This report provides information on the structure of mainstream European education systems, from pre-primary to tertiary level for the 2018/19 school and academic year. It includes national schematic diagrams, an explanatory guide and a map showing visually the main organisational models of compulsory education. They also reveal that there are…

The article examines policies intended to promote the basic education of Roma and Traveller minorities in Finland, Sweden, and Norway by analysing key national Roma and Traveller policy (n = 5) and education policy documents (n = 3). Analysis shows how the Finnish, Swedish, and Norwegian Roma policies translate the general policy aims of improving…

Finland has its own version of a "makerspace": craft class. Originally, there was one craft class for boys and one for girls. Later, there were classes for different materials, especially for wood and textiles, which are deep-rooted concepts in the Finnish crafts mindset. To reclaim craft class for pupils, or "makers", we must…

Both Sweden and Finland have education systems promoting equity and equality. However, recent societal and political changes linked to increased immigration have created new challenges in efforts to support linguistic diversity. This paper aims to explore how multilingualism is represented in the national compulsory school curricula in the two…

This report focuses on the structure of mainstream education in European countries from preprimary to tertiary level for the 2017/18 school and academic year. Forty-three education systems are included covering 38 countries participating in the EU's Erasmus+ programme (28 Member States, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Switzerland, the former…

In Finland, teachers' have extensive autonomy, that is freedom from control by others over their professional actions in the classroom, and it is considered a strength of Finnish education. At the same time, national assessment of learning outcomes has been constructed to examine the learner's progress and achievements in relation to the criteria…

In numerous UN policy documents, a sustainable future through education is set in a key position; the UNESCO Global Action Programme on Education for Sustainable Development (UNESCO, 2018) is no exception. Therefore, it is of great importance to examine and report how different UN member countries work towards the implementation of sustainability…

Students with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are a growing group served under special education services in many western societies. This article describes the history and current state of the services, as well as the assessment procedure. Our conclusion is that the status of students with ADHD in Finnish basic education (Grades 1…

This paper sets out the main findings of the International Instructional Systems Study (IISS), conducted by the UCL Institute of Education and funded by the Center on International Education Benchmarking (CIEB). The study examined the instructional systems and intended curricula of six "high performing" countries and two US states. The…

This study dissects the history of Finnish elementary education and the way children were raised during the initial phase of Finnish education in the 18th century. The development of Finnish education was studied through contemporary decrees and laws and studies of Finnish school history. The preliminary aim was to focus on the principles and…

The aim is to describe the development of achievement in compulsory school in the Nordic countries from the 1960s. The study relies on published results concerning literacy and numeracy from the international large-scale assessments between 1964 and 2012. Among others, the following conclusions are drawn: (1) for most countries, a small but…

The study presented is part of a work-in-progress project of developing a mobile application for smartphones, Talking Tools (TT). The first context TT is developed for and tested in is sloyd education [Swedish: slöjd], a compulsory subject taught in Finnish schools. In sloyd learners design and manufacture unique artifacts in various materials…

In this article, we experiment with the idea of combining path dependency, convergence and contingency in explaining Finnish distinctiveness in education policy and politics since the early 1990s. The focus of this article is on quality assurance and evaluation (QAE) in comprehensive schooling. We elaborate on and contextualise the Finnish QAE…

The roots of teacher training in Finland extend to the 1860s. The evolution of teacher training was closely connected to the history of elementary education and changes in educational policy and the Finnish society. Recently, the Finnish educational system and its teacher education programs have fared extremely well in international comparisons.…

Introduction: Everyday health information literacy refers to the competencies needed to find relevant information, evaluate its reliability, and use it to make decisions concerning health in everyday life. More evidence is needed of the determinants of health information literacy to better understand how it is acquired and through which mechanisms…