Since WWII, Sweden has had an international reputation for being modern and progressive, with schooling that provides equal opportunities for all children. Analysing local enactment of the national pursuit of modernisation in two contrasting municipalities, this paper offers new perspectives on Swedish education history beyond the image of…

Over the years, two new strands of research have evolved from the phenomenographic research tradition: the first concerns advancement of the variation theory of learning, whilst the second involves development of the learning study approach. In this paper, the conceptual frameworks of phenomenography, variation theory, and learning studies are…

In 2004, history was introduced by a Parliamentary decision as a new core subject in the Swedish upper secondary school system. This event constituted a major break--history now became a compulsory subject for all upper secondary school students after having been subject to a continually diminishing number of teaching hours ever since 1945. This…

This paper seeks to explore the impact of IT on school and teacher cultures. It reports on Swedish teachers' use of IT in different school subjects by means of a case study comprising one school, four teachers (2 men and 2 women), and their pupils aged 9-12. The methods of data collection used were interviews and observations. The aim of the study…

The reception and dissemination of the Scandinavian "folkehojskolen" (folk high school) and the development of residential adult education in the Netherlands in the 1920s and 1930s are described, focusing on Hermien van der Heide as a cultural intermediary. The discussion is a historical case study of cross-cultural communication. (SLD)

Six articles on the curriculum history in Scandinavian countries are presented. Topics discussed include the role of patriotism in Norwegian history textbooks, pedagogic text analysis, mathematical curriculum development, social influences on school subjects, and the history of English as a subject in Norwegian curricula. (TJH)

This article traces the shifting profile of the elementary school teaching profession in Finland over 130 years in relation to changes in the model of citizenship, acknowledging the role of the Scandinavian welfare state. Mass education has assigned teachers a crucial role in the initiation into adulthood. (SLD)

The seven articles of this special issue comment on the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Assessment Reading Literacy Study conducted from 1989 to 1991 in 31 countries. Project design and test instruments are reviewed, and results from the Nordic countries are presented and explored. (SLD)

An attempt to integrate psychological and sociological theories of student choice of higher education courses by drawing on the structuration theory of A. Giddens is discussed. Empirical support is given through studies of Danish higher education admission and student course selection by 1,084 secondary school graduates. (SLD)

The concept of metacognition is discussed, with a review of attempts at definition. A. Brown's (1987) four historical roots of metacognition--verbal reports as data, executive control, self-regulation, and other-regulation--are summarized. Influence from the developmental theory of L. S. Vygotsky (1978) may result in a clearer conceptualization of…

Analyzes didactics as the hard core of Finnish pedagogic discourse and relates changes in the state educational discourse in Finland to recent developments in department-level curricula in teacher education at Finnish universities in the 1980s and 1990s. The tendency in Finland has been toward a decontextualized and nonhistorical science of…

Explores the meeting ground between Christian Socialist and Social Democratic ideas and practices in the development of adult education between 1900 and 1930 in the United Kingdom and Scandinavia, focusing on cross-cultural dissemination and reception of Christian Socialism and the influence of the Woodbrooke Settlement in the United Kingdom and…

This outline of didactical research in Denmark begins with a consideration of the application of the concept of didactics in Denmark and then describes the role of Danish teachers over the last two centuries. Three historical contributions to Danish didactics are identified, and the didactic theory of C. A. Larsen is discussed. Some developmental…

Educational research in Finland, the development of which is traced over 40 years, has been aimed mainly at the Finnish community of educators, and relatively little has been published abroad. The main concepts of Finnish educational research were imported from Europe before World War II, and most of the country's educational research has been…

Suggests that no socially meaningful educational changes have resulted, nor should have been expected, from institutional-reform efforts in the settings in which they have been studied. Uses regulation theory to reanalyze data from evaluations of educational change initiatives. Progressive education change in the interests of social transformation…