Between 2008 and 2010, Lund University took part in three international benchmarking projects, "E-xcellence+," the "eLearning Benchmarking Exercise 2009," and the "First Dual-Mode Distance Learning Benchmarking Club." A comparison of these models revealed a rather high level of correspondence. From this finding and…

These "Proceedings" derived from the Commission for International Adult Education's (CIAE) 2018 International Pre-Conference. They contain 23 papers from 32 authors. Eight of the lead authors are graduate students -- four are rounding up their Master's degrees while four are on their doctoral programs. The rest are a mix of seasoned and…

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) is a topic of increased policy interest in the Slovak Republic where improving quality in the ECEC sector is a subject of growing importance. The OECD has identified five effective policy levers to encourage quality in the sector: 1) quality goals and regulations; 2) curriculum and guidelines; 3)…

In Swedish higher education, quality assurance mainly focuses on course module outcomes. With this in mind we developed a qualitative method to monitor and stimulate progression of learning in two modularized engineering study programmes. A set of core professional values and skills were triangulated through interviews with students, teachers,…

A policy of school choice has, in various shapes, been implemented in educational systems across the world during the last decades. Drawing on various empirical and theoretical sources, the aim of this article is to distinguish the key defining elements of the Swedish school choice policy and to present and discuss some of its outcomes in terms of…

During the last several decades, educational reform in Sweden has been at once contentious, fast paced, and uneven as control of Parliament and educational policy shifted between left- and right-wing political factions. These political power shifts within Parliament created tension between national and local municipal governments and provoked…

Sweden and Switzerland are among the wealthiest countries in the world, but also two countries with different approaches to how to provide welfare. Sweden has followed a social democratic welfare model and Switzerland a liberal model. This has implications for how the education systems have been organised. The Programme for International Student…

The aim of this article is to initiate a change of view on quality that goes beyond assumed dichotomies of subjectivity and objectivity. In the view presented here, pedagogical quality is seen as an educational phenomenon of "sustainable dynamism," that is a phenomenon that has structural characteristics and is culturally sensitive. The…

Public sector reform involving decentralisation and marketisation has led to "soft" indirect forms of governance aimed at steering more fragmented systems. Although based on information and guidance rather than hierarchy and legislation, these new methods of regulating through evaluation and quality control may be as powerful as more…

The Bologna process aims at harmonising the higher education systems in the Europe. One of the most important tools proposed for such a purpose is the European Credit Transfer System. A significant element of this system is a common seven-step grading scale. It has previously been shown that assessment characteristics impact on students'…

This paper examines the effect of class size on student evaluations of the quality of an introductory mathematics course at Lund University in Sweden. In contrast to much other studies, we find a large negative, and statistically significant, effect of class size on the quality of the course. This result appears to be quite robust, as almost all…

The construction of transnational and national systems for comparing qualities of universities are presented and discussed. In focus are two important university ranking lists--those produced by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University and by the "Times Higher Education Supplement". A Swedish example concerning the making of a resource…

This review of 30 years of research in small rural schools in Sweden includes projects focusing directly upon rural education and rural schools, reports from national agencies, and official statistics. Two main foci were found: (i) the quality of education and pupils' academic performance, and (ii) the economics of running schools in different…

The aim of the study is to explore cross-cultural similarities and differences in preschool quality in South Korean and Swedish preschools as measured by two national adaptations of the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS). The approach adopted is that cross-cultural comparisons of preschool quality are both achievable and of great…

An increasingly important part of the work of preschool staff in Sweden today is to present their activities outwardly, including producing and presenting "quality accounts" of their activities and making them visible to a public audience. To grasp the local narratives, interviews were conducted with a few teachers and their school…