The aim of this study is to investigate what characterizes the discourse on the role of the outdoor environment in young children's learning in educational policy documents in Iceland. Policy documents, laws and regulations, national curriculum guides for pre- and compulsory school levels, and documents from municipalities were analyzed. A…

Current educational evaluation is institutionalized as an element in national educational policy in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. This article analyses how higher education and primary and lower secondary education have adopted and institutionalized educational evaluation. The analysis shows similarities and differences in organizing and practicing…

In Sweden educational technology (EdTech) prospered during the 1960s and 1970s inspired by US experiences from primarily programmed instruction. The Departments of Education at the universities started different activities of research and other bodies developed EdTech products for commercial use. In some business firms in-service training of staff…

Presents concepts and research problems dealing with education governance and social inclusion and exclusion. Considers education restructuring, as a recent international movement, as a combination of transitions in governing and new managerialism. Makes the case that it is necessary to understand the system of reasoning in order to capture the…

Examined the connections between the new governance in education and new procedures of social exclusion and inclusion in Finland using data from many sources and focusing on the emergence of a new discursive formation. Outlines a new system of reason as a historical shift of responsibilities in the national education system. (SLD)

Describes changes in governance discourse and practices in Icelandic primary and secondary education in the late 1990s. Budget reform, curriculum changes, and school-based self-evaluation aimed at a greater financial and pedagogical accountability of school professionals, especially principals, has changed the role of principals and teachers in…

Studied Sweden as an advanced welfare state with a centralized education system through interviews with 12 administrator and policy makers and 42 teachers and headteachers as well as surveys completed by 413 ninth graders. Findings show large differences in the context of schools in terms of social and cultural backgrounds of students and…

Discusses how current changes in the system of reasoning about education in Finland, Iceland, and Sweden are characterized by culturally woven patterns in high marketization strategies are introduced as technically effective devices both for educating the best and to increase inclusion. The system of reason presupposes that the neo-liberalist…

Studied the theories student teachers held about literary understanding through interviews with 25 Hungarian and 8 Swedish student teachers. Categories of theories captured a substantial portion of the variation in how literary understanding can be seen. Three central aspects of human understanding, variation, discernment, and simultaneity, could…

Examined the key constructs of Norway's centrally-based curriculum reform plan, Laerplan 97 (L97), interviewed those responsible for designing the subject related curricula, and administered teacher questionnaires (n=54). Findings show how the journey from policy making to effective classroom practice would benefit from a continuing interface with…

Studied the work and lives of 20 experienced female teachers in relation to gender order in school and society. Presented results as six themes that show that the female teacher is in a contradictory situation with respect to positional authority. Gender regimes in schools appear to follow the same patterns as society as a whole, and women…

Interviewed eight Norwegian school children whose treatment for cancer had been completed, their parents, their teachers, and health personnel. Findings show that students with cancer have a clear desire to value their own academic ability, and that they strive to master academic requirements in spite of illness. (SLD)

Shows that education change depends on level of policy formation and level of policy transformation and on what P. Bourdieu has termed the repertory of actual and virtual possibilities and relations of symbolic force within the base arrangements of a civilization. Discusses teacher education reform in the context of the Swedish Teacher Education…

Explores the educational implications of cognitivism and Aristotelianism in the field of emotional research and discusses attempts to translate these ideas into educational practice. Uses a "post-Kohlbergian" perspective (L. Kohlberg, 1971, 1981) to consider the feasibility of moral education and emotion education in a school setting. (SLD)

Suggests that no socially meaningful educational changes have resulted, nor should have been expected, from institutional-reform efforts in the settings in which they have been studied. Uses regulation theory to reanalyze data from evaluations of educational change initiatives. Progressive education change in the interests of social transformation…