Challenging segregation through education - a comparative study of local initiatives to challenging school segregation.

This research project analyses and compares local initiatives to counteract school segregation. While previous research has mapped and analysed the causes and consequences of school segregation, little has been done to scrutinize the local efforts developed to challenge these problems. This project examines the possibilities and limitations of different approaches for achieving integration and better school results. The project analyses three main initiatives commonly used in Swedish municipalities, which we refer to as 1) Reinforcement, 2) Dispersion and 3) Merging. Through a combination of qualitative and quantitative data, we study the organizational, pedagogical and social processes that arise through each initiative and how these processes work together to achieve integration and better school results.

The project aims at answering the following questions: 1) What motives and considerations are behind different initiatives to counteract school segregation? 2) What organizational, pedagogical and social processes arise within each initiative? 3) In what way, and how, do each initiative contribute to better school results and integration? 4) What similarities and differences can be found between different initiatives, and how can the results of this study be used to make visible and conceptualize possibilities and limitations in local work to counteract school segregation?