The Scandinavian states have international reputations for promoting social democratic ideals, which have long been manifest in Nordic universities, e.g. legal protection for academic freedom and university studies free of charge. However, Nordic governments have made new h.e. laws, thereby changing university autonomy and management structures,…

The article deals with the validation of the internationalization imperative in higher education institutions (HEIs) of the Nordic countries. I focus on both the goals and motives behind activities supporting internationalization, but also on the manner of their habitualization and institutionalization in the practice of academic administration…

Previous Nordic migration and minority studies focus little on who produces research about migration and migrant education and in what ways. In contrast, by inquiring into how migrants and researchers themselves as knowing subjects are constituted through research and educational practices, this article seeks to destabilize established modes of…

Even though Norway is one of the Nordic countries that has been hesitant when it comes to implementing privatization policies, the influence of market-led reforms has facilitated an educational landscape where private companies increasingly serve public education. In this article, the interrelation between marketization and privatization is…

In accordance with the Nordic welfare model, the Finnish early childhood education and care (ECEC) system has traditionally been based on public provision and the idea of universalism. However, over the last twenty years the ECEC system has undergone market-oriented reforms. As a result, the share of private for-profit ECEC provision has grown…

From once being synonymous with reading and writing, literacy, as a concept has expanded in the last three decades to today being associated with multiple meaning making forms and competences. Impactful, in this shift, has been the research orientation of New Literacy Studies. Besides academia, the literacy concept has also had a major influence…

Learning outcomes have become a central feature in European higher education and are intended to create a plethora of change concerning teaching, relevance, quality and transparency. However, there have been few studies on how learning outcomes have been introduced within disciplines. This article therefore studies the introduction of learning…

Like other Nordic countries, Denmark is a mixed-economy welfare society, where capitalist production and market logics coexist with public policy having social cohesion and equality as important priorities. Educational and pedagogical research, which is a main knowledge base for policy and practice in schools and the education system, is also seen…

International degree programmes (IDPs) act as focal instruments for the internationalization of higher education in many non-English--speaking countries serving a variety of national objectives, with the commercial objective becoming increasingly common. This study analyses how IDPs have developed in one Nordic country, Finland, from a marginal…

The main purpose of this article is to explore and develop a basic understanding of a new formulation of children's learning within ECEC policies in Norway. In the Nordic Countries, one question of importance is the shift in ECEC policy from a social-pedagogical approach and a holistic perspective on children's learning towards a heavier emphasis…

In the past few centuries, an accelerating process of legalization and classification have moulded the diverse range of earlier institutions into a limited number of isomorphic organizational forms. Today, institutions of higher education, with their roots in the corporate forms of medieval universities, can also have the legal status of, for…

In response to the persistent indeterminacy -- and the salient discontents -- surrounding the innovation-centred reporting in the global university-industry collaborations, this study seeks to investigate the reporting of innovation results in Norwegian centres for research-based innovation (SFIs). Based on a large amount of recent public-access…

This article is an empirically grounded contribution to the understanding of how digitalization in education is interpreted and made into being by actors in everyday lives, in this case children and teachers in Swedish early childhood education. The focus is on interactions in an early childhood classroom upon and around a digital interactive…

A major admissions reform was carried out in Finnish higher education at the end of the last decade. This paper focuses on three main policy papers connected to the reform and examines the use and production of evidence therein. Drawing on bibliometric research and research on educational policy, we aim to provide insight into how to utilize…

The purpose of this study is to contribute insights into strategic work in an educational reform context. Empirical data were collected from four cases in Norway, where the national educational authority recently initiated a renewal of the national curriculum for primary and secondary education. The theory of strategy as practice was the…