Quasi-Market Regulation in Early Childhood Education and Care: Does a Nordic Welfare Dimension Prevail?

• Published in: Nordic Studies in Education
• Main Authors: Håkon Solbu Trætteberg, Karl Henrik Sivesind, Maiju Paananen, Steinunn Hrafnsdóttir
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cappelen Damm Akademisk NOASP 2023
• Subjects: early childhood education and care; welfare mix; quasi-market; evaluative state; governance; marketization; Education (General); L7-991; Norway; Iceland
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.23865/nse.v43.4006; https://doaj.org/article/e0cc416cf8a54d2e80ad356291e46156

Until about 25 years ago, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland and Finland used a bureaucratic-professional governance model to reach common welfare goals in ECEC, something that arguably constituted a Nordic dimension. Since then, the countries have introduced post-bureaucratic governance models such as evaluation and quasi-markets in varying degrees. Differences in the timing of policy changes and saturation of demand have resulted in variations in the use of quasi-market instruments and divergence in the composition of public, for-profit and non-profit providers. However, common welfare goals, such as inclusion and language learning, have been strengthened. We base our analysis on existing research, statistics and policy papers.