This article focuses on the schools' support service related to the Nordic ambition of inclusive education. This ambition entails a somewhat conflicted mandate, which both the schools and the support service find demanding to ensure in their collaboration. As a framework for discussing challenges and opportunities linked to a case study in Norway,…

The aim of this study is to explore what happened -- and why -- in a collaboration between ourselves as researchers and school leaders from two different schools in Sweden. The theory of practice architectures is used to frame the study. The goal of the collaboration was to enhance the scientific foundation of school practices, which motivated the…

Sex education can be described as an important part of health education in school and one way of strengthening health education could be a collaboration between different professionals in the school team. The aim of this study was to describe teachers' and school nurses' experiences and perspectives with regard to sex education among students aged…

To what extent can teachers' involvement in knowledge-producing activities be enhanced through collaboration with researchers? This article reports on two teacher-researcher collaborative didactic development projects in Sweden and Finland. By using the theory of practice architectures, the aim is to explore how teachers' knowledge contribution…

In this article we examine the European Semester as an innovative form of policy coordination, with distinct effects on education and skills policies for Member States. We analyse the Semester's framing of education policy, and examine its manifestations in Spain and Sweden, two countries considered to be different in their approach to education.…

Purpose: Social sustainability is a concept frequently referred to in public debates concerning how to construct the governance of future societies. The interpretations of its meaning, however, are ambiguous, and practices often dubious. Confronting top-down technocratic governance structures, this paper aims to argue for for tripartite…

This article focuses on the co-operation between the Swedish National Agency for Education and school actors at the municipal level, examined from the latter's perspective, within the context of a state-initiated school improvement programme, namely Co-operation for the Best School Possible (CBS). Co-operation between different levels of the…

Trade union collaboration on issues of social justice connects workers to each other and to their wider communities and is therefore considered a strategy of union renewal. Prior to their amalgamation on 1 January 2023, Lärarförbundet (Swedish Teachers' Union) and Lärarnas Riksförbund (National Union of Teachers in Sweden) collaborated…

The scholarly debate about cooperation between different stakeholders in Vocational Education and Training has primarily focussed on the national level, and much less on local and regional levels. This article aims to contribute to our understanding of the conditions and mechanisms of decentralised cooperation in VET systems, through a comparative…

This article contributes knowledge regarding professionals' experiences, conceptions, and expectations of a coordinator role in preschools/schools while multiprofessionally collaborating for supporting children "at risk". Data were collected via semi-structured interviews with professionals involved in a project in a Swedish municipality…

The aim of this study is to explore the way teachers enact policy regarding the tasks of complementation and compensation in Swedish School-Age Educare. As a result of numerous policy changes, school-age educare as an institution has undergone significant and substantial changes in terms of its social mandate, educational objectives, and content.…

This article reports findings from a larger study aimed at identifying the perceptions of teachers across four municipalities in Sweden on continuing professional development. It focuses on beginning teachers?, namely those who are in their first five years of their career. This study has been undertaken amidst growing concern that current models…

The quantity and quality of talented individuals in STEM (science/S, technology/T, engineering/E and mathematics/M) fields contribute to a nation's overall competitiveness. Taiwan and many countries around the world are vigorously promoting the training of STEM professionals and the enhancement of STEM literacy for all as one of the key education…

The focus in this study is the relationships between one tertiary music academy and four amateur orchestras. In this study the kinds of cooperation that exist, how students benefit from participating in amateur orchestras, and how cooperation can be further developed is identified. Four administrators from the academy and four conductors were…

This paper contributes to the theoretical debate over a global upsurge in higher education (HE) regionalisms which pursue different region-building processes and create policy spaces beyond national boundaries. Focusing on the Nordic countries, the paper studies parallel processes of intra-Nordic and European HE and research cooperation. Although…