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…

A central hypothesis of classical motivation theory is that affect underlies motivation and its behavioural manifestations. However, this has been largely ignored in the past 30 years because social cognitivism has been the dominant theory. As a result, studies have concentrated on social cognitive processes when analysing those factors that…

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…

Explicit knowledge is highly valued in the traditional educational system at the expense of implicit equivalents. Why is this? Are we right to so value it? To provide an answer I attempt to characterise the relation between representations and referents of implicit and explicit knowledge. Whereas explicit representations are detached from…

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…

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…

In this article, the history of open university education in Finland and its position in the field of higher education is investigated. Open university education started in Finland as a small-scale regional activity in the beginning of the 1970s. When the Ministry of Education at the turn of 1980s took charge of open university education it was…

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…

The aim of this article is to help clarify N. F. S. Grundtvig's influence on the history of education in Denmark, in particular the comprehensive school. Is this school a result of Grundtvig's achievements? Or is Grundtvig receiving credit due to a misinterpretation of the history of education of the twentieth century? We claim that the latter is…

The Nordic model of education is defined in this article as an attempt to construct a national education system on the foundation of specific local values and practices, but at the same time subject to international influences. According to the author, equity, participation, and welfare are the major goals and the publicly funded comprehensive…

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…

Art education is often talked about as a general good that will solve problems of every description and meet the most varied current problems. In Finland, for example, art education tends to be seen as something that fosters human growth, teaches aesthetic and ethical values, promotes self-expression and social skills, and meets the challenges of…

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…