The aim of this article is to highlight some conceptions of ethical competence identified in interviews with teachers in religious education in Sweden, and within analyses of policy documents in a Swedish and an Icelandic educational context. As a starting point we take seven interviewed teachers' comments about what they view as important ethical…

The aim of this study is to investigate what characterizes the discourse on the role of the outdoor environment in young children's learning in educational policy documents in Iceland. Policy documents, laws and regulations, national curriculum guides for pre- and compulsory school levels, and documents from municipalities were analyzed. A…

A recent national curriculum guide for upper secondary schools in my home country, Iceland, requires secondary schools to work towards equality and five other overarching aims. This requirement raises questions about to what extent secondary schools have to change their curricula in order to approach these aims or work towards them in an adequate…

In this paper, the development of educational policy and curricula in relation to the development of a multicultural society in Iceland are critically discussed. Neither policy nor national curriculum guides refer particularly to multicultural society, multicultural or intercultural education. Implementations of equity principles are not clear in…

Considerable change has taken place in Icelandic early childhood education during the past few decades. Preschool, from being geared primarily towards children with evident social needs, has become all but universal. The aim of this study was to shed light on Icelandic parents' views on their children's preschool education and to examine how their…