Taking the students' perspective, Education Policy Outlook 2018: Putting Student Learning at the Centre analyses the evolution of key education priorities and key education policies in 43 education systems. It compares more recent developments in education policy ecosystems (mainly between 2015 and 2017) with various education policies adopted…

The Commission on International Adult Education (CIAE) of the American Association for Adult and Continuing Education (AAACE) provides a forum for the discussion of international issues related to adult education in general, as well as adult education in various countries around the globe. These papers are from the CIAE 2020 Virtual International…

This article analyses and critically discusses how context is relevant when constructing and upholding an equivalent education for all within the neo-liberal educational regime of marketisation and accountability. At the centre of the article is a study of national school inspection reports in four municipalities in Sweden, exploring performance…

This study addresses how the autonomy of teachers in higher education, in relation to education policy and reform, can be understood. By taking a narrative-in-action approach, we studied health profession teachers' activities and reasoning within their ongoing practice during one year. The findings show how the teachers created their own policies…

Policymakers worldwide are trying to figure how best to organize, govern, and support their education systems. They must manage multiple goals, such as workforce development, nurturing knowledgeable citizens, and ensuring educational opportunity. Some countries approach these issues with a public investment in teacher professionalization and a…

The purpose of this study was to compare the experiences of a group of Swedish and two Finnish groups of student nurses (n = 86) on the quality of clinical education over time. The data was collected using an instrument including four factors. In the comparison of the years 2009, 2010 and 2011/2012 (n = 86), there were no statistically significant…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present the strategy used for achieving change towards sustainability at Chalmers University of Technology (Chalmers). Examples of how this strategy has been used are described and discussed, and exemplified with different lines of activities in a project on Education for Sustainable Development, the ESD…

Since its inception in 1992 Ofsted (The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills) has inspected schools under Section 9 of the Education (Schools) Act 1992; Section 10 of the School Inspections Act 1996; and Section 5 of the Education Act 2005. Pressure on England to improve its system of education has not only emerged…

It is all too common, given the considerable day-to-day challenges facing those involved in education, to focus on the here and now rather than look further afield. The authors of this article have been fortunate enough to see "primary science" in a wide range of international settings, from Nigeria to Chile, North America and Canada,…

This paper draws on the first, completed phase of a research project on inspection as governing in three European inspection systems. The data presented here draw attention to the rather under-researched associational activities of European inspectorates and their developing practices of policy learning and exchange, and highlight their…

Central values promoted in a national curricula are often uncontested (Arnot, Hopman, & Molander, 2007; Colnerud, 2004; Popkewitz, 2009). Therefore, a critical understanding of these values is crucial, as is an understanding of how students are affected by interpretations of certain values as fundamental. The aim of this study is to cast light…

The study examines two different models of measuring, assessing and ranking quality in higher education. Do different systems of quality assessment lead to equivalent conclusions about the quality of education? This comparative study is based on the rankings of 24 Swedish higher education institutions. Two ranking actors have independently…

The aim of this paper is to examine the introduction of a quality assurance scheme as a regulating technology that is part of adult education restructuring occurring currently, and to examine the subsequent tensions in the work of the VET teachers. The scheme implies a standardisation of educational content and of assessment procedures. It is a…

Since 1995, all Swedish compulsory schools have had a legal obligation to establish individual educational plans (IEPs) for pupils with special educational needs. However, previous research shows that there are a number of issues associated with how these plans are used in schools' overall work and identifies a discrepancy between educational…

This article aims to contribute to our understanding of how moral aspects of parents' choices of preschool play a part in the processes of marketisation and privatisation of childcare in Sweden. The paper explores parents' narratives of preschool choice as moral claims of parental identities. The analysed data are based on a study of how parents…