En skolkoncerns uppgång och fall

Abstract

Swedish reforms in the early 1990s opened up for various actors – companies and organizations – to run fully tax-funded independent schools on the basis of a voucher system. The last decade the expanding edu business has increasingly attracted international private equity firms to enter the upper secondary school market. In 2008, one of the most lucrative Swedish school companies, John Bauer Education (JB), was sold to a Danish private equity firm. Five years later its bankruptcy was a fact. Present article studies the rise and fall of the company with a specific focus on one of its local schools. Based on semi-structured interviews with some directly involved school actors, the study explores how the bankruptcy affected the inner life in school as well as the local upper secondary school market. The analysis is based on Ball’s (2007) theory of privatisation of education.