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…

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,…

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…

This analysis seeks to unite both an architectural and an educational perspective on the transformation of the university into a postmodern institution. Our point of departure is an analysis of the new buildings for the Faculty of Humanities University of Copenhagen which are located on the island area of Amager, to the south of Copenhagen's…

In the latest decades assessment in education has become a very controversial issue in many western countries, and especially so in the Nordic countries, where the controversy became most passionate in Norway. It was really not a debate about whether or not formal marks should be used in communication of educational outcomes for the individual…

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)

Using a four-year (1970-74) pedagogical developmental project (Brovst, Denmark), discusses crucial concepts/aspects of educational change (construction of knowledge, meaning of harvested experiences, relationship between aims and strategies). Discusses teaching strategies: negative stipulation (changing relation between children and reality)…

This article describes a reading improvement program operating in elementary schools near Copenhagen. Students take an annual reading test. The classroom teacher and the reading specialist review class scores to identify special-needs students and to plan reading program changes. General reading progress has been improved by this method. (SJL)

Presents concepts and research problems dealing with education governance and social inclusion and exclusion. Considers education restructuring, as a recent international movement, as a combination of transitions in governing and new managerialism. Makes the case that it is necessary to understand the system of reasoning in order to capture the…

Describes changes in governance discourse and practices in Icelandic primary and secondary education in the late 1990s. Budget reform, curriculum changes, and school-based self-evaluation aimed at a greater financial and pedagogical accountability of school professionals, especially principals, has changed the role of principals and teachers in…

Discusses how current changes in the system of reasoning about education in Finland, Iceland, and Sweden are characterized by culturally woven patterns in high marketization strategies are introduced as technically effective devices both for educating the best and to increase inclusion. The system of reason presupposes that the neo-liberalist…

Shows that education change depends on level of policy formation and level of policy transformation and on what P. Bourdieu has termed the repertory of actual and virtual possibilities and relations of symbolic force within the base arrangements of a civilization. Discusses teacher education reform in the context of the Swedish Teacher Education…