Early childhood education and care (ECEC) is changing across Europe, reflecting multiple-policy intentions and assumptions about education in early years, and the role of the state in supporting, funding and regulating its institutions. In this article, we examine the evolution of ECEC comparatively in Finland and Sweden, and we explore the shifts…

The concept of differentiation holds immense significance in education, touching upon aspects like access, inclusion, justice, and equality. However, it is also a complex and elusive notion, which acquires different meanings across historical and cultural contexts. This article explores the shifting reasoning about differentiation in the Swedish…

This article examines the national and European policy contexts that shaped the Swedish internationalisation agenda in higher education since 2000, the policy ideas that were mobilised to promote it, and the national priorities that steered higher education debates. The analysis highlights how domestic and European policy priorities, as well as…

There are many similarities between the Nordic countries of Sweden and Finland, but they have made different decisions regarding their teacher-education policies. This article focuses on how the objectives of teacher education, particularly the vision of the ideal teacher, have changed in Sweden and Finland in the period after the Second World…

According to the Swedish Preschool Curriculum, one of the tasks of the preschool is to pass on a cultural heritage, its values, traditions and history, language and knowledge, from one generation to the next. The formulation indicates that cultural heritage plays an important role in defining the tasks of preschool teachers as far as the…

The aim of this study is to contribute to an increased understanding of the flipped classroom movement. A total of 7 teachers working in school years 4-9 and who both actively flipped their classrooms and had been early adopters in this movement were interviewed. Two research questions were posed: "What characterizes flipped classroom…

National goals and performance standards were introduced in Sweden during the 1990s as part of a curriculum reform. The intention was to detect shortcomings among students and provide support to those students who did not reach the passing grade in one (or several) subject/s. Despite this reform, approximately one-fourth of the students do not…

The aim of this study is to contribute to an understanding of how curricular change is accomplished in practice, including the positions and conflicts of key stakeholders and participants, and their actions in the process. As a case, we study the treatment of energy in Swedish secondary curricula in the period 1962-2011 and, in particular, how the…

The 1991, Swedish upper secondary school reform presents internationally an unusual case of the far-reaching integration of academic and vocational programmes. It has often been claimed that late tracking, such as characterizes this reform, helps to reduce inequalities between different social classes. This article addresses the question of how…

This article addresses the conceptual question "what is lesson study?" as an issue that arises in the context of the globalisation of lesson study as a method for improving teaching and learning beyond its presumed origins in the Japanese education system. To what extent can adaptations of the method in different national settings be…

This paper aims to show how the Goffman frame perspective can be used in an analysis of school and education and how it can be combined, in such analysis, with the frame factor perspective. The latter emphasizes factors that are determined outside the teaching process, while the former stresses how actors organize their experiences and define…

Today anthropologists seem to be increasingly studying phenomena in their own societies. Many have a focus on policies in organizations and an interest in explicating cultural phenomena constituted by power and governance. Consequently, a recent interest has emerged in Michel Foucault's philosophy, especially as an inspiration for ethnographic…

In post-Bologna Europe, there has been a noticeable increase in English-medium instruction. In this article we take the case of Sweden as an illustrative example of the wider disciplinary issues involved in changing the teaching language in this way. By 2008 the use of English in Swedish higher education had risen to such an extent that it had to…

This paper argues against a view of curriculum as a means for moulding students into, and making teachers accountable for, something pre-determined and singularly governed by qualification demands of the labour market. It makes a case for the value of inter-subjective teacher-student relationships in education and addresses the significance of…

During the last decade, expanding research investigating the school subject Physical Education (PE) indicates a promotion of inequalities regarding which children benefit from PE teaching. Outdoor education and its Scandinavian equivalent "friluftsliv," is a part of the PE curriculum in many countries, and these practices have been…