This research investigates the purposes of internationalisation from the perspective of a group of international prospective teachers studying at a Swedish university. The results show that the prospective teachers' understanding of internationalisation corresponds to three ideologies of internationalisation -- idealism, instrumentalism, and…

The study examined how legislators, central bureaucrats, and teachers interpret the Swedish School Act's formulation that education should be based on science. A special focus was on education about values. The study was conducted using informant interviews with representatives of the political, central bureaucratic, and teacher level. The results…

This article is concerned with the early phase of international large-scale assessments. Drawing on media discussions before and after the release of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) surveys of 1973, the chapter discusses the relationship between international assessments, scandalisation, and…

Critical educational literature suggests that an increased reliance upon neoliberally inspired management technologies transforms the very foundations from which images of the ideal teacher are constructed. The purpose of this paper is to add to this literature by (i) identifying and analysing a number of "theoretical qualities"…

The motivation to study may affect students' successes and setbacks in their studies. Research has shown that multiple factors affect students' motivation to study. The purpose of this article is to describe how students conceptualize the motivation to study. We gathered empirical data through group interviews with 32 Swedish students in six study…

This article explores Swedish students' perspectives on being new to teacher education and what challenges they meet. Nineteen students were interviewed in three focus groups. The analytical framework draws on the theory of situated learning and the concept of enculturation, and the empirical data have been categorized through a thematic content…

In this article, we address the questions: How is the purpose of higher education constructed within policy texts from the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), England and Sweden? How does this position students in making the transition from Bachelor to Masters? We do this through analysis of two recent policy documents from each of the EHEA,…

The aim of the study is to discursively identify student teachers' perceptions of the teaching profession early in their education and their motives for this career choice. Students wrote a letter sharing thoughts on why they want to become a teacher, how they regard the teaching profession and if someone inspired them in their career choice. The…

The aim of this article is to analyse the ways in which migration plays out in adult students' narratives about their occupational choice and future, focusing on three individual narratives of adult students with various experiences of migration to Sweden. Drawing on Sara Ahmed's conception of orientation, our results show how the adult students'…

Different approaches to religion education have been in place for a long time or developed more recently to meet growing religious and cultural plurality in European countries and schools. In this article, I summarise and discuss basic principles for a study-of-religion(s) approach to religion education, adding arguments and perspectives from…

Higher education in general and teacher education in particular have been subjected to significant changes. As there are few studies examining how actors rhetorically position themselves within this context, the ambition of the paper is to study conversations between teacher educators related to norms and values in education. The aim of the paper…

Purpose: This paper aims to examine and discuss learning conditions for teachers, in the context of choice and decentralisation reforms. Design/methodology/approach: This article is based on analyses of 30 interviews with Swedish upper secondary teachers focusing on their experiences of their conditions for learning. Findings: This paper shows how…

Based on ethnographic fieldwork in six different types of rural area and their schools in different parts of Sweden, this article identifies how rural schools relate to the local place and discusses some of the educational implications from this. Recurrent references to the local community were present in some schools and people there explicitly…

Conventionally, quantitative surveys are used for student evaluations in higher education, but the validity of this practice has been questioned. In the present study, we investigated a qualitative method for evaluating a bachelor's programme. Forty-one first-year students and twenty-eight third-year students on a bachelor's programme in Public…

Purpose: In this study, we explore students' views and experiences in relation to education about, through, and for human rights, peace, and sustainability in the global north and south. We investigate what students after nine years of schooling see as central issues and productive actions linked to key elements of global citizenship education…