Purpose: The purpose of the article is to examine knowledge about successful principalship and discuss the methodology that has emerged throughout the history of the International Successful School Principals Project (ISSPP) and their implications for future progress. Design/methodology/approach: Historical analysis is used as a strategy for…

Within the field of history of education, there is a growing interest in the movement of influential actors and texts that have crossed national borders. One of the main driving forces for influence, knowledge, and innovation is comparison, a tool used within the governing of education in diverse ways and with different intensities, over time, to…

The article aims to depict the political framing of three grading reforms in Swedish compulsory school, in terms of the political problem they are supposed to solve and what kind of attention is given to the lowest performing pupils. Discourse analysis is employed, focusing on statement producers. The empirical material consists of policy…

By exploring demographic data on teachers through a Bordieusian lens, this study aims to analyse the socio-economic background of primary school teachers in northern Sweden depending on gender and type. The rural area under study follows a national development where the number of primarily female teachers and junior school teachers increased…

Popular education has a long history in Sweden, dating back to the mid-1800s and having developed in close relationship with the state. This relationship has been sustained over the years by the way popular education is spoken of as being "unique"--as being complementary to formal education. In this article, we focus on how the…

Between 1996-1998, England, Scotland and Sweden moved responsibility for all early childhood education and care (ECEC) and school-age childcare (SACC) services from welfare into education. Following an earlier study researching these reforms up to 2003, this article examines and compares subsequent developments and consequences of the initial…

The concept of differentiation holds immense significance in education, touching upon aspects like access, inclusion, justice, and equality. However, it is also a complex and elusive notion, which acquires different meanings across historical and cultural contexts. This article explores the shifting reasoning about differentiation in the Swedish…

This article argues that women's vocational education needs to be viewed in relation to the development of vocational education and training (VET) more broadly. The history of women's VET is also a history of the term "women's education" itself and how, almost a century after it was introduced, this term is hardly used. Instead, we see…

This article is concerned with an early phase in the history of educational comparisons in which international exhibitions played a major role as spaces for comparison. It looks at the educational exhibits at the Exposition Universelle in Paris 1900, and more specifically its exhibitions on drawing instruction. By following a central Swedish…

The article problematizes conditions for visual arts education in Swedish compulsory school. This, by discussing the syllabus for visual arts (Sw. Bild) and through giving examples of teaching in the subject, based on interviews with visual arts teachers, carried out in connection with the production of two Assessment Guides on behalf of The…

This paper concerns the relationship between research and governance policy in three Swedish major development projects in mathematics education: the New Math project (1960-1975), the PUMP project (1970-1980), and the Boost for Mathematics project in (2012-2016). All three projects were driven or financed by the Swedish central school authorities.…

Physical literacy (PL) has gained considerable attention and traction in the field of health and physical education (HPE) for some time now and can thus be seen as part of the HPE discourse. However, just as advocacy for PL has grown exponentially over the last decade(s), so have the critical voices raised over the universal adoption of this…

In which ways do curricula recognize existential questions of compulsory school students, and what direction is given regarding how to address them? By asking these two questions, this study analyses syllabi for the school subject of religion education and its equivalents in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, and in the two German regions of Bavaria and…

Teachers' implementation of and attitudes to school reforms and overriding pedagogical ideals have long been a topic of debate and research. In this article, we centre on teachers' descriptions of how progressive teaching was conducted as well as on the teachers' reasons for implementing such teaching in the 1940s. This study is based on written…

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…