This book offers an original contribution to the area of international research on comparative education policies and the influence of transnational agencies on national school policy and reform. With a focus on grasping what "the Nordic model" or "the Nordic dimension" means in school and educational policy, the book explores…

Service Learning, a pedagogy combining formal learning with community service, has recently developed into Intercultural Service Learning (ISL). Intercultural Citizenship Education (ICE) combines foreign-language education and education for (intercultural) citizenship. They have different origins and applications but recent work in ISL is linked…

This paper investigates the emergence of an engineering education research (EER) community in three Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland and Sweden. First, an overview of the current state of Nordic EER authorship is produced through statistics on international publication. Then, the history of EER and its precursor activities is described in three…

The historical origins and development of comprehensive schooling have seldom been analyzed systematically and comparatively. However, there is a rich comparative and historically grounded literature on the development of welfare states, which focuses on many relevant policies, but ignores the education system. In particular, the power resources…

Upper secondary vocational education in Denmark is based on the apprenticeship model, which is recognised as a valuable route to employment for young people, who are not aiming for higher education. However, the apprenticeship model has a major weakness: it does not provide eligibility for higher education. The purpose of this article is to…

This article describes and discusses the development of lifelong learning policy in two EU member states, Denmark and Portugal. The purpose is to show how different societal and historical contexts shape the development and implementation of lifelong learning policies, even though these policies have significant common elements. As a basis for the…

Understanding today's Vocational Education and Training (VET) systems requires a comprehension of the rise and development, i.e. of the foundations of topical VET. This book provides a comparative view of its development in Europe. The contributions of renowned authors give insight into conceptual questions, cases, and challenges in this field.

The article contributes to the discussions on problem based learning and project work, building on and reflecting the experiences of the authors. Four perspectives are emphasized as central to a contemporary approach to problem- and project-based learning: the exploration of problems, projects as a method, online collaboration, and the dialogic…

This paper is based on the author's experiences of interviewing seven men and seven women who graduated from a Danish high school in 1980, at a moment when the upper secondary system underwent a process of democratisation. She questioned the informants as to the role education has played in their lives, and as to the sense their choice of…

Based on Danish history over the past 500 years, five different traditions of enlightenment and general education are described: Christian enlightenment, civic enlightenment, popular-national enlightenment, workers' enlightenment, and personal enlightenment. Concludes with some reflections on the past 25 years, which have seen an increasing focus…

We welcome you to the International Conference on Education and New Developments 2014, taking place in Madrid, Spain, from 28 to 30 of June, 2014. Education, as an important right in our contemporary world, began since we exist. Knowledge and skills were passed by adults to the young, and cultures began to extend their experiences through various…

This issue focuses on the various forms that secondary technical and vocational education takes in different European Community Member States. "The Future for Skilled Workers" is an interview with Burkart Lutz, a German researcher. Other articles are as follows: "Contradictions in Technical and Vocational Education: The…

This article agues that ideological power plays an important role in education and that it is part of a general trend in policy and social sciences to underestimate ideological and overestimate the role of political and economic power. The article sketches a concept of power in general and especially of ideological power based primarily on the…

Review of the history of education on the West Indian island of St. Croix from the 18th century to 1917 can contribute insights into the impact of schooling on social change. During this 200 year period, St. Croix changed from a Danish colony dependent upon plantation slavery to a poverty stricken American protectorate peopled by emancipated…

The educational system of Denmark is administered and controlled by the Ministry of Education through measures such as legislation, regulation of pay and working conditions for teachers, planning, and statistical and budgeting functions. The system comprises nine years of primary school, three years of secondary school, and additional training at…