Education in Sweden During the COVID Pandemic: What Happened and What Remains to Be Done!

• In Event: An International Study of the Cultural and Spatial Politics of Education During the COVID Pandemic

Abstract

Migration into Europe and Sweden increased dramatically in 2015. Sweden was together with Germany the two countries that had the most generous regulations of the right for asylum for persons from outside Europe. Sweden had for a long time accepted asylum as one reason for refugees to settle in Sweden. The number of positive asylum decision taken from 2010 increased rapidly from 12.105 in 2010 to over 36.000 in 2018.
The group arriving to Sweden in 2015 came from many different countries and cultures this increase in numbers affected the attitude in the society as a whole and the political parties. The Swedish Democrats a anti refugees party in the parliament campaigned hard to show that this was not something that Sweden was able to handle financially and the argued that refugees was going to have a negative effect on the welfare provisions in the country . Even if, the language of the other political parties and the Social democratic party in power was not as harsh they went to the parliament with a law proposal for stricter border control.
The integration of all these young refugees to Sweden went by giving them a proper education base to use for their as a base in the integration into the Swedish society.
When the corona pandemic came to Sweden in 2020 the authorities in Sweden decided to as long as possible keep the compulsory school system for all children up to 15 years of age open. A decision was also taken to move all other education – high school and university - from classroom teaching to distance teaching with different communication platforms, like Zoom and Teams. This decision had different effects on students depending on their home conditions. Examples of these home conditions are, number of persons that were working from home, internet connections strength at home and access to an own computer.
One result is that schools had to find many different forms of distance teaching for students. However, one other clear result was that children from low-income families and refugee students suffered most form the distance teaching during the pandemic. Even if the overall grades of students did not decline at a large scale, there is now discussion of what have the students missed by not being able to be at school.
In conclusion, the school system worked because of all administrative and political support. Nevertheless, it’s clear the pandemic effected the students learning outcomes most for those that came from challenge circumstances.
References
Author (2021 in press; 2021; 2020 a & b)
Tierney, W. (2008). The impact of culture on organizational decision making. Stylus Press.
Warf, B., & Arias, S. (2009). Introduction: The reinsertion of space into the social sciences and humanities. In B. Warf & S. Arias, The spatial turn: Interdisciplinary perspectives, 1-10. New York, NY: Routledge.

Authors

• Olof CA Johansson, Umeå universitet

• Helene K. Arlestig, University of Umeå