Starting with the question of why there is so much religiously motivated resistance against compulsory sex education, this article explores and discusses entanglements of norms about sexuality, gender, and religion in education. Based on predominantly Swedish data, the aim of the paper is to offer perspectives on connections between religiosity…

While quality teacher-student classroom interaction is crucial in promoting students' learning, literature recognizes the meaningful effects teachers' and students' social background characteristics and cultural values or orientations have on classroom interactions. However, the extent of relationships between elements of the social and cultural…

This article investigates the question of making choices at Swedish LTCs. The theoretical framework draws on symbolic interactionism and the concept of "inhabited institutions" analysing teachers' meaning-making and interactions between teachers and pupils at the LTCs. Because of changing policies, a tension between new demands and an…

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 2013) defines its views on necessary skills for 21st century citizenship and life-long learning, advocating a generic skillset of literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving in technology-rich environments. Other sources also include critical thinking as a vital 21st Century skill.…

Norway ratified the ILO convention 169 concerning indigenous and tribal people in independent countries in 1990. In accordance with the convention the education programs for the Sami shall address their value systems and their cultural aspirations. Our aim is to investigate the implementation of this convention. The focus is on how Sami values are…

In numerous UN policy documents, a sustainable future through education is set in a key position; the UNESCO Global Action Programme on Education for Sustainable Development (UNESCO, 2018) is no exception. Therefore, it is of great importance to examine and report how different UN member countries work towards the implementation of sustainability…

In different ways and in different contexts it has been and still is argued that music education should be prioritized because of its positive impact on pupils in terms of general development as good citizens and in terms of skills in other disciplines. In this article, the authors discuss whether this tendency is best interpreted as an example of…

The purpose of this study is to compare how Swedish school principals understand basic values that are important in fulfilling the Swedish national curriculum, Curriculum 1994 (a new curriculum, Curriculum 2011, which came into operation in autumn 2011, has only minor differences compared to the common text in Curriculum 1994), considering…

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…

In this paper, we employ quantitative and qualitative content analysis to investigate the nature of humanistic value content in the Chinese language arts curriculum and whether or not this varies across old and new versions of the textbooks. Our findings illustrate the various dimensions of humanistic value content in the Chinese language arts…

When it comes to pupils in need of special support and pupils with disabilities, Sweden's compulsory school system is sometimes considered a one-track system. This article analyses and critically discusses current policy and practices at various levels of Sweden's compulsory school system for these pupils. The analysis traces three themes at 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…

This paper uses Nunavut's compulsory schooling policy as a case study to discuss the role that cultural difference plays in policy development and implementation. The central argument of the paper is that the implementation and sustainability of the compulsory schooling policy would be fraught with enormous problems, given its colonialist,…

In 1978, the Amherst School Department rejected Peter and Susan Perchemlides' proposal for educating their eight-year-old son at home and cited them in court for failing to send the child to school. The author describes this controversy and reviews previous court cases on compulsory schooling. (SJL)