Magnus Henrekson - Dumbing Down: The Crisis of Quality and Equity in a Once-Great School System—and How to Reverse the Trend

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In many Western countries, school systems are in deep crisis. Average results are disappointing, differences across schools and neighborhoods are increasing, and a students family background and gender have become more decisive for how well he or she fares. Under these circumstances, it is hardly surprising that the attractiveness of the teaching profession has fallen, making it increasingly difficult to recruit academically gifted and pedagogically talented teachers.

At the same time, the need for well-educated and knowledgeable citizens is greater than ever. The challenges to be dealt with in the decades to come are huge. The aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, climate change, an aging population, increasing inequality, and a looming health crisis are a few prime examples. The solutions to these problems, and the advancement of the exceedingly complex and technologically advanced societies that we have created and depend on, require a highly skilled workforce, judicious stewardship, and citizens equipped with effective models and tools to understand and interpret reality.

The good news is that there is now broad consensus that high-quality education is crucial not only because of the need for human capital but also in its own right. The latter aspect is crucial for ensuring that future generations of adults are provided with opportunities to discover their own callings and lead satisfactory lives in productive interaction with their fellow human beings as well as preserve and further the culture they have inherited.

How should high-quality education best be achieved? What are the recipes for success, why have so many countries experienced setbacks, and what should be done to escape the current predicament? Is more money the way forward? More competition and pluralism? More centralization and tighter regulation?

To shed light on and, in our view, provide a large part of the answer to these fundamental questions, we offer an in-depth analysis of Swedens experience. The Swedish school system has gone through extraordinary swings in education policies, regulatory frameworks, and national curricula. These include a radical marketization of primary and secondary schooling that is currently unparalleled in any wealthy Western country.

In this book, we draw heavily on many years of our own research published in peer-reviewed journals, Johans Ph.D. thesis, and Magnuss interdisciplinary project involving a professor of neuroscience (Martin Ingvar), a humanities professor (Inger Enkvist), and a Ph.D. student in the history of ideas and sciences (Ingrid Dunr, formerly Wllgren) as well as numerous popular essays and books in Swedish.

Numerous friends and colleagues, most importantly Gabriel Heller Sahlgren, Henrik Jordahl, Glenn Nielsen, Johan Tralau, and Mark Weiner have helped us develop our thinking on the many themes covered in this book and/or commented on earlier versions of the manuscript. Three anonymous reviewers and our editor at Palgrave Macmillan, Wyndham Hacket Pain, have helped us correct remaining weaknesses.