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…

With a point of departure in the concept of democracy, this article aims to show how Swedish Popular Adult Education influenced the content of the established school system in Sweden. The Popular Adult Education and established school systems are studied through their relation to democracy, based on curricula, as well as on visionary and political…

This paper aims to show how the Goffman frame perspective can be used in an analysis of school and education and how it can be combined, in such analysis, with the frame factor perspective. The latter emphasizes factors that are determined outside the teaching process, while the former stresses how actors organize their experiences and define…

According to the Simple View of Reading, reading ability can be divided into decoding and language comprehension. In the present study, decoding and comprehension's contribution to reading ability was studied both in children with reading difficulties and in children with typical reading ability. Decoding and comprehension was further divided into…

The question of what role free schools should perform in the Swedish educational system has been a contested subject between three ideological, theoretical, political and policy tenets. The first, "contribution to pedagogical diversity in a controlled school market" reflects a traditional social democratic view. The second,…

From children's own perspective, play and learning are not always separate in practices during early years. The purpose of this article is, first, to scrutinise the background and character of early years education in terms of play and learning. Second, to elaborate the findings of several years of research about children's learning in preschool…

This article deals with the question of how the restructuring of educational systems in Nordic countries affects teachers' working conditions. It is based on results from the project "Restructuring in Education: Reform policy and teacher professionalism in different Nordic contexts" in which the construction of the "New…

Educational arenas are important sites for understanding how diversity and democracy become operationalised since they constitute and at the same time must attend to students' different needs. This article focuses on diversity from two specific angles: how research activities allow for particular ways of understanding human differences and how…

The aim of this article is to problematise and discuss collaboration between children as a means of learning and as an essential aspect of pedagogical quality in educational settings. In theories of learning, children's social interaction and collaboration are highlighted as fundamental to their learning. This implies that children's opportunities…

This article describes, analyses and discusses the development of the Nordic school model in three phases of the post-war period, viewed in the light of the development of the political system throughout the period and in comparison with the development of the school system in the western world in this period. The "classical period" from…

Recently, scholars of rhetoric and composition have shown much interest in the ancient composition exercises known as "progymnasmata". This paper explains how these exercises, which provided ancient students with a transitional curriculum between grammar and rhetoric, have theoretical and practical merit for contemporary compositional…

In Sweden educational technology (EdTech) prospered during the 1960s and 1970s inspired by US experiences from primarily programmed instruction. The Departments of Education at the universities started different activities of research and other bodies developed EdTech products for commercial use. In some business firms in-service training of staff…

Discusses the connection between type of control structure for a school system and type of strategy for change that may be chosen. Shows that the mandator-controlled Swedish school system best corresponds to the "Developing the Organization" model of educational change. Describes a Swedish training program based on the model. (SB)

Describes the influence of Comenius, invited to Sweden in 1642, on the Swedish educational system and shows how his ideas of international cooperation and tolerance inspired thinkers like Bengt Skytte, who developed the idea of the "Sophopolis" in the 1660s as a center of learned individuals from many countries. (SLD)