This study concerns how upper secondary vocational adult education is organised in Sweden. Swedish formal adult education on this level has a national curriculum including vocational education and training (VET) as well as theoretical courses. The local municipality is organising such adult education for its inhabitants, municipal adult education (MAE). However, a quasi-market has developed, where courses are not necessarily provided but the municipality itself, but also by varying other organisations, typically private training companies. In this study, we describe how upper secondary vocational adult education is organised in different ways, and what the arguments are for this in the municipal organisations.

There are a few studies that focus on the topic of the marketisation of Swedish vocational adult education (Andersson & Muhrman, 2019; Wärvik, 2013) and of MAE in general (e.g. Bjursell, 2016; Fejes & Holmqvist, 2019; Fejes, et al., 2016), but knowledge of how VET within MAE is organised on local level is limited.

Our paper will answer the following research questions: 

·       How is vocational adult education organised in different ways in Swedish municipalities?

·       What are the arguments for organising vocational adult education in different ways?How is national adult education policy enacted in local VET practices?

We are employing a policy ethnographic approach in a trajectory study (Rizvi & Lingard, 2010). This approach is focusing the trajectory and transformation of policy, from the central context of influence to the local context of practice. The local context of adult VET is studied in six Swedish municipalities, selected to represent different ways of organising MAE. The data in the study consist of documents and interviews. The documents include national policies on MAE and local policies and descriptions of its enactment, particularly concerning VET. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with local MAE representatives. The interviews were transcribed and analysed qualitatively.

The findings describe ways of organising vocational adult education in local practices in Sweden. On the local organisational level, this includes the choice between or combination of internal and external providers, ways of hiring external providers, and cooperation with other municipalities. On practice level, the ways of organising include apprenticeships, distance studies, counselling, recognition of prior learning, and integration with language courses for immigrants. The arguments for different ways of organising vocational adult education are mainly based in the local labour market needs and in a need of integration of newly arrived immigrants in the Swedish society.

References

Andersson, P. & Muhrman, K. (2019). Marketization of vocational adult education in Sweden. In Pedagogical concerns and market demands in VET. Proceedings of the 3rd Crossing Boundaries in VET conference Vocational Education and Training Network - VETNET. Valencia, Spain: Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2640958

Bjursell, C. (2016). When theories become practice: A metaphorical analysis of adult-education school-leaders’talk. European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults, 7(2), 191–205.

Fejes, A., Runesdotter, C. & Wärvik, G-B. (2016). Marketisation of adult education: Principals as business leaders, standardised teachers and responsibilised students. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 35(6), 664–681. 

Fejes, A. & Holmqvist, D. (2019). Procurement as a market in adult education. In: M. Dahlstedt & A. Fejes (Eds.), Neoliberalism and market forces in education: Lessons from Sweden, pp. 156–169. London & New York: Routledge.

policy. Abingdon: Routledge.Wärvik, G-B. (2013). The reconfiguration of adult education VET teachers: Tensions amongst organisational imperatives, vocational ideals and the needs of the students. International Journal of Training Research, 11(2), 122–134.