This paper investigates the accountability mechanisms introduced in the universities in the Nordic countries by building on a typology of accountability types. By utilising survey data, it analyses how academics experience the changes in accountability mechanisms and how they perceive the impact of these changes on their performance. The analysis…

Strategic government interventions in public education have shifted and blurred the boundaries between state, market and civil society modes of governance. Within this matrix of interdependent relations, schools operate under increasingly hybrid accountability arrangements in which public accountability can both complement and compete with market…

The social pedagogic tradition has been integral to the culture of early childhood education including School Age Childcare (SAC) in Denmark for decades. Drawing upon interviews with multiple stakeholders: lecturers, representatives of an Education Research Institute, union activists an SAC provider and a policy maker, in Copenhagen, Denmark, this…

During recent years, we have seen an increase in the complexity of school leadership as knowledge work. The new forms of knowledge available to school leadership, such as performance data and survey-based data, raise the expectation that leaders make relevant use of these knowledge resources. Theory and policy claim that new knowledge is of…

Recent changes in the regulation of education systems in Europe and beyond have led to greater control over the work of teachers and the performance of schools. The paper draws upon the findings of a programme of funded comparative research, which has examined the impact of national education policy and policy change on teachers' work and…

Trends in university management in Denmark, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom were studied as part of a larger study of European universities. The survey instrument collected information on basic facts on the institution, the organizational system, the decision-making system, the administrative structure, management techniques and…