Description:
The compulsory school is one corner stone in the formal rule based system of the Swedish school. The compulsory school in the modern Swedish state makes the school a coercive institution in as much as the pupils’ presence in a school’s day-to-day activities is guaranteed. The fact that even today’s school can be characterized as a coercive institution opens up for a number of pupil roles. Pupils who are adjusted to the structure of the school perceive the school as a legal right, i.e a prerequisite to citizenship, working life opportunities and a good life. For these pupils, who can be labelled as partners, the emphasis on the legal right to education is more important than the obligation to attend school. Other pupils may perceive school as a place of custody where they are regarded as more or less passive participants in, or even spectators of, the day-to-day activities that go on in school. The conclusion is that school as an institution is a coercive institution. This is a question of legality. But whether schools as organizations are coercive or not is an empirical question, which has to do with how the pupilroles are perceived. Basically this is a question of legitimacy.