ALPHA. Demokratiskolan.se is a PROTOTYPE · Content review in progress
Demokratiskolan
The Classes card from MethodKit for Society and Politics
Card 47 of 128 · MethodKit for Society & Politics
  • AreaPeople & belonging
  • Centre of gravityCentral government
  • Points of influence3 on the journey
  • Decisive electionRiksdagsvalet
People & belonging

Classes

Life in the working, middle & upper class

Class shows in income, health, education, housing and even in how long we live. No agency governs class, but almost everything the public sector does affects the class society: taxes redistribute, the school can level out or reinforce, and statistics make the differences visible.

Where does the power lie?1

  • Municipality · school, housing & social services · approx 25 %
  • Region · equality in healthcare · approx 5 %
  • State · taxes, benefits & education · approx 65 %
  • EU · social fund & cohesion · approx 5 %

No one governs class directly, but central government holds the big redistribution tools: taxes, social insurance and education policy. The general election carries the most weight.

How it works: the breakdown

The municipalityThe local levelling
The regionThe gaps in health
Central governmentThe big tools · centre of gravity
Who decides?
The municipal council (kommunfullmäktige), the school committee and the social welfare committee, often a public housing company.
The regional council (regionfullmäktige) and the healthcare committees.
The Riksdag, the Swedish Tax Agency (Skatteverket), the Social Insurance Agency (Försäkringskassan), CSN and SCB.
What do they decide?
The school's resource allocation, which under the Education Act is to be weighted by pupils' needs, income support, housing planning and fees for leisure.
Care on equal terms despite the fact that health follows class: life expectancy differs by several years between groups with short and long education.
The tax system, the social insurance schemes, the study finance that opens higher education, and the statistics that show how the gaps develop.
Where are decisions made?
In the council's budget and the committees' allocation decisions.
In the region's budget and public health work.
In the Riksdag's budget decisions and the agencies' rules.
Who pays?
The municipal tax, with central government equalisation between municipalities with different tax capacity.
The regional tax: health centres where the needs are greatest.
The central government budget: benefits, pensions and education, funded by taxes.
Fastest way in?
Municipal election The municipal election shapes the school grant, rental housing construction and fees. Views to the committees.
Regional election The regional election shapes the allocation of care. The patients' advisory committee receives views.
General election The general election is the class society's biggest lever: taxes, insurance, study finance.
EUThe EU's Social Fund and regional funds direct money to vulnerable groups and regions with a weak economy. Shaped in the European Parliament election.

Read the table by column to understand one level, or by row to compare the levels. The green level is the area's centre of gravity.

How it works: follow the decision

The case The school grant is weighted by pupils' background
  1. State

    SCB calculates an index

    SCB produces a socio-economic index per school, built on, among other things, the parents' education and income. The figures make the class differences measurable.

  2. State

    The central grant is allocated by need

    The National Agency for Education allocates a central government grant for equivalence to the responsible school authorities, weighted by the index: schools with tougher conditions get more.

    Point of influence

    The general election shapes the size of the grants. The school agencies' proposals go out for referral (remiss).

  3. Municipality

    The council weights the school grant

    The Education Act requires the municipality to allocate resources by pupils' conditions and needs. How strong the weighting becomes is a political decision in the council.

    Point of influence

    The municipal election decides the weighting. The budget council is open, and the committee's documents are public.

  4. Municipality

    The principal hires

    At the school with a high index, the money stretches to more teachers, an extra counsellor and homework help. The principal's freedom to use the resources is great.

    Point of influence

    The school's parent council and pupil council are ways into how the money is used.

  5. Your everyday life

    Twenty pupils, two teachers

    In the classroom the weighting shows as an extra adult and as time for the one who has fallen behind. Class journeys rarely begin with a decision, but the decisions can level out the track.

The journey looks the same in reverse: what has been built came the same way, through the same decisions. Whoever knows where the decisions are made also knows where they can be changed.

Questions to discuss

  1. How did class show in the area where you grew up, and how does it show where you live now?

  2. Which class journeys are possible today that were not for your grandparents, and the other way around?

  3. How far should the school go in compensating for pupils' different backgrounds?

  4. What makes the biggest difference for someone who wants to change class: education, contacts or money?

  5. Which professions have high status where you live, and what does that say about the class society?

Glossary

Socioekonomiskt index
SCB's measure of a school's pupil composition, built on, among other things, parents' education and income.
Skolpeng
The sum that follows each pupil to the school, decided by the municipality.
Försörjningsstöd
Social services' ultimate economic safety net, often called social assistance.
Gini-koefficient
A statistical measure of how unevenly incomes are distributed in a country.
Kommunal utjämning
The system that moves money between municipalities with different tax capacity and needs.

Go further

Footnotes

1) This is an estimate of how decision-making power over the issue is split between the municipality, the region, central government and the EU, based on how responsibility is divided in legislation. A teaching guide, not an exact measurement.