The modest impact of national policy efforts on school digitalisation relates to a gap between views among policy-makers and practitioners, giving rise to complexity in translating policy into action. Acknowledging changes in governing through alternative policy formation-processes, and Ward and Parr's (2011) arguing for the importance of…

Since the 1980s, numerous education reforms in Europe and beyond have sought to dismantle centralised bureaucracies and replace them with devolved systems of schooling that emphasise parental choice and competition between diversified types of schools. Despite this general trend, Finland continues to emphasise the municipal assignment of school…

This article is based on a meta-ethnographic analysis of educational research from rural and urban areas in Finland, Norway and Sweden following the reorganisation of educational supply there in line with market policies. Edward Soja's concept of spatial justice shapes the analysis. Using meta-ethnography, we try to present a contextualising…

Evaluation systems of various types are an integral part of a country's education policy space, within which they are supposed to have the basic functions of enhancing accountability and supporting school development. Here we argue that in a crowded policy space evaluation systems may interfere with each other in a way that can have unintended…

The implementation of pedagogical entrepreneurship in schools from the perspective of lifelong learning is of significant concern at policy levels, and research is an important source of information on this process. This review article focuses on the challenges revealed by research, examines the implementation of pedagogical entrepreneurship in…

The Swedish education system has undergone an extensive transformation and a new policy context characterised by external control, marketing and managerial accountability is now in place. In previous research, the new context has been presented as something school leaders have to "balance against" democratic professionalism but…

Around the mid-2000s a crisis discourse emerged in educational policy-making in the EU and in Sweden. Using the EU and Sweden as empirical references, this article explores how this crisis discourse has been and is employed by politicians and NGOs. Discourse Institutionalism is used as an overall theoretical framework focusing on how the crisis…

The Conservative-led Coalition government in Britain is strongly committed to a programme of austerity. In the short term, this is a programme which makes more difficult the country's exit from a period of recession and slow growth; in the longer term, it threatens cuts and privatisation which call into question the welfare state. Yet,…

This paper examines tensions in implementing human rights education (HRE) in schools in Kurdistan-Iraq, both for teachers and for policy-makers, juggling nation-building and its application through schooling and child rights. We draw on documentary sources and fieldwork in two governorates, including classroom observations and interviews with…

This paper reviews the recent history of English education in connection with British state attempts to 'manage diversity'. It offers a new analysis on points of coherence and tension between the role of education and state policies in relation to race and ethnicity. Drawing on the Prevent strategy as an example, the paper highlights the role that…

The main goal of this study is to examine the politics of the development of intercultural education policy in Cyprus. More specifically, it examines the content of intercultural policies developed by the state and particularly the Ministry of Education and Culture. In addition, the study focuses on the challenges that may impede the development…

Philanthropies and private foundations are increasingly acting as key nodes of the policy assemblages through which neoliberal and neomanagerialist policies are entering the field of education in Italy. In a country where public school 'ineffectiveness' and 'resistance to innovation' are taken for granted nowadays, policy…

The current era of neoliberal capitalism has witnessed the domination of public education by business interests which openly promote the spirit of competition among schools, educators and students through a policy of high stakes accountability for immediately measurable educational outcomes. In the USA, this policy proposes to make teacher…

Based on a comparison of school external evaluation processes in three countries (England, France and Switzerland), this article questions the possible quality turn in the governance of European educational systems. Using materials collected through qualitative methods (91 interviews, surveys of literature and observations) during a sociological…

In this article, inclusive education is analysed from the perspective of the interlinked, dynamic relationship between international neo-liberal movements and national policies and practices. The aim is to explore the significance of "competence" in recent Norwegian reforms and the changing position attributed to inclusion. The analysis…