Throughout history educational leaders have looked to other countries and have attempted to learn by borrowing useful examples to implement in their own educational systems. As recent comparative policy research shows, processes of policy lending and borrowing have their own socio-historically defined dynamics. In this paper, the authors approach…

A central aspect of inclusion is to grant all children opportunities to participate and gain from a fellowship in school. However, some categorised groups of children are more prone to segregation and exclusion than others. Drawing on philosopher Ian Hacking's theories of the interactive relationship between how categories influence the…

When the purified National Party (NP) came to power in South Africa in 1948, they introduced educational policies based on the ideology of apartheid. At that time 7,183 pupils attended primary education in 110 Lutheran Norwegian mission schools in Zululand and Natal. When the State took over these schools after the passing of the Bantu Education…

In this paper, we analyse mechanisms of exclusion in Norwegian daycare facilities for children ("Skolefritidsordning -- SFOs), which provide after-school care. Such mechanisms are analysed and discussed as unanticipated consequences of reform policy initiatives or simply as accepted trade-offs left to the SFO staff's discretion. The data are…

This paper examines the role of digital technology in national guidelines and regulations in Norwegian and Danish teacher education over the course of 28 years (1992-2020). These policy documents are used to examine policy perspectives on digital technology through an analytical framework based on Wartofsky's artifact categories. The analytical…

The recent refugee crisis has put many Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries under considerable pressure to accommodate and integrate large numbers of refugees. Refugee students are a particularly vulnerable group due to their forced displacement, but their needs are not always met by education systems, which can…

The article deals with the validation of the internationalization imperative in higher education institutions (HEIs) of the Nordic countries. I focus on both the goals and motives behind activities supporting internationalization, but also on the manner of their habitualization and institutionalization in the practice of academic administration…

The article highlights the models of inclusive education of Italy, Germany, Sweden, Norway, and Great Britain. Inclusion models can be classified into three basic ones, according to the ratio of the number of primary school-aged children at general and specialized schools, namely: full inclusion, partial inclusion with a predominance of pupils at…

Across OECD countries, the increasing demand for evidence-based policy making has further led governments to design policies jointly with clear measurable objectives, and to define relevant indicators to monitor their achievement. This paper discusses the importance of such indicators in supporting the implementation of education policies.…

Analyses of curricula in a range of countries show how they tend to reinforce, rather than challenge, popular theories of racism. To date, we know little about the contribution of physical education (PE) curriculum policy to the overall policy landscape. This paper examines the construction of race and racism in two national contexts (Norway and…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine teachers' reported experiences, practices, and attitudes on the use of national test results in a low-stakes accountability context. Whether the stakes are high or low, teachers and school leaders have different experiences, knowledge, and beliefs concerning how to use national test results to…

To date, few observational studies have addressed Scandinavian school inspectors in the field, specifically how inspectors use templates to monitor the formative assessment routines of schools and local school authorities. This paper investigates how the current inspection handbook is being adopted and enacted on the municipal level and the school…

Language policies have been drafted in Nordic higher education with the obvious, but unproblematised and unchallenged motivation caused by internationalisation. In this article, we analyse the various motivations for drafting language policies in Nordic higher education and the ideological implications of those motivations. We do this by…

This systematic review is built on the seminal work by the New London Group in 1996. Few endeavours have synthesized findings of empirical studies pertaining to the effects and challenges of multiliteracies practices in various schooling and geographical contexts. Through a five-point Likert scale and a deductive and inductive thematic analysis,…

This article adds to new ways of understanding the institutionalisation of Whiteness as subtle workings of race and racism within education policy. It presents a critical discourse analysis of how Whiteness works through the use and meaning making of the term 'cultural diversity' in six Norwegian teacher education policy and curriculum documents.…