Institutional change is being called for to renew higher music education (HME). But what institutional pressures, specifically, are driving these calls, and how are HME organisations responding to pressures to change? By turning to institutional theory, we lean on the concept of institutional isomorphism to shed light on how HME organisations may…

This article presents the development and application of a model that can be utilized to compare the autonomy of principals in various historical and national contexts. Drawing on former conceptual work on autonomy in education, the model conceptualizes principal autonomy as two-dimensional. The first dimension is the decision making expected from…

Care is traditionally researched in ECEC as a dyadic, human phenomenon that relies heavily of tropes of females as care providers. The assumption that care is produced in dyadic relationships occludes material care practices that occur beyond the dyad. Drawing on Bernice Fisher and Joan Tronto's care ethics and Karen Barad's focus on the agency of…

A wealth of studies demonstrate the associations between nature contact and well-being, and gradually, nature-based solutions are becoming more widespread in mental health care and recovery. While emotion-focused therapies generally show promising results, evidence of nature-based family therapy is still scarce. In a forthcoming clinical trial at…

As society changes, new challenges arise for education. Major social upheavals have led to increasing awareness of social justice issues and critical reflection within the field of music education, as well as calls for social and educational change. In this article, five music teacher educators discuss how music teacher educators and pre-service…

Early childhood education and care in Norway have a broad mission and are, among other things, mandated through legislation and frameworks to remedy social injustice and emphasise inclusion. Nevertheless, research illustrates that symbolic power tends to be present in early childhood education and care institutions. In this conceptual paper, it is…

International political discourse has implied that upskilling leads to higher productivity and growth. Combining aspects from skills theory and institutional theory, this article asks what role upskilling can play in making bad jobs better, drawing on previous research about the process of professionalising the cleaning occupation in Norway. In…

Considering the COVID-19 pandemic, teaching, and learning encounters in higher education have changed. Online teaching has become routine and a variety of virtual learning platforms are being explored. Within this article we, two higher dance education teachers and researchers, reflect on using TikTok in our work. Taking a duoethnographic…

In numerous countries, the widening participation of underrepresented groups in higher education has become an official part of education policies. However, inequalities continue in some areas, including refugees' participation. Norway hosts many refugees, but little is known about the social inclusion of refugees into higher education in the…

This article explores how quality is negotiated and challenged when two Norwegian rural schools cooperate with the local community and businesses. The article builds on three sub-studies on two upper secondary schools in the process of merging in the areas of follow-up services, physical school environment and leadership. Several methodological…

This paper explores what place means for early childhood education at a time of global environmental precarity. We draw on fieldwork in Arctic Norway, where kindergarten children spend time with snow for more than half of the year. Children's movement attunes to the nuances and diversity of the snow, as seasons, temperature, light, wind and…

This research explores how the material environment in kindergarten frames social practices and everyday life and how change may affect pedagogy. Data were drawn from an ethnographic study conducted in a large, newly established kindergarten in Norway. The analyses focus on one conversation between two educators and the head of the kindergarten.…

Internationally, the autonomy of schools and teachers is under pressure. In Norway, recent policies emphasise output control through national testing, combined with holding schools and teachers accountable for students' results. Whereas recent research documents that the autonomy of schools and teachers is weakening in Oslo, there is little…

The relationship between learning and group work is often treated as self-evident, but the finer workings of this relationship require further study into the social organisation of group work. The aim of the research that forms the basis for the current article is to locate, describe, and gain new understanding of how peers organise their group…

This paper explores the impact of test-taking conditions on the quality of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) assessment. Interviewers record information about the room of assessment and interruptions that occurred during each interview. These observations, along with information on interviewer assignment…