Problematizing Security in Education: A poststructural policy analysis of Swedish school security

Abstract: During the last few years several violent school attacks have taken place in Sweden, leading to a debate in both the media and in politics concerning school security. There is pressure from the public to “make schools safer”, with some steps being taken on a legislative level. This thesis aims to understand how security is represented as a problem in the Swedish Education Act’s preparatory work, as well as further the understanding of securitization of schools in Sweden. The socio-legal relevance of the thesis is founded upon the societal influence on the legislation and the government. At the same time, research from a Swedish perspective on this topic is scarce, where this thesis can contribute with further knowledge. In order to accomplish this, Carol Bacchi’s (2009) what’s the problem represented to be? was employed as the method, along with Bacchi and Goodwin’s (2016) poststructural policy analysis. These were applied to the policies at hand: Bill 2021/22:160 and the committee directives 2022:86 and 2023:22. The findings of this thesis illustrates that there were three problem representations of security that could be discerned in the policies. These included the 1) problems of clarity and definitions, 2) uncertainty and 3) school security, with assumptions of violence, authority and “trygghet” underpinning them. Taken as a whole, this showed that the problem representations had discursive effects regarding security, limiting it to be understood as more repressive in the form of social control and governing throughout the policies. Regarding securitization, it became clear that security has taken a place in the Swedish education system, through the “necessary” prioritization of security due to the perceived increase of violence. This was, through the poststructural policy analysis, understood as increasing the governing role of schools, using security as a more symbolic tool.