Location, Location, Location: Authenticating Education Through Privileged Spaces

• In Event: Roundtable Session 7
  In Roundtable Session: School Choice in International Contexts

Abstract

This paper examines how the interrelation of educational marketization and urban development has come to affect the prosperous and gentrified inner city of Stockholm, making it into a “hot spot” for upper-secondary schooling. By using interviews with students, school-marketing and secondary data I argue that place of location have evolved into a strategic advantage used by schools as promotion and as a guiding reference for school choice. Although expressed and perceived differently, the geographical backdrop of inner city schools functions as ensuring and authenticating markers of good education, many times regardless of success rate and test scores.

Author

• Eric Larsson, Stockholm University