare state. The shift to the right and free
market forces were helped along by social democracy, which saw that a change needed to take
place if the welfare state was to have a chance to survive. Therefore, with reference to the question
‘break or continuity,’ it is possible to view the third way as a political orientation that is both distinct
and in keeping with earlier social democratic policies. This was more about how leading politicians
perceived the possibilities available for addressing the issue of how to manage the welfare state.
Thus, the question of what the welfare state encompasses is an open one that needs to be redefined
in each new phase; the dissertation’s discussion on the equivalency concept is just one example.
Undeniably, however, political reforms have implications for both those who work in the public
sector and those who depend on it.
The Teaching Profession’s Strategies Following Municipalisation
The school as a workplace and organisation has changed considerably, not the least because of
municipalisation and the independent school reform in the early 1990s. At both the comprehensive
and high school levels in contemporary Sweden, several private actors are financed through public
funds (Ringarp, 2011b).
The teachers’ professional room for manoeuvre has also changed since municipalisation went
into effect. Today’s teachers are required to be more involved in a school’s organisation and profile
than previously. Further, state pay grades now also apply to individual salaries in the municipal
schools. However, the deprofessionalisation of the teaching profession cannot be linked to
municipalisation; rather, it must be viewed in a longer perspective. The teachers’ status declined
throughout the twentieth century. In particular, this affected the grammar school teachers, who
were educated at universities and, as academics, enjoyed a high status in society. Even elementary
school teachers, by virtue of their professions, had some status, in particular because in the first half
of the twentieth century they were part of a minority in the lower social classes because they
continued their educations after elementary school. When the level of knowledge in society
increased as a result of the welfare system’s expansion of the educational system, the teaching
profession increasingly lost its special position in society.
In effect, its professional status had already been circumscribed when municipalisation
entered the picture. The reform, therefore, should be viewed not as the redeeming factor for the
profession’s deprofessionalisation, but rather as yet another step towards a levelling of working
conditions, salaries and status among the previously historically separate teacher groups.
As was previously discussed, the teaching profession’s duality and heterogeneity had a long
history, and in spite of the fact that the associations sometimes collaborate on certain issues, a
number of differences among these groups still persist. Joint teacher training took place for a few
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The Problem of the Welfare Profession
years in the 2000s, but in 2011, differentiated instruction was introduced again. Only time will tell
what the impact of this development will be upon the teaching profession’s associations and their
struggle for equal pay and status.
Notes
[1] By economically inspired and/or economically rooted ideas, I mean the idea cluster that is often
called New Public Management (NPM). Many people who use the NPM concept have seized on the
market-oriented changes and the imaginary free markets that were created in order to increase
efficiency, markets in which citizens became customers when the public sector introduced different
types of buy and sell systems. However, many of the changes that occurred via NPM were also
organisational. The public administrations came to be increasingly controlled by companies (see, for
example, Hood, 1991). I believe, therefore, that one must apply a broader definition than simply
market orientation when one looks at development. This leads me to the following concepts:
economically inspired, economically rooted and economically based ideas.
[2] For a discussion on the professionalisation and deprofessionalisation of the teaching profession, see
chapter 2 in Ringarp, 2011a.
[3] Junior level = grades 1-3; intermediate level = grades 4-6; upper level = grades 7-9.
[4] Ingvar Carlsson, Social Democrat, served as Minister of Education from 1969 to 1973 and as Prime
Minister from 1986 to 1991 and from 1994 to 1996.
[5] Göran Persson, Social Democrat, was Minister of Education from 1989 to 1991, Minister of Finance
from 1991 to 1994 and Prime Minister from 1996 to 2006.
[6] Kjell-Olof Feldt, Social Democrat, was Minister of Finance from 1982 to 1990.
[7] Bengt Göransson, Social Democrat, was the Minister of Education from 1982 to 1989.
[8] See Glyn, 2001; Moschonas, 2002; Berman, 2006; Tidsignal, 2010.
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JOHANNA RINGARP is a lecturer in history at Södertörn University, Sweden. In 2011 she
received her PhD in history by defending her dissertation, Professionens problematik. Lärarkårens
kommunalisering och välfärdsstatens förvandling [The problems of the teaching profession]. Her
research specialties are educational policy, policy borrowing, teaching professions and post-WWII
German history. Correspondence: [email protected]
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