Inequality in egalitarian schools
Another post on the plight of youth in the competitive “knowledge society”
“What is the Danish school system like?
“The educational approach in Denmark avoids class rankings and formal tests; instead, children work in groups and are taught to challenge the established way of doing things. Teachers are called by their first names. The emphasis is on problem-solving, not memorization.”
The SVM government wants to revise the elementary school syllabus to include more non-academic subjects. This fits in with its aim to increase the number of students who go on to vocational training instead of gymnasium (the university prep program). It has made much of the fact that there are 45,000 young people who are neither working nor enrolled in a course of study and that the country has a shortage of skilled labor.
Even bookworms’ parents agree
The change would also improve the school experience of kids who have trouble with academic subjects, who are mostly boys. It notes that middle-school pupils in Norway and Sweden spend more time on practical subjects, as much as 27 percent in Sweden. In Denmark, the level is 14 percent.
A survey of parents shows widespread approval (DK) for this shift in emphasis. The Cevea think tank found that 63 percent of parents favored increasing practical learning activities even if it reduces the time spent on academic subjects. While parents of the pupils who are weakest academically were most strongly in favor of the change, parents of those in the top quarter academically also agreed (58 percent). Cevea is a “progressive,” center-left organization.
White flight
In another development, public elementary schools that are seeing an increase in children of non-Western immigrants are losing ethnically Danish pupils to private schools (DK). Together, the two trends result in a higher percentage of ethnic minorities in public schools, an increase of 13 percent since 2014. The pattern is clearest in areas that have received Syrian refugees. In Assens, for example, the share of ethnically Danish pupils at one public school has fallen from 86 percent to 58 percent, and the total number of pupils has fallen by more than one-third.
This trend puts great demands on the public schools to service academically disadvantaged pupils and also to integrate them socially. Parents of private school pupils often deny that ethnic composition influenced their decision, citing a preference for smaller classes and more personal attention. But Claus Hjortdal, chair of the Principals Association, isn’t convinced:
“[T]hey don’t want their child in a school where others are different from themselves… It is after all society’s responsibility to take care of the refugees who enter the country. It is noble and beautiful, so you must teach your children that.”
—Claus Hjortdal, Principals Association
Private schools in Denmark receive state subsidies and, except for a few, are much less expensive than those in the US and the UK, for example. But they usually have waiting lists, which can be an obstacle for immigrants.
What the economists say
Now consider a couple of studies of educational achievement from outside Denmark, one of them from nearby Norway. It examined the “socioeconomic achievement gap” among pupils in relation to parental income and education. It found that, while the disparity between the highest and lowest pupil segments was lower than in the US, which has much greater income inequality, it was still substantial, equivalent to more than two years of schooling.
“Finding large and persistent (even increasing) achievement gaps in Norway suggests that there are substantial limitations to what an educational system in an affluent welfare state with relatively little income inequality can achieve in equalizing opportunity.”
—“The Widening Achievement Gap Between Rich and Poor in a Nordic Country,” Astrid Marie Jorde Sandsør et al.
The second study is a re-examination of the “smart fraction theory.” It compares the relation between educational performance and national socioeconomic prosperity (represented by the social progress index) on the basis of both average educational performance and “elite” performance. It confirmed that national prosperity is more closely correlated with elite performance. Its conclusion is that school systems should cultivate programs for gifted pupils and should also become better at identifying gifted pupils from lower-class and minority groups.
Whither the Danish model?
What are the implications of the studies for the situation in Denmark, which has traditionally favored egalitarianism and social solidarity over segmentation and special attention to better pupils? They suggest, first, that the plan to channel more pupils into vocational training is sound because the relative performance of lower-achieving pupils, including “bilingual pupils,” declines as the educational level increases. And second, that the increase in private school attendance amounts to a de facto cultivation of a “smart fraction” who will eventually benefit the country as a whole even as class differences may widen.
But consider also a third recent study. In a survey of half a million 15-year-olds across 72 countries, it found an inverse relationship between GDP per capita and life satisfaction (in adults, the relationship is positive). Its explanation is “higher learning intensity in advanced countries.” This would seem to confirm the reports of stress and other mental health issues among Danish and other affluent teenagers and argue for the less competitive Danish approach (unless you question the overall reliability and importance of “life satisfaction” in the turbulent years of adolescence).