ABSTRACT
Families appear to have been torn in their educational strategies between a strong social trust in comprehensive school (Peruskoulu in Finnish) and the middle-class pursuit of distinction, especially since the 1990s. In the contingent construction of this tension, the tendency towards a global education policy is transformed into a curious national hybrid in which a kind of rustic modesty meets legitimate parental concern for offspring. It is a question of school choice as a policy thread, 1 and especially the Finnish peculiarity, “classes with a special emphasis”, which have become the main mechanism of choice. The focus in this chapter is on parents and municipal education authorities, the structural constraints and opportunities they encounter and how they interact in the field of local education politics.
