ABSTRACT
Swedish free schools have attracted international attention and in the last decade Swedish school companies have also embarked on international ‘trade routes’. Enabled by policies of school choice and free school legislation from the 1990s, a national education industry gradually emerged and became institutionalised in the Swedish education policy context. This industry is now also increasingly reaching outside Sweden. At present, the three largest Swedish for-profit school chains are also operating internationally across Europe, Asia and the Middle East. From an analytical framework emphasising the fluidity, mobility and circulation of policy and its actors, this chapter analyses the Swedish school companies and their international operations, focusing on the “who”, “what” and “where” as Swedish free schools engage in the global education industry. The chapter highlights how certain notions of “Swedishness” are remoulded and packaged in non-Swedish settings in the processes of exporting Swedish edu-business. The chapter also illustrates how the dynamics of the national-international blending are manifested in somewhat different ways by the Swedish operations and re-locates these international endeavours in relation to domestic education policy developments.
