This paper presents a theoretical approach to analysing educational media using the concept of historical consciousness. The concept of historical consciousness is defined and operationalised and its relevance for analysis of historical media is discussed. One aspect of the theoretical framework proposed is then applied in an analysis of a history…

This report, authored by Graeme Atherton, examines how universities who are seen as leading internationally and/or in their own national contexts are supporting greater access and success for learners from low-income and other marginalised groups. What can English universities learn from global institutions? By looking at how they work with…

The Nordic Education Model was an important part of the social democratic welfare state for many years in the second half of the 20th century. Since the millennium, transnational agencies have drawn education from the realm of politics into a global market place by advocating strategies such as efficiency, competition, decentralisation, governing…

Recent evolutions, such as pervasive networking and other enabling technologies, have been increasingly changing human life, knowledge acquisition, and the way works are performed and students learn. In this societal change, educational institutions must maintain their leading role. They have therefore embraced digitally enhanced learning to…

Background: Large-scale cross-national studies designed to measure student achievement use different social, cultural, economic and other background variables to explain observed differences in that achievement. Prior to their inclusion into a prediction model, these variables are commonly scaled into latent background indices. To allow…

In online learning research, the theoretical community of inquiry framework has been used extensively to analyze processes of inquiry among learners and instructors within a community. This paper examines a special case of community of inquiry consisting of only one learner and one instructor. Together they engage in an online coaching discourse…

This paper explores how "social democratic" Sweden initiated and implemented choice reforms that attracted the interest of "liberal" England. By studying how English media framed and portrayed the Swedish free school "export" from 2008 to 2014, this paper aims to describe and discuss how a market-oriented policy idea,…

The model of Mother Tongue Tuition (MTT) which has developed in Sweden since the 1970's offers speakers of languages other than Swedish the opportunity to request tuition in their mother tongue, from kindergarten through to year 12. It is unique among the major immigrant-receiving countries of the world yet little is known about MTT and its…

Internationally, educators have proposed a shift from a narrow diagnostic view to a holistic and salutogenic perspective on pupils' school-related difficulties. There is, however, little evidence to suggest that such a shift has taken place, despite being talked about by school administrators. In Sweden such a shift is proposed through a new…

The purpose of the study was to investigate effects of different school and teacher characteristics, such as municipal and independently-operated schools and teacher certification on grades in compulsory school, and the extent to which parental education confounds the relations between such characteristics and grades. Multilevel, multivariate,…

Introduction: In a standards-based school-system alignment of policy documents with standards and assessment is important. To be able to evaluate whether schools and students have reached the standards, the assessment should focus on the standards. Different models and methods can be used for measuring alignment, i.e. the correspondence between…

Drawing on personality psychology research, Dornyei and his colleagues have recently developed an approach to understanding L2 motivation that positions the learner's self-recognition as a potential communicator in another language at its core, thus marking a break from the established social psychology paradigm. In this article it is argued that,…

Learning at the workplace is an important development in teacher education in secondary education. In this study we look at the school-linked models for teacher education that exist in England, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. The characteristics of these models and their possible consequences for the quality of teachers are…

Examines the Swedish school as an institution created by society for certain purposes and with certain functions. The authors offer a model which describes the school as a social organization that steers the educational process. (AM)

This article describes, analyses and discusses the development of the Nordic school model in three phases of the post-war period, viewed in the light of the development of the political system throughout the period and in comparison with the development of the school system in the western world in this period. The "classical period" from…