Equity trends in the Swedish school system

A quantitative analysis of variation in student performance and equity from a time perspective. Summary in english of report 275.

During the last few years Sweden has participated in a number of international surveys that have provided an insight into the quality of the swedish compulsory school system from an international perspective. The results indicate that the Swedish compulsory school achieves a relatively high standard and Swedish students generally perform at a level above the OECD-average, despite a slight deterioration in recent years. Average student performance is however only one quality indicator of school systems. Equity, or equal opportunity in education, is also considered to be an important aspect of school quality, and internationally the Swedish school system achieves a high level of equity. In particular, the variation in performance between schools is very low in Sweden compared to many other countries. Of concern however is that even equity in the Swedish school system may have deteriorated in recent years, as PISA 2003 suggests that the difference in performance between schools may have increased.International surveys are based on relatively small samples with a main focus on the average level of performance rather than equity issues. The aim of this report is therefore to provide a more robust assessment of how variation in student performance and other equity indicators have changed over time. To achieve this, results from a number of different data sources have been used.