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…

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 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…

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…

Describes the evolution and organization of foreign language teaching in Sweden and the status and images related to the languages taught. Policy initiated in 1994 made teaching of a second foreign language compulsory in addition to the English mandated since 1962. Stresses the place of honor of foreign languages in the Swedish curriculum. (SLD)