Alpesh Maisuria's engaging and important book provides a key contribution to contemporary Marxist research on how class is lived and on class struggle under neo-liberalism, by exploring these issues in Sweden - a country which has historically been strongly shaped by social democratic principles and ideals. Maisuria also contributes to Marxist and critical scholarship by developing a sophisticated theoretical framework synthesizing Gramsci and critical realism, which is intricately deployed through life history interviews.
-Elias le Grand, Senior Lecturer, Department of Child and Youth Studies, Stockholm University, Sweden
Alpesh Maisuria's book on Class Consciousness and Education in Sweden identifies how the system of education that has developed there has not only failed to provide either equality or empowerment for the mass of the population, despite its promises, it has also reflected an educational outlook of bourgeois socialism rather than radical reform. Based on a combination of Gramscian Cultural Marxism, Bhaskar's Critical Realism, and life history method, Maisuria's investigation identified quite simply that Sweden's education system was not empowering for the working classes, however much this was claimed to be the case. There was some pretence of this taking place, but universities, schools and educational curricula have continued to be developed in ways that reproduce bourgeois values and repress class consciousness within the working class, whose unacknowledged labour power was ironically exploited to set up the education system in the first place. Yet despite this the education system is often considered to be a model of equity to be copied by other countries. Education is a weapon of class domination in Sweden just as much as it is in other capitalist countries. The book is very compulsory reading for my postgraduate students in Sweden, and I recommend it highly, especially at time of deepening crisis for social democracy and increasing relevance of Marxist analysis.
--Dennis Beach, Gothenburg University, Sweden
This book could never have been more needed and more timely! With social democracy dying a slow death and the far-right rising and rising, especially in Europe but also elsewhere, one could be misled to believe this is all there is to politics. Thankfully Alpesh Maisuria sets the record straight, both from an educational and a sociological perspective.He reminds us about the struggles against fascism and the need for the re-awakening of class consciousness. His account through empirical material he meticulously collected from Swedish citizens, is a wake-up call to reality; if one is interested in understanding (and combating) inequalities, then they should look no further. And if one is wants to understand how education works in liberal democratic societies, then they will find a lot of answers in this tour de force of a book! I would expect the book to reach a wide audience and become essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate courses alike, but to also attract considerable interest among scholars and readers of politics, education and sociology.
- Dr Spyros Themelis, University of East Anglia, UK
This is a ground-breaking analysis, providing a bold critique of liberal education policy, and unsettling cosy assumptions about Nordic progressivism. A must read for those interested in education policy, race and social justice.
- Prof. Tristan McCowan, UCL's Institute of Education, UK
