“Quality Problems” in Swedish Municipal Adult Education : The Micropolitics of Quality Construed in the Audit Society

Abstract

................................................................................................... iii Sammanfattning ....................................................................................... v Acknowledgement ................................................................................... vi List of papers .......................................................................................... vii Table of contents ..................................................................................... ix Introduction ............................................................................................. 11 Aim and research questions ............................................................... 14 The form and structure of the thesis .................................................. 15 Previous research ................................................................................... 16 Quality in the Audit society ................................................................ 16 Quality audit processes ...................................................................... 19 Audits and audit concepts: indicators and transparency ...... 19 Outcomes and effects of quality audit processes ..................... 21 Quality in (adult) education ............................................................... 23 In summary: From Audit society to quality control .......................... 26 Background ............................................................................................. 28 Swedish adult education and governing by auditing ......................... 28 The structure of MAE ......................................................................... 30 Flexibility and individualization .............................................. 31 MAE and the market ................................................................. 32 The structure of SSI ............................................................................ 33 Regular supervisions and quality audits in MAE ................... 33 Theoretical considerations ..................................................................... 36 What’s the problem represented to be? ............................................. 36 Situating the WPR approach in a wider theoretical discussion ........ 36 A post-structural approach to policy ................................................. 38 WPR and its three key assumptions .................................................. 39 Methodological considerations .............................................................. 42 Introducing the three policy sites ...................................................... 42 Site I: Policy and instructional documents .............................. 43 Site II: Quality audit ................................................................. 44 Site III: the SSI conference ....................................................... 47 Methodological considerations: observing, audio recording and transcribing ........................................................................................ 48 Ethical considerations ........................................................................ 49 Applying and operationalizing the WPR approach ........................... 50 Q1: What’s the “problem” represented to be in, in a specific policy or policies? ................................................................................. 52 Q2: What deep-seated presuppositions or assumptions underlie this representation of the “problem”? ...................................... 53