This paper investigates how Norwegian school principals prepared to carry out the LK20 reform process. The importance of school principals and middle-level leaders as enactors of change efforts results from their close ties to teachers and teacher classroom practices. This suggests that without negotiation and support from micro-policy actors,…

This paper explores how digital competence and digital technology are addressed in Norwegian early childhood teacher education (ECTE). The aim is to provide a national overview of the ECTE institutions' programme and relevant course plans to identify how the preservice teachers are being prepared for their future professional life as digitally…

This article reports a local study of the presence of history as a subject in the kindergartens of Kristiansand, a municipality in southern Norway. There is no syllabus for history in the national curriculum; nevertheless, the research sought to find historical content in the kindergartens. The research method was informed by a precept of history…

Reform in higher education is on the agenda worldwide, and there is increasing political interest in the content of study programmes. This article looks at the policy process leading to the new national curriculum regulation (NCR) for kindergarten teacher education (KTE) in Norway in 2012. The following questions derived from Kingdon's Multiple…

This paper examines how worldviews and national values are displayed in the national (Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) curricula of Sweden, Finland and Norway. The specific interest is to investigate what similarities and differences there are between these three ECEC curricula with regard to the position of religions and other…

Early childhood education (ECE) has to an increasing extent become an integrated part of the education system in some countries, with national ECE curricula. Being states with indigenous people, Norway and Aotearoa/New Zealand have faced challenges and possibilities regarding how to deal with both past and present during the curricular processes.…

The aim of this study was to review the national steering documents on early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, with the focus on children up to the age of three, posing the question: What do these documents tell us about ECEC for younger children in the Nordic early childhood settings?…

Food practices are culturally and historically situated, and so are conceptions of 'risk'. Comparative studies of food practices can highlight these cultural norms and conceptions. In this article we will present results from a study that investigated food practices in Norwegian and French kindergartens with a particular focus on constructions of…

The aim of this article is to present a Nordic curriculum perspective on drama and theatre in education ranging from preschool to upper secondary education and cultural schools. Underlined in the Nordic welfare model is an equity, inclusive and democracy perspective, which guarantees free access to compulsory education and to upper secondary…

In several European countries, teacher education is regulated by national plans that emphasise pedagogy as the central subject. Pedagogy shall include research-based knowledge, as well as having a strong connection between theory and practice. We have interviewed teacher educators about what they emphasise about theoretical and practical issues in…

New developments and challenges regarding early childhood education (ECE) policy and practice in Norway and in the Flemish and French communities in Belgium are presented in this issue. There are clear differences between the countries when comparing systems they have chosen for ECE. In Belgium, supervision and responsibilities for education,…

This article aims to set out considerations resulting from international collaboration between educational thinkers in Norway and Wales concerning the proposed Foundation Phase in Wales and the Norwegian Framework Plan for Day Care Institutions, which cater for the same age of child. The essential feature of the Welsh proposal is the aim to place…