In response to global competition in higher education, university rankings have been developed. These have been interpreted as indicating the regions and countries with the most prestigious and competitive higher education institutions. The rankings are viewed as important in many countries, but their role is ambiguous and contested in the Nordic…

The aim of this article is to analyse the "Third Mission" (TM) of universities within Nordic countries and universities approach to implementing the mission into their strategy. The main activities that Nordic universities relate to the Third Mission are examined and policy implications drawn. Furthermore, gaps in literature are outlined…

Preschool teachers' read-aloud and writing practices were investigated using a questionnaire about how activities were planned and organized, and what their purpose was. The results indicate that early literacy practices were not planned systematically. Most of the preschool teachers (77%) reported having storybook read-alouds at least three times…

In this systematic scoping review, research on the inclusion of students with special education needs (SEN) in Nordic countries was reviewed to describe the scope and types of empirical research, identify the practices and approaches on the inclusion of students with SEN, and conceptually map how particular concepts (i.e., inclusion, SEN) are…

The aim of the article is to offer a base for discussions on educational equality from the viewpoint of changes in the world causing widening disparities between pupils and students. The essence and possibilities of educational equity and equality in the Nordic educational realm are discussed from six viewpoints. The outcome is that all children…

The Nordic Education Model was an important part of the social democratic welfare state for many years in the second half of the 20th century. Since the millennium, transnational agencies have drawn education from the realm of politics into a global market place by advocating strategies such as efficiency, competition, decentralisation, governing…

We examine if the OECD survey of adult skills, PIAAC, can provide information about the relative quality of education and training in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. We find that the average population scores are inappropriate while the mean scores of natives well approximate the skills of individuals that had the chance to attend the…

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between reading literacy and age in an adult population aged 25 to 65 in Nordic countries using PIAAC 2012 data. More specifically, the study examined to what extent variations in the literacy proficiency of adults are explained by age and the recentness of qualifications when…

This paper performs multivariate analysis of skill differences in four Nordic countries as assessed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies survey of adults aged 16-65. The differences in average skills between Finland and each of the three Scandinavian…

This article is based on qualitative and quantitative data collected from teachers and pupils in Danish schools in June 2020, as schools reopened following closures in the spring due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It investigates the transformations in school life that took place in this period in response to strict official guidelines to prevent the…

The purpose of this study is to determine the direction of causality between the quality of education and technological development for the selected Northern European countries over the period 2006-2017. To this end, we employ the bootstrap panel causality test. The findings of our study indicate that the quality of education leads to changes in…

In the Nordic countries, teacher education programmes are shifting towards a research-based design, thus placing new expectations and requirements on teacher educators. In this study, we aim to explore teacher educators' understanding of professional knowledge in research-based teacher education. We interviewed 16 Norwegian and six Finnish teacher…

The aim is to describe the development of achievement in compulsory school in the Nordic countries from the 1960s. The study relies on published results concerning literacy and numeracy from the international large-scale assessments between 1964 and 2012. Among others, the following conclusions are drawn: (1) for most countries, a small but…

The article examines policies intended to promote the basic education of Roma and Traveller minorities in Finland, Sweden, and Norway by analysing key national Roma and Traveller policy (n = 5) and education policy documents (n = 3). Analysis shows how the Finnish, Swedish, and Norwegian Roma policies translate the general policy aims of improving…

Worldwide, scholars and policymakers emphasise the importance of basing teacher education in practice. Scholars have therefore suggested to extend the amount of fieldwork. Still, research has shown that the fieldwork component in teacher education of variable quality. During the last 10 years, an increasing body of research has thus emphasised…