In the Nordic curriculum theory (CT) tradition, questions linked to educational change and school governance have long been a crucial research issue. However, despite several decades of decentralized school systems, local school governance has been a highly neglected field of research. Considering the changing landscape of school governance in…

The pandemic (first disruption) eventually led to a forced digital transformation (second disruption) in higher education. Consequently, university educators had to re-navigate their academic teacher identity. This study's purpose is to contribute new knowledge about how teaching quality in current, post-pandemic, higher education might have been…

In Sweden, as in many other countries, programming has been added to the curriculum in recent years. This paper explores how and under what conditions programming is transformed into teaching in technology education. Teachers in grade 7-9 were interviewed about what and how they teach about programming in the context of technology education, and…

This article sheds light on some challenges that internationalisation raises for policymakers regarding public funding of higher education in a welfare state by examining policy logics for introducing tuition fees for international students in Sweden 2011. Using thematic analysis of documents related to the Swedish reform, we identify how an…

This study addresses a fundamental but neglected aspect of efforts to ensure quality and improvement in a decentralised school system: the relationship between the local education authority (LEA) and local school principals. Empirically, it is based on analysis of relevant documents and interviews with key actors in a Swedish LEA (a municipality),…

This paper examines the role of school inspection in the early (1861-1910) professionalisation of Swedish elementary school teachers. International research on school inspection has focused on educational reform, but rarely on the role of inspection in teachers' theoretical and practical development. The paper's theoretical assumption is that…

Since the beginning of the 1970s, quality early childhood education and care (preschool) has been a national priority in Sweden. Over the years, policy changes such as the marketisation of the welfare system with increased state regulation and a focus on cost-effectiveness and performativity have resulted in modifications to the services offered.…

During the last decade, the Swedish School-age Educare has been the object of multiple government-enforced reform initiatives in order to clarify its purpose and increase educational quality and equivalence. In 2019, a teacher certification reform was imposed on the educational programme, concretizing responsibilities between categories of staff…

This article considers the conditions, possibilities, and challenges of creating what is referred to here as a 'reflective space' within a higher education course for principals. It is informed by the findings of a qualitative research inquiry conducted in the interests of enhancing the principals' learning and professional praxis and the…

Major policy changes make teachers reconsider how they teach. In Sweden, a new curriculum, a grading system, and national tests were introduced in science education in Year 6 (Y6) for the 2012/2013 academic year. After two years, the national tests were made voluntary, and they ended the following year. In this interview study, we investigate what…

This book provides significant information regarding the policies and provisions for early childhood teacher education programs in universities in fourteen different countries. Early childhood education and care (ECEC) is expanding rapidly across the globe with unprecedented numbers of children attending EC centres, requiring the investment in…

In this paper, we theorize on local school governance through a multi-method case study of a large-sized Swedish municipality by drawing on neo-institutional theory. In light of a changing governing landscape in Sweden in terms of a 're-centralization', new conditions between the state, the local education authorities (LEA) and the schools have…

The current study reported here is one within a research project aimed at the identification of enabling and constraining factors in a two-year school-development project at a large secondary school in Sweden, where all teaching staff were involved in improving the quality of instruction through collaborative analyses. In this project a…

This article studies issues of coloniality in so-called capacity-building projects between universities in Africa and Scandinavia. Even fifty years after independence, the African higher education landscape is a product of the colonial powers and subsequent uneven power relations, as argued by a number of researchers. The uneven geography and…

Because there is close cooperation on quality assurance in the Scandinavian countries, one would expect there to be convergence of quality assurance policies and practices in Scandinavian higher education. Few studies have analysed these quality assurance policies and practices from a comparative viewpoint. Based on empirical evidence produced in…