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…

This article focuses on the co-operation between the Swedish National Agency for Education and school actors at the municipal level, examined from the latter's perspective, within the context of a state-initiated school improvement programme, namely Co-operation for the Best School Possible (CBS). Co-operation between different levels of the…

In this theoretical paper, we argue that Tech enthusiasts and skeptics are animated by the same sociotechnical personalization imaginary to improve education and teaching through personalization, but see very different paths to this goal. Tech boosters point to well-known problems of the existing education system -- and rhetorically ask: 'why…

This article addresses teacher autonomy in different models of educational governance using quantitative data from the OECD TALIS 2018 and qualitative data from a study on teacher autonomy conducted in Norway and Brazil. In this article, teacher autonomy is seen as a multidimensional concept referring to decision-making and control in relation to…

Researchers are increasingly emphasizing the importance of international actors' influence on defining education policy in different contexts. The article argues that referencing international organizations is a way of legitimizing changes to private school policy. Using Norway as an example, the article investigates how international references…

This article uses Danish media discourses on racialized children's schooling as a lens through which to analyse how issues of kinship and family play into nation-building processes through representations of 'the child'. The article addresses the question of the distribution of racialized children, mostly termed 'bilingual pupils', at Danish…

Antiracist pedagogies have long been conceptualized and developed by scholars, public intellectuals, teachers and pedagogues in Danish education contexts. By analysing Danish knowledge production on antiracist education from the 1980s to the present, this article traces changing understandings of race and racism in Danish education, as well as…

School safety and security has become a topical issue internationally that concerns both educational research and policy. However, whereas several studies have focused on technical safety, less attention has been given to comprehensive safety and security management (SSM) and policies enhancing schools' safety culture. In order to provide new…

In this paper, we theorize on local school governance through a multi-method case study of a large-sized Swedish municipality by drawing on neo-institutional theory. In light of a changing governing landscape in Sweden in terms of a 're-centralization', new conditions between the state, the local education authorities (LEA) and the schools have…

This paper focuses on a major challenge facing education systems around the world, that of finding ways of including all children in schools. In economically poorer countries this is mainly about the millions of children who are not able to attend formal education (UNESCO, 2015). Meanwhile, in wealthier countries many young people leave school…

This paper reports on the findings of an Erasmus project entitled 'ReHaRe' (Reaching the Hard to Reach). The aim of this project is to develop more inclusive learning environments. The project adopts an action research approach and gives school pupils a role as researchers who plan, evaluate and develop lesson plans in collaboration with their…

In 2012 the Danish Parliament passed legislation mandating that 96% of all students in compulsory public education attend regular classes. This target generally led to severe strains within local education authorities in Denmark. Civil servants, school principals, and teachers experienced inclusive education as a challenge rather than as an…

The international trend of competency-based curricula is evident in the curricular framework in Finland. In the latest effort of curricular reform, seven transversal competencies were introduced to the Finnish educational system. In this article, we analyse the ways in which multiliteracy as a transversal competency, presented in the Core…

For a long time, the Swedish government has tried different reforms to counteract declining student results. One action was to implement a salary-lift for teachers perceived as especially skilled. However, changes within socially complex systems tend to create tensions and resistance among the staff. In this reform, a majority of teachers were…