Low completion rate in upper secondary education is seen as a big problem in the Nordic countries. School failure has shown to dramatically increase the risks for unemployment and labour market exclusion with severe consequences for both society and the young person. This paper analyses national policy measures to combat low upper secondary…

The concept of a Nordic model of education is sometimes used to refer to the considerable similarities of education reforms and systems of the five Nordic countries (i.e. Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) during the second half of the 20th century--reforms that aimed at social justice, equality and cohesion not least by providing…

In recent decades, a range of policy measures to support young people's school-to-work transitions has been initiated across Europe. However, these transition policies have rarely been studied systematically, particularly from a comparative perspective. Thus, the aim of this article is to compare Swedish, Danish and Finnish policies for supporting…

In this article, education policy is analyzed from a welfare state perspective. The aim is to Analise the significance attributed to social-inclusive aspects of education in contemporary education policies of the Nordic countries, and the extent to which education is regarded as an element in welfare policies. Four aspects are addressed: (1)…

Enabled by market-oriented policies implemented in the early 1990s, a nation-wide for-profit education industry has emerged and flourished in Sweden. As a more recent expansion strategy, Swedish school companies have begun exporting their school and early childhood education and care services internationally. In this article, three such companies…