The Politics Of Linking Schools And Social Services

The 1993 Yearbook Of The Politics Of Education Association

Louise Adler, Sid Gardner, Louise Adler, Sid Gardner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9781135721015
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Educación general

From the time the reform movement began in the progressive era with concerns about public health and universal access to education, arguments have been raised for and against linking schools and social services, and the merits or otherwise of each system.; A new argument for the collaboration is that integration will lead to substantially better services than those provided by separate organizations.; This volume brings together a wide array of cross-national research and public policy issues to focus on a new framework of service provision. It looks at the different networks of organizations of which schools and social services have been a part, and at the political implications or results of bringing together the professionals from such organizations. It takes into account the constraints resulting from the larger institutional network experience by such organizations. The book also presents a range of perspectives on the way preparation is followed by four responses that present somewhat varying points of view.; The contributors come from a wide range of experiences including specialists in politics of education, law, urban studies, children's issues and those providing reflections on practical experience.

PART 1
Cross-national perspectives

The Norwegian case: child-centered policy in action?

Unni Hagen and Felisa Tibbitts

In this chapter we will present a descriptive analysis of the Norwegian government’s practices related to barns oppvekstkår, the closely intertwined set of laws and value systems related to the conditions under which children grow up, including education, health and social well-being. Effective local practices involve close cooperation between the family, schools and municipal authorities. We will examine formal policy and the limited empirical evidence that is available in appraising Norway’s success in carrying out ‘child-centered policy.’

The Norwegian model is an instructive one for the USA, not only for the ways in which the institutionalization of the child ombudsman role has been attempted from the central level on down, but because of the struggles that continue today as Norwegians attempt to balance the sometimes contradictory impulses between local governmental autonomy, the integrity of the family unit and the pressure for increased accountability within the system as a whole. These impulses have been laid bare in particular since the mid-1980s, when new policies were enacted that decentralized to municipalities responsibility for developing their operating budgets (while maintaining financial support from the center in the form of block grants).

Although there is insufficient evidence to judge the delivery of local services, and particularly any changes since decentralization, the Norwegian case illustrates how a system can be set up so that parents, teachers, health care professionals, social care providers and government officials at all levels can cooperate in meeting the multiple needs of children. In the wake of substantive educational reforms, policies have steadfastly assured that the pedagogical and social needs of children ultimately will take priority over financial considerations and will drive the configurations of service delivery. With increased accountability and teacher professionalization related to recent reforms, Norway will be in an even better position to guarantee that meeting children’s needs remains the highest priority.

Some background on Norway

Norway has a landmass of over 839,062 square miles, approximately the same area as New Mexico. With a population of only about 4.2 million, it is one of the most sparsely populated countries on the European continent, with most of the inhabitants living in small towns. Slightly over 20% of the population is under the age of 15.

Norway is a social democratic country with a history of social policies geared towards equalization among its populace—in terms of both equality of opportunity and equality of outcomes. There is also a strong tradition for recognizing the special needs of children and women. Norway’s egalitarianism has been traced partly to its scattered population, which, in former times, precluded the development of a feudal class. A certain populism, engendered in rural roots and early experiences with mass democracy, has also contributed to the country’s commitment to equality.

Norway was the first of the five [Nordic] countries to come close to mass democracy: Stein Kuhnle has offered estimates indicating that around 45 percent of all men 25 years and older were formally enfranchised in 1814. The free peasantry were given political rights…. In fact, the decision of the elite of officials to extend political rights to such large numbers was to a considerable extent based on the conviction that the peasants would remain tied to their parochial affairs and interfere very little in the running of the new state. (Rokkan 1981:62)

A late-comer to the industrialized world, Norway’s drilling of North Sea oil, beginning in the 1970s, has enabled one of the highest levels of living in the world. ‘Level-of-living’ was a concept established by a Swedish study in 1971. The indicator incorporates measures for health, nutrition, housing, family origins and family relations, education, work and work milieu, economic resources, political resources, leisure and leisure-time pursuits (Castles 1978:79).

A considerable amount is spent on education, both in absolute and per capita terms. In 1987, public expenditure on education was approximately 7.8% of the gross national product (Utdannings- og forskningsdepartementet 1990:5). This figure represents a real growth in total educational spending since 1980, attributable mostly to salary increases, although with concurrent reductions in equipment and materials acquisitions. During this period, there were renewed efforts to support teachers in the classroom. The 29 hour/week teaching load for primary school teachers was reduced to 27 hours as of the 1984–85 school year, teachers were given release time to develop local curricular plans (1987–88) and the maximum number of students from primary school classrooms was to be reduced from 30 to 28 by 1990 (Kirke-, utdannings- og forskningsdepartementet 1992:8, 10–11).

Egalitarianism and welfare policies

Since the post-Second World War period, Norway and the other Scandinavian countries have gained international recognition for their centrally driven efforts in meeting the social and educational needs of citizens. The Social Democrats in Norway, who dominated the political scene following the Second World War and into the 1980s, have been most closely associated with these efforts. The policies themselves have been characterized by explicit guidelines and financial support earmarked from the center.

[I]n terms of social structures, forms of government, and predominant attitudes towards society, the five Nordic countries have many common features. [T]he similarities stem from political thinking and actions, which in the latter part of our century have been characterized as an attempt to create ‘welfare societies.’ This catch-word has had a broader meaning and wider political consequences than in most other countries, where more often it has been seen solely as a matter of income redistribution, or adopted just as convenient political rhetoric. (Eide 1992:9)

At the same time, a strong tradition of elective local government remains.

Norway should be seen as a case of ‘reluctant centralism’. From 1837, when local self-government was legally recognized, the rights of local people to influence schools have been strongly defended…. Local autonomy derives from Norway’s political traditions and geographical circumstances; historically, Norway’s rural and seafaring population constituted a ‘free’ peasantry only weakly incorporated into the state. (Rust and Blakemore 1990:505)

Policies within Norway’s educational, health, social service and even labor spheres have been characterized by a strong commitment to equalization. Within the economic domain, for example, this is reflected in a progressive tax system. Within the educational system, policies have evolved to increase the participation of traditionally underserved populations within Norway.

The equalization, both of opportunity and outcome, explicitly undergirds Norwegian policies concerning ‘barns oppvekstkår’. Education is almost exclusively in the hands of public institutions; although the number of students enrolled in private institutions increased by over 60% during the 1980s, that figure represents no more than two or three percent of all students (Rust and Blakemore 1990:515).

Norwegian educational traditions

Education as community

For over 100 years, schools have been seen as a key support to families in the education and bringing up of children. The roots go back to a brand of populism, which upholds ‘the importance of altruistic cultural values rooted in family life with a bias towards rural communities’ (Lauglo 1992:8).

The Norwegian model for ‘child upbringing’ has several basic features: parental control; multiple services organized by the schools; municipal-level responsibilities for all services to children and youth; substantial block grants from central government to the municipalities; and coordination and oversight at the national level.

Teachers, principals and schools have had formal responsibility for promoting the welfare of children, not only in terms of providing an education, but also in terms of the general well-being of the child. What distinguishes Norway from many other systems is not its commitment to this goal, but the ways in which it has tried to carry this out in practice within the welfare state.

As one example, in the area of health, municipal staff have an office on primary school grounds, where immunization, regular check-ups and non-emergency health care problems can be directly handled. If the office is not located on school grounds, students are taken to the local health center, not merely for routine medical services but in order to become familiar with the center’s location. Formal policy promotes cooperation between schools and health centers, even as a common concern for the children forges a natural partnership. Once a child enters school, it is the teacher who is relied upon to work most closely with the parents to promote the child’s welfare. In this manner, educators ideally serve as a human link between families and other services available on the municipal level. This role has been further formalized in recent educational reforms, bringing new challenges, which will be addressed later in the chapter.

Features of the school reflect the earlier traditions of Norway, when villages were scattered and travel to school was quite some distance. Family ties tend to be strong, community membership is meaningful, and schools are, theoretically, extensions of these personal relationships. The upbringing of children is recognized as a family affair, with schools there more to assist families in this task than to serve as a substitute.

The political thinking behind this is partly based on the belief that a good school should have close contacts with parents and with the local community, which would not be possible for large school factories. Furthermore, schools are seen as essential to the life of the local community, and moving them to large centers will tap the life-blood of the local community. (Eide 1992:10)

Even as Norway has become industrialized and cities have emerged (bringing urban problems), educational policy and practice have remained true to their original roots. Schools are relatively small. The average size of a school for grades 1–6 is about 150 pupils, and, for middle school (grades 7–9), the average is 250 pupils. A parliamentary decision placed a ceiling on the enrollment level of new lower secondary schools at 450 pupils. It is important to note that in Norway, educational policy makers have resisted the temptation to develop ‘supermarket’ schools that can sometimes be inspired by large student populations. Instead, Norway has kept the ‘rural school’ reference point, a contrast to many of the developments in other western nations.

Small communities, small schools and small classes are greatly valued in their own right in this country, without much pause to think of the possibility that the choice and variety which large size allow can be an advantage. (Lauglo 1992:2)

The philosophy and practice of Norway’s services to the child are reminiscent of the themes of the community education movement that became popularized in the USA in the 1970s. Although community education has sometimes been defined as providing school programs for adults, a broader understanding of the concept implies ‘the utilization of all resources in the community for the benefits of its members’ (Seay et al. 1974:11). Concern with ‘restoring community’ has a long history in thought on education and society in urban industrial societies, but Norwegians have a strong attachment to it at the level of ideology (Lauglo 1993:i).

Community leaders began to think in terms of community-wide, institutionalized forces which were performing—and could be expected to perform better—the functions society entrusted to education. They saw that the time had come for the school-centered concept to grow into a community education concept. (Seay et al. 1974:28)

The Norwegian philosophy resembles the so-called family support and education approach in the USA, which ‘take an “ecological” approach to child development, recognising the importance of the immediate family, the extended family, and the community to the growth and development of the young child’ (Seppanen and Heifitz 1988:1).

In some community education programs, a new professional ‘home-school counselor’ was introduced, who would provide a link between the school and family and help to coordinate the efforts of educational and social service agencies (Tolbert 1978:270). This sounds much like the role formally assigned to teachers in the Norwegian system.

The Norwegian system in practice

Beginning in the 1930s, educational coordination and oversight at a national level came into practice. The policies of the Norwegian model are now characterized by explicit guidelines and financial support from the center. The 454 municipalities are responsible for administering the nine-year ‘basic school’. In every municipality there is an elected council, assisted by a chief education officer. Compulsory schools are run by the local authorities, even as the central government—through financial support and curriculum guidelines—aims to secure equality of education across the country. Per pupil expenditures in poorer municipalities are equal to the national average. Although there is minimal evidence, compulsory schools are generally considered to be of equal quality.

All Norwegian schools are organized similarly for the first nine years (6+3), with a great deal of attention to the primary school years. Pupils of differing abilities are kept together in the same classes, and cooperative group learning is strongly encouraged. No examinations or grades are assigned, just as there is no streaming according to ability. During the primary school years, it is not unusual to have the same teacher for at least a few years (e.g., 1–3, 4–6, even 1–6); this policy is maintained in some form in the lower secondary schools, where students keep the same homeroom teacher for three years. This practice allows for continuity in the contact between teacher and students, an interdisciplinary curricular approach, and overall greater contact between parents, teachers and students. One conscious trade-off is the lack of subject-area specialization; a potential downside is prolonged contact between students and teachers who are not compatible.

Student-centered policies, with such sensitivity to equality, cooperation, and teacher autonomy, are reminiscent of the ‘open school’ phenomenon that took place in the USA in the 1970s. This progressive movement was characterized by team teaching, an interdisciplinary curricular approach, and pedagogical variety (such as lectures, small cooperative group work, individualized instruction and flexible scheduling). While this movement has waxed and waned in the USA, it appears to have reinforced and further developed child-centered pedagogy in Norway.

In Norway, there is a particular concern for vulnerable populations, which is exemplified in the treatment of handicapped and special needs students. Full mainstreaming is expected under the most extraordinary circumstances. Their protection is incorporated into every existing law affecting education. Beginning in 1975, a revision of the 1969 Education Act stated that, as far as possible, disable...