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Artikeln tar sin utgångspunkt i hur aktörer på den privata läxhjälpsmarknaden, i kölvattnet av en intensiv politisk och medial debatt, befinner sig i en position som innebär förändrade behov, förutsättningar och möjligheter att söka legitimitet för sin verksamhet. Genom detaljerade analyser av intervjudata med representanter för två olika privata läxhjälpsföretag synliggörs hur olika positionerings- och kategoriseringspraktiker sätts i arbete i deras berättelse om sin organisation och hur detta resulterar i en vid repertoar av identitetframträdanden. Analysen visar på hur de organisationsidentiteter som framträder relaterar till såväl det reguljära utbildningssystemet och olika samtida utbildningsideal och frågor som efterfrågan, men även mer pragmatiska aspekter som behov och marknadsförutsättningar. Sammanfattningsvis visar studien hur organisationsidentitet inte kan förstås som något statiskt svar på frågan om vilka en organisation är eller vill vara, utan snarare som något dynamiskt som hela tiden omkonstrueras i relation till omgivande förutsättningar där såväl politiska regleringar, samtida samhälleliga debatter som mer stabila normer och ideal sätter ramar för organisationers möjligheter att framställa sin verksamhet som legitim och önskvärd.

Private supplementary tutoring (PST) is a worldwide enterprise that comes in a variety of forms and with a growing number of students. Sweden, together with the other Nordic countries, has a relatively short history of large-scale organised supplementary education, which can be explained by its confidence in regular mainstream education. In recent years though, this picture has partly changed, and today families in Sweden are offered different kinds of education services outside the ordinary school system. This paper targets how PST is legitimized and justified through marketing as a solution to problems related to the education of children. Through a positioning analysis of three consumer narratives published online by a PST company, this paper aims to further our understanding of which functions PST fills within the Swedish education system. Results show that private tutors appear in the consumer narratives as compensating for shortcomings in schools and families as well as complementing the support that parents and teachers can offer children. These findings signal that PST marketing creates demands for different kinds of support which may, in the long run, rewrite the map of the Swedish education landscape.

Since WWII, Sweden has had an international reputation for being modern and progressive, with schooling that provides equal opportunities for all children. Analysing local enactment of the national pursuit of modernisation in two contrasting municipalities, this paper offers new perspectives on Swedish education history beyond the image of schooling as a uniform national project. The concepts of technological development and internationalisation are applied to capture the ideas and visions inherent in this modernisation. The study demonstrates, through the example of the rural municipality of Tierp and the municipality of Stockholm, the complexity of the modernisation process and the interplay between divergent interpretations of national reforms and local enactment of modernisation. KEYWORDS: Modernisation, local school history, policy enactment, curriculum theory

In this article, we present a comparative research project on municipal school policy in Sweden 19502010 which in our view contributes to the research fields of education policy and curriculum theory. Our project which started in 2014 links to a line of international research on education policy concerned with the tensions between decentralisation and globalisation and comparative research investigating transnational transfers of education policy ideas. In this article, we provide some preliminary findings which display municipal school policy dealing with national and transnational school initiatives and affecting local school actions. Most of the findings in this article concern the time period 19501975, during which the present two Swedish school forms, Grundskolan (a 9-year comprehensive school) and Gymnasieskolan (upper secondary school), were introduced and established.We compare local policy, through six interrelated indicators, in two municipalities with different structures and origins. On the basis of our findings, we conclude that municipal school policy research in a comparative and historical perspective is an important field of research as it reveals the complexity of school governance. Historical studies of municipal school policy and practice are crucial for exploring different dimensions of curriculum theory, including the transnational dimension.Keywords: local school policy; local school history; education policy; curriculum theory; globalizationCitation: NordSTEP 2015, 1: 27009 - http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/nstep.v1.27009